How about a new genre of isometric?

[UmarSlobberknocker]

Hello Obsidian,

 

Loved PoE and Tyranny.  Great games!  

 

I was wondering if any thought had been given to possibly doing an adventure based isometric unity game.  Think back to LucasFilm's Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.  Or even Tomb Raider.  Something along those line.  The fantasy genre is great but it seems like we've had a lot of entries in the last few years.  An adventure isometric could be a lot of fun.

 

Just a thought.  Thanks for listening. 

 

 

 

 

[Undecaf]

I’d gladly see a non-fantasy oldschool RPG from Obsidian that was lighter on combat and mixed in puzzles and other adventure game elements.

The B.A.T. series of old had some of that back in the day. It wasn’t isometric, but it was a sort of adventure RPG.

Edited January 16, 2018 by Undecaf

[UmarSlobberknocker]

Heck, even a western themed iso sounds interesting.

[injurai]

I like the idea of a puzzle-centric iso game. Would consider backing.

[Beyond The Sea]

PoE sells to a degree on nostalgia for Baldur's Gate. The equivalents of old 2D adventures are games such as Deponia, Thimbleweed Park, Machinarium, Shardlight, Darkside Detective, Samorost, Technobabylon, some different takes on the genre like Dreamfall Chapters, Telltale games or Pillars of the Earth, proclaimed spiritual successors for puzzle game Myst like Obduction and the Witness, remasters for Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle or Grim Fandango, not to mention a whole slew of Hidden Object games, exactly because adventures are a lot easier to make then RPGs.

 

As for Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider, that's covered by Assassin's Creed, Uncharted, Farcry. Adventures are a really crowded market.

 

Obsidian has decades of experience in making RPGs. It's where the passion of it's great heads lie.

 

non-fantasy

What do you mean by this? Edited January 20, 2018 by Beyond The Sea

[Heijoushin]

Well, Tides of Numenera was almost that. You could almost completely avoid combat in that game.

[Jozape]

Well, Tides of Numenera was almost that. You could almost completely avoid combat in that game.

Unfortunately there weren't that many places to actually go. You could spend a lot of time in one place going through a lot of text though.

[algroth]

 

Well, Tides of Numenera was almost that. You could almost completely avoid combat in that game.

Unfortunately there weren't that many places to actually go. You could spend a lot of time in one place going through a lot of text though.

 

I'm playing through it right now and that is one of the aspects I'm finding curious about it - it's like they've gotten completely rid of all the smaller locations and made them all a part of each open area (bars, inns, and so on). The game seems of a decent size but its economy of locations does in some superficial way make its scope feel more akin to Tyranny's than Pillars', for me at least... Which is weird considering the success and promises of the Kickstarter campaign and so on. All the same, I've been enjoying it so far.

[Fenixp]

Just FYI if you didn't know they existed:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/380150/STASIS/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/532840/agecheck

 

And postapo adventure... Thing:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bischoff/beautiful-desolation-isometric-post-apocalyptic-ad

[Jozape]

 

 

Well, Tides of Numenera was almost that. You could almost completely avoid combat in that game.

Unfortunately there weren't that many places to actually go. You could spend a lot of time in one place going through a lot of text though.

 

I'm playing through it right now and that is one of the aspects I'm finding curious about it - it's like they've gotten completely rid of all the smaller locations and made them all a part of each open area (bars, inns, and so on). The game seems of a decent size but its economy of locations does in some superficial way make its scope feel more akin to Tyranny's than Pillars', for me at least...

 

That is basically what they did. The setting itself is underutilized in that aspect. I think the meres were actually supposed to fill in there but they were reduced in scope for the release. It could have appealed a lot more to adventure fans imo.

[Undecaf]

 

non-fantasy

What do you mean by this?

Non-magical non-tolkienic (any derivative, really), science fiction and stuff grounded more on reality than those kinds of fantasies.

[kanisatha]

Now that PoE2 has a release date, is it too early to begin speculating about what comes next for the Sawyer team within Obsidian? Since the Cain-Boyarsky team is very likely working in the post-apocalyptic genre for their new IP, I wonder if Sawyer has been given the green light on his desire to do a historic RPG. There are not that many quality RPGs in the historic genre out there, and I for one would very much welcome a game with neither magic nor advanced technology.

[injurai]

I guess it depends on how Deadfire ends/performs, but assuming it doesn't close off the watchers story and performs well enough. Then I think they should do a third and final Pillars game, crowd-funding and all. Feargus has alluded to that being the intent, so I hope that route remains fruitful for them. I think it's about time an infinity-like receives a third entry.

 

Hopefully a third would be helmed by Sawyer, after which he could then move onto his historic IP. After the Pillars trilogy is over, another team can explore the world of Eora in perhaps a fully 3D rpg.

[Flouride]

Now that PoE2 has a release date, is it too early to begin speculating about what comes next for the Sawyer team within Obsidian? Since the Cain-Boyarsky team is very likely working in the post-apocalyptic genre for their new IP, I wonder if Sawyer has been given the green light on his desire to do a historic RPG. There are not that many quality RPGs in the historic genre out there, and I for one would very much welcome a game with neither magic nor advanced technology.

 

Most of the team will be quite busy doing support on Deadfire while releasing those DLCs/expansions they've promised for the game. While others will go work on something else: Indiana, that ½ of a project Feargus mentioned, pre-production on PoE3, Sawyer's historic RPG or something else.

[kanisatha]

Well, personally, I think that if it were me I would want to go do something else before getting into a PoE3 since I would be pretty burned out with Pillars at this point.

 

And yes, they will continue to work on patches and DLCs for PoE2, obviously, but Project Indiana, Tyranny and Pathfinder all have their own teams so the PoE2 team will definitely transition to a new game, I think.

[Wormerine]

I would love to see Noir RPG - more focused on deduction, deception and conversations then combat. RPG can work beyond fantasy. As weird as it is, we even lack SF RPGs.

[kanisatha]

I would love to see Noir RPG - more focused on deduction, deception and conversations then combat. RPG can work beyond fantasy. As weird as it is, we even lack SF RPGs.

Does "focus on deduction, deception and conversation" mean "noir"? I ask in all seriousness because I am still learning the definitions of various video game genres. If this is so, then I guess I too am a "noir" fan (and I never knew it). Combat is easily my least liked part of an RPG.

[ShadySands]

I would love a hardboiled PI RPG

[Gromnir]

I would love a hardboiled PI RPG

 

gun, with occasional music.

 

wiki entry for plot:

 

The novel follows the adventures of Conrad Metcalf, a tough guy private detective and a wiseass, through a futuristic version of San Francisco and Oakland, California. Metcalf is hired by a man who claims that he's being framed for the murder of a prominent urologist. Metcalf quickly discovers that nobody wants the case solved: not the victim's ex-wife, not the police, and certainly not the gun-toting kangaroo who works for the local mafia boss.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Wormerine]

 

I would love to see Noir RPG - more focused on deduction, deception and conversations then combat. RPG can work beyond fantasy. As weird as it is, we even lack SF RPGs.

 

Does "focus on deduction, deception and conversation" mean "noir"? I ask in all seriousness because I am still learning the definitions of various video game genres. If this is so, then I guess I too am a "noir" fan (and I never knew it). Combat is easily my least liked part of an RPG.

“Noir” doesn’t really have a proper representation in gaming world beyond L.A Noire. It’s a Hollywood film genre, which lasted between 1940s and 1950s.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir

 

It was revived as neo-Noir by Roman Polanski with “Chinatown” in 1970s and we get some of those ever since. One of my favourite modern examples are Coen Brothers films - Fargo, Blood Simple, Man Who Wasn’t There. Some thngs like “Sin City” deeply draw aesthetic from Noir but are thematically quite different.

 

noirs are usually detective or crime stories, therefore my mental jump into deception - whenever it would be detective digging into mystery or murderer planning and trying to get away with murder. Direct confrontetion doesn’t gel with atmosphere and themes of noir. As reference I would recommend “Maltese Falcon” the first film noir from all later films draw inspiration or “Chinatown” which takes a twist on MF formula and is simply so bloody good.

[injurai]

Cyperpunk is often the modern analogue to Noir, at least Blade Runner and other early genre work like Gibson.

 

I've long hopped for a Cyberpunk isometric (not counting the Shadow Run games, because those are tactical, not infinity-like/pnp-derivative.)

 

But with this new wave of Cyberpunk games I think a classic noir might just be the thing to stand out with.

 

I've also long wanted a proper Sci-fi done in the infinity style, but somehow I feel that'd be hard to pull off unless it was based on Dune. Which actually, yes please.

[Gromnir]

Cyperpunk is often the modern analogue to Noir, at least Blade Runner and other early genre work like Gibson.

 

 

not to get nitpicky, but noir is technical a style as 'posed to a genre. were representative o' dark and cynical tone which were common in early 1940s american crime films... even if the style name were coined by the french. the cyberpunk genre were born with alfred bester's, the stars my destination, and cyberpunk authors and filmmakers has been embracing cynicism regardless o' the medium, so is indeed gonna be parallels.  'course starting in early 2000s, bleak and dark almost postmodern cynicism in fantasy and sci-fi genres has become the norm as 'posed to the exception, so is all kinda twisted up and convoluted if you is looking for origins and trends n' such.  

 

curious enough, the original cyberpunk work by mr. bester were a futuristic retelling o' the count of monte cristo. the dark tone and cynicism o' the stars my destination were straight outta dumas' novel.  is the other trappings o' cyberpunk, such as global multinationals running the world, which bester invented.  so if one wants to give credit to "noir" in modern scifi, perhaps one need harken back to a frenchman who were most productive during the mid 1800s.

 

perhaps more curious than alfred bester's creation o' the cyberpunk genre were his invention o' the green lantern oath.  no kidding.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[injurai]

Invented? Nay. Global multinationals had already started moving and shaking the world.

 

Personally I think the distinction between style and genre can be a trivial one. As I was talking about a specific subset of Cyberpunk as being done up like a noir, implicit in that is me treating it as a style. But I'd be happy to reverse it and say it's a genre noir done in a cyberpunk style. I'm nonplussed over the difference between the two framings. Imo, what has become cyberpunk is far more informed by the arbitrating over our society by technology than merely globalists end games, or bleak cynicism. Often it's more a microcosm of human persistence through pessimism. Cyberpunk was not smelted by the blow of a single authors pen but amalgamated off of the musings of countless futurists and engineers. I find attempts to exalt a single author as an artifact of people's need to narrate a more compelling history of something, that can stand equal among other solo leaps forward.

[Gromnir]

Invented? Nay. Global multinationals had already started moving and shaking the world.

 

Personally I think the distinction between style and genre can be a trivial one. As I was talking about a specific subset of Cyberpunk as being done up like a noir, implicit in that is me treating it as a style. But I'd be happy to reverse it and say it's a genre noir done in a cyberpunk style. I'm nonplussed over the difference between the two framings. Imo, what has become cyberpunk is far more informed by the arbitrating over our society by technology than merely globalists end games, or bleak cynicism. Often it's more a microcosm of human persistence through pessimism. Cyberpunk was not smelted by the blow of a single authors pen but amalgamated off of the musings of countless futurists and engineers. I find attempts to exalt a single author as an artifact of people's need to narrate a more compelling history of something, that can stand equal among other solo leaps forward.

 

no offense, but nonsense.  cyberpunk is inextricable linked to the trappings, otherwise simple call it postmodernism and have done with it. delillo's white noise is not, by any stretch o' the definition, cyberpunk, even though it explores issues o' "the arbitrating over our society by technology" and is as cynical and dark as any cyberpunk novel could hope to be. 

 

as for exalting single authors...

 

*shrug*

 

as we noted already, bester borrowed heavily from dumas.  bester's work were not some kinda sea change for scifi created in absolute isolation from all previous works.  nevertheless, ignoring or marginalizing the impact o' individual contributions to artforms or science or whatnot is just so darn... postmodern.  if one is describing gibson's cyberpunk contributions as "early genre work," then am thinking you is doing a serious disservice to bester, the granddaddy o' the genre, as well as the many who followed bester in the intervening decades 'fore gibson began contributing in anyway to the genre.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Wormerine]

Noir is a genre, not only style. Style of Noir is borrowed from german expressionism, set in contemporary real lications of US. Noir has reoccuring themes - city/nature, hero feeling like a fish in the water, vulnerable in country, femme fatale, borders, corruption of US, moral greys etc. A lot of Neo-noir abandoned visual trapping of classic noir (drenched in sun LA of "Chinatown") and done some twists to established themes and tropes. 

Injurai well observed that Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" is very much a film noir at its core. However, I wouldn't use "Cyberpunk" as a representation of modern film noir - one of the key aspects and values of noir at the time of making was authenticy and relevance - current events, shot in real locations, with "real" characters, rejection of "fake holywood." Using SF setting goes agaist those ideals, even if many similarities can be observed. 

Genres are all abstract concepts. It's difficult to really argue for and againt without going into deep academic writing, and first defining what said genre is and what its essencial elements are, and then analyzing each movie for those elements. Still, whatever it us, I could use more of it in games. Nothing quite as sexy as old noir word play: