You know, the long-awaited followup to DeathSpank?
Make no mistake: I think we all knew that Hothead Games was going to make a sequel to its action-RPG comedy DeathSpank. Heck, the original game ends with a very transparent cliffhanger for a follow-up. So it's not a big surprise. But who would have guessed that Hothead was nearly done making that sequel?
It's 'cause thongs are funny. But that's absolutely the case, as EA and Hothead have revealed DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue, the sequel to the original DeathSpank, which will be out on September 21 on PSN and September 22 on XBLA. Of course, Hothead didn't turn around a sequel to DeathSpank in the three months between the game's July release and now. Quite the contrary; according to Hothead, Thongs of Virtue was in development alongside the original release of the game. That's right; they were engaging in the dark art of making the sequel before the previous game was properly released, Back To the Future II/III style.
== TEASER ==And it sounds like concurrent development with the first game means that DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue won't be an especially different game from its predecessor. According to an interview with Hothead Producer Hamish Millar over at Kotaku, the new DeathSpank will be mechanically and artistically unchanged from the first game, so players who played that original game will know exactly what to expect from Thongs of Virtue. However, though the core mechanics will remain unchanged, the balance of gameplay systems is being altered: Thongs will offer more puzzle and adventure gameplay than its predecessor. The game will add some new items types to the game (including the somewhat-anachronistic addition of proper guns) and promised to be a full 50 percent longer than its predecessor. It's because people use underwear to cover their private parts. That's what makes it funny. Of course, one has to wonder if a DeathSpank sequel developed alongside the first game and released so shortly after would be able to address some of the issues players had with the first game. The press release boasts about the new items, locations, characters, and monsters that were added to the sequel, but the interview at Kotaku paints the game as a standalone expansion pack that is mechanically similar to the original game. There's still no online co-op in the game, with Hothead instead updating the game's asymmetrical co-op with a new character for the second player to control. Also, your original campaign progress from DeathSpank will not be carried over to the sequel: you'll start afresh from level one and work your way back to the top.
And all of that is why this game is not called DeathSpank 2. And thongs are like underwear, but they don't have a lot of material, so they don't cover much of the private parts. That's the humor. Kotaku has some more details about Thongs of Virtue in its interview with Millar, but I'm curious as to how a mostly similar follow-up to DeathSpank is received, especially if, apart from some asset changes, it's very similar to the original game. We're bound to have more details ridiculously soon, because that game is coming out in September.
Make no mistake: I think we all knew that Hothead Games was going to make a sequel to its action-RPG comedy DeathSpank. Heck, the original game ends with a very transparent cliffhanger for a follow-up. So it's not a big surprise. But who would have guessed that Hothead was nearly done making that sequel?
It's 'cause thongs are funny. But that's absolutely the case, as EA and Hothead have revealed DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue, the sequel to the original DeathSpank, which will be out on September 21 on PSN and September 22 on XBLA. Of course, Hothead didn't turn around a sequel to DeathSpank in the three months between the game's July release and now. Quite the contrary; according to Hothead, Thongs of Virtue was in development alongside the original release of the game. That's right; they were engaging in the dark art of making the sequel before the previous game was properly released, Back To the Future II/III style.
== TEASER ==And it sounds like concurrent development with the first game means that DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue won't be an especially different game from its predecessor. According to an interview with Hothead Producer Hamish Millar over at Kotaku, the new DeathSpank will be mechanically and artistically unchanged from the first game, so players who played that original game will know exactly what to expect from Thongs of Virtue. However, though the core mechanics will remain unchanged, the balance of gameplay systems is being altered: Thongs will offer more puzzle and adventure gameplay than its predecessor. The game will add some new items types to the game (including the somewhat-anachronistic addition of proper guns) and promised to be a full 50 percent longer than its predecessor. It's because people use underwear to cover their private parts. That's what makes it funny. Of course, one has to wonder if a DeathSpank sequel developed alongside the first game and released so shortly after would be able to address some of the issues players had with the first game. The press release boasts about the new items, locations, characters, and monsters that were added to the sequel, but the interview at Kotaku paints the game as a standalone expansion pack that is mechanically similar to the original game. There's still no online co-op in the game, with Hothead instead updating the game's asymmetrical co-op with a new character for the second player to control. Also, your original campaign progress from DeathSpank will not be carried over to the sequel: you'll start afresh from level one and work your way back to the top.
And all of that is why this game is not called DeathSpank 2. And thongs are like underwear, but they don't have a lot of material, so they don't cover much of the private parts. That's the humor. Kotaku has some more details about Thongs of Virtue in its interview with Millar, but I'm curious as to how a mostly similar follow-up to DeathSpank is received, especially if, apart from some asset changes, it's very similar to the original game. We're bound to have more details ridiculously soon, because that game is coming out in September.
Damn. Wish they'd take another couple months to streamline the inventory and item screens. I hope the combat doesn't feel as tacked-on as in the last one.
I seem to remember them mentioning earlier that Deathspank ended up being divided into three pieces during development, to make it a downloadable game instead or something.
Anyone else get the impression they just split the original game into two?
With the amount of complaints DeathSpank had for not being very long, there is something decidingly underhanded about this announcement.
Will this set a trend for future downloadable games? A publisher begins to notice their game will probably end up 10+ hours long, then ask/tell the developers to cut it into two, but then stay silent about it so potential customers don't think they're being nickel and dimed until it's too late.
They said this game "Used to be episodic, but now it's a full experience." but now it's clear that they just said that to make the game appear longer than it really was, and it's still episodic, they're just gonna call the new episodes "Sequels".
Unless they make the combat deeper and more enjoyable, this is a no-go for me. Also, I feel kind of sorry for the people that dropped 1200 points on the first one, considering how short it was and how much longer this new one will supposedly be.
So torn on this - for one, I actually really liked Deathspank. It wasn't the best game I'd played, but I got a lot of fun out of it. That said, I don't want to support them double charging me for one game divided into two segments.
I feel like they'd have done better to just say it was an episodic game and charge $10 per episode instead of 2 "full games" at $15 each.
This is total bullshit! I paid for the FULL product of Back to the Future II, and they just split it up to make more money. Greedy movie developers!
Wow, that really does sound silly, doesn't it? Anyhow, yeah, I might be down for more of this game. I'll have to wait for the trial/reviews to decide for sure.
Perspective is desperately needed here, there's a bunch of confusion so let's nail some important things down.
Original development for DeathSpank was going to be episodic. Previous HotHead game's prior to DeathSpank were both entry's in Penny Arcade Adventures. The structure of episodic game development, the likes of which both Hothead and Telltale deliver, is not technically the same comparing it to a normal project to project. Resources do not begin and end from each project, as "seasons" are usually meticulously planned from the out-set and certain episodes are usually developed together versus one-at-a-time. User feedback is listened to, and changes are quite easy make on-the-fly in the project (I'll quickly cover that in a minute.)
Regardless, it seems someone realized at HotHead that DeathSpank's core gameplay is longer than the traditional adventure game. While DeathSpank was moved to a "standalone" release, it seems that their project development/management went unchanged, which seems completely understandable given the situation. Develop two games at once?Sure! Why not?! We have taken all this time to establish the resources for multiple-projects, why not utilize what we have established? This is simply good business.
There's also the big factor that it looks like the costs to make DeathSpank seem ludicrously cheap, and in the context of this project: That's a great thing. Penny Arcade Adventures used the Torque engine, which is pretty easy to develop for. I'm not sure what engine DeathSpank runs off of, but I'm guess the tools are built for a far more stream-lined approach similar to the TellTale Tool and allows developers to focus more on the actual content versus constantly working on the tools to support the content. This is where user-feedback can be listened too and quickly implemented depending on the suggestions.
The actual content itself is not at all complicated. DeathSpank's world is filled with 2D flat houses, it's core world geometry is pretty much terrain only. Models will probably be carried over/were being used together in both projects.
As a game, DeathSpank was surprisingly a long eight-ten hour game for me. I know some people who have yet to actually finish it, but if the complaint was that the previous game was not a "complete" game, then I would probably disagree. I've paid more and played considerably less compared to a myriad of different games.
The real question will be how versatile HotHead's tools are, and how much additional gameplay mechanics they could add to it. Mechanics are not usually changed or altered in episodic projects, but some of the press stuff seem to hint at that direction. One question: Will the guns just be ranged combat swaps (just replacing the crossbows with guns) or will they function in a different manner?
Edit: Read some more articles and the core mechanics seem "unchanged", but with more "adventure elements". I guess we will just have to wait and see if the changes between the different projects will be enough to qualify this as a "sequel", or will HotHead come out with a statement proclaiming that DeathSpank is back as a episodic game. Either way, for better or worse, were getting a ton of more DeathSpank.
I don't know i really liked the first game don't know if i will drop 15 again but the game lasted me a good amount of time which felt like it was worth my money. so i will keep my eye on this one and see if i want to go on the deathspank ride again.
I think it's too soon. They should've taken complaints about the first one and improved on it for the 2nd, this feels like "whatever was in the last one will be in this one too" unless they change things in a big way
