Yep. My doubt was that he said “the new parallax effect”. I thought graphic-wise the game was completed.
I haven’t played Sinking Island, but your description hit home for me with regard to Syberia. A lot of backtracking and (near) empty rooms, but beautiful to look at. Put another way, it was a decent but not a great game, yet it stands out in my memory primarily because of the visuals.
But I don’t think I attach nearly that much importance to graphics. I think Oxenfree isn’t particularly good looking (although some parts of it are), but as I said in my profile here it’s probably my favorite adventure game.
1 Like
No, I don’t think so. It’s simply that the art style of the game is literally all we’ve seen of it so far, via the trailer and screenshots. Therefore, that’s naturally where the fan discussion is focused right now. If the fans currently had access to the puzzles, exploration, humour, story/characters and music, in addition to the art style, then we’d all be talking about the game as a whole and not just the art style.
Somebody saying that they don’t particular like the art style in the screenshots isn’t the same thing as them saying that they don’t care about all the other aspects of the game, or that they place art direction above any other aspect of a game.
3 Likes
I would argue that vision is the defining sense for most people, so it seems only natural that the look of something is fairly important. And even where that isn’t the case, the screenshots offer little clues as to what the quality of puzzles, exploration, humor, story and music will be. The one thing that sticks out is the art style. And given how artsy that is, I can understand that it isn’t judged on purely technical merits, as more traditional 2, 2.5 or 3D styles would have been.
Personally, I find myself often attracted by looks alone. But then I will also consider if the thing is actually fun and worthwhile. I think more often than not I can withstand temptation, but on occasion I end up with something that looks fantastic, but I lose interest in almost immediately. Not sure I ever bought a game I considered truly ugly, though, even if it sounded like it’d be right up my alley.
1 Like
I agree with both of you…
I didn’t play Grim Fandango for ages because I really didn’t like the screenshots, but it ended up being one of my favourite games, and I didn’t like the CofMI art initially…
Hopefully people come round to the art style over the course of the game, like Ron says happened with the playtesters.
2 Likes
Interesting to hear this from multiple people here. GF’s art absolutely blew me away. The controls were absolutely atrocious, however.
2 Likes
I thought it was the best looking game I’d ever seen. 
It looks amazing. 
1 Like
Yes, Syberia has some backtracking as well but, if memory serves well, Sinking Island takes it to another level.
In Syberia, when the player moves to a new chapter, he can no more access the locations of the previous chapters. This happens in Sinking Island only partially: in the last chapter the player can access some of the rooms already visited in the first chapter, even if there is no reason to do so.
Why do you think the developers haven’t created a game page in the main stores (e.g. Steam) yet? After an official announcement, Isn’t it a common practice to invite people to put the game in their wishlists?
Sure, just open more platforms with forums, which will be flooded with negative criticism before the game is even released.
I can understand when those sites only go online when the game is really done and ready to purchase.
1 Like
But I’m talking about opening only the page for the game, the one with the “Add to wishlist” button in it.
2 Likes
Maybe because they would have to provide a real trailer, revealing much more of the graphics than they did. Maybe they aren’t ready for that. (why?)
1 Like
I doubt that the game will be ready for this summer.
Yes, at this point, I think the release date would be around September or October. I will be a bit disappointed if that’s the case, but I understand.
Ron closes comments again due to personal attacks on Rex…
I believe most people are only trolling about the graphics because we aren’t given anything else to discuss. We need some clue about the story, something to use as starting point for our “deductions”. 
2 Likes
Why do you exclude the summer?
My opinion is that insulting people has nothing to do with the topics discussed or with a lack of topics to discuss.
5 Likes
I don’t know. I feel like it’s too late for an announcement. And, for what I remember, games rarely come out during the Summer, but maybe it’s only a rule for AAA games… or it’s just a impression.
1 Like
No, that’s true: In the summer more/most people are going outside, are on vacations, etc. So they haven’t time or like to play (new) games. And especially right before Christmas people are more generous.
1 Like
On top of that, I don’t tend to feel much desire to play games even when I’m happy reading a book on the couch. Also it doesn’t help that I don’t want 200+ W worth of heat blowing into the room.
2 Likes