KickStarter Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness - Tales of the Moon Cult expansion on the way

[Infinitron]

From the Codex inbox:

Guys, you should seriously go into the Black Geyser thread and make it known that at least the codex staff understands that the whole thing is a (really funny) attempt at trolling. Makes yall look dumb.
It's probably something awful or some similar site behind it.

From: Guest

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

I guess they want us to be be told because we're all clearly taking this thread too seriously?

 

[GreenMagicSpell]

If this is a trolling, then it's a pretty expensive one for sure.

Making that trailer video could cost them alone $5000 if they hired an animation firm. If they indeed created a game engine, well, then it's probably hundred times more. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Jaesun]

I personally don't care if this is a troll or not. Just more RTwP garbage, I have no interest in it. If you REALLY want to troll the codex, you would have done your homework, and made a fake TURN-BASED game.

 

[Trodat]

More comedy for us peasants? I approve.

 

[Sitra Achara]

From the Codex inbox:

Guys, you should seriously go into the Black Geyser thread and make it known that at least the codex staff understands that the whole thing is a (really funny) attempt at trolling. Makes yall look dumb.
It's probably something awful or some similar site behind it.

From: Guest

What's the point? They couldn't possibly outdo Cleve.

 

[Lady_Error]

Cleve has shown that there is much demand for vapourware RPG's.

 

[Viata]

made a fake TURN-BASED game.

Don't give them ideas. It's not fun when a great turn-based game turns out to be fake.

 

[norolim]

Is the geyser still erupting?

 

[GreenMagicSpell]

You ask that from yourself?

 

[Hobo Elf]

Turd-based RPG games

 

[GreenMagicSpell]

Turd-based RPG games

Hobo Elf in bed, while the geyser is erupting:
- "Turn-based RPG games, turn-based RPG games, tuuurn-baaaased RPG games, aaahhhh"

...honesly you're really hopeless, guys. Turn-based RPG games are boring, I can cook my dinner during a battle. Return to Krondor was the only one I played, it had a major bug that broke the whole plot.

Switch to a decent genre. Now.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I find it flattering that you call the piles of newspapers that I sleep on a bed.

 

[GreenMagicSpell]

What does "Prosper" mean as a topic tag?

 

[ghostdog]

What you don't know can't kill you.

 

[Night Goat]

Spoiler

Good thing they blurred out the vagina, otherwise it'd be obscene.

 

[GreenMagicSpell]

Something opposite is happening here: there is a promising CRPG project, and due to its name, immature forum noobs try to make it look like a porn thing. Get back to your room, nasty kids!

 

[Mustawd]

What happened to the fan-made concept art drawn on lined paper?

 

[Ismaul]

due to its name

The best thing about this game is its name. Which is why we're only talking about that.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Night Goat you fucking bastard. I can't unsee that.

 

[Mustawd]

Blame VD. He posted it originally.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

That was Mustard Geyser. Yellow Puopon.

 

[Beastro]

For a fantasy writer, 'why?' is the most important and helpful question because it helps him/her avoid writing silly things like:


So a race whose most distinctive feature is "hunger for joy" (hipsters?). That alone sounds retarded but it gets worse. The filthy hipsters don't have jobs but somehow they party all the time in taverns because they have that hunger for joy thing and I guess money grows on tree in Yerengal. However, the society accepted them (how tolerant of them) because the hipsters had a special skill (all of them!). They knew how to make iphones, er, I mean, dur-dur potion which could cure deadly diseases and male baldness.

- hunger for joy is an awful fucking description
- NONE of them - not a single fucking winged hipster - had a job (is there anyone on this team of pros and experts who's older than 12? A wise 14 year old perhaps who has the maturity level of a 16 year old, perhaps?
- even though the fucking hipsters didn't have jobs, they partied all the time, snorting powder.
- but they had a special skill!

So not one of the winged imbeciles wanted to quit doing drugs all the fucking time and maybe open up an alchemy store, selling the dur-dur potions to people?

Here is my advice: when writing fantasies find some historical parallels. For example, the gipsies - they are travelers resisting attempts to settle down, kinda existing outside of the 'civilized' society. They're good at tinkering (a special skill!) and can find odd jobs here and there. Since they survive on their own, they have a wide set of living off the land skills (including taking advantage of the gullible). They aren't all alike (no race is) and many settled down, yet the majority is sticking with their tradition (probably due to their upbringing).

So back to your rillows, while you don't have to explain everything, you have to paint a proper picture. Reading that paragraph creates a lot of questions (and not of the "I want to play the game to find out!" variety).

First and foremost, are they the nation of drug addicts? Do they just brew these potions, sell a batch, then hit the taverns? Is the potion's recipe a secret carefully guarded by the fun-loving drug addicts and not a single addict ever sold it for a few fantasy bucks? Or only rillows can make it, stirring it with their dicks? Not a single fucking rillow has a job? Why? Allergic to non-fun?

It just doesn't sound even remotely plausible overall.

They need to sit down and read some history books just to get the general feel of describing groups of people.

Another thing I find helps with fleshing out races is to start simple, usually their collective desire and even one word to sum them up, and there expand upon it taking it to logical conclusions and then have those lead to other logical conclusions when interacting with other races.

This race described are utter hedonists. They live off of society and only engage in it one way in order to allow themselves to pursue their hedonist life style. Seems they're not very altruistic in the least, they're then very amoral, at least when it comes to others not of their race.

Now instead of having them make potions that cure disease to avoid having jobs, you know, a profession and industry, a job to avoid having a job, have it maybe be a substance they produce from their body, but it's a secret they've kept hidden behind a guise of this potion crap but people spot the discrepancy and it causes speculation (WTF has no one seen a female dwarf), but things are kept quiet because these amoral beings react mercilessly towards anyone who gets in the way of their hedonism.

This last part if you do it not only means you have to change nothing and add a little bit, you can also have an injoke and make fine of the original, stupid, premise that led to this idea in the first place.

That describes them, their outlook and everything, now history: Have them not just being wastrels faffing about, have them be wanderers that came upon a kingdom or continent in the grips of a plague that was literally going to kill everyone off unless they found a treatment for it and these winged things substance was just that thing - being amoral, lazy hedonists, they make a demand to create their society - they have a cure, but they want to rule over everyone for it, everyone has to bow to them or they all die.

So they do and they're the ruling class. In order to keep their order permanent they create a network of servants to enforce their order doling out favour in a business-like manner so those they rule keep themselves in their own place being greedy and narrow minded while they busy themselves being hedonistic. Take a look at the Beglian Congo under Leopold for a historical example.

So you set that premise up, you then already know how it's going to go for later instalments of your game: Their order falls in revolt, and maybe the secret of their "potion" is discovered, it may even be the cause of the revolt. Suddenly they're not simply overthrown, but their empire, full of enraged people, enslave them and turn them into livestock to milk their substance and do it in the most unpleasant fashion possible out of a sense of vengeance.

From this you can now make speculative fiction framed in your world and its history: Third instalment of the series takes place 200 years after the seconds revolution and people don't even know much less care about how these winged beings once ruled over them, they're just winged cows that cure their cancer and they treat them like shit and are utterly cruel because that's the way they've always been treated.

Question: Is this treatment right?

Was it ever right?

These beings are selfish, loathsome, psychopaths, but look at what the other races have done in return. They may just be acting out their nature, but are the other races? They're better than this, but they still keep doing it for reason they don't even know anymore.

Was the enslavement justifiable? The revolution was, but this slavery is no better than what they, and yet at the same time how else could you deal with such a self-centred race, especially one with such a gift as a universal panacea like they have? Even if they can't co-exist with society in a decent way and absolutely refuse to compromise and be equal because they just want to faf about, what else can you do? Is it right to exterminate all of them? Even not simply for their sake but of all the lives their substance might cure? What if another extinct-level disease arises? Is it even smart of kill them all off? If not, then is their enslavement the best compromise that can be made and people just have to treat them more humanely?

As someone said before, once you start digging fantasy, even write period, starts to write itself, but you need to get off on the right foot and not just make a shallow gloss of lore and shit because it WILL look amateurish.

 

[Beastro]

What's wrong with it? Their title is really exciting, and goes well with the game logo IMO.

Because it comes off as pretentious, smug and arrogant, that the series is already a success and there's a ton of sequels lined up.

It's not a vibe that makes me want to buy your game.

Now there may be, successes with that formula. Look at the damn Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (even that has the excuse of being semi-established with their ride), but this isn't a blockbuster, let alone a AAA game - you're struggling to even make the game and make some sales in the end. You've yet to recoup your profits and make enough to justify a sequel.

I don't know how to code. I don't know how to make game art. Do I like Black Geyser? Yes. Am I biased? Yes, probably. You're usually biased towards something that makes you excited.

Seriously, I worked with indie devs in my past, hard-working, talented ones. I know how to make distinction between good ideas and bad ideas. That's all.

As I'm not a native English speaker, I might choose the wrong words sometimes. For the title+logo combo, "immersive" might be a better choice than "exciting".

Hope this helps.

Because the name sounds funny and gives us no idea what the game is about.

A good example of a name, even if it's terribly clinched, is the MMO KS-, no wait - scam, Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen.

Instantly you know the premise - Pantheon: gods, Rise of the Fallen: gods who were overthrown and are coming back to take over again.

Done nice and neat even if the words are terribly overused.

 

[roshan]

GreenMagicSpell you might want to vote for your game in this thread: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/which-crpg-has-the-most-stupid-name.100613/page-5

Too bad about the announcement of ELEX, otherwise Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness would have been a top contender.