In his last Kickstarter project update, Matt addresses, among other things, his Developer Diaries views. Maybe the forum community could make general suggestions about his videos on this new topic.
I was thinking that Matt could increase his videos' viewership if he does some crazy things like wearing masks or eccentric outfits, cosplaying, or even showing up half-naked .
All jokes aside, I think it may be useful if he changes the format of his diaries from time to time so they would seem more diverse and interesting. He may someday invite his wife so they make a Developer Diary together.
While I welcome any suggestions, I don't think my wife is up for doing a developer diary. I tried to get her to do one during the kickstarter, and she didn't want to.
While I agree that changing the format would be nice, I'm not sure what to change the format to. Maybe I should make Joe do more or record our skype meetings although those would be really spoiler-y.
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
Actually something I would like to see on more of on these developer diaries is maybe bringing in other members of the team.
I know you mentioned bringing Joe in on some but maybe you could look into getting some perspectives from other members of the team. People like the artists who could perhaps chime in on how difficult/easy it is for them to transfer your ideas and nightmares into the game world, or maybe even just generally talking about how they feel about the world they're trying to create!
Also maybe try and get some sound/soundtrack people like Skyler McGlothin perhaps so they can shed some light on inspiration for the soundtrack or how they're approaching the sound design.
I can understand though if you can't get them on as I'm sure they're busy with the game haha
Just a suggestion though so!
I know Joe would be willing to do another one. Eduardo and Skyler don't work full time for us, so I'd hate to ask them to do a developer diary. Adam (Joe's brother and another artist) is excited to do the next live stream. Joe told me that he wouldn't want to do it, but when I met up with them over Thanksgiving it turned out Joe didn't want him to do it, but he'd be glad to. hahaha Joe didn't count on me asking him in person.
We'll definitely do a live stream in January. Let me give some thought to when would be best...
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
I was going to give my reasons why I think XCOM (the original and the remake) works as a horror game, what we can learn from it, and ask your opinion, but I was about 2/3rds of the way through writing my wall of text when I realized that, guessing from your taste in games, you've probably either never played it and have no desire to, or have played it, hated it, and never want to play it again. So I scrapped that idea.
So, trying to salvage some use out of this general idea, I came up with a better one. In your Spec Ops: The Line dev diary, you talked about using horror in a non-horror game, and so I was wondering if there were any other good examples of horror elements or uncharacteristically scary sections in non-horror games that stuck out to you, and how the game made it work? (Like the nightmare sequences in Max Payne, or the really grim atmosphere of the Hitman games, or the clicker encounters in The Last of Us, although I think you said you hated those, or the flood level from Halo, I don't know, those are the first handful of things I can think of off the top of my head...) Or the elements of horror that translate well to other genres, and the elements that don't? Or some non-horror games that you think could have been made better with the introduction of horror elements? Or some other variation on the idea of horror elements and non-horror games that I haven't mentioned yet?
Yeah, I don't have the patience for strategy games, so I haven't played any of the XCOM ones. I'll give some thought to horror in non-horror games. It's an interesting topic for sure. While I was frustrated with Last of Us at times, I thought the game was really great overall. I'm thinking about playing it through again on PS4 (since what else am I supposed to use my PS4 for?) although this time on Casual. hahhah
I like the "horror"-ish section with the wretches in the original Gears of War and the rain. I am big Gears of War fan, while the sequels improved on the gameplay, they took it in more of an action direction and gave up on trying to do horror. I'll have to give some more thought to it. Mostly, I just forget games I haven't played in a while. I don't even remember the flood level from Halo, and I even replayed those games more recently. hahah
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
matt wrote:I don't even remember the flood level from Halo, and I even replayed those games more recently. hahah
That's the one with the long, concrete hallways, the big, circular elevators, hundreds of little exploding popcorn monsters, and not enough ammo to go around?
Hmm.. Not ringing a bell. If they re-release it on Xbox One (which it sounds like they will), I'll probably play it again, so I'll be on the look out for it. Was it Halo 2? I don't think the flood introduced until part 2, but my memory is clearly quite rusty.
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
To be fair, the Flood level was very forgettable after a while because they kept reusing the same corridors. Actually, Halo was very guilty of that overall. Couple of nice outdoor areas, sure, but most of the inside places were reused... first, fighting the Covenant, then fighting the Flood (and Covenant remnants).
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