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Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011


funcroc

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I was talking about Final Fantasy: Tactics.

 

You guys done with Final Fantasy Tactics 2 yet? I want to play it already. (You better not tell me you are not making that game.) if it doesn't get revealed soon, I will get very angry (cry like a little girl).

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If you're interested in knowing more about Battleheart (assuming you don't immediately dismiss it due to the art style or because it's an iOS game or because you don't like real-time tactical games), this is a pretty comprehensive review. It's not a deep game, but it is well-executed and I think it's certainly worth the $2.99 asking price.

 

http://toucharcade.com/2011/02/07/battleheart-review/

 

More importantly, I think it demonstrates that it would not be particularly difficult to make an IE-style tactical RPG for iOS.

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If we are to conflate illustration style with game quality (why?), 2D illustration and comically-drawn characters should be indicative of an excellent game.

 

Er...I was thinking of something else but never mind. I don't mind stylized comedy-touch. In fact, I even recommended Tactics Ogre to Chapman since some of the staff are common to FFT, which is his favorite. I even wondered why Iron Tower needed 3D engine for that kind of game.
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IWD on an iPad would be awesome.

I have an iPad and while I can see IWD working okay on it, I don't see how it would be more "awesome" than playing it on the PC.

I don't see why someone specifically looking for a somewhat more complex RPG with tactical combat would prefer to play it on a mobile device.

I think a properly marketed mid-budget game like Drakensang could do well as a PC downloadable title without going into "Look at this cute iPad game with lovable fuzzy characters, it's only 3$ so you can buy it even if you have no idea what kind of game it is!"-territory.

 

I realize of course, that the latter is an easier sell to most publishers, but some like, Paradox Interactive, seem to be doing fine selling full-priced games to niche audiences. Considering they're posting annual profits while EA makes losses in the order of hundreds of millions, you'd wonder which strategy makes more sense.

 

It sounds silly when a developers says that they'd "love to do a Fallout-style game" on iPad. You're saying that because a publisher is more likely to fund such a game disguised as 2$ shovelware, not because the actual audience for a deep RPG experience is likely to be looking for it in an iPad game.

Edited by thesisko
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IWD on an iPad would be awesome.

I have an iPad and while I can see IWD working okay on it, I don't see how it would be more "awesome" than playing it on the PC.

I don't see why someone specifically looking for a somewhat more complex RPG with tactical combat would prefer to play it on a mobile device.

 

Like with any other "handheld" device. Mobility itself.

 

Furthermore it would be much easier to market handdrawn 2D graphics and in turn a more classic TB system.

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Like with any other "handheld" device. Mobility itself.

So you're saying you'd preferred to play BG2 on iPad had it existed at the time?

 

Furthermore it would be much easier to market handdrawn 2D graphics and in turn a more classic TB system.

It's possible to market gameplay instead of graphics. Plenty of games without "AAA" production values sell well on PC (any game from Paradox, King's Bounty, Minecraft, Amnesia, Super Meat Boy, etc.)

Edited by thesisko
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Like with any other "handheld" device. Mobility itself.

So you're saying you'd preferred to play BG2 on iPad had it existed at the time?

 

If it controlled just as well? Sure. It doesn't have to be an Ipad though.

Edited by C2B
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If it controlled just as well? Sure.

Alright. I prefer playing simpler games on my iPad and more demanding/complex on my PC. I'd rather play a game that is pick-up-and play on the iPad since I mostly use it on the move, while I'd want to sit down and play a game like BG/DA:O/NWN2 for longer sessions with a bigger screen, better sound, hotkeys.. But that's just me.

 

I just find it very odd that we got BG2, IWD2, NWN2/MotB/SoZ, Drakensang, DA:O and now all we can hope for are $2 iPad games. It's more than a bit jarring to go from hearing Obsidian say in 2008 that MotB did well and exceeded sales projections to Josh saying in 2011 that we can totally look forward to $2 iPad games with cutesy characters and no dialogue for our party-based CRPG fix.

Edited by thesisko
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If it controlled just as well? Sure.

Alright. I prefer playing simpler games on my iPad and more demanding/complex on my PC. I'd rather play a game that is pick-up-and play on the iPad since I mostly use it on the move, while I'd want to sit down and play a game like BG/DA:O/NWN2 for longer sessions with a bigger screen, better sound, hotkeys.. But that's just me.

 

I just find it very odd that we got BG2, IWD2, NWN2/MotB/SoZ, Drakensang, DA:O and now all we can hope for are $2 iPad games. It's more than a bit jarring to go from hearing Obsidian say in 2008 that MotB did well and exceeded sales projections to Josh saying in 2011 that we can totally look forward to $2 iPad games with cutesy characters and no dialogue for our party-based CRPG fix.

 

 

Who said anything like that? Hyperbole much?

Edited by C2B
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Who said anything like that? Hyperbole much?

Based on the examples given and the types of games successful on each platform. I've never seen anything like BG2/NWN2/DA:O/Drakensang on the iPad, nor do I see any reason to want to restrict myself to a 10" touchscreen for playing such a game.

On the other hand, all the above games were successful and well received on the PC, and with three of them being barely 3 years old, I fail to see how the actual markets for them disappeared so quickly. What I do see is that multiplatform "AAA"-focused U.S. publishers have no interest in funding them.

Edited by thesisko
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If we are to conflate illustration style with game quality (why?), 2D illustration and comically-drawn characters should be indicative of an excellent game.

 

Er...I was thinking of something else but never mind. I don't mind stylized comedy-touch. In fact, I even recommended Tactics Ogre to Chapman since some of the staff are common to FFT, which is his favorite. I even wondered why Iron Tower needed 3D engine for that kind of game.

 

I've played Tactics Ogre. I liked it a lot, but I never finished it because it's a long game and LYFE SITUATIONZ and all.

 

FFT is a really good game, but I'm willing to appreciate that it's got flaws, too. The difficulty "curve" looks more like a crazy square wave and there are aspects of the JP system that encourage goofy sorts of grinding (leaving the last enemy alive while you throw rocks at each other). But overall I think it's one of the best combinations of individual character customization, party customization and tactical combat in an RPG.

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If it controlled just as well? Sure.

Alright. I prefer playing simpler games on my iPad and more demanding/complex on my PC. I'd rather play a game that is pick-up-and play on the iPad since I mostly use it on the move, while I'd want to sit down and play a game like BG/DA:O/NWN2 for longer sessions with a bigger screen, better sound, hotkeys.. But that's just me.

 

I just find it very odd that we got BG2, IWD2, NWN2/MotB/SoZ, Drakensang, DA:O and now all we can hope for are $2 iPad games. It's more than a bit jarring to go from hearing Obsidian say in 2008 that MotB did well and exceeded sales projections to Josh saying in 2011 that we can totally look forward to $2 iPad games with cutesy characters and no dialogue for our party-based CRPG fix.

 

Josh said that Dragonheart proves that you can successfully execute BG2 or IWD2's combat on an iPad, not that Dragonheart > BG2 or MotB.

 

Why use the iPad for something like BG2? Among other things, 1) it is somewhat risky to develop an oldschool RPG these days, so it's a good idea to minimize risk by not spending as much on art as you would on a PC or console game 2) people are more willing to buy niche games with less fancy 3D (or even *gasp* 2D) art on iPad than they are on PC, 3) people frequently already use their iPads for reading (either the internet or actual books) so I believe that gamers may be more accepting of a text and dialog heavy game than they would on other platforms.

 

And it's not just us. Spiderweb Software (the guys who make Avernum and Geneforge) released Avadon on iPad and apparently it did very well. They've said they're going to be porting all their future games for iPad, which indicates that it probably sold well. It was also a great platform to play the game on, and I honestly probably wouldn't have tried it on PC, where it's competing for my time with, well, PC games.

 

And, price point != quality, especially on the app store. There's great games for 99c (or free) and crap that costs 10 bucks. The App Store is doing crazy things to game pricing and it's not really accurate to say that a 2$ iPad game has less to offer than a 20$ indie PC game.

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Oh, also, if you're interested in checking out deep iPad/iPhone games, may I recommend:

 

King of Dragon Pass - http://appshopper.com/games/king-of-dragon-pass

Avadon - http://appshopper.com/games/avadon-the-black-fortress-hd

And, since it came up in the thread a bunch, FF Tactics - http://appshopper.com/games/final-fantasy-...ar-of-the-lions

 

 

All good, and deep, RPGs/rpg-like games.

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Honestly though, TB would work miles better on handhelds than RTWP. The "one more turn" effect is immense there and you can easily fit the gaming sessions in downtimes during the day without getting into stress.

Edited by C2B
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