:: Memento :: otnemeM ::

[discokrakken]

My tribute to the film Memento.

4/10/11 - Episides 2 & 3 are now live!

http://lbp.me/v/y7-53x

[RockSauron]

I saw your thread... so yeah. I got some feedback...

1. The cutout of the corpse looks odd in LBP2. Maybe try having sackbot sideways... I know I've seen something like taht before :/
2. That weird thing in the motel room looks odd. The one with the face.
3. Stickers = no go in LBP2. I'd say to make a menu with a Sackbot and Holo and Controllinator and whatever to do it witout stickers which are annoying in LBP2... or in LBP1 but it is unnecessary in this level.
4. Cardboard car looks weird. Cardboard cutouts in general are bad :/


And in general the story was a bit confusing to me... Though I never watched Memento but that shouldn't matter methinks... Also, the note grabbing part just seems pointless to me but eh.

But yeah. I rated in with a good face but it wasn't the best. Though I guess it shouldn't need to be. But to me it just seemed discombobulated and not really in a good way- like it didn't know what it wanted to be really. I unno. It was an ok level, but not that great... hopefully I managed to help a bit... and not be too mean. anywho... /cough /runs

[discokrakken]

Thanks for the feedback, RockSauron. The movie is incredibly confusing, but it's also one of the greatest suspense mindbender films ever created. If I tried to make this tribute level straight-forward, I would fail so badly at delivering a successful tribute.

I definitely get where you're coming from regarding the custom sticker cut-outs. They're so LBP1 2009, but there are good reasons behind their usage here, again related to paying tribute.

The car is important to the story, as it plays into the mystery. It needs to be a recognizeable sports car because the vehicle itself holds certain mysteries. I did some pretty extensive community object sharing research in this area, to see if someone had already made a suitable sports car. Frankly, all of the made-from-scratch vehicles in LBP look worse IMO. Everything in the LBP universe is ultimately bland materials trying to look nice and usually failing, and in the end I used my Eyetoy to capture an image of the real car from the movie, a late 90's Jaguar XK8. I'd love to see some AWESOME sports cars in showroom levels or real gameplay, but I'm pretty sure they're a myth. I've looked and looked but never found any, so I chose to do something unique.

The dead body in the opening scene had to be cardboard in order to be animated falling down in reverse. I was able capture all of the key animation frames of a sackboy being smacked to the floor, and arranged them backwards in this cinematic animation. This is to mimic the movie's iconic opening scene, which hints to the audience that this movie will be presented backwards. If I could program a sackbot to lie still on the floor, then on-cue perform a backwards falling animation, I'd do it, but the creation tools simply don't allow for this.

I'm not sure what you mean by "stickers are a no go." They're obviously functional and work perfectly fine, despite the requirement for enabled community settings. They also suit the story, since stickers as a note-taking mechanism fit the protagonist's need to store memories on photographs and such. I know controlinator-hologram menus are a new fad, but using an Atari-2600-looking menu system to accomplish the assembly of evidence to reach a conclusion strikes me as more of a step in the wrong direction plus much more difficult to create, in comparison to using sticker functions that LBP already does naturally. Lenny didn't use an iPad to track down his wife's killer. Stickers are a simple native element of LBP, and I think they work well here in both context and mechanism.

[Bercilak]

Just queued it. I love Memento. I'm intrigued about how you handle the backwards narrative. I have a couple of things queued up to check out that I hope to get around to in the next day or two.

[RtooDee2]

Its just a shame that this level isn't getting the plays it deserves.
Its by far the most unique level out there.
I like it...but you already know that cause i told you.
B.T.W. Thanks for having a bash on my lil level.

[discokrakken]

Just queued it. I love Memento. I'm intrigued about how you handle the backwards narrative. I have a couple of things queued up to check out that I hope to get around to in the next day or two.

If you're familiar with the structure of the film, you'll definitely recognize the similarities. The full movie alternates color scenes going backwards and B&W scenes going forward until they merge at the end of the film with the climactic scene that fades from B&W into color, essentially tying the chronology together in the center of the timeline. I hope to cover the whole film like this, though it will likely take me the rest of 2011 to finish it unless I hit a hot streak. This episode is a condensed arrangement the events of the first 15-20 minutes of the film. I conceived and began building off of this idea way back when the global lighting tweaker was patched into LBP1, but it was too difficult to execute the concept with LBP1's tool set. I love the things sackbots and sequencers can do nowadays. No more magic mouths on cardboard!

[LeastCreative]

This level is amazing. Well done with the animation and cutouts, I'm not sure what rock is talking about, I thought it looked really well made. Voice acting was spot on and the lbp twist on the dialogue was even better.

Unfortunately the sticker thing was a problem for me, but only because I generally do not accept community baubles and it took me a long time to figure out why I had no switch triggers when I was clearly supposed to be using a sticker. It wasn't really a design flaw I guess, but that could definitely throw some people off that also do not accept community prizes.

Other than that it was probably the first cut-scene-type-storyline-thing I've seen outside of the story levels that was actually interesting and driven, instead of the usually silly and easy-to-forget type stuff that seems to be flooding lbp2. I'm not complaining, everyone loves humor, but no other level like this has ever made me want to go see the movie its about.

Well done!

[discokrakken]

Thanks LeastCreative! I'm thinking about how exactly to approach that. I might put a disclaimer somewhere about the community settings, but right now I'm basically relying on people being able to figure it out like you did. RockSauron really got me thinking about how I could use new LBP2 tech to replace the sticker section. I'd love to do a point-and-click adventure type of thing, but designing an evidence assembly minigame could be daunting to create, and would shut out players 2-4. Part of my design philosophy here is that one player will always control the lead character, and any additional players won't share that spotlight but they can still come along for the story, collect points, and in this specific section apply stickers.

[spitfire842]

Hey discokrakken,

I'm reviewing as I play and I have to say this is one of my favourite films! My first thoughts are that I love the fact you have to shake the controller for the photo (I think that's the first time I've seen this in a LBP level), and the animations are great.

I really like the way you've seamlessly made the film into a game, it just works so well; i particularly like the integration between gameplay and cut scenes

No gripes whatsoever actually, it's a really lovely level and I'm definitely going to have to go and watch Memento again soon!

Thanks for your feedback on my level

[Edeslash]

I really liked your feedback on my level and I'd love to try this out...
But I've been planning to see Memento for a long time and I'm going to watch it soon. So I don't want to be spoiled about the story!

[biorogue]

discokrakken (love the name btw) got this one queued up and you said you couldn't find any cars (good one's anyways) try this guys' cars. He makes awesome sports cars imho.

The_twinsoul @http://lbp.me/v/rvzzf5

[Kanada Ten]

The time-lapse at the beginning is outrageously good.

More, please.

[Bercilak]

Finally got around to checking this out...

Overall, an impressive level, and a nice homage to the film. I really loved the opening sequence. It would be awesome if you could figure out how to do it with a sackbot, but the cutout works just fine. I liked having to shake the controller to reverse develop the Polaroid. (My Dualshock was a bit sketchy, and I had some trouble getting the shaking to register, but that's not your fault.) I also really liked the title card with the photographs.

Nice work on the Leonard character costume. I was digging the mirror sequence. It looks like all you did was put a piece of glass in the foremost layer, but it was totally convincing.

There were a lot of cool ideas you pulled out in the first couple of minutes. The cuts to Leonard's Polaroids and his little notebook with the sticker switches were effective. I almost want this to be a full-blown gameplay mechanic, though, rather than just a matter of "stick this here to get on with the story." I would be cool to make the level more of an adventure-type game where you have to find the clues and put them in the notebook yourself, calling it up at will with a button press or something. (Or maybe you have to "unfind" the clues--you start with a full notebook and gradually empty it out as you go... Don't mind me, I'm just thinking out loud.) I think the story lends itself to that sort of thing more than platforming. Your shout-outs to platforming with the bounce pads and point bubbles seem a little out of place in that regard. I feel as if there should be more to look at and people to talk to.

I like your sense of humour. You do a good job sackifying the film and injecting some whimsical elements into your retelling. The teddy thing was a major groaner, but I loved it!

When you get to the scened where Leonard "paints" Teddy, I felt a little betrayed when you put the shooting on autofire. I feel like you should let the player have agency here. It might be a good way to pull the player into the story more, as well. Okay, so I just shot this guy and I'm not quite sure why. Well, as you work backwards you eventually find out...

A couple of very minor things caught my eye that you might want to fix. In the motel courtyard, the gameplay camera is still visible as you come down the stairs. Teddy (the bear) also has a player sensor on his crotch that is visible.

In all, some very nice work. You have the makings of a neat adventure game. The big thing I would personally like to see would be more agency on the part of the player.

[discokrakken]

I feel as if there should be more to look at and people to talk to.

Yeah, I definitely agree with you about this... What sucks is that the level keeps glitching and I have to rebuild it on a new moon crater! I have a bit of thermo left for decorating, but eventually the level decides that the player should see their score at all times. Points have very little bearing on the level itself, but the stupid thing never goes away! I refused to accept this, and have rebuilt the level once as a result. Then I did some more polishing and added voice acting, and then it happened again. I currently have a backup of the level where I predict I have about 40 or 50 create mode actions remaining before the glitch takes hold and I'm forced to rebuild a second time. I just wish LBP would let me work on this level without completely screwing me like this.

When you get to the scened where Leonard "paints" Teddy, I felt a little betrayed when you put the shooting on autofire.

This is actually me feeling betrayed by the LBP2 tool set. I can't figure it out! The sackbot just fires on his own. Between the controlinator settings and the sackbot behavior settings, I just can't figure out how to get the sackbot to only fire when the player hits R1. In attempting to troubleshoot this, I noticed that you can fire really fast if you mash the R1 button, but regardless the sackbot itself is somehow holding down R1. I posted a thread about this in the help forum but I'm pretty sure it got buried before I got any real help.

In all, some very nice work. You have the makings of a neat adventure game. The big thing I would personally like to see would be more agency on the part of the player.

Definitely, this project has been difficult to approach as a designer, particularly conceiving fun things to do within the story and its various settings. I kind of feel like I have to do things like points bubbles and jump pads just to give the player something platformy to do to keep things interesting. Otherwise you're just walking around my bland motel scene.

Thanks for mentioning those visible tools BTW!

[Kanada Ten]

Yeah, I definitely agree with you about this... What sucks is that the level keeps glitching and I have to rebuild it on a new moon crater! I have a bit of thermo left for decorating, but eventually the level decides that the player should see their score at all times. Points have very little bearing on the level itself, but the stupid thing never goes away! I refused to accept this, and have rebuilt the level once as a result. Then I did some more polishing and added voice acting, and then it happened again. I currently have a backup of the level where I predict I have about 40 or 50 create mode actions remaining before the glitch takes hold and I'm forced to rebuild a second time. I just wish LBP would let me work on this level without completely screwing me like this.

There was something in a thread about this recently, where they suggested building the level in small sections, each on it's own crater; then putting each section into an emitter and emitting it (while destroying the unseen areas) as needed. It seemed to help with that particular issue (160-hour bug?).

As for the auto-shoot, that's really odd... It didn't seem like the player-bot was auto-grabbing things, why auto-shoot? @,@