melmer

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Posts posted by melmer


  1. I for one am sad that i'll never get to play the game about two black female explorers in the 1920's written by two white men. i'm being facetious, but would that not have been a problem? As a white man myself i have no idea how appropriate or not this is? Perhaps they consulted with a black woman once, and touched her hair a lot to make sure they got that black hair tech down. facetious²

     

    I preface everything i'm about to write with my complete ignorance about video game development, writing, race... you name it? i don't know it

     

    Reading Duncan's tweet about how he'd been researching about black woman's historical discoveries being written out of history. Credit being stole by white men. Would that have been a plot point, of just flavour text..

     

    What if the character in the screenshots for Valley of the gods is actually the player character and the 'old partner' is a white man. And upon discovering something of significance in the ruins you are BETRAYED, sealed in a tomb and have to use you video game puzzle solving wits to survive and escape. #Video games (Sorry if i've just ruined the story lol)

     

    But whatever the story is, being the 1920's you're going to have to touch on race, whether it being pivotal to the story or not.

     

    From the writer of the 'walking dead' the first game to make gamer's cry, comes 'Valley of the gods' the game that will let you experience racism first hand, changing the hearts and minds of the gamer generation and solving racism and gender inequality. facetious³ 

     

    With all the best intentions in the world, perhaps as development and writing and research went along the complexity and delicacy with which this subject mater needed to be handled, was like opening a can of worms, how do you do the subject mater justice. Not to mention being subjected to potential gamer backlash because you made a game saying white people are bad.  And yes, people shouldn't be dissuaded from telling these types of stories, but, to come full circle, is it not just as important for who the people telling the stories are? I haven't got a fucking clue. Shits difficult. Just the more i think about what this game might have been, i see the many many pitfalls along the way and maybe it was a bit of a blessing when the opportunity with Valve came along to be able to put this project to one side. I'm sure within In the Valley of the Gods there's something there worth telling, but perhaps they just hadn't figured out how to tell it just yet.


  2. There's a 'official' watchman podcast with Lindelof, i'm only 20 mins in but its pretty great so far

     

    Over three episodes, host Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) discusses Watchmen with its co-creator, writer and executive producer, Damon Lindelof. Join Mazin and Lindelof as they divulge narrative choices, explore the show’s connection with the groundbreaking graphic novel, and how it reflects our modern times.

     

    https://www.hbo.com/watchmen/watchmen-listen-to-official-podcast


  3. love a soft-reboot

     

    wait a minute... is Half Life: Alyx a soft reboot? Retreading familiar ground, revisiting familiar characters in similar predicaments, telling a story that whilst at once an untold prequel, also mirroring past and future events setting up whats to come like poetry, they rhyme. By jove! i think i'm on to something

     

    What if... i'm the Gman from the future? I have so much to learn, so many reboots, rebirths, re-imaginings, re-tellings, reliving, past and present becoming one, becoming whole, becoming

     

    i must start building my cocoon at once.


  4. But seriously video games

     

    no seriously video games

     

    my take away from that thread is that it suckkks working in video games

     

    fucking wild that there’s a new half life game, like, what if it’s “really good” like wins game of the year 2020 “really good” because all the critic that vote on this shit gets a chance to experience it whilst 0.01% of joe public can’t. And obviously as a game critic you take that into account... but what if it’s actually acccctually that good. Like I know less than 0.01% of “gamers” hasn’t played this shit dog, but yo dog, GOTY! What do?


  5. NIXED!

     

    when your animator got his first recognition doing half life first person hand animations. Gets job at Valve with a contract saying you can work on any project, whilst a new VR half life game is in development. What do?

     

    seriously though, I wonder how development was shaping up on Valley. Was there going to be an AI controlled partner running around with you  the whole time? Perhaps that was a bit janky, as AI companions often are, but in a grounded narrative focused game, potential immersion braking. And required an absolute ton of bespoke animations, that didn’t warrant the work/time /effort for a 4-5 hour game (I bet this was shaping up shorter than firewatch). Could be a case biting off more than you can chew


  6. wait, I take it all back. I forgot Valley is a walking simulator and you can’t move slowly through a picturesque environment in VR without barfing. Maybe therein lies the problem


  7. My thinking... obviously, I have no idea, but I can envision the developement moving in this direction

     

    campo goes to value to work on VR half life and puts Valley on the back burner. Get inspired by the possibility space of VR whilst developing and implementing narrative design into Half Life and want to bring what they’ve learnt over into Valley

     

    Watching the interview with the other Valve bods they’re all very excited and enthused about VR
     

    I just think, they’ll think, it’s a step backwards not to continue using gesture controls, press ‘X’ to do archeology isn’t gonna cut it. 
     

    I think they’ll do both, and they’ll have an enhanced for VR version where you can use gesture controls to operate the camera instead of winding the right thumb stick. Man, joypads are so two thousand and late


  8. A few weeks ago i was thinking about valley of the gods, i think because the game awards stuff started up and it was two years ago the trailer was shown off at the awards.

     

    Anyway having a quick google, i found the campo santo youtube trailer was now private and when i attempted to access the valley of the gods website, my kaspersky internet blocked the site :blink: so i thought the game must be dead

     

    But trying again today and the website works. So something has happened to Valley of the gods website in the last couple of weeks. Anyhoo, i guess the games not dead, but yeah i recon it'll be a VR game, but maybe also able to play with a controller?

    https://inthevalleyofgods.com/

     

     I just don't know what the game is:

    • In the Valley of Gods is a single-player first person video game set in Egypt in the 1920s. You play as an explorer and filmmaker who, along with your old partner, has traveled to the middle of the desert in the hopes of making a seemingly-impossible discovery and an incredible film.

    Like is there going to be scifi elements. Creating a film? Crystal skullllllllllls. Either aliens or time travel. or maybe like a Shanghai la type scenario . Maybe this is all to high concept, but what exactly are you finding and filming in the desert/ruins

     

    Back to half life 3, i got the impression from that video interview that they're going to be working on more Half Life next. Will that be a big all platform mouse/controller game... I don't know. Is there anymore room for new innovations in the first person shooter space? especially going back after making a 'full motion controlled VR game'.
     

    Press F to pay respects to a mouse & keyboard controlled Half Life 3


  9. Shocker

     

    Blatantly the whole of campo santo just went and worked on half life day 1 when they moved to value.

     

    i saw Tom Francis tweet that this has been in development in some form for 4.5 years, then apologised in a following tweet that the official statement is that they’ve only been working on it since 2016, 3 years from that Geoff Keighley interview . Either way this has been worked on for a long time, they reached the point when it was time to think about narrative, approached campo, bobs your mothers brother.

     

    weirdly the idea of another half game back then was so far fetched. But now. Obviously. It’s the only answer. 
     

    what that means for valley of the gods. Either nixed or changed into a VR game. Value need to support their hardware. People will be paying £1000 to play half life, they better follow up with another high quality VR game later in 2020. It was being made in unity right, I assume they would have to be making it in the source engine now, I don’t know if that means they’d have to start again from scratch.

     

    anyway, aside from all of that, the most interesting thing for me is that Valve are going to open up and talk about all/some of the cancelled games they had been working on the past 10 years. an in depth look at all the stages of half life stuff from the past 10 years would be fascinating 


  10. Great ta. I like coming here once a year and vomiting all over the forum :) 

     

    Seriously though, I’ve sussed how to reboot half life, I’ve given it a lot of thought these past couple of hours whilst driving to the doctors and back. It’s pretty much a completely rip off of the southern reach trilogy which I’m reading and the moment and has clearly mutated my mind. It’ll take me a few hours to describe my vision, I don’t know if I’ll have time. I’ve got to go walk the dog then watch the last episode of Lyndsey Lohans beach club (that Brent’s a complete C bomb)

     

    maybe next year 


  11. Half Life today would have to be a horror game right

     

    You will learrrnnnnn much guy would have the same vibe as bloodbournes amygdala. unknowing, uncomprehendable fucking Alien. 

     

    Reboot Half life, make the tear in reality like Area X from annihilation. Alien world merging with our own

     

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    you're welcome Valve. DM me for my payment info


  12. Ollys going to work full time at Valve...

     

     

     

    I don't know how well off Olly is (i did start checking companies house but felt creepy and stopped, i do like a good internet stalking), or what motivates what he works on. Is he in a position to pick and choose what he does? Maybe at 32 he wants some job security instead of chasing invoices. Maybe he doesn't care about money. Maybe he wants to work with his friends. OR MAYBEEEEEEE

     

    I guess Seans in pre-products for whatever comes after valley of the gods.

     

    Does Olly going to work at Valve even mean that Sean, Jake and Olly will all be working on the same project

     

    Maybe they're going to reboot team fortress to chase the overwatch/fortnite/esports crowd. Seans in to his dota esports, jake loves his team fortress. Team Fortress suits Olly's design aesthetic

     

    Can't see them wanting to make a game about shooting people in the face, so unless they completely reimagine the gameplay mechanics of Half Life. Science gadgets and shit... i guess that'll make it a puzzle game? Would you play a story driven puzzle first person narrative half life thing, that would upset a lot of fanboys. do you make it an offshoot loosely tied to the Half Life universe like portal.

     

    If you were the Moss man what would make you go work at Valve? Do you go work there for 3 years with the potential of whatever you're working on getting cancelled and never be able to show off your work. Do you do that at the age of 32, do you risk it, risk it all, for Gordon?

     

    does olly even like half life? googlinggggg... yes

     

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    G man origins game! make it happen lol