They've just shit this game out the door because they want over with it.
If you go on other gaming forums the astroturfers are out in force in discussions. I'm looking forward to how the journoscum cover this game even more now. Promised patches that never come. and all that.
Looking at all that, I'm finding new appreciation for that guy, who made a Fallout Tactics mod and an art-instalation around it, also sponsored by Canadian government. That was the shit. And this is just kinda sad.
I'll spearhead this post with my thoughts on the demo.
It's not great.
The first, say, two or so minutes are honestly pretty good. The beach scene feels like it's done properly, and the first rhythm segment is decent and nice to listen to. Everything after that completely shits the bed for a myriad of reasons.
Outside of the first 30 seconds with the beach scene, there is ZERO background music whatsoever. This leads to multiple minute-plus long stretches of time where there is COMPLETE SILENCE only broken up by single lines of dialogue or occasional sound effects. It's one of those things that's not as easy to actively notice but if it were there it would definitely be appreciated, as it's one of the easiest ways to keep things going through long pauses, quiet parts, monologues, or create tension by fucking with it. It's the easiest thing in the world, and I can't believe it was almost completely absent, I'm inclined to believe there was some technical fuckup preventing it from playing, but that's very wishful thinking.
Voice Actors are hit and miss. Fang's has little emotion and generally poor delivery for an angsty punk rocker and reminds me more of furry porn voice actresses, and Trish is an annoying valley girl. The actual lines and writing direction leave a lot to be desired as well. There's a part in the first segment where Fang gets an audition to an event she's been trying to get into for years, and the entirety of her reaction is to smile, then stand up and look happy but remain completely silent. No shouting, cheering, not even a little 'yes!' - complete silence. Reed, Naomi and Naser sound mostly fine, although Reed and Naser both suffer from overly soft and quiet voices. I'm not expecting macho man randy savage voices, but come on. This cannot be fixed.
There's this weird joke after the first main scene where a glitchy school bell cuts off Fang when she's trying to say why she dyed her hair silver [I'm still mad about this]. Not only is the timing fucked so it doesn't sound like she's actually being cut off, it just doesn't really make sense because they keep talking for a solid 30 seconds after the third cutoff. It also makes the sound of a dial-up modem to represent it 'glitching out', which is just... an odd choice. This probably won't be fixed.
The final segment of the demo is presented pretty much exactly like a traditional western VN, with some extra animation on top of it. Sounds good in principle, but it misses the mark for two reasons. One, for whatever reason, character sprites don't actually look at each other when they are talking. It looks like they're looking vaguely in the direction of the viewer, and it makes the entire thing look kind of retarded. Two, characters will get stuck in action/emotive poses for 5+ seconds at a time after their line ends, and it looks really, really fucking dumb, especially when they lurch back to life for like half a second to do one of the 4 main poses only to go stock still again. No idle animations, no breathing, no blinking when not speaking, etc. I don't think this can be fixed.
The entire demo was marred with all sorts of audio/visual issues. Lip syncing for Trish is completely fucked throughout the entire thing. Characters will occasionally skip lines and animations, so they will get stuck in complete silence while the line "plays" out for a few seconds. Sometimes animations will play wrongly or not at all, there's a few bits where the sprite puppeterring fucks up, and a few times where subtitles don't match what the character is saying. One or two lines have either godawful direction to the point of hilarity or use the wrong audio clip. I've heard some people (including the project lead for Snoot Game) that the game runs like shit on weaker machines and completely crashes on some configurations, and there's the controller-only issue that was highlighted earlier. Also, there's a very subtle amount of camera sway present throughout the entire game and it's kind of fucking annoying when you notice it.
Unsurprisingly, the most polished parts of the game are the rhythm segments. Outside of potential timing/UI issues there wasn't much I saw that was wrong with them.
This demo (or at least something similar to it) was showcased at GDC and PAX six weeks ago. People that were there reported audio and syncing issues, and after six weeks in the oven, they're still there. The full game comes out in five weeks. There is absolutely zero fucking chance they are able to fix every error in this demo. There is probably zero chance they are able to fix most of them, or at least fix the most noticeable ones, and this is with crowdsourced feedback and bug reporting. Now, imagine that, but ever-present throughout the entire five-hour experience. The whole fucking thing will be filled with the exact same shit we are seeing in this demo, in fact, probably even worse the demo section has supposedly been polished and will be polished a bit more. It just won't be enough - it can't be. There just isn't enough time in a four-day work week to fix this massive clusterfuck.
Additionally, yesterday was KO_OP's prerecorded QnA stream which somehow had technical difficulties in the middle of it. I have a rough writeup of the important bits here. A full replay is on their twitch channel. The first four attachments of this post are visual aids for parts of the QnA, but I'll leave them in the attachment tray to not horribly break up the main body of text.
>highest watch count: 57
>>>Inspirations
>>what made you want to make the game in the first place?
>"IT STARTED AS A JOKE" - we stumbled into talking about dating sims which were hot at the time, what if we did one with dinosaurs, then what if we did it with the end of the world coming
>>Has vision changed in anyway?
>yes, so much. we wanted it to feel like an interactive anime, it used to be a pure dating sim, focused on romance, three playable characters, one of which was deleted entirely.
>routes were planned, they decided against it because it wasn't the "vibe", they didn't want to do an ironic dating sim where everyone dies lol xd, wanted to take is seriously
>>Were you looking at climate change as a comparison to real world issues
>yes, it is the most prominent thing you can take from the game, the slow protracted feeling of doom
>the pandemic made it so we could supply a specific experience, how did information spread, etc, that factored into how we presented the game, it starts out unserious [this is going to be retarded as fuck oh my god]
>>Did the narrative or characters come first?
>Narrative influenced characters, they're very "humanish", we didn't want a t-rex with little arms because that would be "ironic" and unserious
>>Why dinosaurs?
>Dinosaurs had a built in narrative and dramtic-ironic ending with the meteor. Also, why not?
>>Were films, art, books, etc part of the inspiration?
>Devilman Crybaby, wanted to make something the opposite of it narratively with similar visuals. Free! Dive to the future. Riverdale.
>>Favorite part of the development process
>Seeing the characters come to life and putting the pieces of the game together [they spend like 5+ minutes elaborating on this]
>>>Story
>>What led to make Fang the sole main character?
>Rosa, Fang, and "Leo" were the original main characters. Leo was a leoplurodon. Trish is called Trish because she's a triceratops. [Attachment 1/2]
>Leo was Reed's best friend, on the swim team, they wanted three interweaving plots. The narrative became unweidly and diluted. Fang had the most interesting story and design at the end of the day.
>Fang used to be different, far more standoffish and frustrated, was softened a lot when the focus was put on Fang. Easier to connect with her.
>Sage was originally romanceable for Leo.
>>How much replayability?
>[Short answer: none lol] Narrative design is 'additive' rather than different routes. Fang reaches the same place in the end. Every decision 'adds' to an affinity with a particular character(s).
>Decisions change affinities, which unlock flashbacks and different scenes.
>>Will there be romance options? [Pre-recorded video starts echoing here, technical difficulties out the ass, question more or less inauduble]
>>Did any of the devs draw upon their own experience for the game? [Stream freezes completely, viewer count spikes, question almost entirely skipped]
>>>Animation
>>How hard was it to use Spine2D
>It's pretty hard. Asset's lineart can be scaled at will at still remain sharp. Spine is very complicated. Becuase it's 2D, turning looks like shit.
>Kyle animated the entire announcement trailer???
>>>Characters
>>Favotire characters
>Marsmella likes trish and naomi, kyle likes reed
>>What's with preliminary sketch naomi? [Attachment 3/4]
>This was the most 'dinosaury' that their characters ever were. They decicded against it. She was originally a villanous/annoying student council president.
>Sketches were more 'pokemony' because the former art director liked pokemon
>>Inspirations about Naomi
>Originally: Smart, mean girl. Gilmore girls, Paris. Later: Anime
>>>Merch
>>Artbook?
>"I hope so." "I would love to do one." Maybe if "5 million" copies sold. [Seem to only be thinking about physical copies.]
>>Who is the storyboarder(s)?
>3 main people, plus the art director. GVH is "basically a TV show."
>>>Game release
>>How was it to keep up motivation, with so much happening in the background per say[sic]
>It was difficult to keep going sometimes because of the background stuff. If we weren't able to take unlimited days off it might have not gone as well. We lean on each other [repeated 3 or 4 times]
>>Steam achievements
>Yes, and trophies on playstation.
>>Accesibility options?
>As many as they can. Subtitle readability, turning off button mashing, QTEs easier, minigame bypassing, you don't have to get a good score to proceed
>>>Fun Stuff!!
>>Do pterodactyls need flying licenses
>Yes. This actually was in the game at one point, Fang being on the cusp of taking their flying license was important. Was taken out for reasons. Fang does not fly to school because no flying license.
>>Who is most likely to say "swag beans" as a casual response.
>Reed.
>>Are any of the developers DBZ fans?
>Yes.
How the fuck do you screw up a VN this god damn bad? Even weird furry fetish VN's, namely Mice Tea somehow are beating this game and Mice Tea was made by like 3 people (5 if you include the two musicians they hired on for the musical bits).
Wishful thinking but I bet since it's already getting delayed until August...then will come another delay...and another...and then it'll be 2024 and they finally shart this thing out around February and no amount of npc redditor pretending will hold back the review bombing and clowning. Lookin forward to it.
Fuckin' knew it'd get delayed again. The whole "without crunch" mantra is just a spin on a development style that's more fucking around than actually getting things done. Reminds me of how The Long Dark starts up with a message about how it's developed by a team "without crunch", and those guys have spent years and years without being able to finish their story mode (or fix certain bugs), but still put out DLC to buy.
Only crunch these fuckers know is from the tofu chips they are shovelling into their mouths while acting like they are workinh between meetings and coffee breaks.
That or the "haters" got to them with how lousy the demo is. Keep polishing that turd till it shines you fucking leafs, won't change what it is.
I'm genuinely impressed by this studio. They've been developing this turd for >5 years, finally shit out a demo and it's a pile of really unpolished crap. KO_OP brags about being the best paying/accommodating indie studio and it really shows. I dont blame the devs for the numerous delays and that alpha state demo, I blame whoever is running the studio itself.
Shockingly Zgeb is not a homosexual despite how gay he looks, he has a wife and 2 children.
Just from a light viewing of his Twitter he seems to just be one of those nerds that plays with tools to create dumb shit to waste time. He seems to be uninvolved or uninterested in GVH since I couldn't find any mention of it on his Twitter.
Saleem on the other hand seems like the typical terminally online npc. Most of his Twitter can be summed up as himself posting selfies while wearing face masks, his cats, his vast collection of indoor plants & grandma furniture and "owning" le incels. He also seems to be the one that has the most investment in GVH.
10/10 optics btw
Anyway, this sorry mess is because these 2 retards can't admit failure and refuse to pull the plug on this dying game.
Wishful thinking but I bet since it's already getting delayed until August...then will come another delay...and another...and then it'll be 2024 and they finally shart this thing out around February and no amount of npc redditor pretending will hold back the review bombing and clowning. Lookin forward to it.
Agreed. There were about five weeks between the GDC/PAX demo and the public demo release. However much polishing they (assuming they did any at all), it clearly wasn't enough, so a delay makes sense because if they couldn't fix a 20-30 minute demo in five weeks, there's no way in hell they could fix a 5 hour game that certainly has the same issues (more if the demo was what they considered 'polished'). The problem is, 15 weeks isn't going to be enough for the two or three people working four days a week on this game to fix all of the issues it has either. It's going to have to take another year of straight polishing and sucking down another million canadian taxpayer dollars for this game to come out remotely decent. I think the only thing KO_OP despises more than good decisions is releasing their game on time, so I'm expecting pushbacks to mid-2024 at the least.
Here's the full delay announcement/newsletter from KO_OP:
Hey dinos,
We have an important update for you regarding Goodbye Volcano High’s release date. After assessing our production schedule for GVH, we’ve made the decision to move our launch to August 29, 2023.
The reality is that, with our current workload, we could not have met our June launch date without significant cuts to the quality and scope of the game. This would mean delivering something much different than what we’ve envisioned and worked toward. We don’t want to release anything less than the best version of the game we have been making throughout our development cycle.
Plus, we’re a studio that prides itself on avoiding crunch. Meeting our original launch date would require our team to work nights, weekends and early mornings to ship and risk burning people out.
This delay also moves our launch date out of a very busy June release calendar, opening us up to more incredible opportunities, and gives the game a greater chance of success. [Note: This date is sandwiched between Armored Core 6's and Starfield's release dates.]
I know this isn't the easiest thing to hear—it is a difficult thing for us to do. GVH is a really special project for us and everyone on our team has done incredible work on this game. We need a bit more time to make sure all that work really shines! We’ve been so honoured to hear such a positive response to our demo. Soon, we’ll be premiering another public demo and we hope you’ll all have the chance to check it out.
Thank you so much for your understanding - we can’t wait for you to play what we’ve been working on. [Note - This email was sent on May 11th]
Speaking of LudoNarraCon, please make sure to play our first ever online demo for Goodbye Volcano High, available for a few more hours at LudoNarraCon! We are so excited to have this demo available! We've had a demo playthrough streaming on there with special guests (AKA... my family... I'm traveling right now and it's chaotic) and more importantly, a really wonderful Q&A event between myself and GVH co-director Kyle McKernan where we answered all your pressing q's and talked all about the game. It's up on Twitch as a highlight now to watch, if you haven't already! We hope you've been able to join us for our first big Steam event that GVH has participated in!! It's truly been so exciting and awesome to hear all your thoughts.
And finally, now that the demo is out there, we can finally reveal our favourite new character: Mango!! Mango is Trish's velvet worm, she was rescued by Trish and Rosa during bug camp and now they're obsessed. She can do no wrong. Even her slime attack is cute. I know, it's gross and we love it.
Becuase KO_OP is incompetent, they had to recast Sage because during their rewriting process they decided that it was a trans character, so it had to be voiced by a tranny. Who did they decide to go with? I present to you:
There's not really a whole lot of story as it's about 20 minutes, a quarter of which is taken up by rhythm segments. What is there leaves a lot to be desired. Characters are inconsistent in how they react to what is supposed to be new information - Trish reacts vividly to Fang's new hair color and style, Reed does not react at all despite playing in the same band. Basic science that can be confirmed with a single google search is eschewed, usually for shoddy foreshadowing - The meteor is somehow causing electronic interference on Earth 8 months before impact (approximately 250 million miles); Trish's pet velvet worm is referred to as a "bug" despite being in the animal kingdom; Trish says "bugs are getting smaller and we don't know why" despite that being an after effect of a reduction in the atmosphere's oxygen content, which wouldn't happen until after the mass extinction destroying most species of megaflora (this might just be a 'lol climate change' dig, but who knows).
As for the gameplay, it's a VN with rhythm segments and the occasional minigame. There are a handful of playthroughs on YouTube if you really want to check. There's one or two vaguely interesting mechanics like going back on decisions greying them out or 'important' decisions requiring an additional input to confirm, but nothing that's going to make the rest of the game worthwhile.
I haven't played the demo (or ever will), but what's been shown here really shows how well KO_OP is doing at harnessing the power of the Sega 32X. Truely the old marketing strategy that Sega employed in the 90s rings as true as ever here.
Apologies if this is question has already been answered but: how are they getting funding? Is Sony still just burning money with this or I think it's a Canadian studio so they could be living off of tax incentives and bullshit (which is the same reason why someone like Dennis Dyack still somehow is in the business)?
