162 - Next game

Developer diaries about creating Neverending Nightmares.
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matt
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Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 10:48 am

Re: 162 - Next game

Post by matt »

That's the problem! I am so attached to the title of Neverending Nightmares that I can't think of anything better.

I think the format would be similar - ie. recursive nightmares and branching, but the characters, setting, and story would be completely different. I'm not sure if we want to change the art style. At minimum, we'll probably evolve it a little, but I'd like to do some tests to see if we could pull off another style (though probably still mostly black and white).
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
Harry Sunderland
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Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 10:27 am

Re: 162 - Next game

Post by Harry Sunderland »

Matt I'm really not sure how I think you should call it! Maybe something like <SECRET SUBTITLE>: A Neverending Nightmare.
(Similar to one of my favorite books: The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare)

That way people know it's in the same family as the original game, but it's a new nightmare. That way you can establish that Neverending Nightmares is the family of stories...kind of like how the Final Fantasy games are often unique worlds that all share the common traits of final fantasydom.

Funnily enough, I just realized Neverending Nightmares is kind of the Antonym of Final Fantasy. Hahaha, that's funny to me. The opposite of a Finality is something Neverending, and the opposite of a Fantasy is a Nightmare. :mrgreen:
Grabthehoopka
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Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 12:16 pm

Re: 162 - Next game

Post by Grabthehoopka »

I think Neverending Nightmares 2 is the best way to go, still. I think if anyone is angry that it's not a direct continuation of the first game, then they're not really the intended audience, and they probably didn't even play it in the first place.

Neverending Nightmares 2 is the clearest and most concise title. I think people who have played through the first game would honestly be more surprised if it was a direct sequel than if it wasn't.

Also, on a somewhat related note, when you get around to making a sequel, how much more polished or more technically proficient do you think it would be now that you have the first game to build off of?
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matt
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Re: 162 - Next game

Post by matt »

We would want to potentially expand our audience with a sequel, so I would argue you don't need to play the first to enjoy the second. Now, I'm sure a lot of people who play Silent Hill 2 didn't play Silent Hill 1, and I'm sure people who played Call of Duty: Ghosts didn't play Call of Duty: Black Ops.

The real question is what percentage of people are turned off by starting not at #1? I don't know. Still, time to think about it.

I think the next game will be more polished and technically proficient. Since we already have tools and tech in place, we can further refine them. We had the Animation Tool from Dino Land, and we added some features to it, but a lot of the features didn't come on until recently, so some of the original characters can't make use of that.

I think for the next game, we'll want to do a partial rewrite of our animation system adding a lot of features. Animation has been a real bottleneck and knowing Joe's workflow, we can create better tools to make his life a lot easier.

We wrote the World Builder from scratch over the course of the project, so having that to begin with will be a huge help.

In the end, I think having the budget for more development time would make the most difference. There are a lot of things that we'd be going back to the drawing board on (perhaps art style and maybe the way enemies work), so there are still some tough questions to answer. Perhaps we'll end up doing things the same, but I want to at least explore other options for art and enemies.
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
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