Grippage

The Whispered World - 23 April

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http://www.the-whispered-world.com/

After what feels like years of inactivity, the English version of The Whispered World has gone gold. The UK release is 23 April!

Screenshots here: http://www.justadventure.com/Upcoming_Releases/WhisperedWorld/WhisperedWorld.shtm

I can't tell much about the gameplay from the trailer since it's 80% cutsenes. It looks like it could be a linear game with puzzles along the way, but I sure hope not.

Someone posted what I think is a "speed run" of the German version if you're interested.

No idea how they're distributing it. FAQ section please!

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That game looks gorgeous. Not sure about the main character though. He kind of looks out of place in contrast to his surroundings.

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I was pretty excited for this at first (at least, insofar as I can be excited about something based on looks alone), but then I saw a video a while back and the animation was so choppy. Really takes away from how amazing it looks in screenshots.

And the English voice acting sounds horrendous. D:

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twmac, I completely agree. I think part of it it might be the clean style of the character vs. the kinda gritty background. But I'm also not sure if it was a good idea to make his clothes the same colour as the background. He almost looks like a floating head because of it.

Twig, the animation looked bad from what I've seen too. But it's not gonna stop me from playing it, I think poor distribution will.

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I was really excited about this project back in the Bad Brain days when I first heard about The Whispered World.

The background art looks gorgeous, but I have a feeling about this in the same way like I had with Gilbert Goodmate years ago.

The background art looks high quality, but the voice acting and the character animation is really not up to the same level as the backgrounds...

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I've been looking forward to playing this game for a long time. I'm not crazy about some of the Disney house style look of some of the characters and animations, but then a lot of it also looks nothing like that. Either way, the style doesn't really suit all of the backgrounds, like most of you have already said.

I'm wondering for those of you who think the animation is choppy if you have seen any recent trailers? I'm not saying that the animation isn't choppy, because it definitely is, but I've noticed a lot of the same scenes keep popping up in the trailers with more inbetween frames added. But then again maybe you all just checked out the gameplay video or the new English trailer, where it still shows most of the animation has been left choppy?

Thanks for the heads up that there's an English voice trailer now, but goodness it sounds awful! I guess this is the usual treatment for low profile games getting English releases, but maybe if they still have the German voices in the game, I can hopefully play it with subtitles. If the voice acting is still bad in German, there's a good chance I won't notice.

Also, I think Deponia and A New Beginning look very promising as well. Maybe the people at Daedelic can only get better from here? From what I understand Whispered World was started in college by the artist and expanded upon for a retail release, I think...

I think it probably won't be as dreadful as Gilbert Goodmate, Kolzig, but I guess I'll find out...

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I actually don't mind the character vs. background art dissonance. I don't think it's nearly as bad as some of you are saying. O:

But, yeah, I watched the new (I think it's new) English-language trailer, and the animation just does not do the awesome art justice. In old pixelly games like DOTT (which still looks absolutely wonderful) the choppy animation suits the style of the art (or at least is far less noticeable because of the style). But in this game, where everything is so detailed - even if the characters are cartoony - it's just such a jarring thing...

I could probably get used to it over time, but the horrendous English voice acting is even worse. D: If I had to guess, they're not using native English speakers. Which is a huge mistake.

Whoa I just noticed that YouTube link is 1h22m long. Since when is that possible? D:

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I watched bits of the playthrough and 1) every part I jumped to was a cutscene 2) the german voiceovers were awful. Still charming though.

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I noticed this was a few bucks off on Steam the other day and I'm thinking about picking it up. I see what most of you are saying about the animation and voice acting, but so much of it looks so nice.

I wonder, for any of you who've picked it up since this thread, what do you think of it? The animation won't bother me that much, but horrible voice acting can be a real deal-breaker for me. Any impressions?

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I'm still hoping to buy it soon, and while I probably won't get around to playing it for a few months, I want to check and see if I can just have the game play the voices in German while I turn on English subtitles.

What I've heard of the voice acting so far is just atrocious, which is unfortunate.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/the-whispered-world-review

I get the feeling from having read the Eurogamer review that it sounds similar to how I imagine I might feel after having finished it. I doubt I'd be as finicky with weird puzzles as they seem to be, even if the now offensive key in the door lock on the otherside puzzle is in there.

If anything the Eurogamer review makes it sound as if it's worth a try and that Daedalic can only get better from here.

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I don't particularly trust Eurogamer's opinion when it comes to adventure games. They raise up some good points in that review (keeping in mind, I haven't actually touched the game), but I find myself disagreeing with a lot of things they say. They gave "Chariots of the Dogs" a 6 and just missed the point of that whole game. I get that it was a different reviewer, but "Chariots" may have been one of the best of its year, second only to Portal. A lot of times, they just don't get it.

I'm aware that sounds like a fanboy's rant, and maybe it is, sort of. But I'd be lying if I said that Eurogamer seemed to *get* adventure games.

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I had to go check that, since Adventure Gamers give stars and not numbers. Five stars for Chariots of the Dogs.

It is the Sam & Max episode we have been waiting for. After flirting with elements of perfection, the elusive goal is finally attained. This is the game to remind you why you love adventure games.

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So... nobody has gotten this with the Adventure Bundle over at Telltale?

While Jack Keane will make you regret buying the bundle, The Whispered World will make you happy you did!

You think the animation of this game is bad? You obvious haven't played Jack Keane and you've been spoiled by Telltale top-notch voice actors! :deranged:

Sadwick is the most depressed character I've know of... He makes Strong Sad look cheerful and I hate depressing people, yet.... I found him endearing... he keeps thinking he's useless and that the worst is yet to come, yet he still has a glimmer of hope that keeps him going...

What do they mean by choppy animation? That it could use a few more frames, or that it's buggy and skips a lot? Because the animation in the cutscenes is terrible... because of the "good ol'" copy protection software!

Has anybody else played this? I think it's my favorite non Telltale adventure since Ceville, but maybe Jack Keane was so dreadful that anything I would have played after it would seem like DOTC... :erm:

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From the videos I've seen, the animation could use a ton more frames, is I'm sure what people are talking about. It completely turned me off of the game for the time being. I just... if you're going to make a 2D game with that kind of detailed art, it doesn't work to have so few frames. With low res pixel art (such as Monkey Island or Day of the Tentacle or Space Quest, etc.), it doesn't stand out nearly as much when there are a few frames missing. Or maybe I've just been conditioned as such. I don't know, but it drove me crazy watching the preview videos.

EDIT: Haha, I just read my previous post and I said the exact same thing in this post. I thought this was a new thread for some reason.

UM I AM A BROKEN RECORD

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What do they mean by choppy animation? That it could use a few more frames, or that it's buggy and skips a lot? Because the animation in the cutscenes is terrible... because of the "good ol'" copy protection software!

Wait what? Copy protection spoiled the cutscene animation?

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Yep, it ruins the audio syncing and makes it garbled for ALL versions, and it seems it's only absent in the pirated version from what I've googled... :frusty:

Apparently the constant checking of the authenticity of the game messes with the audio sync or something like that?

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Hahahaha.

That kind of thing always amuses me. (And saddens me.)

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I bought and played through this a few months ago. The animation IS pretty darn choppy, but it's forgivable (at least for me) once you get into the swing of the game. Same for the voice acting. It was like listening to the sound of a power drill entering my own brain for the first 15 minutes or so, then it not only stopped irritating me, but actually grew on me to the point where I kinda liked it. The story is pretty engaging throughout, although I did think it ended a little flat, and abruptly.

Disclaimer: I am not much of an old-school adventure game fan, so I don't have a lot of the old, great LucasArts games to compare this to. That being said, I really enjoyed this game. Any complaints that I might have about it are really minor and are completely washed out by how unbelievably, mindblowingly beautiful it is, and how the game's different areas feel while you're going through them. I loved it for that alone, although it really was fun to play on top of that.

If you can get it in a bundle, it's super worth it, but even at the 20 bucks I paid for it, or whatever it was, I felt like I got my money's worth.

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Wait what? Copy protection spoiled the cutscene animation?

Also this. Really? I don't get it! How does that work? It just looked like .. Not enough frames, to repeat everyone else's statements.

(sorry for the double posts. I just reread the earlier ones and became confused.)

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Also this. Really? I don't get it! How does that work? It just looked like .. Not enough frames, to repeat everyone else's statements.

(sorry for the double posts. I just reread the earlier ones and became confused.)

Like I said, whatever program they use to make sure you don't have a pirated copy is constantly checking and that somehow makes the cutscenes, and only the cutscenes have audio syncing issues...

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That's got nothing to do with the jerky animation though, right? Only the audio is affected? hmm.. Well, I'm pretty checked out all the time, so I guess I didn't really notice it, or I just dismissed it as being a dubbing issue.

Things like this always boggle my mind. Don't they have testers to report this kind of thing? Maybe they're just as out to lunch as I am.

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Guh, that copy protection ruining the sync really makes me not want to buy it now, even though I still plan to own and play through this game at some point in the next year or so.

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Look at all this babbling I did in this thread. Anyway, I have owned Whsipered World for a few months and finally just started playing it this week. I haven't gotten too far as I started trying all objects on everything and really slowed down the pace (I'll get to why).

The voice acting for the main character is ridiculously annoying in a way I can't believe the localizers would think such a half assed lisp would fly, but I do see what Fuzzy Lobster pointed out where it starts to become less annoying the more you hear it. Really the worst part about his voice is when the actor is overdoing the sighing dialogue type stuff, it's too over the top for the amount of times Sadwick has to whine.

As far as how pathetic and unlikable the main character is, I can see where he is coming from as more of a troubled teen in a weirdly authentic way and not just someone who complains to be funny or witty. I'm seeing signs that his character will have to develop into a different more confident and optimistic person, but I can never tell with adventures games as far as character development. They are all the perfect vehicles to go ahead and do so, but rarely does any do so effectively or try at all. Seeing how this plays out has me very interested.

I'm not at all bothered by the low frame rate of some of the animations even though I admit they exist. Really I think it's just a compromise Daedelic had to take to get out a game in a timely manner with such a heavy amount of artwork. A character doing an action in a low amount of drawn frames is okay if it's not wavering too much and so far it has remained pretty constant. What is annoying is when animation for parts that need it are completely absent. One instance is a part where I encountered Sadwick trying to dislodge a bowl from a statue, while all that happens is I hear voices doing a lot of grunting while he's standing completely still. The animation loop for talking sucks as it seems to be the same five mouths repeated over and over while not moving fast enough to say any of what is being said. Had they just extended the loop to use the same mouths in random order it would have even been better than the results now.

Other peeves are loading times between screens are annoyingly long while many characters tend to talk too slow for my taste. I have played tons of adventures in the past but I find I grow very impatient when playing one these days, wanting many things to speed up or to be concise. I doubt I would have cared a decade ago.

But on to the really annoying gripe where it's going to seem like I shouldn't be griping. So the reason I'm running around using every object on everything is that in the manual it mentioned that trying strange item combinations can usually result in hearing a lot of extra stuff. They weren't kidding as a ton of items right now already equal unique responses that usually end up in a short remark or story about Sadwick's past. It just seems like a bad way to hide extra information about the character but being the weird OCD guy I am, I had to start seeing what kind of extra dialogue I could find to a large extent.

In reality this is optional and probably needs to happen all the time since a complaint people often have about adventures is that they all use the same "can't do that" stock phrases in rotation the whole game. So when an adventure actually goes for it, it can turn annoying for me.

But I'm hoping this game will end up as great in my head by the time I finish it. There's so much of the obvious to like about Whispered World, but my hope is that the story and design will make themselves distinct somewhat so that the game is just not another pretty face.

Also, does anyone know where I can get the original 2005 demo of this thing? I think there was one, but I pulled up the old Bad Brain site on archive.org and saw there were two different demo zips, one for german only and one for international players. I'm guessing they are mostly the same. If anyone at all has any idea how to track down the demo with the old artwork, please let me know.

Maybe you can help Rodi?

Edited by syntheticgerbil

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