Concerned Joe

[nightofgrim]

I fell in love with it the second I heard JohnnyUtah's voice. I'm a huge fan of TankMen and I'm happy to see that style of humor in this.

[T-Bone]

This is going to be awesome! Can't wait to play it.

[Jasoco]

You're going to let people freely mod this? I've been watching this for a while, but this just got even better.

If it has a level editor that works half as good as Mari0's, which is another game built in Löve, then it could be the most amazing thing ever. I really hope when this gets closer to release, it gets more exposure on the good gaming blogs.

[OmarShehata]

I just wrote up a more in-depth post about our GDC journey if anyone's curious!

http://concerned-joe.com/devblog/the-gdcxperience/

We'll be getting back to actually posting about the game pretty soon.

[T-Bone]

You're going to let people freely mod this? I've been watching this for a while, but this just got even better.

If it has a level editor that works half as good as Mari0's, which is another game built in Löve, then it could be the most amazing thing ever. I really hope when this gets closer to release, it gets more exposure on the good gaming blogs.

Is it just me or does this game not feel like it would work with a level editor at all? Wouldn't it be really difficult to get all the voice acting stuff to work nicely in an easily understandable interface?

[Jasoco]

You're going to let people freely mod this? I've been watching this for a while, but this just got even better.

If it has a level editor that works half as good as Mari0's, which is another game built in Löve, then it could be the most amazing thing ever. I really hope when this gets closer to release, it gets more exposure on the good gaming blogs.

Is it just me or does this game not feel like it would work with a level editor at all? Wouldn't it be really difficult to get all the voice acting stuff to work nicely in an easily understandable interface?

It doesn't matter. Portal 2 has great voice acting and still has an awesome level editor. It doesn't need the voice stuff in the user levels. It's all about the puzzles people design. Same with Portal 2.

[T-Bone]

If it has a level editor that works half as good as Mari0's, which is another game built in Löve, then it could be the most amazing thing ever. I really hope when this gets closer to release, it gets more exposure on the good gaming blogs.

Is it just me or does this game not feel like it would work with a level editor at all? Wouldn't it be really difficult to get all the voice acting stuff to work nicely in an easily understandable interface?

It doesn't matter. Portal 2 has great voice acting and still has an awesome level editor. It doesn't need the voice stuff in the user levels. It's all about the puzzles people design. Same with Portal 2.

I guess that's true. The only difference is that the gameplay of Portal 2 is pretty unique and interesting in its own right, whereas Concerned Joe, as far as I have seen, looks like a pretty average platformer if you remove the voice (which is totally awesome and really creates a great mood). Of course, I'd love to be proven wrong.

[OmarShehata]

Is it just me or does this game not feel like it would work with a level editor at all? Wouldn't it be really difficult to get all the voice acting stuff to work nicely in an easily understandable interface?

It doesn't matter. Portal 2 has great voice acting and still has an awesome level editor. It doesn't need the voice stuff in the user levels. It's all about the puzzles people design. Same with Portal 2.

That's where the "layer" design comes in. The editor would be extremely easy to use, but incredibly hard to master.

By that I mean, it would be really intuitive to make a basic level, just drag and drop tiles and press done. So you made a basic, generic level. Then you realize that special tiles can be wired to each other, such as doors and buttons, so you start making more elaborate levels. Then you dig a little deeper and you realize that tiles have properties you can tweak if you right click on them, then you realize there's an "event system" and so on and so forth.

So making a level is really easy, making more elaborate levels would need you to take some time to learn how the editor works. We're also trying to make everything as intuitive as possible, following Bret Victor's philosophies of UI design. I wrote a blog post about it on the Joe blog a while back. Here's a 5 minute video of his 1 hour talk:

http://www.wimp.com/videogames/

I guess that's true. The only difference is that the gameplay of Portal 2 is pretty unique and interesting in its own right, whereas Concerned Joe, as far as I have seen, looks like a pretty average platformer if you remove the voice (which is totally awesome and really creates a great mood). Of course, I'd love to be proven wrong.

It's funny because the voice acting was never intended in the original game. It was going to be a puzzle platformer, with the twist being you have to keep moving or you die. We made the flash game, we had 20 levels, and it was fun. Then we added those monitors having funny or witty messages to keep things interesting. Then Xelu randomly PMed JohnnyUtah from Newgrounds to see if he wanted to voice act a couple lines (intended only for the tutorial) and suddenly we had a voice line in every level, and that completely changed everything.

It got me to rethink what I knew about game design theory. I believed that, the game mechanics were the most important thing about the game. If you make a prototype, and the game isn't fun, then you have to trash it, because if it's not fun without any art or sound, it won't be when you add everything.

And that may be still true, but there's a difference between fun and entertainment. Solving a puzzle is fun. Listening to funny voice acting is entertaining, and there's no reason you need to either be playing a game, or watching a movie. You could have both entertainment and fun, and that ameliorates the whole experience.

We had people say they played the game *just* for the voice acting, and that bugged me at first. But then I realized it's okay because the voice acting is part of the game experience. And if someone plays the Metal Gear games just for the story, well that's okay too.

[josefnpat]

Howdy, so glad to hear you're making this game with love!
I'm trying out the flash version and I noticed a nice polish you may be able to add to the love version;

If you sit in one spot for too long (e.g. you're taking a surf break inbetween levels, because the music is so awesome, like I am) have the narrator yell something, like "HEY. WHAT AM I PAYING YOU TO DO? SIT AROUND AND DO NOTHING" and sayings like that.

[Jasoco]

But if you sit around in one place don't you just die?