Sorry I'm late! I have been exhausted because of Legena. Worth it!

Week #8 of the develop video! This week, we're showing off the Cutscene feature of the Legena Engine!





Be sure you stay tuned on our facebook page, Grandpa Pixel!
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Wow, we haven't even gone 3 days and there's already a comic with both franchises in it. Pretty heartwarming too

This weekend I finished the basic requirements for the Legena Engine. Cutscenes will now be programmed far more efficiently! Wooo!

But it is bad to have a character whose purpose is to say "look I'm gay and there is nobody discriminating against me!". The gay pride stuff is more insulting/condescending than helpful.

that sounds kinda like "i don't want to hear about people who are different from me" lol

Lol it does a little.

But Muz is right, it should be done in a way that reflects the game's feel. Otherwise it looks completely out of focus plus it's feels like cheap marketing.

I think you're not coming from the right place if you only want these things done for the the sake of pushing limits and creating controversy.  Where does that get us?  There's no consideration for tact or appropriateness, it's just about doing something from your grab bag of stuff that you KNOW will shock people.  Is there any merit to shocking people with something you know will shock them?  Seeing Laura's bare breasts would've shocked a lot of people, it would've been incredibly controversial, it would've pushed those precious boundaries, but it'd also would've been needlessly stupid.  

I think I need to make some clarification here. I am not supporting the actual rape. It is indeed messed up and never put such a thing in any of my games. There is some controversy even my series would never touch. What I was supporting was Lara feeling like she would be raped by the attacker. The fear of could happen and the courage she would have taken to overcome the attacker and make her escape.

Yes, that would cause some controversy. But it would also highlight the courage and power of the hero.

I think I'll find a new example to what I mean regarding the controversy. This is twice in a single day people have mistaken what I mean. I'll try to find a new example for tomorrow

Again, sorry for the confusion.


EDIT: I have changed my example to how 50 years ago, the thought of a gay character on tv would have caused outrage whilst in today's age, it does not.

[i've been using gm since 2005 and feel it was great -- for 2005. today there are better options, even though i still am using gm to finish up a game, i don't really plan on using it again after this game is done (except to update/port my older games of course)]

i feel that unity may be a better choice for people just getting into indie game development. also, game maker studio's development environment is very inferior to the old game maker 7 or 8's development environment. i'd say if you already know game maker well, you could keep using it for multiplayer 2d games. however, if you don't already know game maker well, and are looking to get into using an engine, there's more reason to use unity than game maker


i've been using gm since 2005 and feel it was great -- for 2005. today there are better options, even though i still am using gm to finish up a game, i don't really plan on using it again after this game is done (except to update/port my older games of course)

Pretty much the same boat as me. I'm using GM to finish up my RPGs then moving on!

As I hope you guys know, I am an RPG developer and I'm working on the Legena trilogy

I just kinda feel like it has to be said that probably nobody here knew that or cares.


As for the topic: Since games have more to gain from appearing mature to teenage boys by having a "deals with mature themes" bullet point and/or include such themes for controversy (marketing) and shock value than actually saying something of meaning they're stuck just being edgy and stupid forever (similar situation as american comics).

The problem for indie games not concerned with sales and target demographics however is that the devs are usually too dumb to say anything of value (perhaps outside of IF and stuff, dunno about those).

I know no one would care, it's just to give back story on the topic as the trilogy is what spawned the topic.

And you make some pretty valid points there! I didn't think of it like that. Kudos!

So now you need to purchase the 800$ version to actually deploy to a mobile device or what ?
It's a good way for amateur game developers  to learn the basics of corporate greed perhaps.

I've played with gamemaker a few times and I think it's a great tool for prototyping and designing. I wouldn't get stuck on it however, there are many great and free and multiplatform alternatives out there once you get comfortable with just plain code.

Not as much as $800...but yet still pretty high. About $300 for Android+Standard. $800 if you want everything.

[Screenshot from the storyline map]

I'm a bit late but here I am: Screenshot from the storyline map

Love the lighting effects.

I agree, this work is amazing!

IMHO GameMaker is a nice solution for a noob to learn to make games fast, but only as a stepping-point. I see no point in purchasing a premium license for it.

Well...actually agree with soryy. It's better off learning what you can with the free version and then moving onto something like C#

why is it more important for you that one person on a discussion forum doesnt say anything vaguely mean to you

but on a topic that can so fucking easily miss the point and be super insulting to a bunch of people like rape you're like WHAT A SHAME IT SHOULD'VE HAPPENED

like you mention abortion

wtf kind of game would have to deal with abortion


since you're another "MY PRECIOUS EGO"-type nerd, i'll give you a "good job!" on the thing about gay marriage. good job!! But if you can't dissociate the disenfranchising of removing gay marriage from not putting in rape as a main plot point, you probably aren't informed enough to talk about these complex issues. Sorry!


why are you whining about flaming why do you want to sugar-coat my posts so much... are you trying to censor me

The point of this topic is to discuss the controversy. Not express hatred between one another. That is why I am asking people not to flame.

Perhaps I worded my topic wrong. That is my fault and I apologize. But in this case, you are in the wrong for flaming. Please read the Forum Rules and you'll understand why I don't allow flaming.

In regards to abortion, why not ask "what game would have to deal with over-religious beliefs?". Oh wait, Binding of Issac.

As for the ego, I have never once thought about my ego and frankly I don't plan to. So that's your last paragraph out the window.

Thanks for your opinion though. I'll be sure to double check my posts before I post them.

they grew up from targetting 8 year olds to 13 year olds. nothing to be proud of

Yeh...I have noticed the decline in children games :?

there was some "market research" about teens buying m rated games more so everyone started going for m ratings. and then at e3 theyve been trying to out shock each other with their games (splinter cell blacklist, tomb raider, last of us, hitman, etc) so i don't think theyre trying to push any boundaries (some devs are, like rockstar, but i don't care about gta), but these games look like theyre just leveraging controversy for marketing.

Think that's bad, I was on the bus and I saw a 9 year with a brand new copy of Assassin's Creed 3.

you deserve to be yelled at for wanting to see rape in a video game and the topic's title though

your #1 reason for including rape in a video game is "because its realistic"

thats a bad n stupid reason

realism and video games doesnt work very well right now

Can I point out if you came in here to flame, please keep that to yourself. It's against the rules to insult another member.

And to answer your question, no I wouldn't entirely want it. I'd want it to progress the boundaries we have in games. If it was there JUST because it could be there, I wouldn't want it. In my opinion, such things should only be done if it's relevant to the game and the story. There should be no other reason.

I think I will have to re-word my topic so we don't have anymore cases like this.

@Mono, an independent and mainstream perspective is ideal. However the independent side looks more favorable to more controversial concepts. I saw a video a few days ago about a game based entirely in the era of slavery. Kudos to the developer

they grew up from targetting 8 year olds to 13 year olds. nothing to be proud of

Yeh...I have noticed the decline in children games :?

i meant that pr statement was bullshit, they were just straight up lying

Oh right, phew thought I was being yelled out XD

But yeh, we need more games like Hotline Miami where it's "Screw the rules, we're doing it our way"

And I'm glad I'm wrong in the aspect of rape and misogyny. It just shows that the gaming industry is starting to grow up. We need to push it further though. 2014, mark it in your calenders

And $20!?! what are they Capcom?!

i'd say everything you wrote on tomb raider is bullshit. i played the first four or so hours, the game has multiple attempted rapes. also no, devs are shy about certain "controversies" more so than others, such as minorities (a bioware dev says "the world is not ready for transgender characters" and many devs will preemptively say "if we made a woman/black/gay character people would just criticize it!!!"), and themes like abortion etc. but what you're wrong is that they shy away from controversies namely rape, murder, and misogyny -- we just had a hotline miami 2 rape thread -- how they decide what controversies to work with is plain marketing reasoning aka "demographics" aka a group of people that don't want commentary on abortion or play as a gay character but want to see rape, murder, and a healthy dose of sweet misogyny. this means they don't mind controversy as long as it's not controversial to their racist demographic -- a caricature of their customers, which is like the opposite of media controversy.

Appreciate the reply but try not to be so confronting with it. There are better words to use than bullshit.

Cheers for the heads up about Hotline Miami 2 btw :D

As I hope you guys know, I am an RPG developer and I'm working on the Legena trilogy (the prototype got enough feedback to warrant a trilogy) And one of the things we're striving to do in the RPGs we develop is make them real. I don't mean in the sense of gorey bloody graphics. I mean in the sense of the issues the characters face.

Look at television less than 50 years, having a gay character on a tv show would have caused outrage and sparked a mass anger from the audience. But once one television show stuck its ground over time it became less controversial and accepted as part of real life.

However, the gaming industry has yet to reach that spark on some topics. That spark that acts as a domino in which eventually it becomes a normal factor.

If you look at all the following, you rarely see anything like this

• LGBT characters
• Slavery and the bravery the slaves had
• Victims of racism and their story
• Victims of violent attacks because of who they are or what they believe in

You see my point. Whilst we know these issues (or in the 1st example, characters) exist in real life. But why don't they?  Well I think it's down to developers wanting to play it safe. But as indie developers, we are already playing with fire by trying to be indie developers and so we can add more fire to the burn. But for mainstream, it seems they do not want to risk it.

Rumor: Nintendo Ending Gay Marriage Bug in Popular Game

Even when the community looks bright on such things, the developers play it safe. And in turn end up scorching people. In this case, gay gamers. (Though I don't know how this example is going to end as it's recent news)

Where's the risk that influenced great games and these great characters?

    Psycho Mantis from Metal Gear
    Giygas from Earthbound
    Flea from Chrono Trigger

These are 3 perfect examples where the developers went beyond the safe zone and produced fantastic characters. Well done to them! Heck me and my team are going ballsy with risk. Do you know that the only thing that I've seen in a decade get risky was the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who? And that's not even a game!

So what do you think? Does the gaming industry play it too safe these days regarding controversy? Are there any boundries where crossing them is too far? (like the Tomb Raider "rape") What would you want to see finally get covered?

And finally, would you like to see games that risked controversy to produce a story?

Let's hear your thoughts!

And just so you know, I am looking at the controversy from a developer's perspective, so please take no offense.

Man it's awesome to know there are developers in Hampshire. As I discussed with gamepopper, I think a Hampshire Game Dev meet-up group is needed :D

Hey guys,

I've been using CamStudio for the last 4 weeks and with great difficulty. The program itself is solid but for the Select-Region recording is very fiddly.

As a result, I need a new recorder. :/
However, finding a new recorder won't be easy.

Can anyone start me off on my journey to find a new recorder? Thanks in advance!

Something different for this week!



EDIT:

Also, it's another week! And so it's another Legena Engine dev video. This time, the features previously made have come together!