Smash and grab with a trombone: Questions for CrowbarSka

[Xavier]

So basically Xav and Varrok want the game dumbed down because something that petty is too much to handle? Great!

What are you saying here? That they should add stuff just because they can?

[Manco]

I have a differing opinion to Xav and Varrok, but I want to hear CrowbarSka’s thoughts on the matter before starting an inevitable fight on the subject. Maybe we can all agree to that, hmm?

[Xavier]

Nah, just go ahead and share your opinion. After all he said he'd like to hear our thoughts on this matter.

[Manco]

Okay, so.

I'm not too fond of the variation in the GameSpeak

Having the fixed "Hello" and "Follow me" never felt repetitive to me. It was simple and efficient, it was a tool. In stressful situation you did not have to wonder if whatever Abe said was what you wanted him to say or if you pressed a wrong button. I like to have total control on my characters, if I want him to say "Hello", Abe has to say "Hello" and not some random greeting.

Also the way the game is designed it's better to have lines of the exact same length otherwise you'll risk up ending in frustrating situations where the random line Abe spews is one of the long ones and you are loosing valuable time in a time critical puzzle.

An other point is that this simple GameSpeak is one of the elements that people remember the most about the games. How many times did I not have to describe Oddworld as the game where the aliens go "Hello, Hello, Follow Me, Ok" and have people replying "oooh now I remember that game". By adding variation in the GameSpeak you will loose the "unique" and "memorable" aspect of it.

I think that modern incarnations of GameSpeak need to have variation. This goes for New ‘n’ Tasty and any future Oddworld games that use the mechanic.

The reason I think this is because that’s exactly how real human speech works. People aren’t robots that always use the exact same terms when interacting; we change our tone, our wording, our pace, everything. It’s dependent on the situation, our mood, etc.

Abe’s Oddysee used a single phrase for each command because of (I’m guessing) the limitations of the tech at the time. Multiple audio files would fill up extra space on the disc, and putting in code to randomize the audio would have been difficult to pull off in-engine with everything else going on.

This had the side-effect of creating a very recognizable, nostalgic game mechanic, you’re right about that. But I take issue with the idea that expanding on this now would alienate people looking out for nostalgia – I think keeping the original lines and also having new, diverse dialogue would add depth and realism to the game without people throwing up their hands and saying “they changed the audio, this is terrible!”. The original game will always be memorable for its Gamespeak, but I think most people playing NnT would understand why there was new dialogue.

Your concerns about how the audio clips’ length could interfere with gameplay aspects is an interesting point, and one I hadn’t thought of. However, I think there are some easy ways to mitigate this. The first would be to limit the maximum length of these audio clips and then ensure that the puzzles can still be solved with that length in mind. The second would be to be aware of when certain puzzles rely on short Gamespeak times and specifically code these events to only use shorter Gamespeak clips. I think the first of these would work on its own, but the two together would be a great solution.

[Scrabaniac]

I wouldnt mind variations in speech, but when im running three mudokons above a paramite pen, i dont particularly want to have to wait around for abe to finish saying 'could you just hang here for a while?' And then wait for a response like 'yeah, i guess so'. By the time they have finished abe would be torn to shreds by paramites!

[Xavier]

I think that modern incarnations of GameSpeak need to have variation. This goes for New ‘n’ Tasty and any future Oddworld games that use the mechanic.

The reason I think this is because that’s exactly how real human speech works. People aren’t robots that always use the exact same terms when interacting; we change our tone, our wording, our pace, everything. It’s dependent on the situation, our mood, etc.

We do not walk with fixed steps as in a grid in real life, still I prefer the fixed length steps and jumps of AO to the total freedom of, for instance, a Mario game. The point I'm trying to make here is that GameSpeak is a GamePlay mechanic and should work accordingly, not try to be as close real speech for the sake of it.

If they go the variation way it would be nice to have some kind of "nostalgic" option somewhere where we can (de)activate it and play only with the original GameSpeak.

[Connell]

If they go the variation way it would be nice to have some kind of "nostalgic" option somewhere where we can (de)activate it and play only with the original GameSpeak.

^This.

[Manco]

We do not walk with fixed steps as in a grid in real life, still I prefer the fixed length steps and jumps of AO to the total freedom of, for instance, a Mario game. The point I'm trying to make here is that GameSpeak is a GamePlay mechanic and should work accordingly, not try to be as close real speech for the sake of it.

If they go the variation way it would be nice to have some kind of "nostalgic" option somewhere where we can (de)activate it and play only with the original GameSpeak.

If you want to boil it down to just game mechanics then you could strip out an awful lot. That doesn’t necessarily make it a better experience though.

Oddworld has always been about creating living, breathing worlds. The creature design mantra was “it needs to look like it came from a mother”. Keeping things simple for the sake of game mechanics doesn’t mesh well with that mantra, especially when you also consider that New ‘n’ Tasty is all about breathing even more life into a classic game.

Regarding a “nostalgia” mode, it’s something I wouldn’t mind seeing. It seems to keep cropping up in these kinds of discussion.

[DarkHoodness]

I agree with Manco - Having a more varied gamespeak would help with increasing immersion, despite the old, simple "Hello, follow me" of the old games both working well and being iconic. Simple gamespeak fitted well with the more "static" style of the old games, but may not fit so well with the newer, more dynamic style of N'n'T where the camera scrolls and the background moves and has stuff going on in it (if that makes sense).

Also, a "nostalgia mode" is a good idea and perhaps a good compromise, but I wonder how much effort it'd take to implement just to give the devs more freedom to increase N'n'T's features without upsetting old fans too much.

[Varrok]

Well, making an option to disable any non-standard greetings isn't really that hard. And everyone's happy. I like it.

[Bullet Magnet]

I think AiN's concern was that while it's easy enough to get to grips with repetitive GameSpeak in a foreign language, varied ones will be more difficult to understand. Which suggests translations should be in order at some point, or even subtitles. I don't think we've ever seen subtitled GameSpeak.

[Xavier]

Nah, subtitled GameSpeak just doesn't sound like a good idea.

[DarkHoodness]

If it's optional and helps non-English speakers and the hard of hearing understand what the characters are saying, what's the problem? Closed captioning works in many games...

[Bullet Magnet]

Or a simple English mode if translations aren't available. Might also be called classic.

[abe is now!]

I think AiN's concern was that while it's easy enough to get to grips with repetitive GameSpeak in a foreign language, varied ones will be more difficult to understand. Which suggests translations should be in order at some point, or even subtitles. I don't think we've ever seen subtitled GameSpeak.

In fact I can't even understand some Abe's, Munch's and mudokons' words in Munch's Oddysee. I hope multilingual versions of New 'n' Tasty will be released.

[Michael]

I agree with a lot of the points made on both sides, I like the simplicity and nostalgia of the old gamespeak, but do like variations too. That said, I still think any variations should be contextual. The native Mudokons in the Monsaic Lines, and those in Scrabania/Paramonia asking for passwords clearly do not know who Abe is, so a reply of 'Hey there Abe!' (as seen in the E3 trailer) seems off to me.

If we're going for realism/immersion, it'd be great to hear emotional variations too in different scenarios, like Abe talking quieter or whispering when Sligs are around (or in stockyard escape, for fear of being discovered), or responding with trepidation when native Muds have their slingshots pointed straight at him.

Contextual variations would also address concerns of the length of the phrase interfering with gameplay, as Abe would naturally speak in a hurry in tense/timed situations.

[CrowbarSka]

Hi everyone, my apologies for the super-late response. Been pretty busy lately as I'm sure you can imagine! I have been reading your comments though, and it has influenced the discussion while we've been designing GameSpeak.

In a nutshell, it looks like we're going with a kind of hybrid system involving the old 'classic' lines and some new variations. We decided that the old exchange of "Hello"-"Hello"-"Follow me"-"OK" was so iconic and memorable that it would be silly to get rid of it. You see it quoted all over YouTube videos and comment threads. It's what people remember about the game.

The simplicity of this system is also important in helping players to understand the mechanics of GameSpeak. This has some crossover into foreign language issues too, as some of you have already mentioned.

The new system we're working on will use that same exchange with the same words, but with audible variation so it's not exactly the same every single time.

Once you've spoken to a Mudokon one or two times you might start to get other variations thrown into the mix, like "Hi" or "Hey there" instead of "Hello". We're taking great care to keep the rhythm and quick pacing of the original so variants won't drag out the dialogue.

On top of that, we're trying to keep them simple and hopefully still familiar to non-English speaking players.

I think this gives a nice balance of nostalgia and freshness.

I suppose I have a question, although it's probably to secret to be answered if the answer is a yes: since New 'N' Tasty is sort of a partial remake and given the fact that you now have a little leeway to change bit from the original, is there scope to expand upon the wider universe of Oddworld?

We're trying to sneak tidbits of backstory into the dialogue and scenery here and there, where we can. Overall, I'd say it's still primarily focused on the themes and content of the original, but the wider universe is definitely informing the choices we make. And anywhere we can make the original fit more in line with later revelations, we're trying to do that too.

GameSpeak is a GamePlay mechanic and should work accordingly, not try to be as close real speech for the sake of it.

I totally agree. For me personally, gameplay is king. But gameplay also has to work in harmony with narrative and aesthetic, so we're trying to find a nice balance. I think the new system retains the mechanical clarity of the original but also expands the aesthetic richness.

Nah, subtitled GameSpeak just doesn't sound like a good idea.

I'm interested to hear why you think that. Do you just mean you'd prefer full audio localisation?

I still think any variations should be contextual. The native Mudokons in the Monsaic Lines, and those in Scrabania/Paramonia asking for passwords clearly do not know who Abe is, so a reply of 'Hey there Abe!' (as seen in the E3 trailer) seems off to me.

We've already revised that dialogue.


ALSO! We're looking for fans to volunteer their voices for the Mudokons! See here for details: http://www.oddworld.com/2013/07/who-...-be-a-mudokon/

[Michael]

Thanks for the reply, sounds great so far! Very excited to try out for the Mudokon voices too

[Xavier]

CrowbarSka, your reply gives me the impression the game is in good hands.

I'm interested to hear why you think that. Do you just mean you'd prefer full audio localisation?

I have noting against subtitles, in fact I prefer enjoying my entertainment media in original version with subtitles instead of audio localisation. On the other hand I'm not fond of GameSpeak subtitles because, as we already agreed, it is a gameplay mechanism and I'm afraid it will be in the way and distracting during tense moments.

But you are welcome to prove me wrong.

[CrowbarSka]

CrowbarSka, your reply gives me the impression the game is in good hands.

Thanks!

I have noting against subtitles, in fact I prefer enjoying my entertainment media in original version with subtitles instead of audio localisation. On the other hand I'm not fond of GameSpeak subtitles because, as we already agreed, it is a gameplay mechanism and I'm afraid it will be in the way and distracting during tense moments.

But you are welcome to prove me wrong.

I see what you mean. I'd like to think players would subconsciously tune out subtitles for familiar, repeated phrases, but that may not be the case. So perhaps separate subtitle options for standard dialogue and GameSpeak might be a nice way to do it. I'll see what we can do!