unforum

[terminalskeptik]

Meltdown, aka Death before Birth

[krystyn]

It's quite possible we're seeing an improvement in the situation, actually.

I know for a fact that several projects never even got close to launching, shortly after the Beast, and after Metacortechs. There were a few peeps that asked puppetmasters with a game or two under their belts to 'sit in' on dev boards and such, but there were a good number of these that simply dissolved in the initial workload.

Now, we're seeing games actually get through dev, and launch, and maybe even a few weeks of good, hard playing, and then they fall apart.

As frustrating as it's been for the more focused members of this forum to witness and experience this phenomenon, I tend to view these implosions as a mixture of disappointing and intensely hopeful, with an emphasis on the latter.

[terminalskeptik]

[krystyn]

It's a nice wish, but sometimes the puppetmasters don't really -know- exactly how everything would've played out, you know?

There's been a lot of meta talk about this ride "being on rails" and such, but there's still an almost inevitable organic flow that means that even if you knew how it was 'supposed' to end, it may still leave you feeling empty or unfulfilled, you know?

Plus, some games implode when writers walk away, or story dev crashes to a halt for other reasons. It may not be -possible- to resurrect those missing pieces for the audience.

[MageSteff]

Re: Meltdown, aka Death before Birth

[Nightmare Tony]

World events. Some exterior factor can make a game entirely obsolete or inappropriate for its time.

[krystyn]

After September 11, 2001, dev sort of ground to a halt for Lockjaw, as a major portion of our plot revolved around a bunch of urban explorers finding dead bodies in D.C. subway tunnels. Also, it was hard to work on a game what with all the weirdness in everyone's lives all of the sudden.

Heh. We weren't sure how to address it, as we didn't want to encourage people to go vadding about in the red alert climate that had suddenly sprung up, but ultimately, we managed a timeline and a reasonable sense of "hi, this is fiction" that kept us on more solid ground.

At least, I hope we achieved that!

[Dorkmaster]

Wait a second... Krystyn... You exist in real life? I totally bought the fiction thing. Whoa.

[buff (not logged)]

Somehow, I remember "The 7 Ps".

Proper Planning Prevents PissPoor Performance.

[Phaedra]

[Gupfee]

[krystyn]

Gupfee, you forgot:

eating apples

Especially that delicious apple pie at the diner, that uses home-grown Idunas.

[Wolf]

Wikipedia's take on vadding is pretty good, but Gup and krystyn's works, too

[krystyn]

[Dorkmaster]

Krystyn, it probably has to do with my time-consuming plans to take over the world. That, and the fact that my underground lair is well-hidden to most peeps.

But seriously, I cannot wait for ARGfestoconoramariffic Chicago. We'll totally meet up then, if not earlier! I gotta meet so many of us people living in the near-chicago area (WI, Chicago and Indiana folk...)