Great movie i really enjoyed this. Levels this long usually bore me but this kept me interested till the end. Also the voice acting is very good! Cant wait for part 2
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Great movie i really enjoyed this. Levels this long usually bore me but this kept me interested till the end. Also the voice acting is very good! Cant wait for part 2
I liked the cinematic. Pretty refreshing. Like some other posts, I do feel it could have been condensed down a bit. But it's not a big deal. There was 1 line of dialogue I missed, because the previous magic mouth was still active. I had to hit 'o' before the next line started playing, but it was too late and was then cut off early. (It was in the first 1/4 of the level, if that helps) Also, a couple of the recordings had some noise/feedback. Never hurts to rerecord damaged takes. No complaints, other than these minor technical issues. The story is interesting, and I'm curious to see where it leads.
Nice, i really liked it :)
The voice acting was clear and understandable, good story and good details (especially the glimmering gold and the flames).
I couldnt find any negative points, so im excited to watch the next part!
I played it.
WOW. It's a lot better than the previous one. There are some things, small and big, but my brother's playing my PS3 right now. lol
I'll post more later, I just didn't want to forget to.
Hey, I got the guy that tore my original level apart to praise this. Nice! And I think I know some of the things you're going to criticize me for; I just didn't have the time to attend to them last night. I'm gonna try to get on them as soon as possible.
Ah yes the infamous speech bubble. Yeah we don't know what happened there. On the sequencer they are activated by batteries which don't overlap so I don't know. We tried replacing the mouths but it didn't work. We will try to fix it but there are no promises.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrunkenFist_Lee
That mouth could be set up as a 1-shot, which would explain why it's not closing on it's own. I've had similar bugs making planet x. I'd make sure all your mouths are set to the standard on/off, if triggered by sequencers and batteries.
Okay as soon as shim is online I'll look into that. Thanks for the advice!Quote:
Originally Posted by DrunkenFist_Lee
Queued! I hope to check it out today (maybe tomorrow). I'll post my feedback once I do.
Queued your level! I'll play it as soon as I get the chance and leave some feedback :p
UPDATE: Pictures have been added. Here they are:
http://ib.lbp.me/img/fl/79b64d1bb041...bd70c736bc.jpg
http://i0.lbp.me/img/fl/df0e391feacd...f4a7e7de48.jpg
http://i1.lbp.me/img/fl/2b1f6d516da1...412bf2dd4e.jpg
hey shimshok, watched your level.
I'm not as much of an artistic creator as a technical creator so i wont really comment on the art, acting or story.
I'm more into the playable levels so don't take too much negativity from my comments.
The pacing was too slow for me. It seems to me like you have a much bigger story planned and you took what could have been the first 2 minutes and made it the first 7 or whatever. I don't know if you could shorten the pauses in between dialog or anything, it's just my taste.
I do feel though you might want to strengthen your 'punchline' (for lack of a better word) cause the part inside the temple was when it started to get interesting (for me), but the abduction just didn't seem impactful enough
from a technical standpoint you might want to recheck watching your level with the controller down, i think some of the dialog at the beginning might be messed up if you don't hit O.
I also think you might want to use the subtitles during the narration, as you don't have the highest quality microphones.
Finally, it starts off with immediately with a blank screen and the narrator speaking, I wasn't really prepared for this and missed some of the first few words. I suggest using a visual aid to let the viewer know it's starting, something like the old 50s style single digit clock-swipe countdown or something equivalent.
Oh, and I like you're sparkling gold =D
good work
Thankyou very much for the review. I am currently looking into the mucked up dialog at the beginning. As for the length. We do not feel the need to shorten the level because we have planned every piece of dialog to have some significance. Due to our thermometer being filled we cannot add a lot of stuff into the level. If you could add some suggestions on how we could improve the kidnapping we would be highly grateful. And your point about you not being prepared for the start worries me. It is a film level so people should know that something will happen once it loads.Quote:
Originally Posted by fei0x
Cheers~
Robmacd94
Even though we are aware of it, it's nice if there was a pause or something at the beginning. Even Newgrounds has a start button. (That's just an example though)Quote:
Originally Posted by Robmacd94
Btw, Cryogen, what were the other flaws you said you noticed? I'm just curious to hear if there are some things we could adjust real quick. Me and rob are going to try to get to what people here have said when we get the chance.
My F4F feedback, as promised...
Overall, a very well done cinematic for what promises to be an intriguing level series. I really liked the music (original?) and I was quite impressed with the camera work, especially your slow pans in the establishing shots at the very beginning. Your art direction was quite good. The use of materials and decorations was nicely thought out. One quibble I have has to do with your gold coins. You might want to make the little LEDs on the king's throne invisible. I like the sparkly effect you've created, but in the closeups, I can see the lights, which is a tad distracting. I also noticed that the coins on the cart the Aztecs bring to the conquistador have little holes in them, which seem to be where you've put in some other lights. I'm not sure why you did this differently from the throne room.
Like some of the other posts here, I also felt that the cinema was a bit long. I understand that you are committed to your script and don't see any room for cuts, but hear me out. In any storytelling, whether in writing, in film, whatever, you can show and you can tell. Showing is always better--and nowhere moreso, and in a literal sense, than in a visual medium. Think of a movie trailer--there is always way more going on visually than aurally.
Don't take any of this the wrong way. Your visuals are strong, and you have some good camera-work going. I think that you could work out a way to use the visuals to do the work that your narrative voice-over and dialogue do in a lot of places. The first three quarters of your movie—like any introductory segment to a story—has three functions: to establish the setting, the characters, and the conflict. In some cases, it seemed to me that you chose to both show and tell when the one would have been enough. Here are a couple of examples of what I'm thinking.
1. When you introduce the king, you don't really need to talk about how he's the king in the voice-over. The setting and his costume signal his role to the audience pretty unequivocally.
2. In the sacrifice sequence, I don't think you need to have much narration, if any. Again, when the woman prays to Quetzalcoatl in front of a big fire and there is a goat near by, it's unnecessary to tell me who she is and why she's doing what she's doing. I can tell she's a priestess or holy person of some sort.
3. During the part where you introduce the player's character, the whole thing is voice-over, with the player's sackperson just standing there in the dark. You talk about how he stands apart from the rest of the people. Show me. Give some sort of scene where he's literally standing apart from the other people, perhaps all surly because they want to do one thing and he knows that something else must be done.
I also felt that the "crime" should have been given much more emphasis, both in intensity and time. This is what the whole thing builds toward, and this is the moment where you have the biggest opportunity to sell the rest of your project, but it feels really hasty.
That little blue guy was pretty cool, and the shot of him levitating into the sky was awesome. I want to see what happens in the temple, though! This is the climax. Why do you cut to the guards outside? You've been building up this idea of a most grievous crime--show me the crime! I gather that the king is murdered, but even that detail is a little vague. Obviously you want to keep some mystery around the incident, and I imagine that the conquistador is involved somehow. That blue dude is pretty mysterious on his own, though. You don't need to have the incident happen offscreen. Mostly, I want to see what the blue guy can do. I want to know why I should be going after him when the gameplay starts, and what I'll be up against. Show me what is at stake.
Once again, don't take any of these ideas the wrong way. I really liked your film. You've obviously put a ton of thought into what you want to accomplish. There's clearly something intriguing brewing here, and I'm interested to see how your story plays out. I just want to see it get that extra punch.
Cheers
Sorry, been busy. lolQuote:
Originally Posted by Scholarship
But I haven't forgotten. It isn't in my usual style, but it's a WHOLE LOT quicker.
- Some of the opening dialog in the beginning needs to be taken out. This probably could have worked: (Deeper voice though)
"Long ago in Aztec times, where peace and harmony were known throughout, a treacherous story took place." (Maybe show an old looking slate with the story on it and add more to make it longer)
Queue music.
- Some of the tones used in the dialog wasn't fitting and kind of repeated itself. Like "This particular story I'm about to tell you, this one right here..."
- For some reason all your names being put on the bottom in the ground turned my focus down and kind of made me ignore the village. Maybe show all your names on the opening black screen, or incorporate it into the seen more fluently.
- Nice custom music.
- I think it's presents not present.
- I'm a big stickler for titles. Mainly because I like the title looking all fancy and cool. It shows what to expect from the rest of the level. Also, when you show the title, the music playing while the music is playing should match the entire mood of the story, but you'll have to ease into it due to the happy music at the beginning. Of course you could always show the title all cool like and cool music AFTER the trouble starts. Maybe at the end or after they say what happened. It adds more emphasis and that "The s*** just hit the fan" effect. But this is mainly used if the game-play is going to be fast-ish or energetic.
- Lol. I have to agree with Bercilak on the whole needing to say he's the king. They come straight out and say "Your highness." If that's not a give away, you can shoot me.
- Some of their speech patterns doesn't match the era. The king says, "Has it been run through?" He sounds like a business guy. lol, I just had a funny thought, what if they spoke only gibberish and there were subtitles. It's just a funny thought though. lol
- Berc is also right on the lights for the sparkles. They're visible.
- I'm sure it's just me, but the thrown room doesn't look too glamorous. The walls look too empty. Also, the thrown has no stairs?
*crosses arms like a disappointed king* "Why should the king have to jump down!?" BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!
- I never really liked history, but how was wood scarce when they were surrounded by it?
- I think the sacrifice didn't look all that great. You could have gone with the direction from a further angle and made giant flames come up and lights that looked like aurora. Also, they could have spoke gibberish here. Like an ancient language. Maybe even the star-field glass could have worked for the background.
- The dialogue before it shows the king inside the (church?) was way too much. Why was there an eerie sound when it zoomed onto the statue? It seemed unnecessary.
- It looked like the statue of his father was talking when it said, "What are you?"
- When it finally showed the player, there really wasn't much POP! It was like, your hero is... this guy in a boring setting and he'll be shown for 3 seconds. Also, if I'm wearing something that glows, I can see myself.
- It wasn't that the dialog dragged, it was that too much emphasis was used on some words and it kept repeating itself.
@Bercilak
I absolutely love this post, because you pointed out a lot of things that I, nor nobody else, seemed to notice. Hell, not even the people who co-produced this with me seemed to catch what you just discussed (visible leds in gold). And actually, the gold in the trade scene was made in the same way the gold in the throne room was. It's just that I couldn't figure out how to work the randomizer to make it as visually effective.
Also, not sure if you saw it, but the king was levitating with the blue guy. Little important detail there, lol. And for your suggestion of highlighting the main character amongst the crowd of Aztecs, I actually wanted to do something like that. It's just really too bad that you can only do so much within the thermometer, although I have heard of an emitting trick that people use to give them near infinite level space. However, the next level does go into "separating him from the crowd" a bit more.
As for the conquistador, although he was not formally introduced yet, his name is Hernan Cortez. This is just a much nicer spin on him, haha.
But yes, thank you very much for your input. I'm gonna see if I can add to that crime scene later on.
@cryogen
We did do gibberish before. People did not like that, lol. I could probably solve the whole people with glowing costumes things at the end by covering the player with a piece of material and hooking a destroyer up to it.
As for the whole wood being scarce thing, look at where the wood around them is: most of it is around where their buildings are. Cutting down those trees would probably not be the best of ideas. What you saw in the scene with the trader was not actually a full-fledged forest (this was not made clear in the level, so my bad), so that's why they needed more. What you saw there was all there was.
Anyway, thanks for your input, too. :)
I'm not sure why I missed the king flying in the air. The enemy really draws your attention.
The big thing I'd like to see is that your climax gets a nice extra punch. If you're at the top of your thermometer, you might consider chopping the player introduction and pushing it to the next chapter. A sackbot takes up a good bit of termo, and I'd imagine the v-o at that part might give you a bit of room. If you have some ideas about the player's characterization to be revisited next time, it might be best just to leave it. Your intro sets the scene, shows what is at stake. Then you jump into the next level with a tiny scene where we meet the hero and get off to gameplay. Just a thought...
I actually just added to the level so now that you now actually see the bad guy go after the king. Doing this only made the whole thing like 5 seconds longer, however. We'll see what other players think of the addition when they play this.