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Good Robot #47: A Script Reading

March 31, 2016 · Arvind

Written by Rutskarn for the Good Robot Devblog

Here it is, as promised: the original Good Robot script I sent Shamus in October of 2013. It was never revised, so expect a bit of roughness, but since it was never meant to be paired directly with scripting or in-game events it should be reasonably coherent.

You ought to know that this draft “spoils” a plot point from the current version of Good Robot…except the current game doesn’t have much of a plot, more like a tone and texture? Nevertheless, if you like to experience things completely blind, it’s possible reading this will negatively impact your playthrough of new-hotness Good Robot. The rest of you might find your experience improved; should you enjoy the critical approach, you might find it interesting to compare this script’s structured plot-reveal-conclusion nature with the current Shandified version. Take your best guess as to which kind of player you are and make your choice: click “read more,” or skip it and inevitably get lost in a MrBtongue archive binge.

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Good Robot #46: Game Design Changes

March 30, 2016 · Arvind

It has been one year since Good Robot went up on Greenlight, and we are due to launch in a little less than a week. The game has evolved an immense amount in the intermediate time.

Top: Early alpha. Bottom: Current build. Click for full view.

Visual changes are easy to show using videos and screenshots. Game design changes, not so much – this is a process of formulating systems, talking to your team, tweaking your design based on feedback, convincing your team why a certain system is the right fit, and then overruling their complaints with an iron fist.

I thought the best way to show just how much Good Robot’s design has evolved is to talk about some of the bigger changes in its design, from when Pyrodactyl started working on it to now. First, I’ll describe the old system, then the problems with it, and then what we did to fix it. Here goes!

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Good Robot #44: Coming April 5

March 18, 2016 · Arvind

Originally posted on Shamus’ Good Robot Devblog

The date is set. We’re now committed to launch on April 5, or embarrass ourselves forever. Here’s the announcement trailer:

Allow me to anticipate your questions:
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Good Robot #43: Un-Unsolved Mysteries

March 10, 2016 · Arvind

Originally posted on Shamus’ Good Robot Devblog

So now we’re to the part of the project where we have to stop adding Fun New Things and fix the dumb crap and insane bugs we accidentally created earlier. This is my least favorite part of the project. Or any project. The equivalent for an author is once they’re done writing a book and they have to go back and proofread. Bo-ring!

Here are some of the baffling conundrums we’ve unraveled over the last few weeks.

Bug #1: Mysterious Level Exit

Description:

You’re flying around the level, minding your own business murdering robots, when suddenly the Good Robot acts like it just went through a level-exit doorway. The robot flies to the edge of the room, the screen fades out, and you’re suddenly on the next level, despite the fact that you weren’t anywhere near a doorway. You couldn’t even SEE a doorway.

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Good Robot #42.75: Pro Strats

March 7, 2016 · Arvind

Originally written by Rutskarn on Shamus’ Good Robot Devblog

“There’s something you can do to help get the game ready to ship,” said Arvind over Hangouts.

“What do you mean, ‘ready to ship?’ It launches in a few weeks. I finished the script, like, hours ago. What’s left?”

“Playtesting. How many hours have you been playing?”

“Aw, jeez.” I checked my counter. “About 75 hours this week?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, sometimes fourteen hours at a time. I’m playing right now. I’m sorta waiting for you to hang up so I can go back to talking to it like we’re friends.”

“And have you found any bugs?”

“I don’t know if I’d call it a bug, but Vaegir Guards are just the worst. They’re like drunk dumpster gnomes on drunk ponies. How’s a girl gonna conquer Calradia with a horde of these chumps?”

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Good Robot #42.5: Good Writebot, or How to Write a Videogame Story in 25 Easy Steps

February 22, 2016 · Arvind

Originally written by Rutskarn on Shamus’ Good Robot Devblog

I hope you’ve all been enjoying Shamus’ series on the art of programming, which I understand is writing special words that make games happen. Sometimes you don’t write the words good enough and the game isn’t good; John Romero did this one time and he’s been working as a garbage man in Tulsa ever since. I’m the lead writer, so programming isn’t really my department, but having accidentally opened the source code while Arvind was explaining TortoiseHg again I can see why Shamus has been having so many problems–to be frank, the grammar was terrible and almost three quarters of the words were misspelled. I did an editing pass which I assume fixed most of the problems; Shamus has assured me this will be the topic of posts #43-129.

But I think we’ve all got the basic idea: coding is “hard” and “interesting” and “requires technical skill” and “can be objectively assessed.” But is it really the most fundamental part of a videogame? Shamus and Arvind say “yes,” repeatedly, at progressively louder volumes–but I’m not convinced. If you take away the code I’m sure a videogame will still run, but can you say the same about its story? What would Killzone, Rocket League, and Neko Atsume be without their rich internationally beloved canons? And if it wasn’t for Final Fantasy villains, how would you know which of your old forum accounts to be slightly embarrassed by?

My point is that my job writing Good Robot (or more precisely, writing a couple hundred headlines that display when interacting with vendors, plus some names to go with level bosses) is exactly as critical as the stuff Arvind and Shamus do all week. I’m guessing. They keep forgetting to tell me when their meetings are.

So in the vein of the rest of this series, here’s a few days in the life of the Lead Writer (!).

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Good Robot #42: The Framerate Unleashed

February 11, 2016 · Arvind

Reposted from Shamus’ Good Robot Devblog

Good Robot has a problem. It’s a strange, goofy, inexplicable problem and I’m pretty sure (60%-ish) that it’s not my fault. Here is what’s up:

Our game is capped at 60fps. That’s fine, except the cap isn’t self-imposed. Oh, I have a frame-limiter in the game, but it doesn’t do anything. If I disable it, the game is still limited to 60fps. Even if I render nothing more than a blank screen, I can’t get the framerate to go above 60. Under those conditions, the framerate should be in the thousands.

Please enjoy this animated gif, which is NOT REMOTELY running at 60fps!

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Oh Gosh! It’s a Good Robot GIF Gallery!

February 1, 2016 · Arvind

Check out these bits of Good Robot gameplay footage in animated GIF form. Some of them might take a few seconds to load, but it’ll be worth it!
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Good Robot #41 – Why Promote Your Game?

January 27, 2016 · Arvind

Good Robot is almost done, and we are on course to finish the remaining tasks in the next couple of weeks. We’ll release the game in the first week of April, which should give us some breathing room for testing and polish.

However, there is another reason we are launching the game two months after we’re done making it – promotion. This is the part where you email every single Game Journalist / YouTube Personality / Twitch Streamer / Person with a Blog in an illegal-substance-fueled-frenzy and hope they play your game and tell others about it.

You have to cover our game! It has an exploding Frisbee that bounces off walls in it!

“Why do you need to promote your game, Arvind?” I hear my friend Manny Straw exclaim, “If your game is any good, surely you can just put it up on Steam and people who see it will tell their friends about it, and then those friends will tell their friends, and soon you’ll sell a million copies! That’s how Minecraft did it!”

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