83 - Scope fears

[matt]

In this video, I talk candidly about my fears for Neverending Nightmares and the scope of the game.

[gagaplex]

I wonder if you'll be able to increase replayability beyond the different endings somehow, if you need to limit yourself on that. Some games are obviously easier to do that with than others (Action-RPGs for instance, with randomized environments and item-drops), but perhaps there are ways to do it here, too. For example, one could imagine a number of randomized scary events on top of the different endings to increase replayability without having to add a ton of extra content/new chapters? Dunno.

[matt]

It's something I've thought about. The easiest and most common way of doing that is "collectables", but that is really game-y, which I want to avoid at all costs. I want exploring the environment and learning about the world to be the reward - not achievement points or something like that.

As far as random things, I think it's hard to create the type of experience I want with randomness. I would probably opt to create altered content for more replay, which was kind of my original idea for some of the branches, but I'm not sure a "remix" of a level will be that compelling as a "branch". Well, for now, we are concentrating on the first path, and we can worry about the branches once that path is solid...

[JPrice]

I think personally it's rather difficult to get re-playability on a horror game as a lot of the enjoyment comes from that first initial playthrough where everything is fresh and the scares are surprising. I can't think of any examples myself where a horror game has had good re-playability except maybe Silent Hill 2 and that was purely because of how good everything in it it is. So I wouldn't expect the game to be hugely re-playable, I'm just happy if the first playthrough is great

I can understand though on the issue of scope, I imagine that it's difficult especially since you made those promises. Though I know that there are people who like the idea of the branching paths, I imagine that there are many more people who are just looking forward to the horror so that should be priority as you said
Still it'd be a shame if the branching path is dropped or cut heavily but I can imagine that you have a reasonable way of including various branching paths as you initially detailed!

[matt]

It is important to the design of the game to have branching paths, so they'll still be there, but I think the main playthrough will be longer and the branching content will be significantly less than what I originally anticipated. Potentially, we can patch in more branches post release if the the game feels light on content, but I think we will be able to put together something really cool.

[JPrice]

Sweet glad to hear!
Also here's the transcript for those who don't want to watch the video and would rather read what was said (I took out some urm's, ah's and other things to make it flow better but it's pretty much word for word!):

"I’d like to talk about my fears for the scope of the game and it’s sort of interesting, early on when I started doing my developer diary series I talked a lot about my fears and my anxieties and about the game. I guess I haven’t really delved much into my fear and anxieties and things like that, except maybe more within the inner circle. Well I guess I’d like to give you an update. One of the things that I’m scared about is the scope of the game. It’s always a battle within every game you work on, you have these ideas for a million levels and a million features then over time you have to sort of whittle it down. One of the interesting more aspects of the game, at least to me, is the branching narrative. The problem is that the branching narrative is a huge increase in scope. When planning the game we figured “We’ll have time, we’ll figure it out, we’ll make something work”, now I’m almost sort of kicking myself. While I like the idea and I think we’re gonna do something along those lines, I’m kind of worried that it’s not really going to live up towards the hype. Which I guess to be fair people are more excited about the game for the other features such as the mood and the connection to my mental illness but I’m sure there are people who are excited to see what we’ll do with the branching narrative and that’s something I’m excited about as well so we’re definitely still working towards it, it’s just that I’m not sure if it quite lives up to my dreams. In my original design document I think I had like 15 endings, more like ideas for endings anyway and some were pretty terrible but I was thinking “Oh we could whittle it down to about 8”. Back then interestingly the budget for Neverending Nightmares used to be more, we actually whittled it down a couple of times to the point that what we made on Kickstarter even with the “Free the Games” fund doesn’t really quite cover everything. So we’re doing some consulting and contracting things on the side to get more of a budget, which is always a challenge. I think to some extent we’re art limited which is new for me as on Retro/Grade we did everything the hard way and so everything took so much programming effort, but on this game we have a lot of good tools and a lot of the content will come down to the amount of art hours that are spent on the game. Hopefully the consulting will help us with some of the cost so that we can increase the art budget.

I mean I’m scared. I think the content that we’re getting in there is really great and I’m really pleased with how that’s shaping up. My worry is that I’m afraid that people won’t be happy with the amount of content which is always a struggle. Retro/Grade I think we went about it very poorly because we built out the challenge mode and there are about a 130 challenges which are supposed to keep people entertained, but the campaign itself was only ten levels and ten songs so we got a lot of flack for that which I wish we could have done something different in respect to that. Certainly I have a lot of regrets with respect to Retro/Grade. For me personally the quality of the experience is more important than the playtime and I think we’re going to have a very high quality experience. The initial playthrough should be about an hour or two, closer to two really, and we’ll have branches that’ll add about 2-3 hours of additional content to explore all the branches. If the player even decides to start from the beginning to find those branches then the playtime will be increased further from there. I’m not 100% happy with that but to some extent I don’t want to end up in a similar situation to Retro/Grade where I just go over board and keep working on the game until there’s no way it could turn a profit and again I think the content we’re making is really good. I think we’re on the right track, it’s just that I think the right track isn’t exactly the one I had planned for which always ends up being the case in games development but it’s hard for me to reconcile that.

I feel a little guilty as maybe I over promised things, which you know is always the trouble with Kickstarter or games development in general because you really don’t know in what direction development will take you. If people say “This is what my game is going to be” before they’re finished or when they’re in the early stages they’re almost always going to be wrong because you have to figure out what’s good about your game and what’s not working, then roll with that. It’s tough because my dreams of the game are always much bigger than what we can accomplish and with Kickstarter, people are buying into the dream which I really worry that maybe I’ve over-sold the branching aspect of the game. We’ll see, I think we’ll come up with something interesting but it probably won’t be as significant as it was in my mind and whether my visions of how big it would be were communicated or whether people will be happy with that. I mean in general the game is going to be scary as all hell so I think that’s the main checkmark and maybe the branching narrative isn’t the most revolutionary thing in the world, I mean in my mind it’s like “We’re going to revolutionise games” etc. I mean it’ll be cool but at least in my mind I really didn’t put two and two together to see how difficult it would be to deliver on that. At least in my mind I was thinking a lot of the branching narratives would be remixes of existing content and we’ve sort of experimented with that without a significant amount of new content, the levels aren’t overly interesting I thought we’d have like building blocks and we could reassemble them in different ways which is sort of how we’re approaching the art but I was thinking that without a lot of new input we could create something new and amazing which when we have more content perhaps we can do.

I just think that it’s not going to be as easy as I planned but that’s the way it goes and I think the final product is still gonna be really awesome so fingers crossed certainly! And I’m nervous about it but I’m a pretty nervous person so that’s no surprise."

[matt]

That's awesome. Thank you so much for doing it! I added it to the blog now: http://www.infinitapgames.com/2013/12/3 ... ope-fears/

It's funny how different writing is from spoken language. So many run on sentences and "I means". hahaha

Anyway, this is awesome! I really appreciate it!

[Harry Sunderland]

JPrice, thanks for the transcript.

Matt, I want to say that I am in the minority of the backers, in the sense that branching narratives is the feature I'm most excited about in NN. However, I totally can see how that's a pretty heavy feature to deliver on, especially with your small team and small budget. You mentioned how in KS you're pitching your idealized version of the game, and similarly we're all backing our idealized version of the game. The reality is going to be some midway point between, but I think we're all reasonable individuals who can expect this .

I remember when Metal Gear Solid 2 was being hyped by Hideo Kojima, I thought it was going to be the pinnacle of video game technology. Hideo told us that you were going to stay outside too long in the rain...and you'd start sneezing. Then you'd need to take cold medicine. You would be able to shoot buckets and spill ice on the floor, and watch it slowly melt away. If you used your cardboard box in the rain for too long, it would get soggy and fall apart.

I read about all these things, and I thought the future was here. Low and behold, MGS2 is one of my favorite games of all time, and it has nothing to do with any of that stuff. The gameplay was solid, the plot was intriguing, and the game itself had much care put into it. It wasn't about being this ultra-realistic world where ice melts...that stuff was a novelty that I quickly forgot about. It was a great game, end of story.

You seem like a very legit developer. You have a lot of experience in the corporate world, and overall I feel like you're a bit more seasoned then many indie developers out there hyping their wares. The mere fact that you're feeling anxiety about these promises shows how hyper aware you are for the content of your game.

What I'm getting at is, I think even if the reality falls short of the dream, I feel like you have the instinct, love, and drive to make something extraordinary. Maybe you won't revolutionize horror...but I think for your first project, your goal should be to get everyone's attention, and kick our asses with a top quality horror game. Even if you don't make the neverending story of horror this time, there's always your next project.

[matt]

Thanks! I think I'll make a game that will please everyone who backed, but as you point out, it may not be the game that they were expecting. In fact, I think I can safely say that no one will be expecting the game I was making. Even the development team is kind of in the dark. hahaha I showed Joe some notes I had on the story arc for the branch we are working on, and he was pretty much floored. I can't wait to share that with all of you.

But don't worry. There will still be branches, and I think they'll be pretty darn interesting.