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Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse Kickstarter

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A brand new 2D Broken Sword is being kickstarted!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/165500047/broken-sword-the-serpents-curse-adventure

If there ever was a time to drop the Kickstarter cynicism or skepticism and get back into the kickstarting saddle, if even just for one last time, this is it. Fucking kickstart the hell out of this shit. I beg you.

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An adventure game on Kickstarter? Fuck me, this is one for the history books!

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In all seriousness though, glad to see this. Been anticipating such an announcement for ages now and it's about time this 3D nonsense was dropped in favour of what remain two true adventure game classics — and nothing to do with Sierra or LucasArts, no less!

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Wha...? Why not Beneath A Steel Sky 2??? Oh well. As long as I don't have to play BS 3 and 4 to enjoy this one.

Edit: Ugh. Why does George Stobbart suddenly look all "heroic"? *sob*

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The backgrounds like fantastic, and the return of some of the original team is great, as well as the original Nico. Characters look a bit weird, but not to a level where I'd be annoyed, and that's totally the art critic from the gallery in Two.

Disappointed it's going KS, but I love the series too much not to back. I'll probably do the $100 pledge.

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(Damn, I was about to post this same thing, but Toblix beat me to it, good thing I made a final check before submitting it!)

Jokingly, I keep saying that every adventure company ever is going to try to make a Kickstarter, I guess I was right.

I was going to say I didn't even remember there was a fourth Broken Sword game, but after googling it I found out I actually own it and I beat it, it's just that forgettable. The footage I've seen so far makes it look like a Pendulo game with better character models. I don't really know, I guess they just what the hardcore fans to pitch in, but just how well did the remastered versions sell for they to think this risky way might work?

Anyway, I think unless Infocom, Legend or Magnetic Scrolls come back from the dead, this might be the last classic adventure Kickstarter we'll see.

I didn't like the new stuff in the Director's Cut of BS I and I'm not sure I even played the remastered version of BS II, like I said before the last game was so forgettable I actually forgot about it, so I don't know whether to be excited or not. If only they had released something before this to see their progress.

Pendulo's Yesterday gave me some hope for their new game, but Revolution's remastered versions don't really tell us if they've gotten any better since "Broken Sword: The Forgotten Forth One".

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Ugh.. why the horrible cel-shaded 3D characters? What is this, Runaway 4?

(I haven't listened to the whole video, are these placeholder things to be drawn over?)

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The day Kickstarter finally supports goddamn Paypal is the day I'll be happy with another fantastic, must-support, adventure project.

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I was quite disappointed by the cel-shaded characters as well. My guess is they're doing it to cut art costs, and won't be redrawing them in glorious 2D.

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The style looks really good in the video to me, if it weren't so smooth I could easily have mistaken it for actual 2D art. Considering that the original games had such a minimalist approach to character art there's almost no difference at all in stills; Broken Sword is one of few 2D games that cel shading is absolutely suited for IMO.

The last two Broken Swords were pretty piss poor, but who knows what kind of pressures (financial or otherwise) could have resulted in that. I'm willing to give them another go, seeing as they're making a real effort to bring back old team members and clearly make it a truly faithful sequel. The Director's Cut was clearly just a way of testing the market done by a skeleton team so I wouldn't read too much into that.

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I don't understand that at all. The first games had really lovely hand-drawn animation. This just looks weird, forced and like puppets in a Parisian set built on the Moon. It's one of the reasons I could play more than a few minutes of the horrid "Director's Cut" version of BS1. All that charm and atmosphere that the first game had was just drained out.

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Maybe 2D characters will be part of their stretch goals? (I doubt it.) I share everyone's feelings: the art looks a little off. I could get used to it, but they had me going there for a while by saying things like 'unashamedly 2D'.

But I'm still way more bothered by the lack of PayPal options.

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That's exactly my concern, since their last two games were "piss poor", I can't really trust the new game will be any better. I really wish they did something to prove they still got what it takes before asking for our money.

I supported Jane Jensen's because I liked her last game, I supported Tim Schafer for the same reason and didn't support any of the others because they really have done anything lately, or at least anything good.

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I really wish they did something to prove they still got what it takes before asking for our money.

How?

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It bothers me that they try to pass this off as 2D. It looks nothing like the first games. Even in stills.

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What? It's clearly 2D. Are you thinking of the 3D-looking characters?

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How?

What I mean is that I wish that had made an actual new game instead of this remastered versions to prove they've improved. Now a Broken Sword game, just anything to prove that Broken Sword 3 & 4 won't happen again.

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Yes, the 3D characters. Sure, they're not real-time 3D models, but they're obviously just 3D renders..

EDIT: Alright, semantics. It's a 2D game, with prerendered, awful looking IMO 3d characters, that technically are flat, I guess, which still doesn't exactly make the characters look 2D. Cel-shading does not make things 2D! Ugh..

I'm sorry I'm being an ass about this. I'm just disappointed.

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I think the main hook for me is that they've brought back original team members and have no publisher control. I have no idea what or who worked on the previous two games but there was something very wrong there, although admitted BS3 wasn't awful — just lacking that extra magic.

For what it's worth I'd definitely prefer 2D animation, but obviously that shit ain't cheap and this budget isn't exactly grandiose so it's important to keep expectations in check. I'd love them to do a Double Fine and have enough excess to do that, of course. I think they've done a pretty good job though, and while the 3D needs some work (which it inevitably will, this is all pre-production shit after all) it looks a lot better than comparable efforts I've seen.

For me, the current 3D art looks pretty nice until the close-ups start happening... although when you see some of the close-ups from the original games' FMV sequences they weren't exactly incredible either. The animation definitely needs work too and gives away the fact it's 3D, but then that's no surprise as you can always tweak 3D animations whereas 2D animation has to be perfect from the start.

There's plenty of time to work on that though, particularly with the inevitable avalanche of feedback they'll be getting after this video and the fact they seem to be doing a DF-esque approach to forums and community participation.

I'm optimistic! :)

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What I mean is that I wish that had made an actual new game instead of this remastered versions to prove they've improved. Now a Broken Sword game, just anything to prove that Broken Sword 3 & 4 won't happen again.

Well, making a new game probably cost many times the cost of doing a remaster for iOS. If they could make another full game instead, they probably would. And then they wouldn't need the Kickstarter.

I don't mind the art style, it's the animation that kills it. If they fix that, I'll be happy with the cell shading. Anyways... backed!

Sweet!

Yes, the 3D characters. Sure, they're not real-time 3D models, but they're obviously just 3D renders..

Yeah, I agree they're pretty bad. I'm just assuming they're there because having hand-drawn animations would explode the budget, and I'm willing to live with them if I have to in order to get another game. Anyway, I'm sure they've been asked about them a thousand times already, so they'll probably talk about it at some point.

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God I hate that cel-shade shadow. It never looks good. Even removing that would probably be an improvement for me.

Also, this could be my memory fading, but in my mind Nico was reasonably capable and independent, but that line before they break the fourth wall makes her seem incredibly stupid and begging George to confirm what she just saw with her own eyes. How could George know more than her at that point? The question didn't seem rhetorical. But maybe she was always that way and I've forgotten.

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Don't you think it looks good at distance though, brkl? It creates quite a nice Disney-esque effect of giving characters form without lines. It's only when it zooms in and it starts becoming a soft shadow and shit that it looks bad IMO. I honestly didn't even realise it was 3D in the stills I saw until I watched the video, but maybe I'm just shit.

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You mean when they still show the entire scene? Sorry, but I really don't like the look of it in stills and in motion it's worse.

EDIT: For instance, George shaking his head after the guy is shot. Just terrible.

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