Is A Machine For Pigs best suited to a 'mature' audience?

[NicoNico]

Having a great story but bad gameplay is just as lame as having good graphics and lame gameplay.

I have to say i disagree on this one. Having good graphics doesn't make a game interesting. But a great story does. I don't mind having simple gameplay mechanics if I have a good plot that keeps me interested. Also, AMFP's gameplay is not bad. It's limited, I agree. Even very limited, if you will. But what it does, it does it right.

[sailornaruto39]

Having a great story but bad gameplay is just as lame as having good graphics and lame gameplay.

I have to say i disagree on this one. Having good graphics doesn't make a game interesting.

Why not?

I feel the general concession would be similar to yours (Good graphics bad gameplay=bad, Good story bad game play=ok, maybe even good)

I personally don't think a game is a good platform for storytelling only/mostly, games are meant to be played not read. I feel one does that they did not make it as a book writer so they go into gaming and have your writing do well there. Like a next best thing Kind of deal.

But hey, I just want to be more involved in a story let just walk around reading about it. I have a hard time even saying this game had gameplay, because there wasn't really much to play.


Not trying to be combative, it's just this game is so not what I wanted it to be.

[Nyarlathotep]

The game isn't anymore suited for a mature audience than the first.

I agree here. But only because the first game picked up a huge audience that it probably wasn't aiming for. All of the Let's Plays and such, which while I have nothing against, most of the viewers care nothing more for the game than shallow thrills they can get from it. The game had more to offer than that, but many simply didn't appreciate it. So when Pigs, focuses more on the deeper storytelling aspects and goes even more subtle in presentation than the first, it threw a huge portion of that fanbase off.

And for the gameplay, it's not bad. It's just an extension of the storytelling. Which is what applied to most of The Dark Descent outside of its resource mechanics.


I get the feeling that people who don't warm up to this game, are going to be just as disappointed with Frictional's future offerings. Pay attention to their dev blog. Storytelling design is their main focus.

[NicoNico]

Having a great story but bad gameplay is just as lame as having good graphics and lame gameplay.

I have to say i disagree on this one. Having good graphics doesn't make a game interesting.

Why not?



I feel the general concession would be similar to yours (Good graphics bad gameplay=bad, Good story bad game play=ok, maybe even good)



I personally don't think a game is a good platform for storytelling only/mostly, games are meant to be played not read. I feel one does that they did not make it as a book writer so they go into gaming and have your writing do well there. Like a next best thing Kind of deal.



But hey, I just want to be more involved in a story let just walk around reading about it. I have a hard time even saying this game had gameplay, because there wasn't really much to play.





Not trying to be combative, it's just this game is so not what I wanted it to be.

What I meant is that I don't think good graphics is something that keeps you playing for several hours through a game whereas a good story can.

Personnaly I think video games are a great media for storytelling, maybe even better than cinema, because you have an interaction with the player. But this is how I feel and it's different for everyone, so I understand your point^^

[Mechavomit]

AMFP is more suited for those, who give a damn about story. There are those who didn't even notice a story in TDD, so naturally, when they tried AMFP they immediately went " whut? is this even a game?". But that's not the problem, imo. The problem is the way the story is presented. Reading notes every 30 seconds (not even exaggerating) gets boring after a while, not to mention the language the notes are written in (you can be Victorian all you want, you can't speak like that 24/7). For me the game lacked not even gameplay, but visuals. It wasn't a book, because the already present things wouldn't allow me to imagine anything new and it wasn't a visual novel, because there were no visuals!
In the Dark Descent the torture rooms were the probably the most graphic thing I have ever experienced in games. And that's with no pictures, no cut-scenes and no character models. Just sounds and a bit of text (note: just a bit of text)

[sailornaruto39]

The game isn't anymore suited for a mature audience than the first.

I agree here. But only because the first game picked up a huge audience that it probably wasn't aiming for. All of the Let's Plays and such, which while I have nothing against, most of the viewers care nothing more for the game than shallow thrills they can get from it. The game had more to offer than that, but many simply didn't appreciate it. So when Pigs, focuses more on the deeper storytelling aspects and goes even more subtle in presentation than the first, it threw a huge portion of that fanbase off.

And for the gameplay, it's not bad. It's just an extension of the storytelling. Which is what applied to most of The Dark Descent outside of its resource mechanics.


I get the feeling that people who don't warm up to this game, are going to be just as disappointed with Frictional's future offerings. Pay attention to their dev blog. Storytelling design is their main focus.

That is actually a very well explanation of the turn of events. But is it that off to want to be scared while playing a horror game? I don't know what audience they wanted to attract,but ppl play scary games to be scared.

But I disagree with what you said about gameplay, there kinda wasn't even really any gameplay. It really only consisted of reading, waking an pressing buttons.

So long as FT doesn't sacrifice gameplay for story (they aren't mutally exclusive) what they have to offer can't be that bad XD


"because you have an interaction with the player."
Well there wasn't much interaction in this game. XD

[Nyarlathotep]

But I disagree with what you said about gameplay, there kinda wasn't even really any gameplay. It really only consisted of reading, waking an pressing buttons.

But that's all it needed. And sums up most of the first game as well, outside of the resources.


There are a lot of environment details that you get just by walking around and genuinely paying attention. It fleshes the story out in subtle ways, beyond the text.


And I still found the game to be scary as hell. Just not as intense as the first. Again, different kinds of horror.


This is a to each their own situation. I think it's more in the vein of what Frictional wanted than most people expect.

[sailornaruto39]

And sums up most of the first game as well, outside of the resources.

But it was more complex than that, not terribly more complex, but still had more to it.

And I still found the game to be scary as hell.

Really? What was scary about it?

[Fortigurn]

"Yeah, it had mutilated Frankensteined pigmen zombies working as slave labour in a giant secret underground machine by a man haunted by his own conscience for what he's done to his family and the people in his community as he pieces his memory back together after visiting sacrificial temples in Mexico...".

I bolded the parts that are cliche. Maybe that'll help shed some light on why I considered it uninteresting.

Note that the only unbolded parts are those related to setting/background/theme.

Recycling cliches, tropes, and common motifs is standard story telling procedure; in fact it's how some of the best stories are told. What matters is how the pieces are put together, and in this case I think they're put together very well. Although I have a list of issues I'd like changed in MFP, I would never fault TCR for poor story telling. The atmosphere and story telling are both excellent.

[nemesis567]

How I feel about Amnesia Tdd: [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0[/url]
When compared with A Machine For Pigs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOqblSqx_VI