Well, I did not expected this level of honesty about what target audience really want.
It almost like finding "and its also addictive, in most profitable kind of way" in Marlboro brand pitch deck.
Its kinda refrshing.
There are a couple of unfortunate character portraits of "babes", that don't match the actual character descriptions or behavior. It's the only juvenile aspect to the game, along with some of Morte's quips.
The actual game is neither juvenile nor a power fantasy. It is an anti-power-fantasy. It is about atonement for past misdeeds. Killing is often not the solution, and in fact there is a "pacifist" walkthrough.
Most of the characters you find are mentally and physically scarred by things done to them by [redacted].
See new Netflix shows for how idiotic and self-sabotaging it can get if you choose lying to fans (see Witcher).
IIRC it was the other way around, the pitch document went overboard with that because it was what the executives/publisher believed audiences would want :-)
Remember this wasn't the design document but the document to convince those with money to spend that money to make the game.
The lead designer (Chris Avellone), who I think was the primary author of this document, is often playful and energetic/hyperbolic with his language, yet is extremely focused and professional in his approach to the actual game design. (I.e., this exact type of disconnect between the energy/tone of this document and the energy/tone of the game is consistent with what I know of him. The self depreciation, noted in the comment below by ricardobayes, is also on brand for him.)
Source: I've worked with Chris very directly on three games and indirectly on several others. We've talked about this document in passing before (though I didn't know him until a few years later).
Edit: https://kotaku.com/fallout-new-vegas-avellone-sexual-miscond...
But I also got the overall vibe that the pitch document goes overboard in terms of emphasizing that aspect as well as other kinds of shallow badassery such as the violence of the game.
The pitch document also makes a big fuss about "ego masturbation" and the "player's power fantasy", and how the main character and his destiny are the centrepieces of everything. But that's not the vibe I got from the game at all. The main character is obviously at the centre of a lot of things, and I think the games does allow you to play selfishly. But I don't think the game really directs you towards that, let alone glorifying the character or the results of his past actions. Those parts of the pitch document read really weird to me.
The game does of course make a point of being morbid and gruesome, even macabre. But I think the game does that with a lot less bravado than the pitch document suggests.
But then, it is a pitch document, and not even marketing for the finished product.
Annah looks like a bimbo in her 3D model, but in game most NPCs find her repulsive or at least off-putting. She's not sexualized in-game, but her portrait is that of a "sexy babe".
Conversely, Fall-from-Grace is described in-game as a tempting succubus (though she doesn't behave like one) and is supposed to be extremely attractive, yet her 3D portrait is rendered in shadows, very skinny, with scary bat wings and no hint of "babe" characteristics. She is not "sexy".
I wonder if the people who drew the character portraits were going by the early pitch draft, because the disconnect with the actual characters is extreme.
That will tell you what you need to know about the state of the computer gaming industry and publishers at that point.
This was circa-"John Romero's about to make you his bitch" [0] as acceptable copy for a full-page ad.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daikatana#Promotion_and_rele...
PS:T is a well written and introspective RPG and in this capacity it is rivaled by only a handful of contenders.
The only other game I can think of with that level of narrative craft is the Marathon series, which isn't an RPG, but rather an FPS.
I'm kind of surprised Marathon 4 hasn't been kickstarted yet. There is definitely a whole lot of money on the table there, as the System Shock remake proves.
> Babes: Think babes. Then think more babes.
Slightly different times :)
Like, "Why, hello there, infant." dogwhistle
There's actually sort of a real reason for this. In the traditional monogamous or even polygamous relationship throughout human history it's usually the Male taking care of the female. Women when seeking a relationship are sort of searching for a caretaker that has sort of father like qualities of having enough resources to take care of them, taking a dominant role... etc.
The relationship most similar to it is father and daughter I can sort of see why the linguistics have sort of merged.
Obviously, in the last century, things have changed and the etiquette of relationship dynamics need to be spoken of in a way that's more egalitarian.
But you can't completely deny millions of years of human anthropological behavior. If men usually played more dominant/caretaker roles in relationships in the majority of civilizations, then along that timescale certain behaviors become a bit ingrained biologically through natural selection. It's not surprising to see these attributes creep into language.
The difference now is it's less culturally accepted to talk like this even in casual situations even when just among men.
Plenty women objectify men by wealth and status and they refer to men this way even publicly. The cultural change is mostly one sided, skewed more towards not offending women.
For example, referring to men as Hunks or Chads is just not offensive at all. In fact it's a compliment. I feel it's almost entitlement if a girl gets offended by being called a babe.
However, it entirely overlooks the fact that for many women, this behavior is non-stop, and comes with the very important difference that men are inherently much stronger than women, which means that they constantly feel a lot more threatened and unsafe than men do in the same situations.
> You mean that slack-jawed beyond the grave look?
I'm however not very fond of having to sit down on my desk to play games with keyboard and mouse, though... I already spend enough of my life sitting in the exact same position for work. That alone discourages me from playing several old games I own (and not so old, like the newer X-Com) and even the newer Monkey Island game (which of course is sitting in the same list for some years now too)
PS:T was a cut above the other cRPGs of its time mainly because it had adequate writing and an engaging story when most other cRPGs were trite. Still everything after Raven’s maze is just average until the ending where it gets good again and the gameplay outside of dialogue is frankly uninteresting. It’s in a lot of way like the original Dark Soul whose last half is so aweful I’m not sure the awesome first one is enough to redeem the game.
PS:T has now been bested by plenty of modern cRPGs. I’m not sure it’s worth revisiting considering how long it is.
The newest monkey Island is steam Deck verified and also works with gamepad on your tv computer etc :)
I think new x-com games are steam deck playable. And original xcom game is eminently playable on any old laptop :)
I've been playing through the Sam & Max episodic games this way: trackpad for pointer, and buttons for clicks. It doesn't need fast-paced interactions so it's very forgiving there. When more speed is needed, I've heard others combine the trackpad with some minor gyro mouse input such that the touchpad does the coarse pointer manipulation and then gyro does the fine detail. Apparently you can get quite fast with this approach.
And ofcourse like others have pointed out the Steam Deck is amazing also older games.
The new Monkey Island is also available for atleast the Switch btw.
Wonder what would have happened if Android was a Microsoft platform :-)
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/87197/pst-ee-on-androi...
Basically, the game doesn't work any more on my Android 13 device, because devs need to go back to it and recompile the sources for 64-bit ARM.
Naturally with a change like that with no compatibility layer available, there will be tons of apps and games left behind as abandonware, because their devs have better things to do (if they are even still around, at all!) than going back and recompiling all their source code. We'll see if BeamDog ever gets to it for PS:T!
This one seems to run great, touch screen probably helps a lot. Only complaints seem to be small text on screen:
https://www.protondb.com/app/466300
I also wasn't able to adapt to first person shooters, after a life of playing with mouse, it is almost impossible for me to not feel that gamepad controls are clunky.
Is it with a touchscreen or knobs on the side?
I think I would still miss a mouse for precision and speed with that ..
Because yeah I can’t sit at a computer to play games.
Does this make me want to go back into the office full time? Not sure. The quick commute from my bed to my desk might be worth the sacrifice, but part of me definitely longs for the work of the before times.
Give it a try, its control scheme is designed very well.
It plays very nicely for that format.
In 1997, Planescape Torment came out, and we loved it. However, it was a bit shocking to find they had an NPC named Annah, that was a red-headed tiefling with a devil's tail. We still think Annah was heavily drawn from Lilah!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/466300/Planescape_Torment...
BTW: 4K resolution support.
[0] https://www.gog.com/en/game/planescape_torment_enhanced_edit...
If gamers rewarded well-written games, and avoided poorly written ones, pitches would focus a lot more on writing.
Characters scream for a bigger screen, with colorful personalities and back stories, plus they got a design made to scale to awesomeness.
And with the world building, you got a solid base plus endless possibilities.
I enjoyed the game very much, but let's face it, it's too old for most new gamers to appreciate.
Then I came to know that this was actually a major point of discussion, with various theories swirling around it.
It goes a long way towards explaining how it so significantly differentiated itself from the more sterile (but battle focused— which was fun too) Icewinf Dale games or the Baldur’s Gate games that had a bit more guardrails build into them.
All of those stand out as exceptional classics, but Planescape was unique among them.
Really loved the NPC companions. They were so deep and some of them you could make more powerful just by having a conversation with them. It’s a rare D&D property where wisdom is a more important stat than strength.
I'm still hoping for finished translation of Disco Elysium to my native language to have similar experience. My EN is not good enough to completely enjoy chatty RPG.
https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/9ed70fc608cd35117a0079556...
