Hello! Dropped in to pop a question. For you see(!), I was killing time browsing the WD sec-tion, and had the distinct pleasure of coming across a variation of How A Person Would Alter Up The Events In A New Frontier. Now, being in the mood for some creative findings, I took a tour down the thread.
After browsing through a number of ideas and their own input as to how they would spruce up the season, I came across your contribution, and found myself summarily engaged in your writings.
Though I felt the flashback mechanic was unneeded and overused (it tends to pay out better when exploring the present and setting for the future, rather than going back and severing the momentum), I enjoyed reading your post.
However . . .
.
.
.
However, my enjoyment morphed into perplexity once I came upon this–particular–passage:
"Gabe's determinant outburst is given more buildup here: If Clementine’s convinced to stay depending on your relationship with her, Clementine and Gabe come into minor conflict regarding David depending on your respective relationships with them(particularly if you were pro-Clementine and/or Kate, but not good with Gabe throughout).
"Eleanor/Kate will back her/him up, respectively. It is possible for a fight to break out between the two. Javier has four choices: If he doesn't do anything, Kate will break them up and get between them. She will tranquilly scold Clementine not to touch Gabe and then ask him if he's hurt after a few seconds, to which he claims no (while Clementine gets in considerably more hits, it can be seen that he hits a little harder). Kate replies with a "Good..." and slowly calms (or to the keen of eye, steels) herself with a fairly deep breathe...and then she turns around and slaps Gabe to the floor/ground. The flabbergasted boy simply stares straight back up in a crept back position as Kate intensely reprimands him for laying his hands on a girl.
"Instead of being blatantly railroaded, Javier is given a choice to support Gabe when Tripp singles him out.
"However, be warned that this can damage your determinately already festering relationships with Clementine and Kate."
The cause for confusion, of course, being as to why such an action would evoke such negative standing when the offende happens to know the offender for years, and have already built a deeply caring relationship between them.
The edgy tween holding a grudge against the offender can be explained by having little to no genuine relationship (having known each for less than a day), but the other?
May I be so bold as to inquire as to how that works?
Also, why is Trip crossing out the PC's nephew? And why does defending him cause Kate to sentence Javi to the Couch of Exile?
No, I'm joking.
What I am genuinely perplexified by is Kate instilling corporeal punishment on the PC's nephew/her stepson on the grounds of laying his hands on (hitting) a girl.
Why would she do that? What motivates her? What spurred her on?
What were your thoughts on writing that?
And with that, I shall depart; eagerly awaiting a response.
Enjoy your day!
Au revoir, aloha, Auf Wiedersehen, or, more blandly, goodbye.
Shoehorning Clementine in an unnatural way was a bit unneeded. People love her sure and they were going to be angry if they didn't see her, but don't forsake a cohesive and good narrative in exchange for adding more Clementine scenes. We could've taken a few of those to develop the Garcias.
We needed more connection to the family. Also Gabe/David were those Telltale assholes. You know the type, the one who'll begrudge you for everything you do if it isn't kissing their ass. I'd love a lot more nuance where people ask for your opinions on things. Imagine a choice where you give Clem away, but then you and Gabe get a moment to talk about it. And if you give a reason he can agree with (Emotional? Gut-Reaction? Logical? Regret?) he wouldn't squeal on you later in the season. Something like that, it adds depth when you see how characters rationalize things. But I found it hard to care for the family that didn't take the time to build their characters and just felt like stereotypes.
Jane/Kenny/Wellington/Alone. Killing off Jane/Kenny is lazy as hell. Different ways, sure, but let them reappear later in the series. Even if it's a cameo. Have them meet the current crew of survivors. They can still DIE because the story becomes too hard for Telltale to reconcile with too many variables. If Kenny meets the group, maybe his advice helps Eleanor and Tripp get together or berates Lingard for choosing suicide. If Jane survives, maybe she and Ava jive a lot. They don't necessarily have to be 'with' Clementine when she's introduced, just shuck them in at some point and make their deaths poignant and with purpose. Kenny
Ava/Tripp death. Tripp had a good demise. Ava's demise was fucking stupid. Don't kill someone if you're not going to make it matter after letting us invest. People liked Ava and had hopes for her, and she unceremoniously dives off a fucking cliff? Can you IMAGINE the backlash if this was a goddamn TV Show?
More nuanced development in regards to society politics. The New Frontier was comically evil. For a series that made goddamn insane cannibals have fleshed out personalities and reasons for disintegrating into that state that's SAD. Meanwhile I see Joan ransacking random communities and stirring up drama. Like at first there was potential! But the moment she jumps the shark is when she starts thinking public executions is a smart fucking idea. When there are walkers outside the gates and all it takes is one asshole to say 'fuck this place' after seeing that to ruin your whole community.
If you're going to make your money-cow character get into a 'romance', try to make the character likable. And give players a say. Take the feedback of that choice to do better in the future if it's not working out well. Making it mandatory is a bit...eh.
From the top of my head, cause I haven't touched ANF since its release:
less action scenes, more CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT (how the fuck am I supposed to care if I don't know these people)
less PRE ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS (S1 thrived because you were just a dude, constantly making new relationships. Telling me that I have a family forces me to care for these people in a way. Combine this with the lack of character developmentioned mentioned earlier and you can see my problem)
for god's sake no more LOVE TRIAGLES (one of the most stupid tropes you can think of, which brings me to my next point)
if you include a love interest don't force my hand/make me feel like I have to go for him or her (This is a choice game. Yet if you don't love Kate, too fucking bad the game forces you in that drama nonsense with David anyways, which just can't be fixed by talking it out. Guess they figured the majority would go for the romance and didn't see fit to prepare. Sucks to be me I guess)
Dont make a family member betray you and then expect me to care and forgive him after just a mere apology (No he wasn't being a "whiny teenager". A teenager talks shit back and listens to music too loud. What Gabe did in that scene is a betrayal of trust. That told me that when push comes to shove, he would throw me to the wolves no problem. That told me I can't count on him. Eff him honestly)
I used this thread to vent a bit also, sorry. Years later and i'm still not over this jesus christ
From the top of my head, cause I haven't touched ANF since its release:
* less action scenes, more CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT (how the fuck … moream I supposed to care if I don't know these people)
* less PRE ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS (S1 thrived because you were just a dude, constantly making new relationships. Telling me that I have a family forces me to care for these people in a way. Combine this with the lack of character developmentioned mentioned earlier and you can see my problem)
* for god's sake no more LOVE TRIAGLES (one of the most stupid tropes you can think of, which brings me to my next point)
* if you include a love interest don't force my hand/make me feel like I have to go for him or her (This is a choice game. Yet if you don't love Kate, too fucking bad the game forces you in that drama nonsense with David anyways, which just can't be fixed by talking it out. Guess they figured the majority would go for the romance and did… [view original content]
I am so sorry it took me so long to finally give a proper response to this. I really did intend on doing so fairly soon-ish after you were redirected here, but priorities just got crazy rearranged in general.
So, to answer your questions
Though I felt the flashback mechanic was unneeded and overused (it tends to pay out better when exploring the present and setting for the future, rather than going back and severing the momentum), I enjoyed reading your post.
Hm...perhaps a little. I was kinda flaking on finding appropriately paced places to have them as the episode went on.
I truly think part of the reason the flashback mechanic became a running theme in the first place was to both get around the issue of having to do multiple timeskips to avoid dragging out the story, get the newcomer Garcias up to speed as far as the preestablished audience is concerned, and allow the players to have some personal say and perspective in regards to key moments in the Garcia's backstories.
In order to appropriately adapt and take advantage of this, I made a point of ensuring Javier overall had more flashbacks to try getting him caught up with longrunner Clementine(who already had two whole games worth of history to speak for her) and that there were flashbacks dedicated to having him interact with [almost?] each of the other main Garcias for the sake of fairness and further accommodation.
However . . .
.
.
.
...However...?
However, my enjoyment morphed into perplexity once I came upon this–particular–passage:
"Gabe's determinant outburst is given more buildup here: If Clementine’s convinced to stay depending on your relationship with her, Clementine and Gabe come into minor conflict regarding David depending on your respective relationships with them(particularly if you were pro-Clementine and/or Kate, but not good with Gabe throughout).
I'm separating this portion real quick just to say that I honestly neglected/forgot to expand on the plot point as a whole and instead overfocused on a conflict between the two teens/tweens.
"Eleanor/Kate will back her/him up, respectively. It is possible for a fight to break out between the two. Javier has four choices: If he doesn't do anything, Kate will break them up and get between them. She will tranquilly scold Clementine not to touch Gabe and then ask him if he's hurt after a few seconds, to which he claims no (while Clementine gets in considerably more hits, it can be seen that he hits a little harder). Kate replies with a "Good..." and slowly calms (or to the keen of eye, steels) herself with a fairly deep breathe...and then she turns around and slaps Gabe to the floor/ground. The flabbergasted boy simply stares straight back up in a crept back position as Kate intensely reprimands him for laying his hands on a girl.
The cause for confusion, of course, being as to why such an action would evoke such negative standing when the offende happens to know the offender for years, and have already built a deeply caring relationship between them.
Kinda confused about what said negative standing you're specifically alluding to, but this is a big enough question that I think I can isolate parts to answer your questions regardless.
Generally speaking, this is collectively supposed to be a pivotal moment where the group's individual perspectives causes any amount of disagreements, debate, and even tension among them. I did this by primarily emphasized that the determinant divide was primarily between Gabe&Kate wanting to fight to save David and Eleanor&Clementine arguing for not doing so to account for a number of things:
1. Maintain a semblance of the traditional two-sided nature of major [and/or] group decisions in what was very much an overwhelmingly decided deal.
2. Address the Elephant in The Room that is ANF!Clementine's grudge against David
3. Giving the very neglected Kate and Eleanor some focus by having hypothetically louder voices in the plan.
4. Have Javier's determinant relationships and actions regarding each character come into play during a pivotal point in the plot.
5. Have the stark difference regarding David between the otherwise surprisingly similar youths potentially cause an even more noteworthy schism.
The edgy tween holding a grudge against the offender can be explained by having little to no genuine relationship (having known each for less than a day), but the other?
May I be so bold as to inquire as to how that works?
Which edgy tween?
What I am genuinely perplexified by is Kate instilling corporeal punishment on the PC's nephew/her stepson on the grounds of laying his hands on (hitting) a girl.
Why would she do that? What motivates her? What spurred her on?
What were your thoughts on writing that?
Okay, so the mindset behind that was to, in a roundabout way, have tensions between Gabe and Clementine's hormonal tempers escalate and determinately be defused by Kate, well, being a parent.
Now I realize that I used the wrong word to describe her emotions towards Clementine, as it was supposed to get across the fact that she's almost as angry with her so as to warrant such a direct, yet somewhat controlled warning. However, slapping Gabe for his part was naturally a much more serious cue to the audience, particularly those who picked up on her complex concern towards him. The fact that she had to mentally prepare herself, as well as Gabe's genuine astonishment afterward, is supposed to clue in the fact that, despite their constant tension over the years, Kate never once used that kind of punishment. Perhaps she never even considered it, as while I wouldn't necessarily classify her as a pacifist, her formerly free-spirited nature and habitual preference to avoid danger likely means violence isn't something she's particularly fond of. However, in a moment that escalated to violence with such stark differences of opinion regarding at least one man's life--a man who Kate grew distant and disapproving of despite being in love with him once, no less--, her established fears regarding his inherently similar son partly led her to do something so unlike herself.
I also realize that I could've made it possible for her to just smack both of them, but I think it's safe to say that might end up getting a different type of reaction.
"Instead of being blatantly railroaded, Javier is given a choice to support Gabe when Tripp singles him out.
"However, be warned that this can damage your determinately already festering relationships with Clementine and Kate."
Also, why is Trip crossing out the PC's nephew?
That's essentially what happens in the game proper: Gabe redirects everyone into focusing on saving David by stating he's got a few ideas on the matter and Tripp questioning who even said he was coming is what leads to his blowup.
And why does defending him cause Kate to sentence Javi to the Couch of Exile?
No, I'm joking.
Okay, I'm glad you said that, cause I was honestly going "...what?."
Admittedly, that entire post is something of an incomplete, work in progress that I was editting as ideas came to me. There's a number of other inherent details and results that I left out for the sake of highlighting the changes and major additions I would make.
Hello! Dropped in to pop a question. For you see(!), I was killing time browsing the WD sec-tion, and had the distinct pleasure of coming ac… moreross a variation of How A Person Would Alter Up The Events In A New Frontier. Now, being in the mood for some creative findings, I took a tour down the thread.
After browsing through a number of ideas and their own input as to how they would spruce up the season, I came across your contribution, and found myself summarily engaged in your writings.
Though I felt the flashback mechanic was unneeded and overused (it tends to pay out better when exploring the present and setting for the future, rather than going back and severing the momentum), I enjoyed reading your post.
However . . .
.
.
.
However, my enjoyment morphed into perplexity once I came upon this–particular–passage:
"Gabe's determinant outburst is given more buildup here: If Clementine’s convinced to stay depending on your relatio… [view original content]
Comments
Hello! Dropped in to pop a question. For you see(!), I was killing time browsing the WD sec-tion, and had the distinct pleasure of coming across a variation of How A Person Would Alter Up The Events In A New Frontier. Now, being in the mood for some creative findings, I took a tour down the thread.
After browsing through a number of ideas and their own input as to how they would spruce up the season, I came across your contribution, and found myself summarily engaged in your writings.
Though I felt the flashback mechanic was unneeded and overused (it tends to pay out better when exploring the present and setting for the future, rather than going back and severing the momentum), I enjoyed reading your post.
However . . .
.
.
.
However, my enjoyment morphed into perplexity once I came upon this–particular–passage:
"Gabe's determinant outburst is given more buildup here: If Clementine’s convinced to stay depending on your relationship with her, Clementine and Gabe come into minor conflict regarding David depending on your respective relationships with them(particularly if you were pro-Clementine and/or Kate, but not good with Gabe throughout).
"Eleanor/Kate will back her/him up, respectively. It is possible for a fight to break out between the two. Javier has four choices: If he doesn't do anything, Kate will break them up and get between them. She will tranquilly scold Clementine not to touch Gabe and then ask him if he's hurt after a few seconds, to which he claims no (while Clementine gets in considerably more hits, it can be seen that he hits a little harder). Kate replies with a "Good..." and slowly calms (or to the keen of eye, steels) herself with a fairly deep breathe...and then she turns around and slaps Gabe to the floor/ground. The flabbergasted boy simply stares straight back up in a crept back position as Kate intensely reprimands him for laying his hands on a girl.
"Instead of being blatantly railroaded, Javier is given a choice to support Gabe when Tripp singles him out.
"However, be warned that this can damage your determinately already festering relationships with Clementine and Kate."
The cause for confusion, of course, being as to why such an action would evoke such negative standing when the offende happens to know the offender for years, and have already built a deeply caring relationship between them.
The edgy tween holding a grudge against the offender can be explained by having little to no genuine relationship (having known each for less than a day), but the other?
May I be so bold as to inquire as to how that works?
Also, why is Trip crossing out the PC's nephew? And why does defending him cause Kate to sentence Javi to the Couch of Exile?
No, I'm joking.
What I am genuinely perplexified by is Kate instilling corporeal punishment on the PC's nephew/her stepson on the grounds of laying his hands on (hitting) a girl.
Why would she do that? What motivates her? What spurred her on?
What were your thoughts on writing that?
And with that, I shall depart; eagerly awaiting a response.
Enjoy your day!
Au revoir, aloha, Auf Wiedersehen, or, more blandly, goodbye.
Shoehorning Clementine in an unnatural way was a bit unneeded. People love her sure and they were going to be angry if they didn't see her, but don't forsake a cohesive and good narrative in exchange for adding more Clementine scenes. We could've taken a few of those to develop the Garcias.
We needed more connection to the family. Also Gabe/David were those Telltale assholes. You know the type, the one who'll begrudge you for everything you do if it isn't kissing their ass. I'd love a lot more nuance where people ask for your opinions on things. Imagine a choice where you give Clem away, but then you and Gabe get a moment to talk about it. And if you give a reason he can agree with (Emotional? Gut-Reaction? Logical? Regret?) he wouldn't squeal on you later in the season. Something like that, it adds depth when you see how characters rationalize things. But I found it hard to care for the family that didn't take the time to build their characters and just felt like stereotypes.
Jane/Kenny/Wellington/Alone. Killing off Jane/Kenny is lazy as hell. Different ways, sure, but let them reappear later in the series. Even if it's a cameo. Have them meet the current crew of survivors. They can still DIE because the story becomes too hard for Telltale to reconcile with too many variables. If Kenny meets the group, maybe his advice helps Eleanor and Tripp get together or berates Lingard for choosing suicide. If Jane survives, maybe she and Ava jive a lot. They don't necessarily have to be 'with' Clementine when she's introduced, just shuck them in at some point and make their deaths poignant and with purpose. Kenny
Ava/Tripp death. Tripp had a good demise. Ava's demise was fucking stupid. Don't kill someone if you're not going to make it matter after letting us invest. People liked Ava and had hopes for her, and she unceremoniously dives off a fucking cliff? Can you IMAGINE the backlash if this was a goddamn TV Show?
More nuanced development in regards to society politics. The New Frontier was comically evil. For a series that made goddamn insane cannibals have fleshed out personalities and reasons for disintegrating into that state that's SAD. Meanwhile I see Joan ransacking random communities and stirring up drama. Like at first there was potential! But the moment she jumps the shark is when she starts thinking public executions is a smart fucking idea. When there are walkers outside the gates and all it takes is one asshole to say 'fuck this place' after seeing that to ruin your whole community.
If you're going to make your money-cow character get into a 'romance', try to make the character likable. And give players a say. Take the feedback of that choice to do better in the future if it's not working out well. Making it mandatory is a bit...eh.
From the top of my head, cause I haven't touched ANF since its release:
less PRE ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS (S1 thrived because you were just a dude, constantly making new relationships. Telling me that I have a family forces me to care for these people in a way. Combine this with the lack of character developmentioned mentioned earlier and you can see my problem)
for god's sake no more LOVE TRIAGLES (one of the most stupid tropes you can think of, which brings me to my next point)
if you include a love interest don't force my hand/make me feel like I have to go for him or her (This is a choice game. Yet if you don't love Kate, too fucking bad the game forces you in that drama nonsense with David anyways, which just can't be fixed by talking it out. Guess they figured the majority would go for the romance and didn't see fit to prepare. Sucks to be me I guess)
Dont make a family member betray you and then expect me to care and forgive him after just a mere apology (No he wasn't being a "whiny teenager". A teenager talks shit back and listens to music too loud. What Gabe did in that scene is a betrayal of trust. That told me that when push comes to shove, he would throw me to the wolves no problem. That told me I can't count on him. Eff him honestly)
I used this thread to vent a bit also, sorry. Years later and i'm still not over this jesus christ
I don't think we ever will.
I am so sorry it took me so long to finally give a proper response to this. I really did intend on doing so fairly soon-ish after you were redirected here, but priorities just got crazy rearranged in general.
So, to answer your questions
Hm...perhaps a little. I was kinda flaking on finding appropriately paced places to have them as the episode went on.
I truly think part of the reason the flashback mechanic became a running theme in the first place was to both get around the issue of having to do multiple timeskips to avoid dragging out the story, get the newcomer Garcias up to speed as far as the preestablished audience is concerned, and allow the players to have some personal say and perspective in regards to key moments in the Garcia's backstories.
In order to appropriately adapt and take advantage of this, I made a point of ensuring Javier overall had more flashbacks to try getting him caught up with longrunner Clementine(who already had two whole games worth of history to speak for her) and that there were flashbacks dedicated to having him interact with [almost?] each of the other main Garcias for the sake of fairness and further accommodation.
...However...?
I'm separating this portion real quick just to say that I honestly neglected/forgot to expand on the plot point as a whole and instead overfocused on a conflict between the two teens/tweens.
Kinda confused about what said negative standing you're specifically alluding to, but this is a big enough question that I think I can isolate parts to answer your questions regardless.
Generally speaking, this is collectively supposed to be a pivotal moment where the group's individual perspectives causes any amount of disagreements, debate, and even tension among them. I did this by primarily emphasized that the determinant divide was primarily between Gabe&Kate wanting to fight to save David and Eleanor&Clementine arguing for not doing so to account for a number of things:
1. Maintain a semblance of the traditional two-sided nature of major [and/or] group decisions in what was very much an overwhelmingly decided deal.
2. Address the Elephant in The Room that is ANF!Clementine's grudge against David
3. Giving the very neglected Kate and Eleanor some focus by having hypothetically louder voices in the plan.
4. Have Javier's determinant relationships and actions regarding each character come into play during a pivotal point in the plot.
5. Have the stark difference regarding David between the otherwise surprisingly similar youths potentially cause an even more noteworthy schism.
Which edgy tween?
Okay, so the mindset behind that was to, in a roundabout way, have tensions between Gabe and Clementine's hormonal tempers escalate and determinately be defused by Kate, well, being a parent.
Now I realize that I used the wrong word to describe her emotions towards Clementine, as it was supposed to get across the fact that she's almost as angry with her so as to warrant such a direct, yet somewhat controlled warning. However, slapping Gabe for his part was naturally a much more serious cue to the audience, particularly those who picked up on her complex concern towards him. The fact that she had to mentally prepare herself, as well as Gabe's genuine astonishment afterward, is supposed to clue in the fact that, despite their constant tension over the years, Kate never once used that kind of punishment. Perhaps she never even considered it, as while I wouldn't necessarily classify her as a pacifist, her formerly free-spirited nature and habitual preference to avoid danger likely means violence isn't something she's particularly fond of. However, in a moment that escalated to violence with such stark differences of opinion regarding at least one man's life--a man who Kate grew distant and disapproving of despite being in love with him once, no less--, her established fears regarding his inherently similar son partly led her to do something so unlike herself.
I also realize that I could've made it possible for her to just smack both of them, but I think it's safe to say that might end up getting a different type of reaction.
That's essentially what happens in the game proper: Gabe redirects everyone into focusing on saving David by stating he's got a few ideas on the matter and Tripp questioning who even said he was coming is what leads to his blowup.
Okay, I'm glad you said that, cause I was honestly going "...what?."
Admittedly, that entire post is something of an incomplete, work in progress that I was editting as ideas came to me. There's a number of other inherent details and results that I left out for the sake of highlighting the changes and major additions I would make.