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[nenjin]

Not sure what is controversial there.

She originally claimed they excessively low-balled her at $4k for the entire game. The respected VA who has helped make the last two games a success. That was the initial controversy. Then it was reported what the actual offer offer was ($4k per session for about $15k), and her counter proposal (which was far above what is considered standard for VAs without serious pull.)

[Rolan7]

Right.  And the controversy about the original VA (other than potentially setting this all off with a lie) is unrelated stuff I don't care to dredge up, even as I'm a potential target of it.  It's probably not important to this, unless they really did lowball her in order to replace her.  I also haven't tried to verify it at all.

I remain glad it didn't turn out to be an anti-union thing, and I *think* I heard her replacement is getting a more reasonable fee.

[nenjin]

Yeah, that's the other emerging part I just learned about. I decided to maybe not make it a character assassination and keep it to the facts of the event. I get that's not your perspective, it's just why I didn't add it in. You get it though.

Then again, if they did low ball for her those reasons specifically to force her out...it's kind of unavoidable that it comes up.

[Lidku]

If she really did lie (through omission of not mentioning all her work altogether hourly/per day would come together at 15k) about only being paid 4k as a flat-rate for the whole thing, it'll really look bad on future VAs who want to speak out against being exploited. Especially small ones (like Hellena is) who cannot readily defend themselves as VA giants can (Jennifer Hale). While we don't know for sure, I really suspect they paid Jennifer Hale more money than even the highest-low Hellena Taylor requested. Or at the very least, a higher minimum off-the-bat because of Hale being in the game.

Though, on the other end, if Platinum made up false documentation and presented to Bloomberg / Jason Schrier to switch the PR opinion against Taylor, who could have been lowballed for a more "recognizable" actress, it'd be especially insidious. The "insiders" who conveniently leaked to Jason could have deceived him to save their PR bottom-line; which I think has worked. But even with that alone, Hellena calling for a boycott has galvanized the typical crowd to buy Bayonetta 3 out of spite of "not wanting to be told what to do".

I have a distinct feeling we'll know more about this AFTER the game releases. I don't think Platinum will risk anymore controversy that might impact sales before the game has a chance to release (but so far, controversy in this situation is proving to be their favor here).

But if they don't release anything officially and stay silent even after Bayonetta releases, I'll lean more toward believing Hellena Taylor on this. People might chalk it up to NDA, but when the game is out, I don't (and correct me if I'm wrong) NDA becomes tenuous-to-non-existent at that point, as the game has released.

[nenjin]

NDAs can say whatever they want, if you choose to agree to it. Part of a contract agreement might be an NDA about it in perpetuity. Just having the conversation about a contract agreement might require an NDA in perpetuity. It just depends.

I'll be interested to see where this goes, because it only gets more damaging from here.

[Cthulhu]

Ultimately I still wasn't gonna get it.

Scorn is pretty good.  The combat sucks, and the rarity of healing stuff means you can get stuck in really shitty situations, but overall.  It feels gnostic to me, or at least maltheist, that the world you're in was created by a diseased or malfunctioning God that's trying to make something good but has no idea what "good" should look like.  A lot of games ape the giger/beksinski aesthetic because it's a meme, but there's a real sense of artistic vision and place that makes everything more interesting.  Weird, inexplicable machinery that still feels like it's hinting at some internal logic you're not privy to, giant machines seemingly dedicated to torture and mutilation for unknown reasons, oil derricks that pump organic white fluid, giant vaguely-human-body looking apparatuses full of telescoping meat-pipes, and this grotesque fleshy user interface on everything, everything interacted with by putting things in holes.

Gameplay reminds me a lot of Myst in the way the puzzles are big and sprawl across the levels, it's not like the Witness or something where each puzzle is a self-contained thing and you progress through them one at a time, an entire section of the game will center around some huge complicated apparatus with lots of individual interaction points whose purpose makes no sense until you've seen the entire thing and can start to think about it holistically.  It's fun, that plus how completely opaque and alien the logic of the world is gives a great feeling of exploration and figuring things out.

[nenjin]

The combat (which I know isn't really the point of the game) looked so slow and tedious to me that it almost felt like it didn't need to be there.

[Folly]

The Last Spell recently got a major update, which broke save compatibility, necessitating a fresh start.

I'm still on the first map(after tutorial), but enjoying the changes so far. There seem to be a good mix of meta progression tasks with short-term and long-term goals, allowing me to immediately be unlocking things each night, but also see myself making progress towards bigger unlocks down the line. I'm also seeing less divide between super-OP heroes and useless heroes, with everyone having a role to play regardless of how blessed they are by RNG.

[Frumple]

Vampire Survivors appears to have gotten its 1.0 update. Some new stuff... plus twitch integration, heh.

[Cthulhu]

The combat (which I know isn't really the point of the game) looked so slow and tedious to me that it almost felt like it didn't need to be there.

It really doesn't, though I guess the overall aesthetic of the world benefits from these bizarre creatures hanging out.  The first enemies you find are these not-quite-humanoid things that mostly seem to gather in these huge agglomerations that crawl across the walls or form cables like army ant bridges, then die and rot together, so the whole map is strung through with this giant meat web.  And the weapons and ammo and stuff add more fucked up machinery for you to interact with.  The healing device is this meat lotus pod you plug into machines that engorge it with blood for you to transfuse, and the ammo storage is the same item, you plug it into a machine that puts these little glowing flesh greebles into its seed holes and you put those in your guns.  That kind of stuff is where it really shines.  The bizarre interfaces of the world and the way everything seems to serve some kind of purpose that's not always apparent.

But the game would've been just as good, maybe better, if it was pure exploration and puzzle solving with no combat.

[Robsoie]

Completed a few playthroughs of the free to claim SuperTotalCarnage on indiegala, here are some observations :
After playing for a while, i see that it suffers from the same problems as "30mn to die" (that was this game previous name in an earlier alpha version)  that in the end making it unfortunately a forgettable game (that you'll ditch after a few playthroughs) in comparison to its inspirations :

- very few different weapons as after a few playthrough you will have seen them all repeatedly
- weapons increase in levels are sometime really bad (like the molotov at high level will then land way too far from the crowd to be useful)
- ultimate update of a weapon is sometime not as useful than the version of previous level (the chainsaw of the Pio character by example, if you get its ultimate upgrade you'll be sorry)
- out of the ultimate upgrade of the machinegun (that is probably the only really good ultimate weapon) there is 0 weapon that automatically target a nearby enemy, even in the previous alpha of that game "30mn to die" there was at least one) meaning you'll always have to face the crowd that follows you to do any damage, super annoying considering the whole point is to dodge and run away.
- seems like you can have a limited amount of skill/weapon/upgrade to get when leveling up (up to around level 40 i think) as after that you will not recieve anymore during the level-up or elite enemy kill and will have either money or food only as a choice.
- the 2 first character unlocks are the same as the 1st character with a different sprite, they just start with a different weapon equipped (a weapon the other characters can find in level-up anyways.

Only the last 4th and 5th character unlocks are having a different gameplay with their unique weapon start (the other characters can't have access to those weapons) that at least make them work differently than the 3 first clones
The 4th unlocked character is also extremely slow (the "ghost enemies" are actually faster than him, so if you haven't bought some good regen upgrade in the main menu, the poor bugger is toast everytime ) and the 5th one has a nice chainsaw "rotating with you changing direction" based gameplay that is actually interesting.

Not sure there are any more character unlock as even after completing the game 2 times in a row with the 5th unlocked guy , there's nothing more, by the way surviving enough time with a character unlock the purchase of the next one in the list.

The boss system makes a positive change in comparison to the repetition of "30mn to die", there are 3 of them appearing every 5 minutes, defeating the 3rd one makes you win the game.
The money system finally works (unlike "30mn to die" ) and allows you to buy some upgrade in the main menu, making your character even stronger.

For the anecdote, i thought Vampire Survivor was the game that launched this genre (dodging hordes of monsters while your weapon do their work without the player active use of them, in opposition to games like old Crimsonland), but apparently it was not, people mention there was a mobile game "Magic Survival" that was first and was the inspiration of Vampire Survivor.

[Frumple]

Magic survivor was the direct inspiration of Vampire Survivors, yeah. F2P on mobile with some in-game purchases available, it's pretty neat, though there's some pretty different design decisions going on in places, too.

Parts of the gameplay track further back, though -- the automated attack thing with dodging is WC3/flash game old at a minimum, and there were a few old arena survivor type dealios back in the old flash proliferation days that were pretty similar. Magic/Vampire survivor's big innovation is more the arena format and (especially) the wildly escalating upgrades (i.e. what gets them called Bullet Heaven) than most things. Autoattack with dodging and a variety of weapon choices is old WC3 custom map territory. Without the variety of weapon choices you're back in like space invaders or robotron days, heh. So on and so forth.

There were plenty of games in the yesteryears that can pretty close to the design, it was just nothing quite hit the exact permutations in question, and it's a good permutation indeed.

[Jopax]

Oh yeah I remember some of the wilder maps WC3 had that worked similarly. My particular favorites were the ones that were a very different take on the then nascent MOBA genre. Two had you controlling a tank/ship which had some abilities but the main attack came from weapon items you purchased which did all the attacking on their own, plus spending cash to upgrade the various mobs that the two sides spawned. It was a really good concept. I also remember it being done somewhat decently in a standalone title or two, except there were spaceships involved, think it was the first game from the Battlefleet Gothic devs, tho it kinda died quickly, what with being a pay to play MOBA back in the years of a shitton of F2P MOBA's being  all the rage.

Also, speaking of VS, it hit 1.0 the other day, making it a pretty damn good deal if you like the gameplay, plus it still blows most of the clones out of the water in terms of sheer amount of shit you unlock trough various challenges and secrets. Some of the games that came after it do mix up the formula a bit so it's more involved than just running around while shit dies around you.

One particularly promising example is Rogue Genesia which takes the basic formula and mashes with Slay the Spire overworld progression. So you get a number of way shorter encounters instead of one 30 minute slog all at once. Makes for much better pacing and the nature of the leveling system gives you chances to make broken shit much earlier too. The metaprogression is a bit grindy tho and is mostly stat boosts which isn't as exciting. Still, fairly early in development so it might get better.

[Robsoie]

Wouldn't have thought wc3 had a "dodge huge hordes while various automated weapons do something" type of gameplay in some custom map, good to know from where this kind of game came from.

[Frumple]

Generally not huge hordes, but dodge stuff while autofiring a slate of weapons, yeah. It was AoS based instead of arena survival, but still. Both tanks and (navel) battleships (the latter was most common, when I was playing) were the main ones, the earliest incarnation I can remember seeing was with space battleships and a pretty large battlefield (SC2 arcade stuff had some of that more fleshed out).

The specific combination of arena survival + huge hordes + multiple upgrading autofire weapons I think genuinely originated with magic survival. Everything except the multiple part of the weapons saw expression in flash games (there was a fairly famous one that had you swinging a sword around, iirc), the multiple upgrading autofire weapons came out in WC3 days... maybe even earlier, I think some of the very late stage Starcraft custom maps might have fiddled with it, too.

Anyway, general point is the pedigree and general design definitely predates MS or VS, they just managed to hit a particularly well liked combination of it. The whole "autofiring reverse bullet hell" thing was legitimately fairly new design, but earlier stuff had very much gotten very close to it. MS/VS just incremented design in a way that hit a really sweet spot and provided a lot of inspiration for other games.