davidfox1983

So it’s been a while now since Vinny, Brad and Alex left. To the best of my knowledge, “having more creative freedom” and “we want to make something new” were some of the main reasons we found out about.

I haven’t watched much of their content but I still wanna know they’re doing well so just wondering if anyone could sum up how Nextlander is doing and how entertaining it is. This could get convoluted so maybe useful to give some key points of discussion:

- have they benefitted in the ways they wanted? Are they actually creating the content they were wanting to and things that weren’t possible to do at GB?

- is the patreon working? does it feel like it would be worth my money?

- I was concerned after watching the first few streams that this was too similar to GB and it was just the same guys and content at a different URL. Is NL different enough?

- How are they fitting into the twitch ecosystem. Is it working as a platform for them?

I wish them the best but it’s difficult financially for me to support both NL and GB. I kinda need to know that NL provides something different than what would’ve been possible for Vinny, Brad and Alex to have achieved here on Giant Bomb. It was a shame for them to leave so I’m basically hoping “it was worth it” and that they’ve been able to achieve the things which it was reported they needed to warrant their resignation.

So what do you think?

Having completely 7-99 in Spelunky 2 recently, I really loved that ending. Just simple, quiet, light music really accompanied the “I did it. I can finally relax” mindset I was going through.

Honestly, just a return to the studio :(

Shows like Steal my Sunshine, Demo Derby etc

I hope they do. The studio stuff was the big USP for giant bomb. Things suffered from being all-remote.

Can understand why they might not do this again but I really hope they do. The camaraderie at the desk/on the sofa was a big part of the community and feel of the site and its brand.

It's not quite the same thing but I've had my eye on "12 Minutes" for a while now. It seems to have been in development forever. I first saw it on a Quick Look Ex on Giant Bomb. All dialog was text only and here's how its "development art" looked at that point (this was in April 2015):

Jump forward to a few weeks ago and the game now has full voice acting and looks like this:

Source: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSTnOR6yDQw

I personally preferred the more simplistic look (even Jeff commented in the QL: EX that he enjoyed the aesthetic too). Additionally, the higher fidelity of the graphics have surfaced some ropey animations (check the Youtube video) and the voice acting has made some of the scenes where multiple characters are speaking at the same time feel a little clumsy as they talk over each other. This is an issue which inherently doesn't exist with text; we can be presented with multiple textboxes and still parse them. It can even add to the tension of a scene as we try to take in everything. A voice-based solution just sounds like noise. For an example, see around the 2:10 mark in this video ("Police.. don't move") and the lady's voice in the background.

I'm also interested in how the nature of 12 minute loops (you have a finite amount of time before everything resets) might work when I'm "managing" my time given that I can generally read text faster than I can listen to a spoken piece of audio.

I've gone on a bit of a tangent here but I feel it's somewhat related to the original question. The visual, animation and audio elements added to this game are turning me off it a little and potentially creating some problematic side effects that weren't there before. It's further annoying that adding all this stuff is probably one of the main reasons for the longer development lifecycle than I anticipated. It's been a long wait!

I guess I'll just have to wait and see...

With all the "they want more creative freedom than can be attained in a large corporation" and "they want to have total creative control" soundbites I keep hearing, I still can't help but notice that, now they have those opportunities, they're still just doing the exact same thing they were doing on GB. Maybe it'll pan out more in the future but things just feel a little lame to me at the moment. And I think it's pretty much because it's just the same thing on a different URL.

THE AFTERSHOCK

Such a shame... Why!? All three leaving at the same time makes me think it's management/owner-related reasons but who knows? Probably best not to speculate.

Regardless, these guys will be sorely missed. So many questions but good luck to everyone involved.

Incoming influx of galleries and fridge reviews