Trash

[princec]

I posted a comment on TIGsource about Trash. I notice that the news article had been up for a bit but mysteriously no-one had anything nice to say about the game. So I posted. It's not a particularly nice comment, nor a particularly nasty one.

I confess to feeling somewhat underwhelmed in my initial impressions.

I expect to be flayed and burned of course, but then, I have the best set of flame-resistant underpants in the business, kindly co-developed with the help of everyone in this forum.

Has anyone else tried it yet?

Cas :)

[Gnatinator]

This Trash? (http://www.inhumangames.com)

At first I was a little dissapointed. But the game really grows on you if you give it a chance. I had some fun during the beta playing with friends, it has a unique team aspect.

Overall it's the most polished 3D indie rts i've played so far. Certainly in my personal top 5 indie multiplayer games.

[Jack Norton]

Trying to download it again... the first days their servers was running at 2kb/s download speed... :D (at least from Italy)

[princec]

I think I'd quite like to try the team aspect but I fear I will have to become competent at single player first ;)

I'm not so sure about "the most polished indie RTS"... I think that accolade falls pretty firmly on to Tribal Trouble, which also has the benefit of capitalizing on its indie roots by actually being highly original.

Cas :)

[Indiepath.T]

I'm not so sure about "the most polished indie RTS"... I think that accolade falls pretty firmly on to Tribal Trouble, which also has the benefit of capitalizing on its indie roots by actually being highly original.

You never played Populous III then?

[princec]

What's independent about Populous?

Cas :)

[Anthony Flack]

I'm assuming Indiepath means it plays a lot like Tribal Trouble.

[princec]

It couldn't be more different (try 'em both for yourself and see!).

Mark Currie has just replied to the TIGsource posting and it turns out he's got some stuff in the pipeline to stir into the mix. I am going to attempt to get into the game a bit more.

What I think is that Trash jumps straight into hardcore RTS far too quickly. Even Starcraft, the game to which it must surely be prepared, eased you into the game far, far more easily. And I think that's really Trash's only problem.

Cas :)

[Black Hydra]

From the looks of Trash it looks like an excellent game, but it is competiting in an area that excellent is sub-par.

I don't know what kind of success he has had with it, but ever since they did the preview of it I was cringing. Even if he makes an incredibly good indie RTS it simply seems like he can't compete. The game doesn't feel particularly original and worse yet it seems to be targetting the exact same audience that the big name RTS's target. I feel bad for the guy, but can anyone really see this working? I know my RTS playing friends are too busy playing their excellent 10 million dollar budget games to land some money on some independent project...

Ah well...

[princec]

From a biz perspective, 5 years on this project... it's just commercial suicide to begin with even contemplating it.

From an art perspective, it brings nothing new to the genre (see: Tribal Trouble, Darwinia).

From a cool nerdy perspective, it's right up there with proper kudos for actually completing it and it turning out good.

Horses for courses.

Cas :)

[Black Hydra]

This is an example of where you can make something that is good but there isn't a lot of need for it.

For me, I want to make games because they contribute something to the people playing them. A new experience, a new way to have fun, a new way to look at things, that people want and need. This seems like one of those games that the designer made because he liked RTS games and simply wanted to make one of his own, not that there was any particular need for it.

I liked the game Diablo II. Would I try to make an indie D2? Hell no. The fact is, the world doesn't need another D2. D2 did a good enough job the first time around so why does it need a rehash?

At least if you clone a game like Zuma or Bejewelled you won't have wasted 5 years if it fails. But, if being an indie means you can do whatever the hell you want, regardless of its suicidal properties, then kudos to Mark for exercising that freedom. Even if I think he is insane...

[Daire Quinlan]

I liked the game Diablo II. Would I try to make an indie D2? Hell no. The fact is, the world doesn't need another D2. D2 did a good enough job the first time around so why does it need a rehash?

and yet, some-one turns around and makes fate :-)

I agree with the above remarks though. Fair deuce to the guy for doing this, but frankly there's a thousand similar RTS's in the bargain bin in my local game store. I think this was mentioned in a thread recently enough, but why make a hardcore FPS or RTS for anything other than the satisfaction of making it ? it'll die the death because you just CAN'T compete with the big budgets. Tribal Trouble had a distinctive enough feel to it (not withstanding the comparisons to Pop 3 above) to stand by itself and hopefully become a sucess, but trash, from the demo at least, doesn't. I found the demo enjoyable enough I guess but it was very much a -meh- moment. Been there,seen that, played it etc etc.

D.

-edit- originally had 'fable' where I meant 'fate' -edit

[Geom]

I think the main innovation Trash brings to the table is collaborative teamplay. The two races have the ability to upgrade each other. When a multi-player team intentionally exploits that, they gain quite an advantage. Trash seems tuned to appeal most to people who like team play.

One thing I don't like about Trash is that early on in the game, the human's primary defense for thier home base is flamethrowers mounted on buildings. The flamethrowers torch pretty much everything in sight during combat, including my own units and even other buildings. I find that frustrating because I spend more time trying to keep my own units from gleefully jumping into the flames and getting killed than I do stopping the enemy's units. I wish the units (or the flamethrowers) were smarter about avoiding friendly-fire kills, or that the game had some other fixed-defense structure that wouldn't do so much splash damage.

[princec]

I confess I got the same feeling about that ex-Rage bunch doing that mech fighting game, what was it called, War World or something. I played it until I got a bit bored but at the end of the day it was a 3rd person shooter with a variety of guns you could choose... remarkably like MechWarrior, which I played to death.

This is not to say I think there's anything wrong with Trash or War World, just that it seems to be doomed to failure from the very inception if they wanted to make it rich or famous.

Cas :)

[Robert Cummings]

Can't find your comments on Trash, is there a link to the article?

[wazoo]

Can't find your comments on Trash, is there a link to the article?

Trashed?

LOL :)

Of course the game's download page is suddenly getting a lot of hits thanks to this thread..:)