noé

Strive is a videogame-ass-videogame. It's all about learning timings and big combos and an announcer that yells COUNTER when you land a sick hit. Classic video game stuff. But look at the yellow circles - why does it have all this miniscule unreadable text everywhere? why does the option menu have the 0.05em subline "Advanced settings to make it more fun". why does the "cancel" option have an absolutely illegible description that just says "the other possibility"? can you even read the description for Castle of the Silver Feet??? (it says "the stage carefully managed and sacred") why does it all sound like psuedo poetry??

it's fun!! it's aesthetic nonsense, it's random and purposeless, it doesn't help with user accessibility or add to the core gameplay. either they did it with artistic intent or they did it because a writer and a UI dev were really bored one day and just went to town on every little option modal because they thought it was funny. both possibilities are good, but the latter especially would make me extremely happy... maybe this is just me as a game dev myself, but I love when I see something in a game and go, "ah, i'm glad the developers are having a good time"

i want ppl to play my games and go, "ah, there goes Lily on her bullshit again, good for her"

#gamedev #game design #guilty gear #really just wanted an excuse to rave about how much i like this nonsense text. it makes me extremely happy. i'm not smart enough to know why but it made me love this game even more

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in reply to @ItsMeLilyV's post:

Saya @sayanishi8/15/2023, 3:20 PM

I've heard it referred to as "chuuni text" (as in the anime archetype of chuunibyou); and Under-Night (another fighting game) does this specific thing in spades. there's whole aragraphs on every screen, including transitions, and you're clearly not meant to be able to necessarily even read it

let alone understand it once you do

Lily Valeen @ItsMeLilyV8/15/2023, 3:29 PM

Ahhhh, I didn't know if it had a proper name! I remember seeing it in the original Demon's Souls iirc as well... It's possible there's a ton of aesthetic intent behind it I know absolutely nothing about. I definitely love the feeling it adds, though - it's perfect for Guilty Gear's tone.

addaline @addaline8/15/2023, 3:29 PM

i actually really love the random little bits of unnecessary text as a design flair. i'm reminded of how Demon's Souls actually had it a fair bit on all of their big notification screens, like 'You Died' is accompanied by brief smaller text under it that says "Phantom you were not able to win your goal. It is necessary to leave this world."

Lily Valeen @ItsMeLilyV8/15/2023, 3:42 PM

YEA!! i actually never saw what the Demon's Souls text is :O but i think it's such a fun design flair... I got into Strive a couple of months before Bossgame came out and was immediately inspired to add a bunch of "victory screen poetry" that scrolls by really fast whenever you beat a boss

addaline @addaline8/15/2023, 9:19 PM

yeah, it's definitely a fun flair to play with. i hadn't played demon souls, but after the streamer moonmoon had done a lot of pvp in the remaster, the "What a Magnificent Demon!" line from the 'target destroyed' victory text became a community meme

tomyatemo @tomyatemo8/15/2023, 3:43 PM

I love that feeling, some friends were helping me test my game over de weekend. And when they started interacting with stuff and got to some dialogs one of them said: "Oh yeah, I'm getting the full tomimi* experience" and it made me so happy.

(*tomimi is my nickname)

Lily Valeen @ItsMeLilyV8/15/2023, 3:59 PM

ahhhhhhh that's so good!!! that's honestly such a great compliment to receive :D that like, your games are infused with your essence...
I had a friend tell me "if i didn't know you made this game i would have assumed you made this game" once and i was so happy

tomyatemo @tomyatemo8/16/2023, 2:45 PM

That's a beautiful compliment I'm really happy for you!

@halfcoordinated8/15/2023, 5:16 PM

I too, love little bits of flair like this! One small note of accessibility caution is that with text this small, those that can't or struggle to read it can't tell that it's just flavor text which can lead to confusion. Also, it's good to strive (heh) for as many players as possible to get the full video game-ass video game experience 💜

Lily Valeen @ItsMeLilyV8/15/2023, 5:37 PM

Yea, that's the one thing I'm unsure of with this kind of text; it does seem like it could be confusing if it's not clear that it's intentionally difficult to read (and overwhelmingly irrelevant). I didn't even notice the text the first dozen or so times I booted the game...

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