Hi Amerikranian and all,
I definitely understand where you're coming from, on most of your points. I haven't touched this game in over 6 months! I should get back into it at some point. I also appreciate your sensitivity toward the developers.
I've recently been discussing audio game development and improvement with a friend of mine, and while it may not be appropriate to put an entire rant about that here, I will still write it here anyway for those interested. This is not meant to address anything on the forum, though I've had to deal with a lot of nonsense over the past few weeks. This game definitely generated quite the controversy, so I think this topic is a safe place to put my rant. Lol
Anyway, like I say I've been talking to a friend of mine about the current problems the audiogame community faces. I believe with as much attention to detail as we have, and with his BGT knowledge, he could really make something great, of course with a little help from others. We haven't yet started anything though, we both need to actually take our thoughts seriously before we go anywhere. So I'll not say anything more about that. However, the Ches board of Audio Game Innovation topic I created a while ago in the General Game Discussion forum was pretty much a direct result of differing opinions between us. I did not include anything about The Gate in that topic, as I was not seeking input on that game specifically, although it wouldn't be exempt from that discussion.
My friend knows BGT a little, and is already having some success creating little test games with it, so is able to deduce perhaps a little quicker than many of us how The Gate works. His problems with the Gate from a technical standpoint are that it uses the same wind ambiance throughout, and the sounds are very dry and standard. While they sound good, they do not sound realistic to the environment. He also criticizes the step-wise movement of the objects on the board, as it feels very squared and steppish. If you are keen on such things, you will indeed notice that objects in The Gate do not have continuous movement, but stepped movement as they travel through each square on the board.
As is a pretty well-known fact by now, The Gate is a very monotonous game. Monotony is, after all, easy to work with in coding a game. All a programmer has to do is create objects or functions that describe one instance of itself, and then recall those things over and over as needed. My friend and I jokingly say things like, "The Gate does things the cheap way," But sadly that is a true statement. For techies like him and I, that does put things in a different perspective. Doing things "the cheap way" in no way makes a bad game by itself, and the consequences of that can be actually good or bad. It depends on whether you use that as a feature, or just an aid to your expediency. Unfortunately, as simple as The Gate is mechanically, difficult often feels cheap so that the game isn't too easy. particularly when you consider the other side-scrollers which were hard in their day but are now quite manageable. Adventure at C: was more complex than The Gate mechanically.
In my opinion, The Gate was written far too quickly. But not carelessly or without thought. There is a very large and crucial difference between a game written quickly and carelessly and a game written quickly with effort. I am not trying to degrade The Gate, I am trying to say that the game could be so much better had it been given more time and resources. I am not demanding or complaining about what we have.
While it is not easily possible to decrypt The Gate's sound files, it is very possible, and in fact legal and without any hidden secrets, to view The attributes and names of The Gate's sounds. There is a working example in the BGT manual that requires little more than a simple copy/paste procedure and an updated BGT installation to list the files in a pack, and this works as expected on the Gate. With some knowledge of BGT's script you could write up a program to export all the files from within a pack. The files would still be encrypted but you could get a better look at their attributes. I can attest to the fact that the game has over 1,000 sound files, and many of them comprise music alone. However, what I am about to tell you will likely shock you. If you were to take the music out of the game, you would be left with a program that would sit comfortably on a computer from the 90s. The game would be no more than 50 MB in size, if I remember correctly the sound effects were only 18 MB! Though I could be wrong on that. So, that leaves at least 250 MB of the game's data files to music. That, my friends, is a result of the Elias music engine doing its work, and the game doesn't even have many songs! The reason the songs are so large is that Elias expects each song to be split into multiple layers of complexity which switch depending on the intensity of the scene, and each layer has individual instruments as separate audio files! This quickly adds up to a few hours of material for only a few songs.
One of Elias's strengths is that because it works with split tracks for each music intensity, it is able to create dynamic music which as I said above, changes intensities depending on the scene. However these layer changes are not easy for me or many others to notice in The Gate unless you actually listen for them. For a game which actually makes them easy to hear and very engaging, I find Metal gear Solid II to be a perfect example. There are no doubt countless others which I don't know about since I don't listen heavily to gameplays. The Gate's music does adapt, but not drastically enough to hear unless you listen for it. The songs which are played in The Gate are well orchestrated, but even when cranked up they are not very easy to hear and get into. I cannot sit down and memorize melodies like I would while listening to super Liam, Q9, or even an 8 bit mainstream game. Once again, I can tell much effort was put into the music, but it isn't particularly memorable music. It is not bad, in fact it is perhaps some of the best music I have heard in an audio game if we consider sonic characteristics. But as a musician I cannot connect the music to the game's atmosphere, particularly in spots when the battle is heavy.
However, none of what I have ranted about above is actually too important. Yes, it sounded like I was complaining, but in fact I was not. Why do I say that? It all stems from a question which I believe my stepdad asked me when I was a little kid. He only intended to create a reaction which would bring about mild amusement, and perhaps a little lighthearted debate, but it still serves as a perfect introduction to the meat of this rant. If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a noise? Certainly. We do not need to engage in a philosophical debate to say so. If I somehow drag you out into the wilderness, say, 4,000 miles away from civilization and brutally torture and then murder you, but nobody is around to see it, and nobody misses you, and then I wash the blood from my hands and live the rest of my life as I did before this happened, did I still commit a crime? Of course I did! If any evidence cropped up to support my crime, the case against me would at least be opened, whether your death was noticed or not. It might not go to any court because of lack of evidence, but it would still be investigated. Perhaps a more useful question to ask would be this: does it matter? That would effectively enter us into the largest philosophical debate of values that encompass the entire civilized human race. If we can't hear that tree falling in the forest, does the noise it will make matter? Probably not, unless of course you would like to account for unforeseeable circumstances, which for all purposes of practicality is pretty silly. My point here is simply this. If we can't hear it or notice it in a game, then do we need it? With a little thought, you might figure out that this is far more than a yes or no answer. Subliminal things are what actually make many games more awesome. But how small is too small?
When evaluating a game, we shouldn't initially look at how technically shiny it is, how few corners are cut, how many things we can find that are better, but instead how satisfied we are with what we have. I can't say that enough. Let's face it, the more picky you are, the harder it will be to have something that's perfect. And if you do find something you find perfect, the entire world, or even your closest circle of friends might still think you're totally bonkers to think the way you do, no matter how powerful or technically justifiable your arguments may be.
I will explain my own reaction to The Gate to drive this point home. I was very excited and supportive of the game when it first came out. I know I do have moderately low expectations with games, so I am easily impressed. That said, once I have been impressed by something and my reactions have run their course, it is not easy for the same thing to impress me again, unless it does something a little different and fresh, or seems to be tayloring to something I like. This precisely happened to me with The Gate, and would explain why I haven't played it in a while. While I don't believe I posted it here, I did eventually unlock the secret mode you get after beating normal. While not bad, I found it quite easy as compared to the normal game, and it didn't hold my interest for as long. Once that had run its course, I knew I hadn't much left to look forward to. Hades was so frustrating for me on normal that I was not about to try hard. Assuming I could make it to the Hades battle, I knew I would probably develop severe game rage, and at this rate it would set in quickly, and I would never want to touch the game again. So as more of a courtesy to myself, I didn't even tempt that. Then, when I learned more of the technical details I specified above, I started to get a sense that the game was, perhaps, more average than I was willing to admit to myself. I never did think it was the best game ever, but as I said way back, learning these details did put things more in a perspective. However I am not one to let technical details ruin my opinion. I notice them yes, but you know what, they don't change how the game plays. I'm still going to play it using the same strategies I did before I paid as much attention to such details. Because I knew this wasn't the most advanced game in the world to begin with, I could settle for the fact that its music takes up over 80 percent of the game's content, its voice acting may not be great to my fancy, the difficulty is purposefully and brutally hard, and its mechanics aren't anything special unless you count the strategically engineered levels. I was able to set the things aside which I felt were left a little short, and adapt to them. That is not to say I don't care about such things, or that I would be okay if audio games did not progress. Quite the contrary. But on the same note, I am, like I said earlier, relaxed with my expectations. I will not be the one screaming for someone to push the envelope forward, I will instead be the one gently nudging, because I have a true appreciation for the work put into even a simple game, since I can't yet even code a Slots game without a massive headache.
When downloading a new game, I used to look for unencrypted sound files before starting it. If I found any, I would listen to them. I don't even do that these days. Partially because so few games have unencrypted sounds now, but also because the primary purpose of a game is to be played as a game, not picked apart. It is more of a matter of personal discipline for me not to analyze and pick apart a game though, since if I let myself, I'd go overboard and not let the game carry me into its world. after beating Super Liam and Tarzan Junior, for example, both games now feel like a bunch of squares, objects and .wav files, because I made the mistake of listening to the sounds of the full versions before even buying my registration codes. Knowledge can destroy innocence.
While it is often tempting to look at the components of something before you use it, and while I will admit to doing it many more times than not, I still think that choosing not to acknowledge something can be a sign of sensitivity and humility, and does not simply say "I don't care." I do care about many things, and after a game has run its course I will allow myself to dig into it as much as I can, with my limited knowledge of how games are coded. But I only do that after I know I have gotten the gaming part of the experience out of the way.
I by no means am claiming to be well-balanced. I am not trying to encourage or tell you to think the way I do, nor am I trying to convince you to agree with me. Both would be outrageous expectations. I am instead gently trying to encourage everyone to give your own personal opinions more thought, as a self-check. Make sure you're not fooling yourself into thinking something which you will soon find was totally stupid. Opinions can be about anything, and they are very personal things. So long as you are confident in your ability to make well-thought decisions and opinions, and you try your best to base them off your own personal hierarchy of values, morals and tastes, that's all that matters. The best way to really know yourself is to admit how much or little attention you will give to specific details when actually using the product for its intended purpose. It's okay to not be certain, or to have some "just in case" measures, but I think establishing boundaries, like I demonstrated above with my technical self-discipline, is a great aid in keeping things in check if you allow yourself to give it some open and honest thought.
Make more of less, that way you won't make less of more!
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