Project Fedora. What do you want to see in the new game?

SPOILER for new game (based on interview with Aaron):
He mentioned that Tex would need to go to Chinatown to figure out what happened the night he left the restraurant with Chelsee, which makes me think of the Blade Runner game by Westwood Studios.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdqCHSNFAkk

Also he said the daughter of the woman who played the Pizza Parlour owner may take up the mantle. And from the pitch video the Slice o Heaven is lit up.
/ END SPOILER

I guess I haven't really thought too much about it but I won't mind if it's mostly down on earth investigation like in Pandora Directive. I think Tex got fairly close to the moon in Under A Killing Moon, I don't think there was mention of a big city on it or depictiions that would suggest as such when the moon was shown? Though with the next game being set a few years in the future its possible one could of been built.

I guess it would be nice in a new game to be able to roam about more in other places than Chandler Avenue. There was some of that in the previous games, such as at the ruins etc. but mostly you'd travel someplace and be inside traversing rooms and hallways. It'd be cool to maybe roam about in other rundown parts of Old Sanfrancisco or the upmarket parts of New Sanfrancisco and visit different shops, restaurants, buildings etc. on those streets to get clues or make conversation that adds flavor to the atmosphere. Similar to how idly chatting with the residents of Chandler Avenue adds atmosphere to it even if not always plot relevant. Of course that'd probably be only something for if they go far past the goal due to all the extra 3D and dialogue etc.

I hope Clint makes a comeback and his timeline moves along. I imagine his business must of finally went bust from lack of stock by now.

I'd like to see more of the young folks we see in the Kickstarter video. n the previous Texverse, there aren't a lot of people under 40 or 30. It fits noir, but it's also kind of odd-- think about it.

At the top, I'd like to see some closure or progress with Chelsee. It's been 18 years, darn it.

Remember, the white Russians are your friends!

-Cub. =o)

I'd like an appearance of whatever alien race you know who belonged to.

I'd like to see Indiana Jones and the Fate of the Atlantis gameplay branching to some extent.

I want to see money again.. because I loved that in Pandora and lamented its loss in Overseer.

Cubase wrote:the white Russians are your friends!

yeah, more cocktails!

Inspector Burns and lots of him.

I just had an awesome idea. They keep talking about wanting to continue pioneering the genre, and this would do it!

Ever notice how, despite all of the possible endings of PD, only one of them (and one of the hardest to get) fed directly into Overseer? Mission Street, with the best Chelsee ending. This got me to thinking, what if there was greater continuity between a new game and the result of previous games? That led me to thinking, what if the games never completely ended, but were instead serialized into (more or less contained) volumes?

Reading CJ's interview in Rock Paper Shotgun, I noticed he talked about the shorter attention span of modern gamers, which I understood as saying that this game might be a bit shorter than, say, PD. That made me sad. But if you could finish one game and then, if you desire, you were able to carry over the character as you built him through that game into a new, including personality traits (like the paths in PD), inventory items, money, etc. between different installments, that would satisfy me greatly. You would install the next release as a module or add-in (like WoW releases, for instance), using the same frame. Every now and then a tweak in the frame or engine would warrant or require an update, I'm sure, but for the most part BF could focus on building mini-books. And they needn't even be terribly related.

This might not happen with Project Fedora, but if they liked the idea, they could design this story with that sort of future in mind. It would be the kind of thing it would take a great writer to work on...and I'm pretty sure we all agree that AC is overqualified.

What do you think?

I think TellTale Games are doing something like that with their episodic adventure game The Walking Dead. As you make dialogue choices or decisions in the first episode that will make the next episodes different (e.g. different set of characters, different relationships between characters etc.).

From the RetroNick interview it seemed like Chris Jones had considered an episodic release.

Will Tex hang up his hat after "Project Fedora"?
Like jello, there's always room for more. We would love to later continue and make more than one additional Tex Murphy game in the series. Though we certainly will not end "Project Fedora" as another cliffhanger! It will come to a satisfactory conclusion but it'd be nice to at least leave the door open for further adventures if everything goes right. Down the road, if people are interested in the character moving forward, we could also consider doing episodic Tex Murphy adventures. Right now, the plan is to do a traditional, full Tex Murphy game.

It'd indeed be cool if this Project Fedora campaign later resulted in a series of Tex Murphy games.

I think the attention span mention in the interview may more refer to pacing of the story though I could be wrong. From a GOG interview with Aaron Conners:

With a full budget, I would make a game like the old ones, but with state-of-the art 3D and graphics. I think we would still need to do FMV, but we could blend it better with CG characters in the environments. I would also work on the pacing, make it a bit faster, but keep control in the hands of the player as much as possible. In fact, I would explore offering multiple modes of play – not just difficulty levels, but the actual gameplay style – so different types of players would get the kind of game they want.

I don't know if having different modes of play in how the game actually plays out is within the current budget, but if so it'd be cool to hear about it more.

And I think the mentions of making the game more easier/intuitive to play is more about the "sleek new interface" mentioned on the Kickstarter and in the RetroNick interview:

Its nice to be a retro product but you also have to realise that techniques have improved and those really have to be built into what you're doing. So just from the standpoint of our heritage we like to push the envelope and we like to make sure of whatever we can do to make the game easier to play or more enjoyable. We definitely take all of those things very seriously and we want to make those technical improvements to make it more fun.

The core of the game play will be the same including searching locations, combining objects, interviewing suspects, interacting with friends and not-so-friendly people, cinematic sequences and more. However, we hope to streamline the interface and make it more intuitive and easier to play.

It'd be cool if in a future update about gameplay they talked more about their ideas on improving upon past gameplay. The interface seemed to get better between games ending with Overseer so I'm curious as to their plans.

Jerry Dan wrote:I just had an awesome idea. They keep talking about wanting to continue pioneering the genre, and this would do it!

Ever notice how, despite all of the possible endings of PD, only one of them (and one of the hardest to get) fed directly into Overseer? Mission Street, with the best Chelsee ending. This got me to thinking, what if there was greater continuity between a new game and the result of previous games? That led me to thinking, what if the games never completely ended, but were instead serialized into (more or less contained) volumes?

Reading CJ's interview in Rock Paper Shotgun, I noticed he talked about the shorter attention span of modern gamers, which I understood as saying that this game might be a bit shorter than, say, PD. That made me sad. But if you could finish one game and then, if you desire, you were able to carry over the character as you built him through that game into a new, including personality traits (like the paths in PD), inventory items, money, etc. between different installments, that would satisfy me greatly. You would install the next release as a module or add-in (like WoW releases, for instance), using the same frame. Every now and then a tweak in the frame or engine would warrant or require an update, I'm sure, but for the most part BF could focus on building mini-books. And they needn't even be terribly related.

This might not happen with Project Fedora, but if they liked the idea, they could design this story with that sort of future in mind. It would be the kind of thing it would take a great writer to work on...and I'm pretty sure we all agree that AC is overqualified.

What do you think?

In my opinion for this game to be better than the Pandora Directive, as claimed on Kickstarter, it would have to be longer. I don't know if I like the idea of mini games for Tex, however I wouldn't be opposed if that was the only solution and you would in a sense combine the shorter games together to get a bigger game. The casual properties would be better suited for it.

One downside is you would have to be careful about an update alienating a player if they modified something from the first part of the game they liked.

I think the "Chapters" in the old games helped pace things out just fine. You reach a goal, then there's a new objective.

I woudn't want an episodic release-- after hanging off a cliff for 14 years, I don't want to get off it and then step to another cliff edge!

I agree that the chapters broke things down nicely. Also, I'm not sure about the game being longer than PD. It could be good, but a game can get too long.