I'm a bit late to the party, but 1 million is still considered indie. Sure, it's more than a lot of indie titles would normally have for a budget, but that's still chump change compared to what are considered AAA games. The AAA games tend to have a budget similar to blockbuster movies. Looking at some of the more expensive AAA games, I see some games that have a budget in the 200 million dollar range. I think I saw an article say that Cyberpunk was more than 300 million. With those kinds of numbers, 1 million seems like nothing. They'd burn through that in a month or less. Granted, that's because they have more people to throw at the problem.
Heh, with budgets like that though, you can probably see why AAA games tend to all be the same or do nothing but chase trends. Better to be safe than sorry. If they spend even, say, 50 million on a game, it better sell well enough to turn a profit. It could be the most moving, groundbreaking thing since sliced bread, but no profit means its a shit game in their eyes. That's why the indie scene is where you often see new ideas. Their motivation is different from the AAA scene. They may have a lower budget, but that just means they have less to lose. And with the indie scene able to make cheap alternatives, they need to stand out amongst their peers. To do that, they need to innovate. Now, that doesn't mean all indie games strive for innovation. Just like with AAA games, there is comfort in chasing trends and making tweaks on something that already works. Heck, the term shovelware exists for a reason.
Now, you can make an argument that Studio FOW mismanaged their budget and/or time, or didn't have as solid a groundwork as they claimed (I don't know, I haven't been following them all that closely), but 1 million is still pretty indie. It may be on the higher end, but that's still considered chump change. Anyway, moving on.
I personally don’t care either way for the panties-on-the-head thing, but as I understand it, the reason for the panties is because they don’t want to make a face for the protagonist. He’s literally a faceless protagonist. I assume it’s so that anyone can imagine themselves as the main character or something, I don't know. But it was a very conscious decision to cover the face.
As for me, I'm on the fence about the dialogue and stuff. On the one hand, I'd like it to be less...childish I guess is the word: juvenile. But at the same time, I laugh at some of those silly, juvenile jokes like the one in the latest Dev Diary where the guy talks about beating you to death with his testicles.
That line with that face, I'll admit, it gave me a chuckle. It all depends on the mood I'm in at the moment. Sometimes I just want a silly game. Other times, I'm in the mood for something with a more serious tone. The gameplay could use some work, sure, but I've played other games that were worse than this. And besides, that 1 million thing shouldn't even matter. You shouldn't be expected to like every game. What was I talking about again? I kinda just went off on tangents. Something about...oh yeah. You can say the devs were irresponsible with the money that was given to them, but I highly doubt that they were being malicious in this. It could very well be that Studio FOW bit off more than they could chew. Made too many promises and assumed their management when developing movies could transfer over to making a game. Plus with them starting development right at the start of Covid, them switching to a new engine (Unreal 5 I think), and other similar issues, the learning curve was likely very much underestimated. This by no means absolves them of any mismanagement, but...uh, where was I going with this? I forget, and it's already been a couple days since I started writing this. I'd better throw it out the door before I forget about it. Toodles
why can't make a stupid black mask with glowing eyes, damn it?
