ROSS'S GAME DUNGEON: THE LEGEND OF KYRANDIA

[Ross Scott]

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here »

 

 

 

 

Here's the much-delayed next Game Dungeon! As you'll hear in the video, this is my first attempt of having a collaborative edit of any video. Unlike past episodes, I had a substantial amount of help in the recording and editing process. As for whether it saved time, a lot of time was lost in the transition process (hence the long delay between this episode and the last one), but that should be temporary. The game recording absolutely saved me a lot of time, and the editing did in some areas, not in others. I was still quite heavily involved in the final editing process. I think the verdict is still out as to whether additional editors will save time in the long run, but it's also a little premature to judge since there were a lot of technical complications.

 

Anyway, expect another episode pretty soon as the Christmas one is coming up, hopefully before Christmas this time!

 

COMMENTS

[Fishywa]

Good video. I like this new format! it will be good for some smaller videos coming more frequently.

[Meelis13]

What?! He was voiced by Kane (Joe Kucan)? i am geniuenly suprised! (though i did notice Westwood logo)

 

But i disagree its good place to start for graphic adventure games as, well, you can still die (and i assume same applies to playing yourself into corner). Monkey island, on other hand, has remaster version (with old graphics option) and you cant die or play yourself into corner.

Some graphic adventures did have weird age-verification methods back then though. I think it was Leisure suit Larry that had questions that you had to answer if you wanted to even fire up game (you had to get 3 of them). Problem was, those questions were very era-specific & USA-specific, so it was lottery picking correct answer

[Professor von Kriplespac]

Ross, how dare you not cover ALL the games? This is something you really need to consider working on. You owe us!

 

Anyways, on a more serious note, do you have plans to do any more obscure First Person Shooters?

I've always been fond of the AvP series, but I'm not sure if that's too mainstream for you or not.

[Meelis13]

uhm, kriplespac? i'd like to point out there have been quite a few FPS in game dungeon- even excluding mainstream "Wolfenstein" (2009)

[Heliocentrical]

Well I'll be damned, a point and click adventure game for beginners, that looks simple to use and it was made by Westwood Studios(RIP Westwood). Sounds good to me. I've been meaning to get into point and click adventure games for quite a while. But most of adventure games I've found have been far too slow paced for me and nothing was straightforward.

 

My brain sort of freaks out if it feels like I'm doing nothing in game while an animation plays. Mentally I go "Come on Grandpa, I don't have all day for you to perform an animation of you picking up a newspaper or whatever". The animation may only take 5 seconds to perform but it feels like I'm stuck inside of a loop if I see that same animation repeatedly. It'll drive me up a wall. I find it to be somewhat similar to how Ross can't stand turn based combat.

 

It's also part of the reason I don't like Fallout 1 and 2. To me they seem more akin to point and click adventure games than CRPGs like Planescape Torment in terms of mechanics and design. The infinity engine was really revolutionary in terms of pacing and simplifying overdone systems.

[Presence]

So, uh, are you going to do Hand of Fate and Malcom's Revenge? Hand of Fate has a stupid intro, but aside from that I thought it was a lot more solid than Legend of Kyrandia. Zanthia's a much more interesting protagonist.

[pachiderm]

So I'd prefer it if my first post weren't some form of criticism, but there's like 400+ comments on youtube and I doubt my paragraph is going to get seen so i'm posting it here. To preface this I want to say you should do what you want with your videos and my intention is not to tell you how to run your channel or what format is best for you. I have no idea how much work goes into your videos and all I can really draw on for my criticism is my experience as a viewer, who is entirely uninvolved in the creative process of making them. But I figured I'd give you my opinion on the format.

 

I think it's hard to make these shorter without losing out on quality. These things are really all about attention to detail and full reviews of the games you cover. I understand this type of game review doesn't have a whole lot of broad appeal, but if I'm honest neither does this. This is the same style of review only shorter. If you want to shorten the reviews your style needs to be much more streamlined. You need to go on fewer tangents, explore fewer game quirks and flaws and leave out more superfluous details. At that point you could just make the video 5-10 minutes long and my desire to watch them would drop significantly. The reason why I watch this is because I feel like it's a kind of stream of consciousness game review to an excess. I mean this video is the same thing it just feels like it got cut off at 16 minutes. Like I was watching a full game dungeon review and stopped at 16 minutes to do something else. At this point I have no idea if I want to play this game, whether you like or dislike it or even whether or not this game is any different from a million other classic adventure games. I'll still watch these when you put them out, but this seems like a step in the wrong direction.

[Selfsurprise]

"This heat is pretty intense, but I know I can take it..."

"I'M BURNING!"

 

I personally don't think Ross outsourcing some of the video editing is a bad thing for the series. Much of Gaming Dungeons appeal for me is Ross's irreverent analysis of the settings in the game he reviews, and his snarky and occasionally angry humour result in some of the best one-liners on Youtube. I'm not sure if Ross himself would agree with me but I feel like the slightly "hands-off" approach in this episode would free up time to emphasize the strength of his jokes and glorious self-effacement - the latter being a marvellous tonic in the face of gamings more arrogant, self-assured and typically cretinous standards.

 

"Is this the turning point where everything goes to hell? Maybe!"

[Selfsurprise]

I think it's hard to make these shorter without losing out on quality. These things are really all about attention to detail and full reviews of the games you cover. I understand this type of game review doesn't have a whole lot of broad appeal, but if I'm honest neither does this. This is the same style of review only shorter. If you want to shorten the reviews your style needs to be much more streamlined. You need to go on fewer tangents, explore fewer game quirks and flaws and leave out more superfluous details. At that point you could just make the video 5-10 minutes long and my desire to watch them would drop significantly. The reason why I watch this is because I feel like it's a kind of stream of consciousness game review to an excess. I mean this video is the same thing it just feels like it got cut off at 16 minutes. Like I was watching a full game dungeon review and stopped at 16 minutes to do something else. At this point I have no idea if I want to play this game, whether you like or dislike it or even whether or not this game is any different from a million other classic adventure games. I'll still watch these when you put them out, but this seems like a step in the wrong direction.

I understand what you're getting at, because ever since his Strife (or maybe as far back as Eternam) video the standards of Game Dungeon were a lot more in-depth and bordering on documentary intensive efforts. I don't see any reason why Ross can't have shorter and less intricately edited episodes (there is a precedent already, Potty Pigeon or Super Cult Tycoon are examples of less complicated but still entertaining episodes) as well as the occasional "all-bells-and-whistles" episode in the vein of his three-part Arcade America or his recent Realms of the Haunting.

[ScumCoder]

While I think that outsourcing as much capturing and editing work as possible is a great idea (and I even suggested it myself about a year ago), I think it would be better to separate these series from the original Game Dungeon somehow. See, while this episode is nice and fun in and of itself, its quality is still noticeably different:

• Whoever did the volume balancing took it easier than usual;
  
• Voicing is closer to videochats than to usual Game Dungeon (I guess Ross did fewer takes);
  
• There were no rewards;
  
• It was shorter than one would expect for a fleshed-out game like this;

and so on.

 

Ross mentioned that he wanted to make a Game Dungeon fork called "Diet Game Dungeon", I think it's a great name. Use outsourcing to generate more content, while keeping the original "Game Dungeon" trademark for long, meticulously crafted, high-quality videos.

[forgottenit]

Too short.

[Descriptor]

Personally, I don't mind the somewhat shorter episodes on occasion.

Sometimes I just want to get some Ross but don't want to tie up half my afternoon to do it, you know?

I mean, sure, I could just stop one of his videos halfway, but it's just not the same.

Variety can't hurt, is all I'm saying.

[Gigelinho]

My impression is that this episode is only too short for the type of game that's being reviewed.

 

16 minutes is plenty when you're covering Construction Bob, Potty Pigeon or Bozo's Night Out. But this is a big game with lots to talk about, and it shows when you have to shoehorn everything in.

 

Otherwise I thought the quality of the recording and editing was great, so you should keep outsourcing as much of this as you can. Generally I'd rather have MORE game dungeon than one great episode every couple months.

 

MORE!

[Selfsurprise]

While I think that outsourcing as much capturing and editing work as possible is a great idea (and I even suggested it myself about a year ago), I think it would be better to separate these series from the original Game Dungeon somehow. See, while this episode is nice and fun in and of itself, its quality is still noticeably different:

• Whoever did the volume balancing took it easier than usual;
  
• Voicing is closer to videochats than to usual Game Dungeon (I guess Ross did fewer takes);
  
• There were no rewards;
  
• It was shorter than one would expect for a fleshed-out game like this;

and so on.

 

Ross mentioned that he wanted to make a Game Dungeon fork called "Diet Game Dungeon", I think it's a great name. Use outsourcing to generate more content, while keeping the original "Game Dungeon" trademark for long, meticulously crafted, high-quality videos.

I think suggestion so far is the one proposal that would keep the overwhelming majority of fans content. No reason why there can't be two branching series of what is essentially the premise of Ross talking about games and being dashingly handsome in the process.

[danielsangeo]

Subs up!

[ScumCoder]

Subs up!

Thanks a lot for your work!

[Ross Scott]

Ross, how dare you not cover ALL the games? This is something you really need to consider working on. You owe us!

 

Anyways, on a more serious note, do you have plans to do any more obscure First Person Shooters?

I've always been fond of the AvP series, but I'm not sure if that's too mainstream for you or not.

Yeah, I have a couple planned.

 

So, uh, are you going to do Hand of Fate and Malcom's Revenge? Hand of Fate has a stupid intro, but aside from that I thought it was a lot more solid than Legend of Kyrandia. Zanthia's a much more interesting protagonist.

Yeah, probably at some point.

 

 

I think it's hard to make these shorter without losing out on quality. These things are really all about attention to detail and full reviews of the games you cover. I understand this type of game review doesn't have a whole lot of broad appeal, but if I'm honest neither does this. This is the same style of review only shorter. If you want to shorten the reviews your style needs to be much more streamlined. You need to go on fewer tangents, explore fewer game quirks and flaws and leave out more superfluous details. At that point you could just make the video 5-10 minutes long and my desire to watch them would drop significantly. The reason why I watch this is because I feel like it's a kind of stream of consciousness game review to an excess. I mean this video is the same thing it just feels like it got cut off at 16 minutes. Like I was watching a full game dungeon review and stopped at 16 minutes to do something else. At this point I have no idea if I want to play this game, whether you like or dislike it or even whether or not this game is any different from a million other classic adventure games. I'll still watch these when you put them out, but this seems like a step in the wrong direction.

Making the videos shorter isn't the goal at all, cutting down the amount of time I have to spend total is the main goal. This one probably feels cut off because I didn't show the ending, plus some games only have so much to say about, I'll probably cover this more in the next videochat.

 

Whoever did the volume balancing took it easier than usual;

I did. I put a similar effort in all the videos, but I'm not always the most consistent, plus I absolutely dread that part.

 

My impression is that this episode is only too short for the type of game that's being reviewed.

 

16 minutes is plenty when you're covering Construction Bob, Potty Pigeon or Bozo's Night Out. But this is a big game with lots to talk about, and it shows when you have to shoehorn everything in.

It takes about 2 hours to beat the game, there's only so much I could show without ruining everything, I felt like I showed a bit much as it was, but maybe I should stop being concerned about that in general.