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Indivisible: Lab Zero's Action-RPG! (General Discussion)

You kinda missed EU03's post, dude. He even quoted you.

EU03 said:
If we did want to do references/easter eggs, then we wouldn't comment or say anything about it.
 
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Genoisawesome said:
You mean like the Moai head?

The Easter Island heads are a real thing that aren't owned by anyone. The Gradius team originally included them because they wanted something ancient and mysterious, to both connect the game's otherwise sterile sci-fi aesthetic to a more fantastical theme, as well as jokingly play on certain real life conspiracy theories (that the easter island heads were built or moved by aliens, much like the pyramids).

The more you know!
 
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Genoisawesome said:
You mean like the Moai head?
Squire Grooktook said:
The Easter Island heads are a real thing that aren't owned by anyone.
Easter Island heads, sure. Easter Island heads that shoot glowing rings and blow up into recognizable stone bases from another game are totally copyrightable, though.
SG was originally published by Komani, remember? If that was not the case, we would not have made that reference anywhere near that strongly.
The more you know. :^)

Tenrai-ha is cutting it kinda close as it is. :^P

Can we PLEASE stop talking about cameo junk? THERE IS NO GAME YET.
 
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Mike_Z said:
Just to fully clarify this:
To do a reference, being "something in this game reminds you of, but is not, something from another game", you don't need to own anything or get permission. SG color palettes, writing on walls, etc. You SHOULD get permission if the reference is heavily the same, but you don't have to. Parody falls under this category.
To do an Easter Egg where a character/item/whatever actually appears in some form or is specifically talked about or whatever? No matter how small, if it is the actual thing you damn sure need to either own the IP or get written legal permission, because if you don't you can be sued. This is the entire point of copyrights and trademarks.

Your assumption is what gets a lot of amateur people in trouble. :^P

I actually was thinking about that.

Most fun references are things that are harmless by themselves, but the cultural aspect makes people think of something and say: "Oh, i see what you did there".

I'm not the guys asking for references, i'm saying that doing some of them is possible, not depending on IP or needing approval.
 
I always thought the ring bullets looked a lot like the Rinka's in Metroid. Figured that kind of bullet sprite was common enough in various 2d games that you could make the argument that it's not copyrightable. Forgot about the base though lol.

For the record, possible or not, I'm not sure I'd want self referencing. You can get some fun out of that with a long running franchise's that have built up lots of nostalgia, but even then references should be used extremely sparingly IMO.
 
So uh... alternate colors/palettes for the characters can be a thing? even as an unlockable?
 
Wait, hidden and potentially controversial references? Is Ajna getting a Raging Demon?
:PUN:
 
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This thread is a lot of stuff about adding referential stuff or like wouldn't it be cool if X instead of talking about Indivisible.


I understand why that is, but man, references don't make a game cool, the game being cool makes the game cool; references are a bonus at best.

I'm going to bring this tweet back and talk about how dang sick the temple in the background is [ https://twitter.com/IndivisibleRPG/status/626884255491100672 ]
 
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Midiman said:
This thread is a lot of stuff about adding referential stuff or like wouldn't it be cool if X instead of talking about Indivisible.


I understand why that is, but man, references don't make a game cool, the game being cool makes the game cool; references are a bonus at best.

I'm going to bring this tweet back and talk about how dang sick the temple in the background is [ https://twitter.com/IndivisibleRPG/status/626884255491100672 ]
> The kitty on the background
> Reference to a reference of Skullgirls

Indivisible Inconception!
 
Eh could be worse. They could be asking about if DLC story and costumes will be a thing. That being said not sure this is already been covered but will alternate costumes be a thing? I'm going to guess no or "Depends on funding". The reason I ask is because kickstarters like Shantae had alternate costumes as a stretch goal and I was wondering if Indvisable is going to do the same.
 
Shantae half genie hero has hand drawn assists too.
 
Mike_Z said:
SG was originally published by Komani, remember?

I like that misspelling. Was that on purpose or...?

I feel hype building up inside as I imagine a new metroidvania. I'm working on beating Castlevania on GBA and they are pretty fun..., but I'm really looking forward to what new metroidvania style games have to offer.
 
Kyugetsuki said:
I like that misspelling. Was that on purpose or...?
Well, we didn't part on good terms, so you figure it out... :^)
No, it was completely accidental but it won't be from now on.

Wait until the campaign to see what will be a thing!
Myself I'm kinda allergic to DLC story though, if you didn't get the whole game then why ship what you made? I dunno.
 
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Mike_Z said:
Well, we didn't part on good terms, so you figure it out... :^)
No, it was completely accidental but it won't be from now on.

Wait until the campaign to see what will be a thing!
Myself I'm kinda allergic to DLC story though, if you didn't get the whole game then why ship what you made? I dunno.
So, no DLC Story?, Yes!, finally a complete full story mode in these age of videogame companies treating us like "You want this piece of shit complete?, you must buy the Chp.2 at 100$, then, if we feel like it, we will be releasing the Chp.3 at 150$, and that chapter is incomplete since you need to buy chp 3.5 and blablabla".

You made my day Mike Z, you seriously made my day, i can't thank you enough, if my economical situation gets better (And the politics aswell allows me), I will buy your game, i will seriously buy your game in a heartbeat, fucking thanks.

we-are-the-champions.jpg
 
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Denizen said:
Y'all are annoying as fuck
I'm gonna give you an infraction for that because you didn't actually contribute to the thread in any way; Being a dick doesn't count.

Yes, this post doesn't advance the story of the thread either.
 
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Demifiend said:
finally a complete full story mode
Is DLC story in story-driven games really that common? I'm still playing Valkyrie Profile, Legend of Legaia, Chrono Trigger, Star Ocean 2, and Super Metroid, so I am obviously out of touch.
 
DLC Story is common in the form of things like side stories maybe. FF13-2 is the only one off the top of my head that actually cut out bits of side stories that were unrelated but still fed into the whole narrative.
It's more common in AAA adventure games tbh.
 
Mike_Z said:
Is DLC story in story-driven games really that common? I'm still playing Valkyrie Profile, Legend of Legaia, Chrono Trigger, Star Ocean 2, and Super Metroid, so I am obviously out of touch.

Asuras Wrath true ending its just "playable" via DLC.
 
Mike_Z said:
Is DLC story in story-driven games really that common? I'm still playing Valkyrie Profile, Legend of Legaia, Chrono Trigger, Star Ocean 2, and Super Metroid, so I am obviously out of touch.

In order to get the final "True" ending to Darksouls 2 you need to buy the remastered edition version of the game with all the DLC content included (which was previously released individually).

That's the only example of main-story DLC that I can think of though.
 
Mike_Z said:
Is DLC story in story-driven games really that common? I'm still playing Valkyrie Profile, Legend of Legaia, Chrono Trigger, Star Ocean 2, and Super Metroid, so I am obviously out of touch.
Played some of the new games, and trust me, in this age of gaming, most developers feels like "Eh, we will just release this as a part one, then as a part two, and like that", which happened with Destiny, that is a short bland FPS that intends to be something awesome (Because it had a budget of 500 Million dollars, seriously) but at the end, it's pretty much the same as other shooters of the genre, and DLC things, god, DLC is just becoming something more common, and you know what's the worst thing?, AAA companies are releasing far fewer games than in the past, and when they decide to finally release something new, is just at the end of a console lifetime, and most of the time it's a "Meh" experience like many other games, not only that, there is no creativity anymore, the only AAA that are interesting to see are mostly from experienced developers like Yuji Naka and his game Rodea: The Sky Soldier, but other than that, this age is just becoming bland, and worse sadly.

I couldn't believe the amount of people (In Microsoft's E3) who were saying "Xbox One has retrobackwards compatibility and they announced some of the best games evuar like Fallout 4", Fallout 4 doesn't look as a bad game, but it's a PC/PS4/XONE game, that, while the exploration and all seems interesting to see, it's a game that is most probably going to be loaded with glitches before the release (Like many of the Bethesda games) and to put salt on the frickin wound, the AAA games are just about the minority of the games presented, the Indie games are dominating the market.

Seriously, there are more Indie Games than AAA games that looks interesting, with more imagination and a better experience overall, it seems that the only company trying to do something good as games is Nintendo, and they are facing many problems aswell, and the pepper on the wound too, 70% of the games that a company releases aren't new games, they are re-release or remakes to make some quick bucks, like "We announce FFX/X2 on the PS4", or "We announce the oldest game ever with an HD rerelease at full retail price!".

And Consoles aren't consoles anymore, they are just downgraded PC's that are able to be connected on a TV, they don't try to be anything exclusive from the PC's, or something different from then, nope, only things that can be run on a full modded PC gaming, this is sad, and with a lack of good announcements and just "We port this, we rerelease this" the industry is just lacking.

I dare to say that the Eight Generation is the worst generation of gaming in my opinion, few games with the fingers of a hand are interesting to obtain on a console, AAA games are starting to lose quality aswell to lose interesting on develop something new, and when you know that the console who has the most interesting games to play, and the most immersive things to do is the 3DS (Yes, i compared every console, and this one is the winner), you know something is fucked up with this generation, and with some of the bullshit prices they put on some digital stores (50$ for Etrian Odyssey Untold 2 on digital, seriously?), with all the reasons explained above, is the reason why i'm a retro gamer, not saying that retro gaming isn't with bullshit, but that is on a far, far less scale compared to the amount we receive today, and when you know that many of the gimmicks or mistakes companies have been doing before like Post Content or Re-releases on older generations, those companies were bashed, insulted, and they learn their lesson, but the main part, when a 90's videogame company released a game that wasn't complete, it was laughed at it like no tomorrow, nowadays, when a company releases an incomplete game, gamers are like "Meh, i will wait for the update 2939483 for more content, i don't mind paying for it".

So, if you excuse me, i'll play Castlevania Symphony of the Night and Chrono Trigger, while i'm crying for the fact that this generation doesn't have something as good or incredible as this (Aswell Engaging)

P.D: This is my point of view, you can argue against me in all the ways you want people, but even with your counter arguments, i will not change my point of view, i will retain my opinion no matter what, and these are the words of a gamer who was playing videogames since the 4 years old, with his first game being Sonic the Hedgehog and Crash Bandicoot, franchises that, one of them is just something to grab cash (Sonic) and the other one, probably a dead one for many more years (Crash Bandicoot)
 
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^^^I was about to say that Nintendo is still pretty cool, but then I noticed you mentioned them already lol.
 
There are a lot of problems with games today. I feel like some of it is us/me comparing old games to new and new games obviously not being able to live up to expectations of basically dead games.

And I feel like another part of it is oversaturation of the game market along with games IMHO being straight up to big nowadays.

I don't really have the time to spend on games that I used to. And with games being even bigger that means I get far less done with respect to a game than I used to, in the same amount of time. So it takes more to feel a sense of accomplishment to me, nowadays at least.


And then there are the games that just recycle everything. Every game is run around and do errands (open world games) or level up some skills that take forever to level up so you have to grind shit... And levelling up skills in a game where you are levelling for the first time means little since you don't what skills are super strong in this game... Etc etc.


I havent played a game that had me fully immersed besides fighting games, since halo 1/Warcraft 3


For whatever reason the fun just doesn't seem to be there anymore... I always seem to feel like I've been there done that, already and probably in a better way in a funner game.
 
I had a very long discussion on what I feel most modern games lack a few monthes ago. In a nutshell, I think that punishing the player for failure has gone out of vogue, resulting in games that have no sense of tension or excitement no matter how challenging they are (why fear death if you just respawn 1 minute away?). One of the reasons I mostly play shmups, fighters, dungeon crawlers that don't let you save mid dungeon, fire emblem, Souls Series, and Platinum Game's titles aiming for high rank clears.

That, and cliche as it sounds, most mainstream games these days strike me as a bunch of dull military shooters, qte driven movie games, and walking simulators.
 
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Wow someone really wrote a book about why dota sucks. I liked Dota. The original in wc3. Dota 2...well I stopped playing, but the direction that the game is heading towards I still like. Only other Moba game I played was LoL and I hate it even though my friend's continue to play that wretched game and I join them rarely. Anyways no more mobatalk for me.

I like "running errands". I read something today talking about Trove that described two types of games where one is an amusement park where your hand is held while you run errands and the other as a more sandbox style where tools are given to you while you could do whatever you want, the tools are there for the "picking". The errands are just there. I also remember playing Darksiders 2 and I was thoroughly disappointed at the character. He may have looked badass and did cool things, but he was doing errands for people over and over. Badass errand boy ughh.

I like punishment in a sense. Being forced to restart from last checkpoint, penalties in gold/status, punishments that "waste time".
 
Squire Grooktook said:
I had a very long discussion on what I feel most modern games lack a few monthes ago. In a nutshell, I think that punishing the player for failure has gone out of vogue

Save-Anywhere availability is a big reason for this transition. Lets face it needing to get to the next checkpoint to save your progress is a pain in the ass for anybody with a busy life and older gamers who have jobs and kids and what not are a rapidly growing proportion of the gamer population. Heavy death penalties really don't make any sense in a game where you can save anywhere unless it has perma-death or some unavoidable auto-save for tracking the player's failures like Darksouls.
 
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Jason said:
Lets face it needing to get to the next checkpoint to save your progress is a pain in the ass for anybody with a busy life and older gamers who have jobs and kids and what not are a rapidly growing proportion of the gamer population.

I've actually had the opposite experience since going to college. Games that guarantee a bit of excitement within a short amount of time (that is, the distance between one checkpoint and another) are so much more enticing then stuff that has no tension but wants me to grind for hours to get to the good stuff.
 
Squire Grooktook said:
I've actually had the opposite experience since going to college. Games that guarantee a bit of excitement within a short amount of time (that is, the distance between one checkpoint and another) are so much more enticing then stuff that has no tension but wants me to grind for hours to get to the good stuff.

Yes but getting sent back 5 minutes to the previous checkpoint with unlimited retries is basically zero penalty for death, which is the point I was trying to make. If you make a game that has a ton of little segments with autosave checkpoints then it makes absolutely no sense to include a limited supply of lives or other significant loss of time or progress due to character death.

You were saying you dislike games that have little to no penalty for death.

Edit - man why do all the interesting conversations on Skullheart start at like 5 AM?
 
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Jason said:
Yes but getting sent back 5 minutes to the previous checkpoint with unlimited retries is basically zero penalty for death, which is the point I was trying to make. If you make a game that has a ton of little segments with autosave checkpoints then it makes absolutely no sense to include a limited supply of lives or other significant loss of time or progress due to character death.

You were saying you dislike games that have little to no penalty for death.

Edit - man why do all the interesting conversations on Skullheart start at like 5 AM?

Well, that's more of a different issue of "lives" being a redundant resource when they affect little or nothing. But yeah, 5 minute progress saves are definitely a turn off for me, outside of games where you can actually lose something (ie Souls again).

For me, a few good examples of penalty:
-Souls series: potentially lose 10-20 minutes of progress, your main resource for building your character, and humanity which affects everything from player interaction to how you progress through the story and world.

-Fire Emblem: 20-45 minute missions with perma death. Nough said.

-Roguelikes: Perma death and randomized adventure. Nough said.

-Shmups: Score is blanked, meaning you have to restart from the beginning of the game to get a legit clear.

-Co Op games: Embarrassing to die in front of your friends lol.

-Competitive multiplayer games: lots of obvious reasons.
 
Without a harsh punishment for losing a stock of resources, why wouldn't the player mash their head against the wall until they get it.

Freedom Planet and Shovel Knight were extremely satisfying because both used some sort of resource to deter you from mashing your head against the wall and expecting any good to come out. Shovel Knight removes a portion of your actual reward, forcing you to be careful to get it back-- further losses remove the ability to get the previously lost rewards. Freedom Planet lets you retry a segment so long as you have as many lives to recoup the cost, but a game over forces you to replay the whole stage over.

I don't find other kind of implementations satisfying. Traditional checkpoints are the reason I keep playing something like Timesplitters 2 or Bayonetta 1 over and over. I can't really think of any modern game I've played that does away with lives that I was interested enough to remember.

EDIT: Let me make more sense. Lives are an interesting mechanic. Checkpoints with a resource to keep them in check (Lives) need something to keep them from being brute-forced. It's ok to lack lives if there's enough of a challenge that the player is required to think.
 
Yeah, Shovel Knight evolved the Mega Man formula more than almost any Mega Man game actually did IMO.
 
Mike_Z said:
Is DLC story in story-driven games really that common? I'm still playing Valkyrie Profile, Legend of Legaia, Chrono Trigger, Star Ocean 2, and Super Metroid, so I am obviously out of touch.

I'm not sure myself but ever since Electronic Arts did that DLC with Prothean companion (which is a HUGE plot point for the entirety of the game), people have been very distrustful of story DLC. :P

There was also the DLC "true ending" to Prince of Persia "2008". Though it was also a very crap ending so people decided to ignore it's existence.

Jason said:
In order to get the final "True" ending to Darksouls 2 you need to buy the remastered edition version of the game with all the DLC content included (which was previously released individually).

That's the only example of main-story DLC that I can think of though.

Umm, no you don't? The "true" ending has been added for free into the base version for free AFAIK (I was following the game pretty closely). I own the base version but didn't bother to replay the game yet.

Jason said:
Edit - man why do all the interesting conversations on Skullheart start at like 5 AM?

Cause that's when europeans wake up?
 
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However, an arguement could be made that having infinite lives also allows you no penalty on death, which allows the game to be far harsher. Take games like Wings of Vi or They Bleed Pixels. These platformers let you make your own checkpoints once you build up a score, which is an effort in and of itself at times. HOWEVER, when you die, you lose nothing, you just go back to the checkpoint you made. This can be a way back, yes, but a lot of times they give you the points to make a point literally right after singular segments, but those singular segments are far more challenging.

Additionally, some may wish to be enthralled in a different way, and find the needless backtracking on death counterproductive to their endeavors. It really depends on your goal and what kind of game you're making. No one enjoys or gets tensed by dieing to a boss only to have to watch a 10+ minutes cutscene they can't skip over and over again. That's more a case of bad design, but still, you should really have leniency between harping on a game for being lenient towards the player based on who the game was made for and the types of challenges it presents.
 
Lives really depend on how they're used. They can be a counter for a complete erasure of your save file, or just a different kind of hp.

Anyway, I don't have anything against games like Super Meat Boy, where there's no penalty and challenge is ratcheted up to an extreme level, I just personally hate it. I find it repetitive and unexciting. I prefer games where penalty is harsh but difficulty is more easy going.

Personal tastes :3
 
Well I personally find games like Super Meat Boy and Wings of Vi infuriating, but there's this thing about them that I keep coming back to.

Personally, the way They Bleed Pixel incorporates Lives, a Score Run, and its combo system togethor, it's actually one of my favorite games. Going for a no death run of a stage or just aiming to hit all the style traps and kill all the enemies, creating no checkpoints to keep your score going. It's the least difficult of the 3 to be fair, but it tries to be difficult, but also give players incentive to not die via a score system that takes timing and precision to pull off which you can trade for your checkpoints.
 
Squire Grooktook said:
Well, that's more of a different issue of "lives" being a redundant resource when they affect little or nothing. But yeah, 5 minute progress saves are definitely a turn off for me, outside of games where you can actually lose something (ie Souls again).

I've always felt and i've heard other people say that losing your souls in souls games isn't about penalty. It's more like extra incentive to get you back to the challenge. Souls is all about teaching you death doesn't matter. What matters is finally figuring out how to get passed a section. Time investment alone is certainly enough punishment for plenty of people. 5 minutes adds up.
 
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