Castle Paradox

[Camdog]

Ok, I'm just going to come out and say it. The Eight Granasties is just not the game for me.

I thought the game's premise was good. A dimensional tear opens up and releases evil into the world... but not actually evil so much as really annoying. Nice way to poke fun at some tired cliches as well as setting up good potential for a comedy. Unfortunately, all that potential was squandered on a long, tiresome succession of dick and fart jokes.

I'll be honest, I didn't finish the game. After Sevan kicked my ass several times, I realized I just didn't want to spend the time level busting simply so I could get to yet more scenes of Daniel getting kicked in the balls. I think what's so tiresome about the humor in The Eight Granasties (and toilet humor in general, really) is that it's always basically the same joke. The Granasties all seemed to blend together. Sure, they were gross in slightly varied ways, and they had a few personality quirks tacked on, but in the end they were all "The Grossest, Nastiest, Meanest person ever" (tm). No real personality under the gross-out jokes.

Further, I got the impression that the game was essentially a big in-joke. Are these supposed to be charicatures of people we know? Because otherwise, I don't see the humor in some random person living in a booger swamp, stuffing pens up her nose.

The gameplay was a mixed bag. The battles were pretty straightforward and none of the characters had particularly interesting abilities, so they tended towards the boring side. I appreciate that OoiA added some additional gameplay elements on the map itself to spice the game up a little bit. The laser/fish doging in Sevan's lair was fun. However, the falling through the floor section in Castle Literally was pure torture. Given that there was no rhyme or reason to where the shaky floor was, and given that the graphics didn't change even after you fell through the floor, it became an exercise in trial and error and brute memorization. It MADE ME WANT TO DIE. Games should involve at least a bit of skill, and this section simply didn't.

I will say that I enjoyed the cutscene graphics. They had an off-the-cuff sketch quality that was charming.

I hate for this to simply be a critique, as the bookclub is supposed to be about discussion, not simple reviews, so I'll end with a couple of questions.

First off, to OoiA, what exactly were you trying to accomplish with this game? Was it meant to be nothing more than a low brow potty humor kind of thing? If so, I guess you succeeded, but I personally would never enjoy such a game, no matter how well it achieved its aims. If not, what more were you going for? Does the game go in a different direction towards the end that I missed?

Second, I have to admit, I've never been a fan of any of the OHR comedy games, not even Arfenhouse. I've always found them more annoying than funny. The nature of video games, in that the player is in control of the sequence of events, always screws up the timing of jokes. Further, I can't stand those games that are intentionally bad, because intentionally bad is still, well, bad (not that this applies to OoiA's game, but it does seem to be a trend in the OHR's comedy genre). Any thoughts on these types of games? Why are they so popular? Does anyone care to give a defense on the "genre"?

[Onlyoneinall]

I'm sorry to hear you didn't enjoy the game Camdog. It does give me perspective however to perhaps how other people invariably reacted to my game but wasn't saying anything about.

The Eight Granasties actually started out as a game which I wasn't planning on putting too much effort into, revolving around of course, the "eight granasties". All the characters are based on real people I know, and are extremely exaggerated representations of them, the characterisitics I've brought out of them are ones that they have displayed at one time or another.

I figured this could be a standard type of battling as far as RPG's were concerned, but I guess motivation isn't there in this case. I did try to have the enemies give sufficent experience so that leveling up for long periods of time aren't necessary and a few up is enough.

The game is actually a big inside joke, in the sense that if you are familiar or associated with the characters more than from this game that it is potentially more humorous. However, I was hoping it could also be funny alone, which was something I was hoping I could work out.

I note that Darryl's floor tile puzzle is meant to be torture, reflecting upon how torturous it can be to have to listen to his stupid lies and/or deal with his actions. The tiles are slightly distinguishable, I hope people noticed that and it helped a little. If anyone has gotten to Joseph (note that starting at Sevan, you are supposed to be able to visit the other ones, except the final), you'll find the puzzles are intentionally annoying, going with his personality and this is pointed out in the game as well.

There wasn't much I wanted to accomplish with this game, but I did want it to be entertaining and a complete game (at least, that much I achieved). Because of its fairly simple premise, I wasn't looking to create a masterpiece, but I wasn't looking to create a "low brow potty humor kind of thing", which seems to be the case, after I gave it a look through after reading Fenurion's review.

Speaking of towards the end, the game doesn't really take any different direction, but I thought maybe mentioning the Leech would be appropriate, as she is less potty mouth poo person and more intellectual and "refined". I'd like people to at least walk through the Leech's Mansion, because I spent much time working on it, and I'd like at least people to see the graphics for it (it'll probably be annoying to walk through though without sufficent level ups, so if anyone who hasn't is willing to give that much a shot, I'll give you the password to edit the battles or something). Other than that however, I can't say the game takes a new direction, but I thought the ending was interesting, if not a bit cliche.

I won't go off defending my game, because whatever a person has to say about it, as long as it is justified or reasonable, is something I can't really argue. I appriciate Camdog's input, and should I create another game of this type, be aware of what to keep in quality check. I don't know much about OHR comedy games, as the only one I did enjoy is OHR House, but I haven't liked any others myself.

As far as some discussion goes, the Leech's mansion is somewhat a bit of a break from all the other grossies, as a rich, spoiled and refined intellectual yet desperate for sex person tends to be a bit cleaner than dog girl who lives in the slum town. After that, I kept the final level short, as I figured at this point people wouldn't really want to go through an epic final quest dungeon, so it's beat it and finish it as far as that goes.

Oh, I would note most of the characters don't have much personality, but I find this prevailant anyway in today's society, so it's representing that idea of mine. Daniel is the only one with any distinguishable traits, as he is the idiot of the group, but the rest are what you would expect from a typical group of teenagers, wouldn't you think?

I can't say much, but I will definitely keep things in mind for the next game as I'm always looking to improve. Is there anyone who might have enjoyed this game at all?
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http://www.castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=750 Bloodlust Demo 1.00

[JSH357]

I've kinda avoided playing this game because of the reviews and Xerian's back catalogue, but since it's the bookclub topic I guess I'll give it a shot. (Wait, were we supposed to have already played the game?) Uh... my next reply will have content, but my impressions of the game without playing it are that it looks similar to RMZ's games.

[Moogle1]

[JSH357]

OK, I played for about an hour and decided I'd rather do something else. Here are some notes I took. I tried to organize them as well as I could, but they might be a little messy:

The sentence structure in this game is bad. Right from the first text box, I was confused and having to reread things to understand what was going on. I got to a point where I just started skipping dialogue because it was just bloated and silly. Having multiple characters talk in one text box is another thing I'm not a fan of. I know some older RPGs do this, but it was done because of technical limitations, not choice. I realize that this game wasn't trying to be that stylish, but style matter a LOT when a large portion of the game is spent reading. Furthermore, the introduction is very long and doesn't really tell you anything about your heroes. (As far as I could tell) As a result, I found them undeveloped and was confused when I started out playing as three of them.

All of the characters appeared to have similar movesets. I found this kind of bland. Why are all of them so varied in appearance but identical in battle? At first I thought you were going for kind of a Fire Emblem style, but it doesn't work when everyone does exactly the same things.

The battles themselves are really samey. I honestly couldn't find any difference between generic enemy #1 and generic enemy #2. It left me holding down the escape key after a while. Also, I did not like the battle themes that I heard, but they were at least varied.

One thing I did like was the dungeon-crawl feel of the game. I think more OHRers should make seemingly open-ended games like this instead of 'hero wakes up and leaves home to save the world' stuff. It has kind of an Enix feel to it, and that was a nice touch.



Random thoughts:

Needs outlining. Bad.

The humor is largely unfunny. You should have just made this a 'serious game,' honestly. It could have been more entertaining.

The South Park influence is really obvious and not handled well. Develop your own style.

I'm 90% sure this game's mechanics were inspired partly by Shadow of the Colossus. If not, you should play that game because it's a great example of how to pull off this kind of thing well.

Too many inside jokes. In-jokes are OK with me, but they need to be off on the side, not involving the main characters too heavily. Random enemies, for instance, are a better place to put this kind of enemy than boss fights.

I don't think including things about George Bush in the plot is a good idea, especially if you want people to play the game many years from now.

That's all I have. I may or may not play more, but honestly, nothing about this game really grabs me. Try reading some good books and working on your writing skills. I think you started off with a good idea, but weren't capable of pulling it off in the correct manner.

1.5/5 from me.

[Iblis]

Admission: I have not finished the game or gotten even anywhere close. Still, here are some of my thoughts.

The humor wasn't great. I was amused a couple times but for the most part it wasn't effective.

I actually rather like the concept of the Granasties. Instead of the villains being a bunch of powerful badasses, they're just dumb and annoying. Could've been executed better, but it's an interesting idea.

The battles were pretty bad. Every hero had basically the same attacks, there wasn't much interesting about them. I liked some of the enemy designs though. I think in the first place you fight glasses and walking zits? It's different.

The dungeons seemed to have a good amount of variety. The snot swamp is obviously really gross, but it's pretty unique too. The part in the castle where you fall through the floor made me wish you (OOIA) were dead.

The graphics weren't too good but not too bad either. Kind of amusingly cartoony at times.

Overall it's not a game I have a desire to play through, but it has a few positive qualities.
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Locked
OHR Piano

[Onlyoneinall]

Well, this is a good learning experience. It doesn't seem humorous type games work out well for me when I try to make them for a more general audience, but it's nice to finally get some feedback. This doesn't look like it'll be a productive bookclub since it wasn't a very liked game, but I hope more people give their input, good or bad.

On a side note to what JSH mentioned, I'm actually working on a serious game as of now, and I think it'll turn out a lot better than this one.
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http://www.castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=750 Bloodlust Demo 1.00

[Valigarmander]

Okay, here's what I thought.

The humor was mediocre at best. Though I found myself laughing at certain parts, the potty humor really didn't do it for me. And the inside jokes I didn't really get, cuz I'm not inside.

The graphics were okay. The world map could have been better, but the internal areas were fine. The cutscenes are arguably my faborite part of the game. The illustrations are good and fun to watch.

The battles were bad. Boring enemies, bland attacks... I quickly found myself holding down the space bar through most of the battles. The enemy design was a little interesting, with walking zits, humping bats, rocks...

The map design was okay. The first dungeon was interesting, the booger swamp was gross yet still interesting. The floor puzzle in Castle Literally was AHGFKSHGkasdglskhgklsg.1/6^ You should have had like, a map or something somewhere in the castle that showed you the way, at least. The other places I've been were okay.

Overall, I think this game could have been pretty good, yet it's problems had it held to the wall of mediocreness with the chains of bad humor. I'd give it a out of .

[Camdog]

Yeah, I did want to mention the non-linearness was cool, though you did throw up a lot of barriers that I think didn't need to be up there. I tried to move into some harder areas to do some quick leveling, though I usually got my ass kicked and the rewards just weren't great enough. It'd be nice to see some rewards for breaking the order a little bit.

[Moogle1]

Yeah, it was a combination of factors, I think.

- Ever play the original Arfenhouse? It's nothing but a big blank map with the final boss at the top and some random encounters in between. It wasn't fun, but it was funny because it was so dead on in its impression of bad games. It was kind of a phenomenon at the time and you'd really have to have been around at the time to fully appreciate it.
- By the time AH3 rolled around (and I don't even remember the second game), the AHspeak had lost its novelty. Geeks are bad with humor in general, so a few of the OHR community think AHspeak is still funny. Misteroo knew better, so AH3 is more of a true comedy. One of the funniest moments in any OHR games ever, IMO, is still Earth LOLing as it dodges the meteor in one of the endgames.
- There have been Arfenhouse creations since 3, but 3 is still the pinnacle. It is not a poorly-designed game. The term "joke game" didn't come into use here until OHR House was released and I'm still not sure why it's applied to well-designed comedies like TQ. Arfenhouse 1 is the definitive joke game. Arfenhouse 3 still has joke gameplay, but it is well-designed. Thanksgiving Quest has serious gameplay, joke characters and storyline.

If you are at all interested in the distinction, I highly recommend playing all three. Two are great games and the other will take you five minutes.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[JSH357]

Arfenhouse is unusual because it is crafted extremely well. A lot of people don't notice this and assume the whole game is just meant to be stupid, but there are a lot of little things in the game that will make the typical OHR user laugh just because they're so well done.

Things like NPCs that are supposed to be invisible being visible, none of the battles being set as unescapable, spells doing completely random amounts of damage... any OHR user is instantly reminded of the mistakes they made when they started making OHR games.

It isn't just that; the game is well-scripted and presented very effectively. The dialogue, despite being impossible to read at first glance, reveals a lot of character and--believe it or not--caused me to CARE about what happened to Housemaster. That's the beauty of well-presented fiction. It doesn't matter what the setting is or how ridiculous it's supposed to be: Arfenhouse is coherent and well-crafted, so any player can enjoy it, and if you don't have a stick up your butt, you'll probably think it's pretty damn funny.

The Eight Grantasies doesn't accomplish what Arfenhouse did. You're given characters that don't feel human in the least. Sure, one of them might make a funny joke every now and then, but at the end of the day I can't remember his name and I don't care to see if the mission ever gets accomplished. There is no motivation to finish the game because I don't care what happens to the characters. Now, I know I usually argue that games don't need stories to be effective, but in this case:
1. Xerian starts the game by giving us an extremely long introduction. This, in my mind, tells me that the story is supposed to be important. Unfortunately, it is shallow and driven by seemingly random circumstance.
2. None of the heroes appear to have anything to do with the intro. I'm given three at once and know nothing about them. Wasn't this game just telling me the story was important?
3. This game gives the illusion of being nonlinear. This means, theoretically, I should be able to break the sequence of the story. BUT since the game seems to be pushing me on a linear path, I'm a little confused. Didn't this game just take about 15 text boxes to tell me exactly what it was about? It's trying to be very precise and then disperse in several directions, and it just doesn't work.

Furthermore, why did Xerian even bother with the world map? Why not just warp me to each successive area if they're supposed to be tackled in a specific area? It's a little tedious.

Alright, and this is Re: Camdog's first post: Joke games are. not. popular. It's popular to make one or two, but they aren't popular to PLAY. So implying that joke games are 'so popular' is a little misguided.

I think that too many people in this community have gotten obsessed with becoming faux-intelligent and have forgotten all about the power of comedy. I remember back when Arfenhouse 3 came out, I played it all the way through three times, laughing my ass off almost constantly. Honestly, it saddens me to think that there are people out there who refuse to accept such a simple joy. Games don't have to be serious to be entertaining, just like movies don't have to be dramatic. Sure, comedy might not have too much lasting value in the long run, but you only live once, and there are 24 hours in a day. You can spend 3 of them playing a serious game and a half an hour watching a cartoon, so why can't you play a funny game for 30 minutes? It won't kill you, ok?

LEARN LAUGHTER.

(Note: The previous paragraph was not in defense of The Eight Grantasies, which I didn't think was funny in the first place)

[Gizmog1]

I don't have a really deep examination of the game yet, but there's one question that's been KILLING ME since the game came out: Why is the one chap riding a horse?

[Camdog]

[Iblis]

[Valigarmander]

Ditto.

And the movies made my eyes bleed.