DF Game Club: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (part 1)

(06:57:34) Syd: Hey everyone. I should be ready to start in a few minutes.
(06:57:44) Cheeseness: Hey people
(06:58:10) Taekon: Hello hello!
(06:58:13) Fhqwhgod: Guess who's back!
(06:58:21) Fhqwhgod: I am
(06:58:27) Taekon: backstreetboys
(06:58:27) Sven_Q45 [5791c3d9@hide-BF4D4B18.mibbit.com] entered the room.
(06:58:28) Taekon: wait
(06:58:34) Sven_Q45: Hi.
(06:58:37) frogg: Imma watch a film tonight
(06:58:38) frogg: have fun
(06:58:51) Cheeseness: Hey hey
(06:58:55) Cheeseness: No worries, frogg
(06:58:58) Syd: I'm going to try my best to not cause any anti-climactic deaths, but I can never quite get used to the way you climb stuff in Brothers. :P
(06:59:07) Cheeseness: Hey Fhqwhgod
(06:59:16) Permafry_42 [46469094@hide-6C77D8AA.mibbit.com] entered the room.
(06:59:31) Permafry_42: hey guys
(06:59:38) Cheeseness: Hey Permafry_42
(07:00:15) GameClubFan_151428 [929778b1@hide-B64552F4.mibbit.com] entered the room.
(07:00:19) flesk: Hi everyone.
(07:00:34) The-Mad-Pirate [b5a5e95a@hide-BF4D4B18.mibbit.com] entered the room.
(07:00:34) Cheeseness: Hey flesk
(07:00:39) Cheeseness: Hey The-Mad-Pirate
(07:00:54) The-Mad-Pirate: Hey Josh !
(07:01:12) ***Taekon waves
(07:01:12) Syd: Alright, just doing some final setup stuff, then we can start.
(07:01:13) The-Mad-Pirate: I might be kinda lagging
(07:01:27) Cheeseness: Hey Taekon ^_^
(07:01:50) The-Mad-Pirate: just started generating those MOAI class diagrams in Enterprise Architect and that kinda eats a lot of my CPU
(07:02:01) The-Mad-Pirate: Hey Syd !
(07:02:09) Cheeseness: Sweet
(07:02:10) The-Mad-Pirate: What are you up to girl ?
(07:02:19) Syd: Getting ready to stream Brothers. :P
(07:03:09) Syd: Alright, I'm starting the stream. Let me know when it's going and I'll start the intro up.
(07:03:33) The-Mad-Pirate: Syd Sweet !
(07:03:37) Cheeseness: Syd: Looks good to go :)
(07:03:38) Permafry_42: live
(07:04:19) The-Mad-Pirate: Cheeseness: you didn't get Two Brothers Director to come ?
(07:04:27) Cheeseness: The-Mad-Pirate: Nah, no guests this session
(07:04:53) Cheeseness: (which is a little bit of a relief - it's nice to have something where we just focus on discussing the game rather than hammering a dev with questions :D
(07:04:54) Taekon: This game :(
(07:05:04) Taekon: ^ :D
(07:05:09) The-Mad-Pirate: Cheeseness: LOL !
(07:05:24) Cheeseness: The visual style is really nice
(07:05:53) The-Mad-Pirate: Cheeseness: I heard great things from this game , specially since it's directed by a former film director. So it's very story oriented.
(07:06:19) Cheeseness: The-Mad-Pirate: If you're interested in it, I fully recommend playing through the game before our final session. It will ruin it for you.
(07:06:27) Taekon: Yep
(07:06:43) Taekon: It's one that if you don't play it yourself you literally cannot fully appreciate it
(07:06:45) Cheeseness: Such a bold move to start on a sad note like this, I think
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(07:07:21) The-Mad-Pirate: Cheeseness: I have issues running most games due to performance andlack of SS2 support. You know , i am poor.
(07:07:24) Permafry_42: i'll be honest and say i'm still mixed on whether having too be an emphasis on cinematics can interfere with the focus on interesting game mechanics.
(07:07:33) Cheeseness: The-Mad-Pirate: :(
(07:08:14) Cheeseness: Permafry_42: In relation to this game or in general?
(07:08:34) Permafry_42: both
(07:08:36) Cheeseness: I wouldn't say that an intro cutscene is really capable of detracting from interesting mechanics
(07:08:58) Cheeseness: This game does stop for automated sequences frequently, but they're all very short
(07:09:34) The-Mad-Pirate: I would understand that in late 90s when most games turned to heavy FMV game mechanics
(07:09:55) Cheeseness: Having them call to the other brother when pressing use if they aren't near enough to use anything
(07:09:58) Permafry_42: it wasn't really the intro but all the times when the game cut away to a cinematic. it kinda got in the way of the flow for me that the puzzles were trying to create
(07:10:01) Cheeseness: It comes across as an expression of frustration
(07:10:34) Cheeseness: Could the story could have flowed without many of the automated sequences though?
(07:10:56) Cheeseness: It didn't seem really detract from the pacing of the game as a whole
(07:11:24) The-Mad-Pirate: I think in that case it's important to note how the game handles camera movement
(07:11:31) Permafry_42: i think so if they had not taken control of the camera and instead let them occur while you still had control
(07:11:58) The-Mad-Pirate: i.e. it's doesnt violate films law of crossing
(07:12:02) Cheeseness: I don't think that fear of water could have been conveyed as well without the closer camera angle
(07:12:28) Cheeseness: That guy who was guarding the bridge is an arse :D
(07:12:39) Taekon: What a dick
(07:13:09) Taekon: The bench mechanic :D
(07:13:12) Cheeseness: Yeah :D
(07:13:34) Cheeseness: Definitely a point at which it's appropriate for the camera control to be taken away
(07:13:55) Permafry_42: oh i agree, but its the moments like the swimming mechanics where you can to control both the older and younger brother together that i felt did the best job of using game mechanics to emphasize the story and characters
(07:14:26) Permafry_42: i liked the bench mechics though since you were the one inniating that camera movement
(07:14:49) Permafry_42: rather than events in the game iniating it for you
(07:15:12) Permafry_42: plus you didn't even have to use the bench if you wanted to
(07:15:31) Taekon: I love the little interactions that show the brothers' personalities
(07:15:32) flesk: I think I sat down on pretty much every bench in the game.
(07:16:21) The-Mad-Pirate: flesk were you doing benchmarks then ?
(07:16:36) Permafry_42: i did screen shots at every bench
(07:17:33) bouncebounce [60f806be@hide-B64552F4.mibbit.com] entered the room.
(07:17:41) Cheeseness: Poor big brother isn't so good at some things
(07:17:43) Permafry_42: hi bouncebounce
(07:18:57) Cheeseness: The lack of proper language is nice
(07:19:16) flesk: The-Mad-Pirate: Haha. :P
(07:19:21) Cheeseness: It leaves something to the imagination, you know
(07:19:36) flesk: Permafry_42: Yeah, I did too.
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(07:19:56) flesk: I think some of it is Arabic?
(07:20:04) flesk: I seem to recall reading that somewhere.
(07:20:27) Cheeseness: I hadn't noticed that ^_^
(07:20:44) GameClubFan_863277 [5997cc58@hide-6C77D8AA.mibbit.com] entered the room.
(07:21:09) Permafry_42: will syd be doing the bunny part
(07:21:10) flesk: And Josef Fares is Lebanese.
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(07:21:16) Cheeseness: The introduction of mechanics is nicely paced
(07:21:49) Cheeseness: Hah
(07:22:13) Permafry_42: so i'm guessing i'm not the only one that had bugs when they played?
(07:22:33) Cheeseness: Which bugs were those?
(07:22:48) Cheeseness: Hoppy hoppy :3
(07:23:01) GameClubFan_352175 [1fd1e63d@hide-6C77D8AA.mibbit.com] entered the room.
(07:23:03) Cheeseness: Aww
(07:23:13) Cheeseness: I hadn't spotted that bit before
(07:23:13) Permafry_42: for example the cart at the begining prevented me from grabing it for awhile
(07:23:32) Permafry_42: also i didn't like the message the bunny thing sent
(07:24:05) Permafry_42: that conformity in appearance will let you be friends with others
(07:24:09) Cheeseness: I can see how it could have connotations of conformity
(07:24:41) The-Mad-Pirate: flesk: I was missremembering then I dunno why I thougth he was Iranian
(07:24:46) Cheeseness: Sad ogre guy ;_;
(07:24:47) Permafry_42: that noise the first time i heard it sounded like a pig to me
(07:25:02) bouncebounce left the room (quit: Quit: http://www.mibbit.com ajax IRC Client).
(07:25:59) Cheeseness: flesk: The interwebs says that Josef Fares is Swedish
(07:26:55) AnotherOldGamer [522ee267@hide-50D287EE.mibbit.com] entered the room.
(07:27:03) AnotherOldGamer: Evening all
(07:27:05) Cheeseness: Bad shadow on that rock
(07:27:07) Cheeseness: Hi AnotherOldGamer
(07:27:15) flesk: Cheeseness: Yeah, he's directed a couple of movies that I've watched and thought were hilarious.
(07:27:26) The-Mad-Pirate: he is Lebanese
(07:27:28) Cheeseness: I couldn't help but feel that the ogre guy could have made all of this a bit simpler
(07:27:46) The-Mad-Pirate: but he has been living in Sweeden for a long time now
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(07:29:58) AnotherOldGamer [AnotherOld@hide-BC7CA147.cable.virginm.net] entered the room.
(07:30:03) Permafry_42: i like how the controls convey the connectedness of the brothers
(07:30:34) Cheeseness: I felt that at this point in the game, it was the camera limitation and the cooperative nature of the puzzles that conveyed that
(07:32:25) Cheeseness: It might have been nicer at this point if it were made clear that you were helping the ogre guy rather than him helping you get to where you're going (since we see him again later, we can assume he could've taken us to the far side)
(07:33:12) Cheeseness: This was a nice puzzle
(07:33:54) Cheeseness: I think it's the only obstacle navigation one like this?
(07:34:35) Permafry_42: i also love the atmosphere of the steam-punk style machines
(07:34:45) Cheeseness: Yeah, this section is great
(07:37:06) Permafry_42: do the fish do something there?
(07:37:21) Cheeseness: Not that I'm aware of (I expected that they would)
(07:38:22) The-Mad-Pirate: Cheeseness: OoT any chances of doing a Serena run anytime here ?
(07:38:56) Cheeseness: The-Mad-Pirate: No specific plans yet, but pop something in the planning thread if you want :)
(07:40:02) The-Mad-Pirate: Cheeseness: okedokey !
(07:40:15) Cheeseness: With us starting and stopping some of the big machinery, it's a wonder that we haven't been noticed yet
(07:41:18) Taekon: Is this a refinery?
(07:41:42) Cheeseness: I'm not sure. It feels that way though
(07:41:56) Taekon: Also who's cleaning up the mess these brothers are leaving behind them :P
(07:42:00) Cheeseness: The dilapidation suggests that the ogre guys didn't build it
(07:42:14) Taekon: Hmm yeah
(07:42:34) Taekon: I guess it's one of those things you're supposed to fill in yourself
(07:42:44) Cheeseness: Yeah
(07:42:51) Cheeseness: Although everything seems ogre sized
(07:44:03) Taekon: IN this part I intentionally stepped onto the bones just to see what happens
(07:44:15) Cheeseness: :D
(07:44:26) Cheeseness: Whoops ^_^
(07:45:28) Cheeseness: That puzzle was fun
(07:47:21) Taekon: Haha yeah especially how it close the little bro's escape seemed
(07:48:13) Taekon: This bit seemed really brutal to me
(07:48:23) Cheeseness: Yeah
(07:48:31) Taekon: They just flat out murder that dude
(07:48:34) Cheeseness: They both seemed to be able to get clear
(07:49:49) Cheeseness: There are a few objects in here which look like they're missing textures too
(07:50:00) Cheeseness: Can't recall if I noticed that before or not
(07:50:58) Taekon: I think this moment kinda of slowly set the atmosphere for the rest of the game now that I look back on it
(07:51:07) Taekon: Because from that bit things get really dark
(07:51:24) Cheeseness: Killing that ogre guy wasn't dark already? :D
(07:51:32) yoyobro [44701293@hide-BF4D4B18.mibbit.com] entered the room.
(07:51:33) Taekon: It was :P
(07:51:37) Cheeseness: But yeah
(07:51:44) Taekon: This bit is so confusing and creepy
(07:51:49) Cheeseness: It does feel like there's a tonal shift here
(07:51:58) Cheeseness: Hi yoyobro
(07:52:17) Taekon: especially the way the hanged bodies get closer to the screen
(07:52:21) Cheeseness: I thought there was going to be some big creepy graveyard sequence here
(07:52:58) Taekon: Yeah
(07:53:38) Cheeseness: Good work on not keeping the torch
(07:54:01) Permafry_42: i love the music here
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(07:54:03) Cheeseness: I want to know who's been dropping lanterns here :D
(07:54:23) Cheeseness: The whole score is great, but that had some nice urgency
(07:54:36) The-Mad-Pirate: AFAIK Josef said in several interviews this game is based in his childhood and his experiences with war in Lebon
(07:55:01) The-Mad-Pirate: so, I don't think it's actually surprising there is a dark tone here and there
(07:55:47) Cheeseness: I wish this supported more platforms
(07:56:30) Taekon: Unsure how it's going to translate the controls though
(07:56:52) Cheeseness: Why's that?
(07:57:04) Cheeseness: The same keyboard and gamepad controls could work on any PC platform
(07:57:28) The-Mad-Pirate: Cheeseness: ISn't supported on LInux ?
(07:57:29) Cheeseness: And the engine has vendor provided support for Mac OS
(07:57:43) Taekon: Oh I was thinking like mobile phones and such
(07:57:49) Cheeseness: The-Mad-Pirate: Nah, Windows only :(
(07:58:10) Taekon: Since you need to control movement for both brothers plus interactions
(07:58:18) Taekon: That's a lot of screen-touching
(07:58:19) The-Mad-Pirate: Cheeseness: Is this Engine Unreal 3 ?
(07:58:24) Cheeseness: Yeah, I have no idea if it work on mobile devces
(07:58:27) Cheeseness: The-Mad-Pirate: Yeah
(07:58:39) Cheeseness: At least, I'm pretty sure it is
(07:59:00) The-Mad-Pirate: Cheeseness: You said Icculus did a port of UE3 to Linux , right ?
(07:59:52) Cheeseness: The-Mad-Pirate: There've been three separate people who've done Linux ports of UE3 titles, but without vendor provided support, everybody has to start again pretty much
(08:00:48) Taekon: This bit startled me
(08:00:51) Cheeseness: Yeah
(08:01:01) Taekon: If you don't do anything or react too slow does he actually die?
(08:01:07) The-Mad-Pirate: Cheeseness: Not to mention potential legal issues like the guys that did "Too Human" had
(08:01:16) Cheeseness: Really highlights that the game isn't afraid to throw stuff like that at you
(08:01:25) Cheeseness: The-Mad-Pirate: Oh? I'm not aware of this
(08:01:32) Taekon: Because I had the older brother help the guy but my brain broke and couldn't control the lil bro properly haha
(08:01:59) Taekon: And yeah, it's so bold and effective
(08:02:14) Syd: Kind of a depressing note to stop on, but I'm stopping there
(08:02:18) Olucho [4239160a@hide-50D287EE.mibbit.com] entered the room.
(08:02:23) Syd: So there'll be enough left for next week
(08:02:23) Cheeseness: Alrighty
(08:02:28) Permafry_42: thanks for streaming syd!
(08:02:32) Cheeseness: Thanks for streaming :D
(08:02:38) Syd: Let me know when it's safe to end the stream. :P
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(08:02:44) Syd: Don't wanna cut off the outro
(08:02:45) Cheeseness: I'm too happy for this game :D
(08:02:51) Cheeseness: OK, you're right now, Syd
(08:03:11) Syd: One of my favorite sequences is right after this, so there'll be some fun stuff in the next session
(08:03:12) The-Mad-Pirate: Thanks Syd !
(08:03:12) Taekon: Game's great :D
(08:03:29) Taekon: Thanks for streaming Syd!
(08:03:38) Taekon: Nice relaxing session this week
(08:03:42) Syd: And yeah, if you can play the game yourself before then, do so. It's best to experience the second half of the game yourself as a player, I think.
(08:03:45) yama: Hi, everyone.
(08:03:48) The-Mad-Pirate: Cheeseness: The guys mixed UE3 code with their in-house Engine
(08:03:51) Cheeseness: It has a surprisingly low metacritic score
(08:03:54) yama: So I'm late to the party, huh? *cry cry*
(08:03:57) Taekon: What really?
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(08:04:06) Cheeseness: Aww, yama
(08:04:19) Taekon: Hey yama, bit late :(
(08:04:26) The-Mad-Pirate: Cheeseness: things got ugly when this studio tried to sue Epic because of there delays in "Too Human"
(08:04:38) yama: Been assembling lamps and furniture since I came home from IKEA earlier this evening and just now remembered about the game club. >.<
(08:04:39) Cheeseness: The story cited on Wikipedia frames it a bit differently http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_Human#Unreal_Engine_dispute
(08:04:56) The-Mad-Pirate: Cheeseness: So Epic conter sued by claiming this guys breached UE3 License
(08:05:21) The-Mad-Pirate: Cheeseness: In the end , Epic has to receive 9.2 MIll from this guys
(08:05:51) The-Mad-Pirate: yama: Syd just stopped streaming a few minutes ago
(08:07:03) Cheeseness: The claim was apparently that they'd used UE3 source that wasn't made available to them and had removed licencing information?
(08:07:19) Syd: Also, I don't know if the occasional graphical quirk in Brothers is because of the game itself or because Unreal Engine sometimes does weird things on AMD hardware.
(08:07:23) Cheeseness: (when Epic counter sued)
(08:07:31) Permafry_42: alright i have to get going now nice chatting everyone!
(08:07:31) The-Mad-Pirate: Cheeseness: As far as I know
(08:07:38) Cheeseness: Thanks for coming, Permafry_42
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(08:08:20) The-Mad-Pirate: Cheeseness: Well , i.e. PhysX provides sources in it's SDK but you are not allowed to modified them.
(08:08:50) Cheeseness: That's not Epic owned stuff though
(08:09:25) The-Mad-Pirate: Cheeseness: I was just mentioning it because of sometimes licence's weirdness
(08:09:32) Cheeseness: "Consistent with Epic's counterclaims, the presiding judge stated that  Silicon Knights had "deliberately and repeatedly copied thousands of  lines of Epic Games’ copyrighted code, and then attempted to conceal its  wrongdoing by removing Epic Games’ copyright notices and by disguising  Epic Games’ copyrighted code as Silicon Knights’ own.""
(08:09:49) Cheeseness: One imagines that they were subpoenaed for the games' source
(08:10:22) The-Mad-Pirate: Cheeseness: Man , that's such a wrong way to do things !
(08:10:53) Cheeseness: Yeah, although if Epic were late with providing a working engine, then that's pretty awful too
(08:11:17) Syd: Does anyone plan on playing through Brothers before next week's session? Some pretty big story stuff happens from here on out.
(08:11:23) The-Mad-Pirate: Cheeseness: So I guess Epic guys are fine if you keep their Copyrigth if someone does a port
(08:11:41) Cheeseness: Yeah, anybody who thinks they'll have the opportunity to play it really should
(08:11:51) Cheeseness: The impact of the game will be dramatically lessened
(08:12:22) Cheeseness: The-Mad-Pirate: I think it's more that you do your own work instead of copying anybody else's (I have no love for Epic though)
(08:12:29) Syd: The way the controls play into it, it really is best experiences as a player rather than a viewer.
(08:12:37) Syd: *experienced
(08:13:03) Cheeseness: The control stuff playing into the plot is impressively executed
(08:13:21) Syd: And those without controllers, despite the warning on the Steam page, it DOES have keyboard support. I've checked myself.
(08:13:31) Cheeseness: It's weird that they haven't updated that
(08:13:33) Syd: Fully rebindable keyboard controls, too
(08:14:09) The-Mad-Pirate: Cheeseness: People should make Licences easy to read and understand though.
(08:15:11) Cheeseness: Definitely. In this case, I don't think that was the problem since they were already making cranky about the engine being late before any of that came out
(08:16:25) Syd: I hope Brothers eventually finds its way to Linux and Mac, but I know that porting UE3 can be tricky.
(08:16:32) Cheeseness: Yeah
(08:16:37) Cheeseness: Mac at least seems like a no brainer
(08:17:05) Cheeseness: Although from what I understand you have to licence it separately from Windows, so there are probably some hoops to jump through
(08:17:13) Syd: It seems to take its time moving from platform to platform. I know that Brothers spent a while as a console-exclusive.
(08:18:00) Syd: Wait, it was actually only a month going from 360 to Windows, so it wasn't as long as I thought.
(08:18:30) Syd: And the PS3 version came out on the same day as the Windows version.
(08:19:26) Cheeseness: It's been out for what, 6 months now?
(08:19:49) Syd: It released August on 360, September on Windows/PS3
(08:19:59) Babar [Miranda@98911BCE.C50D05F2.83382450.IP] entered the room.
(08:20:42) Syd: Would be nice to see it as a Humble Bundle headliner someday. Just have to wait and see, I guess.
(08:22:05) Cheeseness: Mmm
(08:22:21) The-Mad-Pirate: Most games are developed concurrently
(08:22:36) Fireflower [51aae22a@hide-6C77D8AA.mibbit.com] entered the room.
(08:22:43) Fireflower: I missed it. :(
(08:22:46) The-Mad-Pirate: although , AFAIK is easier to develop it first on XBox360 and then port it to PS3
(08:23:01) Syd: Fireflower: The archive has been saved, if you want to catch up.
(08:23:09) Fireflower: Cool
(08:23:19) Syd: If you can't play through Brothers yourself, I'd recommend watching the archive before next week.
(08:23:21) The-Mad-Pirate: I think it has to do with a common denominator since XBox 360 had more memory limitations than PS3 and PCs
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(08:25:12) Syd: Fireflower: If you can play through Brothers, I highly recommend doing so. Much better to experience it as a player, especially the ending.
(08:25:17) Sven_Q45: Dito. I was a little bit distracted the last two times (with today). The graphics seems nice. No retail yet I see.
(08:25:41) Syd: It's hard to see how the controls play into some of the most powerful moments in Brothers just from watching it.
(08:26:19) Cheeseness: The-Mad-Pirate: No way. Most games are ported later
(08:26:27) Syd: I'll have to depend on Cheeseness explaining one of those moments when I get to it. :P
(08:26:35) Cheeseness: o7
(08:26:39) Syd: Since I'd have to tab out to chat myself.