Changes from SBCG4AP for Season Three?
SBCG4AP had a bunch of interesting features, some of which might be interesting for Sam & Max. Which do you think would be a good idea to add? As for my own views:
Cartoon shading
A lot of people have been asking for this, but I think it would be a step back. Purcells art is more advanced than that, and better captured by what we have.
Map
Very yes.
Icon-based dialog system
I'm not sure. I guess it worked out fine for Hit the Road and SBCG4AP, but sometimes the Sam & Max lines had me laughing before even clicking them.
Trophies
Too meta to be appropriate.
Collectibles
Frankly, they pick up enough souvenirs already. The Desoto thing was nice, but did get a bit out of hand.
Costume items
Out of character. Plus, where are they going to put them?
Mini-games
I dunno, we've had good ones but getting formulaic about it could be bad.
Awesomeness rating
Meh.
Preview
That could be nice.
Extended Mode
Ditto.
Only four save slots.
I'm going to assume this was because of Wii limitations. Otherwise: what were you thinking?!
Cartoon shading
A lot of people have been asking for this, but I think it would be a step back. Purcells art is more advanced than that, and better captured by what we have.
Map
Very yes.
Icon-based dialog system
I'm not sure. I guess it worked out fine for Hit the Road and SBCG4AP, but sometimes the Sam & Max lines had me laughing before even clicking them.
Trophies
Too meta to be appropriate.
Collectibles
Frankly, they pick up enough souvenirs already. The Desoto thing was nice, but did get a bit out of hand.
Costume items
Out of character. Plus, where are they going to put them?
Mini-games
I dunno, we've had good ones but getting formulaic about it could be bad.
Awesomeness rating
Meh.
Preview
That could be nice.
Extended Mode
Ditto.
Only four save slots.
I'm going to assume this was because of Wii limitations. Otherwise: what were you thinking?!
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Comments
Map is to un-Sam & Max, sides they have a car, and few locations to go to.
we're talking about the dog who wore a spaghetti strainer on his head for the final battle in episode one...
I'd like to see some costume items for Max, even if only used for puzzles (i.e. having to sneak into a hospital so he has to wear a Dr outfit) but he should have a varied speach pattern for each costume (and be able to wear them at any time, just not be very useful) if you want to get complex, have characters respond differently to him in costume. Just my take on it.
Maps would be nice for areas with multiple connected rooms, like the studios where it took me hours to find the Idol room because after the first puzzle you always came in through the other door. but overall they're rather useless in these tiny environments.
I dont really care for cell shading either.
I dont fully know what "extended play" means, unless it's like a video game where when you collect 100% of items or something it unlocks another boss battle and a new ending. In that case, meh, as somone said it woudl interfere with the plot form epp to epp, unless it just gave insight to other events, like maybe come background on a character or what happens to a certain char after the eppisode ends.
Trophies aould be cute but ultimately just eye-candy unless they unlocked extra animations or info or something (like trophies in the SSB games)
I dont like the icon-based system from HtR, and I've not played Strongbad so I dont knwo how it was used there, but unless it's radically different, I dont like it, too limiting in HtR...
Map: When S&M came out, I didn't think a map was necessary, but after playing SBCG4AP, Sam and Max now feels really slow. Even in HtR I try to find the map icon instead of walking all the way back to the DeSoto. So that's a yes.
Icon-based dialog system: Only if the rubber ducky icon is in it.
Trophies: Sure.
Collectibles: Yes, it adds a lot of replay value.
Costume items: Sure, Sam and Max and costumes go well together.
Mini-games: They were in it already, so yes.
Awesomeness rating: Again, replay value.
Preview: This might be hard to pull off, since all the clips have to be in the same location. In SBCG4AP you could get away with showing everything in the field because those green hills and plants are everywhere in Free Country, USA. But in Sam and Max it might be harder to pull off, unless it's like the 106 credits where all the locations are mashed together into one "set". Or pre-filmed as an FMV sequence.
Extended Play: Yes, but only if it's still possible to get all the collectibles and stuff in Extended Play. It's kinda annoying having to play the whole game again just to ask Marzipan the right question at the right time.
It's a feature in Strong Bad that allows you to continue playing after you finished the story of that chapter to collect the extras you missed or new ones. As it is it doesn't make much sense to put it in S&M, because there is nothing else to get other than story items you get while playing the game. They could add some extra lines or gags though...
I think trophies would be nice if they put them like Xbox 360 achievements, though in an adventure they'd be rather limited. They could work as an in-game "Did you try...?" in any case.
And I'm LOVING IT.
wouldn't require much at all, there's a cartoon (cell) shader built-in to Maya (presuming they're using a recent edition)... though that doesn't make it the best rout to take... Though it might be funny for a gag in a short sketch...
umm. they built their own game engine so they dont use maya.
Wrong.
They've said many times they use Maya. Maya is 3D modeling/rendering Software, they build their models in Maya, then import them into T3 (as per what's been said in the past, this *could* have changed but I highly doubt it)
EDIT:
here's the link explaining it:
http://www.adventuregamers.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-14355.html
Sam and max character`s shading should be just like what it is right now.
And as for preview, again no.
Because, I think I would like to be surprised about what their next case is about.
The only options I like are extended mode and mini-games.
It would be great if we see S&M and their antics a little bit more till next episode comes.
I guess they only used Maya for making cinematic trailer of season 2.
On a vaguely related note, I wonder if the "hyper-realistic" "dream office" in Dangeresque 3 foreshadows the kind of graphics we can expect in Wallace & Gromit. That's certainly something to look forward to.
a) The Street (Office, Sybil's, Bosco's, etc.)
b) Ad-hoc/Topical location (like the TV Station or the North Pole)
c) "Random" Streets (Used mainly for mini games)
IF and only IF locations become more complex a location layout (w/50-60% transparency, max 10% of the screen used) can be added somewhere in the screen (only the rooms you've discovered appear, if you walk into a new room the layout is updated). That way you can simply click over the room in the layout.
Something I really like is a simple "DeSoto" or "Car Keys" icon/inventory item that you can use to directly go to a location using a location dialog menu (similar to the one used when clicking over the DeSoto). I can't stress this enough: Avoid having to walk around three or more rooms just to get to the DeSoto so you can go to another location (Think the War Room in S1E04)
Shading:...no, It's not S&M style.
Trophies: already in, they're called "decals" and you have 4 kinds: regular, bronze, silver and gold.
Collectibles: Check the office in the future (S2E04)
Costumes: nah (besides having the slight possibility of having a "female" Max scares me)
Awesomeness rating: only if it is based on S&M's body count.
Icon Based dialogs: no.
Preview: what? Rather have the S&M theme song back.
Extended Play: What's the point?. Just add a way to access the mini-games from the main menu after finishing the episode (without loading a saved game!)
As for all this map business, I would only want to see something like that in the same vein as Hit the Road, but we rarely have enough locations to visit to warrant any map at all.
I dont think you really want those kind of graphics... as I said in anther thread, dynamic rendering takes a _LOT_ longer than rendering and converting to a movie.
I dont know about the TTG engine, but I know rendering in maya if I have a car and 2 characters (no scene) a single frame takes around 30 seconds to render. and I have a 2.66ghz dual-core 64-bit system (running 64-bit OS and maya in 64-bit mode) So unless T3 has a way to produce these effects a LOT less resource-intensive, TTG would be limiting their audience to a pawful of people with near-state-of-the-art systems.
Yeah, would be nice, but not possible just yet... but we can keep hoping I suppose... and like I said T3 may have a way to do this, I'm just not holding my breath
Personally, I really don't think that Season One or Two looked that great in comparision to what little we saw in-game of Freelance Police, which is why I bring up the possibility of these sorts of effects. I realise that Freelance Police's engine was cobbled together from practically every other engine LucasArts had running at the time (Gladius, RTX Red Rock, Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels and Star Wars: Obi-Wan), and Telltale obviously don't have access to those resources, but the bump mapping and lighting effects look better even four years on.
Compare:
Freelance Police, in-game (note Mac Salmon on the noticeboard)
Season One, in-game
The lighting across the street and from the lamp, the way Sam's suit is bump mapped (makes the current one seem somewhat bland in a direct comparison), the way objects (excluding Sam and Max) have proper shadows corresponding to their light source (the fan's shadow on the wall in particular), none of this is really very well represented in the Telltale Tool engine, and in my view it makes Freelance Police seem more atmospheric. This was four, maybe five, years ago, surely Telltale - who afterall contains people from the Freelance Police design team - can conjure up that sort of stuff again for Season 3. If its resource intensive to do so, well, that's what graphics scaling is for. They can be designed to look good and run well regardless of setting, just better on higher ones - Doom 3 is (surprisingly) a good example for that.
I guess TellTale should work a lot on 3d modeling this season.
But I guess this makes episodes size will become near 200MB or more.
maybe the reason they didn't made it like the canceled Freelance Police was keeping it`s size small...
And if you want to talk atmospheric lighting, at least you could look at some of the better stuff in Bright Side, Beelzebub or even Reality 2.0.
And the problems you see are jpeg compression problems. IGN got the image from another source where it was rather blurry, and compressed it to make it clearer.
like so, from 5:10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oIBu84FtDE&feature=channel
If I remember correctly, the PC version doesn't have a save limit.
And map= YES! VERY YES! And Map Club= mmmmhhhRRRREEEEEhhhh!
A map is a little impractical, I agree, I mean, now sam can run anyway and there are more locations kinda like a "hub", eg. Hell Office
anyway, i really liked the icon based dialogue system in sbcg4ap...but season one and two already had the line system and changing that now isn't necessary.
furthermore, the map idea is also nice. i liked it, how you collected locations in hit the road. if might be funny, if you could do that over the whole season...and in the end you have a full map. on the other hand, you can't revisit most of them older ones in the newer episodes, so you'd have to mark them as "solved" somehow.
the minigames and collectibles really added some extra play value or at least play time in sbcg4ap. so did the car upgrades in season two. so, some bonus stuff would definitely be good...
as for the graphics, i want more shading and different lighting. season two introduced some new light settings to old locations, but i want more.
like, for example, have the introduction part be placed at a night setting, but the rest of the episode could take place during the day.
also, different weather conditions would be awesome. i don't know how possible this would be though...
Did 204 have a map? I guess it had the list of time-cards. That's not really a map, it's a list... but then again the "map" in SBCG4AP isn't a map either, it's also just a list of shortcuts which is presented like a map for comedic purposes. The defense rests.