2018-07-11
thomasmahler 10262065
Thread: Do you want new controllers with next gen consoles?
Split Controllers with 6DOF.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10262065/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/i8tRt
2018-07-11
thomasmahler 10261167
Thread: Why do we love snow levels so much in video games?
Cause you get the best of Winter without the damn cold.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10261167/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/JOthw
2018-07-10
thomasmahler 10242730
Thread: Ori & the Will of the Wisps: Moon Studios aims to 'perfect Metroidvania genre' - Preview & Interview
We've had offers before and could've said yes to large sacks of money, but we never yet thought it was the right thing to do. We have some crazy stuff in the works and I think the last thing we should do at Moon is to change how we work. We just wanna make some of the best games out there, we got some insanely talented people and I don't wanna disappoint anybody. I think we should just keep doing what we're doing and make you folks happy by making awesome games :)
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10242730/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/9xHYp
2018-07-10
thomasmahler 10227128
Thread: Ori & the Will of the Wisps: Moon Studios aims to 'perfect Metroidvania genre' - Preview & Interview
This is so silly, I never actually said that. I popped into the Hollow Knight OT when it first launched and gave my early opinion after playing it a few hours and felt like the pacing was wacky - It takes a long time to get started and on your first playthrough through Hollow Knight, you're doing a lot of backtracking without having learned anything new or gotten a new item or anything. I felt like the whole 'You can't see yourself on the map at first' thing felt like needless padding. And I think many people agreed with me on those points. But again, that was MY experience and overall I still liked the game. Then I kept playing, got more stuff and eventually thought it's a great game. I think some people thought it was outrageous that one dev would pop into a thread and give his opinion and hey, maybe it is? I dunno, I'm just a gamer like other folks here and don't see why I can't give my 2 cents. I'm always interested in knowing what other devs think about the games we're making and having a little more discourse in that regard isn't a bad thing. But when it comes to comparing the two, I don't think it makes a ton of sense. Ori is heavily platforming and level design focused, whereas HK kept things much closer to the Igavanias with a lesser focus on actual level design, but a stronger focus on enemy behaviors, combat and it had some Dark Souls influences like losing 'Souls' when you're dying, having obscure little NPCs in the world, lots of bosses, etc. sprinkled in. I think people just like these little wars (Amiga VS ST, NES vs. MS, etc.), but I don't think we should take a part in that. I just think it's cool that there's more going on with Metroidvanias now than there has been for the last decade or so, since a lot of people were starved for this kinda genre and it's cool to see actual 'competition' happening again where the developers of various games can inspire each other to take things further. And that's our goal for WotW - we listened to you folks and try to take things a lot further than we could've before. So chill out, let us do our thing and hopefully that'll result in us shipping a great game that you folks will love :)
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10227128/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/Y5gUJ
2018-07-10
thomasmahler 10228077
Thread: Ori & the Will of the Wisps: Moon Studios aims to 'perfect Metroidvania genre' - Preview & Interview
Btw, since I saw some people talking about Backtracking and the question came up how we’re approaching that, here’s my thoughts on it: I think there’s good and there’s bad backtracking. I always kinda have a bit of the feeling that some developers design their games with backtracking in mind not necessarily because they truly get what makes backtracking fun, but simply to follow ‘the formula’. The way we design with backtracking in mind is that we actually design levels that the player will backtrack through numerous times, meaning, for example, we might first design a level with the idea in mind that the player will have to traverse the level from left to right with a certain set of abilities. We try to make that fun and challenging. Then we know the player will probably come back to that area at some point, but now he’ll probably have learned that other ability. So the way the platforms are laid out and the structure of the level has to also has to be designed to take that into account - So that traversing from left to right and from right to left will feel like playing 2 different levels, even though it’s the same area you’ve passed through before. And then you also think about secret areas and making sure you have a good chunk of challenges in earlier parts of the game that you can only come back to with late stage abilities, etc. In terms of level design, we’re spending a crazy amount of time on every single level to always account for these kinda things, to keep an area fun, even if you’ve already run through it before. You should always have new ways of interacting with the world, so that even areas you’ve already been to still feel fresh when you re-visit them. And yeah, we also feature quite a bit of hidden stuff in WotW that players won’t find on their first run-through :) I do see a lot of designers designing levels by just placing platforms with some obstacles or some enemies on them and calling it a day - It can be a bit frustrating if players then think that design-wise, it amounts to the same thing. It really doesn’t though. A lot of our design-language is very Nintendo-inspired and I think in the end we’re making the right moves. Again, I hope people don’t see this as ‘Thomas Mahler is shitting on other games’, it’s just that level design is insanely important to me and it’s its own art to design good levels. There’s a certain way we design at Moon that I’m super proud of and I hope people see that once they get to play WotW :)
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10228077/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/pLgkM
2018-07-10
thomasmahler 10228703
Thread: Ori & the Will of the Wisps: Moon Studios aims to 'perfect Metroidvania genre' - Preview & Interview
Will do that :)
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10228703/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/EFfyQ
2018-07-10
thomasmahler 10228286
Thread: Xbox Corp VP Mike Yabarra Shares his thoughts on Cross Progression
I completely agree with this. It’s incredibly silly that if I play, say, Diablo 3 on PC and then play the same game on my Xbox in order to play with friends, I have to start a new character. That’s just batshit insane to me. All the player data should just be saved on the servers the publishers / developers set up and it should be accessible on every platform.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10228286/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/g7faS
2018-07-10
thomasmahler 10210076
Thread: Favorite single player racing game campaigns?
Diddy Kong Racing for sure!
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10210076/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/QaVLD
2018-07-10
thomasmahler 10210016
Thread: Ori & the Will of the Wisps: Moon Studios aims to 'perfect Metroidvania genre' - Preview & Interview
Of course. Just because we decided to drastically improve the combat system doesn’t mean we didn’t have a go at further improving the platforming aspects :) Ori and the Blind Forest had an extremely strong focus on Platforming and that’s still true for Will of the Wisps since the way you traverse levels will again be very ‘Ori’ - Only now the way you deal with enemies and the likes will be much more varied than before. Design-wise, our goal is for all the stuff you can do to really work together, so that you can also use combat moves for platforming and use platforming within the combat, like in the way you dash away from enemies right when they show their tell or dash into the enemies and then immediately queue into an attack, etc. I don’t think we’re taking anything away that Blind Forest had, so no worries.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10210016/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/RdAMk
2018-07-09
thomasmahler 10192367
Thread: If Waluigi DID have his own game, what would it be?
It’d be a Metroidvania. Waluigi would gain more and more abilities over the course of his journey and then take down Mario and his whole gang. It’d be beautiful.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10192367/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/PrjDk
2018-07-09
thomasmahler 10202666
Thread: Ori & the Will of the Wisps: Moon Studios aims to 'perfect Metroidvania genre' - Preview & Interview
Yup! Alex was working for Square for the last 20 Years or so and I stumbled over this interview by USGamer a while ago: ...and immediately reached out to him cause I always loved his style of writing. He’s an incredibly cool, passionate dude and I’m super proud having Alex be part of Moon Studios now :)
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10202666/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/QtYD1
2018-07-09
thomasmahler 10201506
Thread: Ori & the Will of the Wisps: Moon Studios aims to 'perfect Metroidvania genre' - Preview & Interview
It’ll be very interesting to me to see how people will react to the story this time. We definitely did try to make the world whole and to elevate what we started with Blind Forest to a whole new level. We actually hired Alexander O. Smith (if you don’t know who he is, he has his own Wikipedia page ;)) a while ago to help us with the writing process, he’s working on Ori and our yet-to-be-announced project. We finished writing the overall storyline last year and at our Team Retreat there’s already been lots of tears. We never consciously try to tell sad stories, but since Ori is all about telling these allegorical tales, I think it’s easy for people to identify with our characters. And don’t worry about us copying others too much - we always look at what happens outside our team, but I don’t think people will make many connections to Hollow Knight and the likes. I was already surprised that some people thought we copied HK simply cause we now have more NPCs in the world that Ori can interact with - HK wasn’t really our reference at all when it came to that. I wanted more NPCs even in Blind Forest (mostly cause I loved what ALTTP did with simple characters that gave you some clues and so on), but doing that the Moon Studios way with all the required animations was just way too expensive. But this time we were able to do it and do it in the way we wanted :) Our combat system for example is much deeper and much more intricate than what any other Metroidvania has done so far and I think people will objectively be able to agree with that. Every single one of our weapons has their own animation set, it’s an animation-commit combat system where we control timing based on the actual animation frames. I don’t think it’s even fair at all to compare what 2d games before WotW did with WotW in that regard since we’re obviously using super advanced tools and built everything upon a super strong foundation. Most Metroidvanias including HK trigger a simple animation and spawn a little effect when you press the attack button - we obviously went way further than that. I don’t feel super comfortable talking about this stuff since I’m one of the developers and it could quickly sound like I’m downplaying other games that came before, but this is just how art develops: Someone does something and then the next person pushes that even further and further - I still think in terms of platforming Ori is one of the best games out there in the genre and this time the goal was to do the same for combat... and everything else :D
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10201506/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/EHYr2
2018-07-09
thomasmahler 10192238
Thread: Ori & the Will of the Wisps: Moon Studios aims to 'perfect Metroidvania genre' - Preview & Interview
Thank you guys for all the positivity and kind words - Always helps our team to keep pushing when they see how much excitement exists for the games we're making :) I'm not gonna lie, I do think we're making something really special with WotW, but you folks will have to judge. We've been approaching development with he idea that we wanna make a game that'll always stand the test of time, like SMB3 did. We got the resource injection we needed from MS after we couldn't do a couple of things on Blind Forest that we really wanted to do and now it's all about just polishing it all up until there's not a single thing left that's not brilliant. Wait and see! :)
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10192238/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/sVYf3
2018-07-09
thomasmahler 10187529
Thread: How influential was the Metal Gear series to the games industry?
I thought Metal Gear Solid (PS1) was hugely influential. I never thought much about the sequels. Was hugely hyped for MGS2, but everything after MGS had this insane Kojima weirdness that I’m not a fan of. MGS4 and 5 were mediocre games in my opinion. Kinda feel like Kojima is another one of those designers that peaked in the 90s, much like Cliffy and Jaffe.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10187529/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/SziFp
2018-07-09
thomasmahler 9969825
Thread: Why are there no famous indies similar to Mario 2D?
Yeah, you’d think that Technology should’ve made it much easier nowadays to make a game like that, but that’s only true for things like actually getting things rendered on screen, etc. - Design-wise, you’re still on your own. It’s probably similar to film or other arts: You rarely see films that get made that are as good as The Godfather, even though cameras are much better and easier to handle today than they used to be. Technology didn’t make it any easier to write a great novel, etc. (maybe a little more convenient, but the words still have to come solely from you).
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/9969825/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/icC4L
2018-07-09
thomasmahler 9970544
Thread: Why are there no famous indies similar to Mario 2D?
Also, if you play with numbers, it actually becomes even more clear that for an indie developer, copying something like Mario can be really goddamn difficult to achieve. For example, a ‘room’ for Ori usually takes our designers between 1-3 days to bring to final - And I’d like to think that we’ve gotten pretty damn good at it. A room in Ori is probably only half or a quarter of the size of a level in Mario Bros. 3 in terms of scale. And this estimate is just for the design blockout, we’re not even talking about art yet. That’s usually another 3-5 days to set dress and that’s if you already have the art tiles painted. Since Mario usually has more simplistic art, let’s be very optimistic and say you can finalize an entire level in a week - that’s for design AND art. That’s probably an extremely optimistic estimate since really getting something to final can be super hard and you’ll re-work things very often in the process of making a game. So the actual number would probalby be more like 2 weeks, but let’s be very optimistic just for the sake of it. A world in Mario usually consists of around 10 levels. Let’s say there’s 8 worlds - We’re now at 80 levels. So just to put the levels together, you’re looking at 80 weeks of work, 1.5 years of work if you work every single day in a year without taking any vacations. That’s 1.5 years of work just for levels and we’re at an extremely optimistic estimate. If you now factor in that you also have to design and program all the mechanics, enemies, bonus stages, bosses, powerups and so on, I think it quickly becomes apparent that a small indie dev that only has 1-2 designers would have a massive task ahead of them.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/9970544/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/HPXt7
2018-07-09
thomasmahler 9970766
Thread: Why are there no famous indies similar to Mario 2D?
Well, the number of people who make ‘professional’ stuff in those content-creation games is usually at around 1% or less. If you’ve got a million folks making levels, that’d result in hunreds of good levels getting made :)
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/9970766/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/jfh5s
2018-07-09
thomasmahler 9964802
Thread: Why are there no famous indies similar to Mario 2D?
Because you assume that it's easy enough for an indie developer to just make a 'Mario-like' game that could rival the stuff Nintendo did - even the stuff from 30 years ago - and I can tell you it's just not. Mario is all about good level design and level design is an artform that most designers out there just haven't mastered at all. We've had designers with tons of experience go through our tests (everyone who wants to work at Moon Studios has to do a quick test so we can check their skills) and a lot of them just aren't that great at designing spaces in the way Nintendo can. It's actually an incredibly rare talent. There's tons of designers out there who THINK they can do it, cause it looks oh so simple, but once they actually have to sit their butts down and design in that way, a lot of them suffer and stumble their way through it and the result more often than not leaves a lot to be desired. I would bet that there's way less than 100 people in the entire western gaming industry that understand design in that way. Compare the indie output in terms of platformers from the last 10 years to games like Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World - if you understand a thing or two about design, you'll probably notice that there's a huge gap in quality between them. This is really a field where technology doesn't help you at all: Just cause we got better computers doesn't mean that anybody will do the design work for you and even though you'd think people have studied Nintendo's output and the way they do things over the years, most of them can't deliver on anywhere even near that level of quality. If you look at the current AAA industry, I think you'll see what I mean: None of the big AAA games truly bank on good level design because (and this is me saying something controversial that really shouldn't be) most of these studios don't really have designers that are all that great and that could make successful games that are reliant upon good level design. The way most studios handle level design is more about spectacle, working a lot with environment artists to create 'interest', using open world terrain tools so that they don't have to labor over every inch, etc. - All the successful western AAA studios make games that work despite, not because of their level design. This is also why most western devs out there still love Nintendo's output, cause they're clearly better in many regards than they themselves are and there's still a lot to learn from them. Here's my super controversial bet: Even if you'd take the absolute best designers from places like, say, Naughty Dog and task them to create a game as good as Super Mario Bros. 3, I'd bet that they couldn't do it. You need a certain breed of designers that understand design on the level those Nintendo folks did and that kinda talent mostly doesn't exist in the current industry.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/9964802/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/UECGN
2018-07-09
thomasmahler 9965767
Thread: Why are there no famous indies similar to Mario 2D?
Yeah. Way back in the day at Disney, from the time you were hired as an animator, they understood that it'd take you about 5 years to create your first good animation that'd be usable in their films. That was just the time it took to learn the craft. I'd bet that even a good designer who worked a couple of years in the industry would need a good 3 or so years before they'd be able to create a level that'd actually fit into a Nintendo game. There's an art to designing interactive spaces that most western AAA Studios just don't seem to be interested in learning, so they make games that work even if they don't feature great level design. In the indie space, it's very obvious which designers actually understand what they're doing when it comes to level design, simply cause they've been doing it (and failing at it and learning from it) for years and years and now they understand the craft. You got folks like Matt Thorson who can sit his ass down and create a platformer that immediately becomes a critical hit simply cause the guy spent so much time honing his skills in that space, making games that are completely reliant on good level design. I'd say the same thing about Edmund McMillen: He went through a period of making shit games until he finally learned how to do it right and showed that to the world by making Super Meat Boy. Whoever Yacht Club has on designing levels for Shovel Knight is a damn good designer in my book. I'd humbly suggest that we know what we're doing at Moon in regards to level design, also just cause we've decided to make games that rely on good level design and we've been learning and trying to master that craft ever since. It's really tough finding designers that can deliver on the level of quality we need simply cause you don't acquire the right skills by working on modern western AAA games.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/9965767/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/ISCuO
2018-07-09
thomasmahler 9834950
Thread: If Square-Enix were to make Final Fantasy Tactics 2, it should be a prequel.
I don’t see why anyone would get excited about this unless Matsuno would come back to do it.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/9834950/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/VHhHu
2018-07-09
thomasmahler 9928959
Thread: It's been 8 years since Vindictus was released. Why hasn't MMO combat evolved?
It always boils down to talent.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/9928959/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/8vWUa
2018-07-09
thomasmahler 10009741
Thread: Pitch your Seinfeld video game.
Point and Click Adventure would be perfect. Have Ron Gilbert do it.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10009741/
Archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20180710021830/https://www.resetera.com/threads/pitch-your-seinfeld-video-game.53203/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/JVhvv
2018-07-09
thomasmahler 4145191
Thread: Game Sack: The Youtube Retro Show Where Sega and Nintendo Fans Review Games
Love GameSack. Must've watched every one of their videos twice or so by now.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/4145191/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/x9hjw
2018-07-09
thomasmahler 10039461
Thread: Ranking the best Consoles of all time. Objectively? (Vince19)
Ok, you’re a crazy person ;) I counter with Suikoden 1+2, Final Fantasy Tactics, FFVII and DQVII. DQVIII was the first full 3d Dragon Quest that I always felt was a bit lacking.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10039461/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/9yBUR
2018-07-09
thomasmahler 10039257
Thread: Ranking the best Consoles of all time. Objectively? (Vince19)
I would. I never had that much fun with the PS2, to be honest. And that was after the sensational PS1 that had tons of games I loved dearly. I’d honestly guess the PS2 love is a lot of nostalgia and that the folks who love their PS2s are just the ones who were like 6-12 when the PS2 was in their prime - so they automatically have some crazy love for it, is that possible? I remember that for years the console didnt have any good RPGs and it’s the console where Square’s output went to shit. The PS2 took a long time to really get going (at the start the Dreamcast still had easily the better software library and since the PS2 was awkward to code for you saw ports that lagged behind the Dreamcast visually and perf wise) and looking back, there’s maybe a handful of titles or so that I’d really wanna get back to. NES, SNES and PS1 had way more timeless classics in my opinion.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10039257/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/zbWkd
2018-07-09
thomasmahler 9874542
Thread: mOE_TV: "I am going to stop using "f**got" because it might hurt my income" (UP1: 30d ban on Twitch)
What an asshole.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/9874542/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/YPgJz
2018-07-09
thomasmahler 10060565
Thread: Steamworld Dig 2, why is it so addicting?
Loved this game on Switch, finished it within a day and then immediately finished it again right away and I usually never do that :)
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10060565/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/bDVWf
2018-07-08
thomasmahler 4685188
Thread: Analogue Super NT - orders and shipping(Now you're playing with SUPER POWER)
On the latter, I’d assume they have to charge up-front simply to be able to actually afford putting the amount of machines they’re making into production. Analogue is probably still a tiny company and doing what they’re doing isn’t a cheap endeavor. I’m perfectly happy with how they handled that and I’m willing to pay up-front if I’m getting a quality-product in the end. And I feel like Kevtris earned a lot of good will. That dude is the real deal. So let’s wait and see. I have a lot of confidence that Analogue and Kevtris will fix these issus and I hope they’ll continue on making more Retro HD Machines. I’d Day 1 an Analogue Genesis, NeoGeo and PC Engine...
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/4685188/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/PkqRR
2018-07-07
thomasmahler 10125476
Thread: Take-Two CEO talks RDR2 monetization, Fortnite Battle Royale trend, Esports, and more.
Why is everyone so down on Zelnick? From what I know, they let the Rockstar guys just do what they wanna do and for devs that’s a great thing. Let devs make a great game and then look into how the gamers out there respond to it - and if it works and works big, keep continuing develpment and give gamers more of what they’re asking for. What’s wrong with that strategy?
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10125476/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/CuyAG
2018-07-07
thomasmahler 10125555
Thread: Take-Two CEO talks RDR2 monetization, Fortnite Battle Royale trend, Esports, and more.
I’ve only played vanilla GTA V. Can anyone tell me what’s wrong with GTAO?
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10125555/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/DxdBn
2018-07-07
thomasmahler 9333008
Thread: Ori and the Will of the Wisps - E3 2018 Trailer
Hard to answer at this point, but remember that we still have to have the game running at 60fps on the Xbox One S, so while we are adding a lot more bells and whistles to the visuals, we’re balancing that out by just optimizing the hell out of the game. We had Unity Source Code access for a while now and use the scripted render pipeline to our advantage - goal is to run all the scenes at 80-90fps with a locked 60fps on console, so that there’ll never be a perceivable drop in framerate. Yup, that’s the goal. We’re never gonna ship a game that only runs at 30fps, mostly cause we ourselves don’t enjoy what that sacrifice does to gameplay. We’re generally in a pretty good spot perf-wise already, but there’s still some nice optimizations left to do :) I dont get where all these faux facts are coming from. We haven’t announced support for platforms other than Xbox One and Win10 yet (which are obvious ;)), but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Truth is, we’re still trying to figure all of that out ourselves! Hm, maybe you read my comments as way more inflammatory than they actually were meant to be. I shared my initial opinion on Hollow Knight back then after playing it for 5-6 hours and thought the pacing was all over the place, which I still think is the case. Pacing-wise, I don’t think Hollow Knight works as nicely as Nintendo games have in the past and I also thought we did a better job on that in Blind Forest than HK did, but hey, that’s just my personal opinion :) And hey, I did post again after I had completed Hollow Knight and thought it was a great game overall. Was it perfect? Nope, far from it, but it’s definitely a nicely put together title and I’m eager to re-play it on Switch now again. To me, Hollow Knight and Blind Forest aren’t all that comparable - Ori’s platforming was way more elaborate, whereas HK focused more on combat and bosses. Truth to be told, we didn’t really consciously copy anything from Hollow Knight. The Spirit Shard system we have in Will of the Wisps is just a natural evolution of the Ability Tree we had in Ori and the Blind Forest: Since the game is quite a bit more open now, we wanted to tie getting abilities to the exploration aspects more, so we got rid of the ‘In order to get this ability, you have to have these other abilities already!’ Thing. Also, the Spirit Shard System allowed us to introduce upgrades, which turned out to be super cool, since it gives the players even more ways of really honing in on whatever they deem fun. For example, one thing we showed in the demo was the ‘Splinter’ shard, a super useful shard for players who use projectile weapons and spells, since it enhances how many projectiles get fired per shot. If players invest more and more into that shard, the results can become quite crazy, so while you only shoot a single projectile with the Spirit Arc at first, with a fully upgrades Splinter Shard, you actually shoot 5 arrows at once. There are tons and tons of these shards in the game, so I’m hoping that players will come up with super crazy ways to play through the game again and again and watching people play the game on streams should be more enjoyable since every player will now be able to pick their own very custom way of playing it :) On the combat side, we had tests of Ori using ‘weapons’ as far back as 2012 - James did a bunch of animation tests back then, but we decided in the end to really focus on the platforming for Blind Forest and came up with platforming abilities that’d be used for combat as well, which is how Bash became a thing, etc. The same is true for the NPCs and the Quests: Those things were already discussed during Blind Forest, but were cut cause it was super expensive to add those things in a way that’d hit our ‘Moon Studios Quality bar’ - So since we’re doing a sequel and the budget is a lot higher than Blind Forest’s budget, adding NPCs and meaningful Sidequests was super high on the list of things we wanted to focus on this time around :)
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/9333008/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/3ax0J
2018-07-07
thomasmahler 9333569
Thread: Ori and the Will of the Wisps - E3 2018 Trailer
Thanks! I'm finally back in Vienna, those 14 hour flights are brutal, so I'm glad to be back :) And yeah, it is. Our Ori deal was signed before GamePass was a thing, so now we're still trying to figure out with Microsoft what that actually means for us. We were heads-down on finishing all the E3 stuff in the past couple of weeks, so we just need to sit with MS and figure things out. Hehe, yeah, count on that ;)
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/9333569/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/sNSp5
2018-07-07
thomasmahler 9198913
Thread: Ori and the Will of the Wisps - E3 2018 Trailer
Hey guys, Sorry for not checking in earlier - E3 is pretty crazy for us, yesterday we had 12 hours back to back press events, interviews and the likes and at the end of every day I’m just falling dead into my bed... I’m super glad you guys enjoyed the trailer we showed - this time we knew everyone would just wanna see gameplay and some new stuff and we obviously only showed a fraction of what’ll be in the final game, but overall the response seems to be super good. After all the crazy hard work over the past couple of months this is an insane relief :) If you folks have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them here. I read almost every comment about Ori on GAF back then, so I kinda knew what people wanted in a sequel, but it’s always good to get more feedback!
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/9198913/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/SrcPr
2018-07-07
thomasmahler 9216889
Thread: Ori and the Will of the Wisps - E3 2018 Trailer
Let's get to it! Yeah, of course :) Quite a lot :D So here's the thing: We all liked the Soul Link System we had in Blind Forest, apart from one thing: When players forgot to create a save, sometimes they had to re-play 10-15 minutes of stuff they already did... So we're still kinda looking into that one. Another thing that makes the return of Soul Link a bit more difficult is that this time we're allowing you to customize your buttons and it's tough to give up a button for this system... There's things that are similar to that, but Sein is with the Spirit Tree. Not sure if I can say at this point - We love for people to have physical versions of Ori, so we'll see :) Nothing's set in stone yet - We honestly don't really know at this point since we're just heads-down on making something great, but we'll do our best to make all the communities happy. We just (finally) released the Naru and Ori plushies a couple of months ago - I'd LOVE for more plushies and action figures and so on to happen, highly depends on Microsoft, but they also love the Ori IP, so I'll definitely try to see what we can do :) Well, like with everything we had in Blind Forest, we're trying to up the ante even more - Wait and see what we have in store this time :D So far so good! It was helpful that we started developing WotW with a good, strong base and we have some crazy talent in the team now - We've got Chris, who worked on Rayman, we've got Milton who single-handedly made AM2R, we hired animators from Pixar, Blue Sky Studios, Riot, etc. - It's pretty crazy to see where we are now compared to when we shipped Blind Forest. Haha, no worries, I'm happy to answer whatever questions might come up here :) And thanks for being an Ori fan, we're really trying to create something special, something that'll stand the test of time. I'm also super interested in hearing feedback on what we've shown this E3! Yes! We have more characters in the game, so there'll be more themes and Gareth is hard at work, but I figure he should just answer this question. Pretty sure he has a ResetEra account, I'll send him a link to this thread! :)
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/9216889/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/GFcDs
2018-07-07
thomasmahler 8999680
Thread: Ori and the Will of the Wisps - E3 2018 Trailer
Hey guys, Sorry for the late reply, my cellphone provider decided that I should have no internet connection anymore... will read through this thread and answer any questions you guys might have as soon as I made it back to the hotel :)
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/8999680/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/uTcrt
2018-07-06
thomasmahler 10096756
Thread: I want next gen hardware to take risks. Not be the same. Do something unique.
I’m hoping that every console in the future will have controllers that are split in 2 with both of them featuring 6DOF.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10096756/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/HHRD9
2018-07-06
thomasmahler 10060610
Thread: Which Games Have The Best Climbing?
The Climb. Serious answer.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10060610/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/Ghn0y
2018-07-06
thomasmahler 10059940
Thread: Panic Art Studios founder apologises for saying "Women don't have the nerves to be a CEO"
Wtf is Panic Art Studios?
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10059940/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/4JzBA
2018-07-06
thomasmahler 9982416
Thread: New Nintendo president Furukawa: “considering various possibilities” for 3DS successor
There’s no way they’ll go back to the portable / home console model with which they’d segregate their user base. Pretty sure the next step would be to create a cheaper, smaller Switch that’s portable only and more targeted towards kids. 199$ pricetag including Zelda or Mario and they have another huge thing on their hands.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/9982416/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/cX9mB
2018-07-05
thomasmahler 10031656
Thread: VR has completely lost it's appeal to me, anyone else with same experience?
Chicken and egg problem. It’s an extremely small market at the moment, which means most developers can’t afford putting proper dev resources behind a title. Right now you have to assume that even a Smash Hit VR title would maybe sell 100k units and it’s hard to make the business make sense at that point. We have a VR concept that I think would be amazing and could be super addicting, but there’s no way we can put an entire team behind it simply cause unless we’d get extremely lucky, we’d probably never make our money back. I haven’t seen any VR games yet that’d make me really want to buy a VR headset just for this or that game - that’s probably why you lost interest.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/10031656/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/urIbg
2018-07-05
thomasmahler 3604603
Thread: Indie Game Development |OT 2018| Come, help, learn, show and tell!
I sometimes get a little free time to work on personal projects. Ported this older project of mine to Switch a while ago and yesterday night kept going on it a little, mostly optimizing the code and getting it to run at 60fps on Switch: Would be fun to actually keep going on this at some point. I always wanted to see another Kart Racer that mimics things like Diddy Kong Racing again :)
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/3604603/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/PI4TJ
2018-07-05
thomasmahler 3605746
Thread: Indie Game Development |OT 2018| Come, help, learn, show and tell!
Ignore the Wishlists. Lots and lots of people put games on their wishlists that they never end up buying. That's just a thing people do.
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/3605746/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/go4jM
2018-07-05
thomasmahler 161813
Thread: Indie Game Development |OT 2018| Come, help, learn, show and tell!
I almost never get to post into indie threads anymore since most of the stuff I'm doing nowadays is secret. But I thought this would be cool to share: Nintendo sent us some Switch Devkits a few weeks back and to learn how to use em, I spent an evening porting my old 'Super Turbo Drifters' project to it. Was super fun, my hats off to Nintendo, the dev environment for the Switch is pretty damn simple to maneuver! Regarding the video: This shows one of the ripped tracks from Mario Kart 8 (wanted to test how my driving controller works in a 'real-world example'. This is completely unoptimized with lots of inefficient code running in the background without me adjusting anything for Switch and still it runs at around 30fps, which is neat :)
Link: https://www.resetera.com/posts/161813/
Archive.is (legacy): https://archive.is/DYQaQ