Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Video Follow Up

First of all, our team is ecstatic over the feedback you all gave us. We're giving it our all and it's nice to hear that it doesn't go unappreciated. Many of you commented with some valid questions and complaints, which I feel we should address.

The most common complaint, which will be fixed, were the text bleeps. Many of you stated they were too loud and detracted from the video. They will be toned down in the future so as not to be too annoying. There has to be a sort of dialogue feedback, otherwise the game will feel quiet and empty without it. We opt to use text bleeps because there will be a lot of dialogue, and having voice acting would be an even more momentous effort. If the bleeps do become too much we may allow an option to outright disable it.

We apologize that the text bleeps got in the way of the music. Our composer, Senator Myth, spent a lot of time working on the background theme for Ponyville, and having it taken away from the bleeps doesn't do the theme justice. We will be slowly uploading the themes as we progress further, and the Ponyville theme will be uploaded to YouTube soon for everyone to enjoy.

There is one major misconception that we need to address. This game is not a direct ponification of Harvest Moon. It is an adaption of Harvest Moon to fit into the Friendship is Magic universe. One of the biggest decisions we made was to not include romantic relationships and marriage. A major theme that persists throughout the show is the power of friendship, and we feel that theme is what makes the show so great. We want to make a game everyone can play rather than a game some people want to play, much like the show itself.

The last point we want to address are Macs. A couple of you have asked if it will be possible to play it on a Mac (or UNIX system). Right now, no. Since the game is being written in C++, we would have to do modifications to have it work on a Mac, and none of us have a Mac to test it on. In the future, we will look into having it work on a Mac, but for now we want to focus on creating the game first and foremost.

4 comments:

  1. I'm glad to hear that you'll look into the bleeps in the dialogues! I actually like the idea of them, and do agree that without them the atmosphere becomes quieter, so having them there but with a lower volume sounds ideal, if that is doable.

    Oh, I'll look forward to the future music themes! The one in the video was very nice.

    Choosing friendly relationships rather than romantic ones is okay. You can still get good character chemistry out of those, as seen in the TV show. You're probably right about reaching a larger audience that way. (I like shipping myself, but not everybody does and I think that it's neat that you're taking that into account.)

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    1. Our goal is to try and get that chemistry the show has. I will admit that I do like some ships (like Lyra and Bonbon), but they aren't going to be the focus. At the very most, it will be hinted amongst other characters, but it will never involve the player.

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  2. I am still looking forward to this game, but I am a bit disappointed that we won't be able to pursue romantic relationships as per a Harvest Moon/Rune Factory game.

    I understand your decision to make it more about friendship like everypony's favourite TV show, but without the option to woo a chosen mare/stallion (if we get the option of male/female earth ponies) then to me it's going to feel more like Farmville with a town and NPCs to interact with than an adaptation of Harvest Moon.

    On the other hand, since this will be run on a C++ engine, trying to integrate the differences in relationship between friendship (for ineligible ponies) and romance (for eligible ponies) would require quite a few more...it's been a while since I've used C++, but I understand that that would require a lot more time to compile all that code.

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    1. Just because there will be no romantic relationships, that doesn't mean that there won't be platonic relationships. Befriending ponies will play a major role in finding your cutie mark.

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