cboy posted:

Hey guys, this is Chef Boyardee, one of the writers and musicians for the game, and I was one of the original Barkley 1 guys.

Barkley 2 was our dream game. When we asked for $30k and received $120k, it felt like a mandate to go absolutely bonkers and make the game far, far larger and more convoluted than it actually needed to be (and as we learned, than we were more capable of making). To talk about all of our inspirations is to basically give you a laundry list of multi-million dollar Square-Enix RPGs with teams of hundreds of guys - so who WOULDN'T believe a bunch of dudes in their dad's basement could make it?

We moved into bhroom and bort's dad's basement and got to work. We went absolutely nuts with scope, and planned out a massive game that, in reality, would have taken far more resources than we had. I'll give you an example: Barkley 2 had a 24 hour time system. As you completed quests and events in the game, the time would pass and new events would open. In reality, what this meant was that we had to make new content for each in-game hour. This is an awesome idea, but even for all the content we made, it was not feasible for our limited crew. Work was abound with stories like this - we dreamed and attempted all sorts of crazy systems, thinking that we had the experience and ability of Square's A-team.

I stopped working on the game when my mom became ill and passed away abruptly. It's hard to talk about, so I won't. I wanted to go back, but the longer I stayed away, the more difficult it became, first because it was apparent that this project was just too ambitious and that what we needed was scope control, and second, it was the hardest thing in the world to admit failure. Failure, not just to the people I was beholden to, the people who had misplaced their faith in my ability to make this massive, sprawling game, but to the people I worked with. I love, deeply, everyone who worked on Barkley. I love GZ, Laz, bort, bhroom, bisse, Konix, Frankie, Neon, everyone who ever tried to help this madcap dream a reality. And I didn't know how to say I was sorry, or that I'd failed. My regret is that I could't do that. I am sorry, everyone.

That said, I'm extremely proud of the work we did on the game, all of us. I think that everyone who worked on this project are among the best out there. The jokes, the world, the coding, the design, the art - it's awesome. I think the writing and music I did is some of my best work. There is nobody on the team who deserves more praise than GZ, who was the only voice of reason during all of this. It's to him that I'm most sorry.

As far as money goes, although I was never the money dude, it was all used to my knowledge pretty responsibly to hire contractors. At the beginning of the project, I think we all took $1000 for food and expenses and stuff, and then another $1000 for the same a while later. The company also took a $10,000 loan from my dad which I paid back with an absurd 20% interest. So at least for me, this endeavor netted me a whopping -$10,000. I'd say the only wasteful thing we did with money was take the game to PAX, which really was an amazing experience and at least people got to play the game there. It was met with an awesome reception, especially our booth, which involved bhroom dressing as a wizard and acting out our character creation - which I contend is still the best ever.

I think we were just too young and too ambitious and I want to say we tried to fly too close to the sun, but I don't think we ever took off. What we have is great, but I failed. And I'm sorry. I don't know what I can do to at least partially make things right, but I welcome suggestions.

cboy posted:

Hey guys, this is Chef Boyardee, one of the writers and musicians for the game, and I was one of the original Barkley 1 guys.

Barkley 2 was our dream game. When we asked for $30k and received $120k, it felt like a mandate to go absolutely bonkers and make the game far, far larger and more convoluted than it actually needed to be (and as we learned, than we were more capable of making). To talk about all of our inspirations is to basically give you a laundry list of multi-million dollar Square-Enix RPGs with teams of hundreds of guys - so who WOULDN'T believe a bunch of dudes in their dad's basement could make it?

We moved into bhroom and bort's dad's basement and got to work. We went absolutely nuts with scope, and planned out a massive game that, in reality, would have taken far more resources than we had. I'll give you an example: Barkley 2 had a 24 hour time system. As you completed quests and events in the game, the time would pass and new events would open. In reality, what this meant was that we had to make new content for each in-game hour. This is an awesome idea, but even for all the content we made, it was not feasible for our limited crew. Work was abound with stories like this - we dreamed and attempted all sorts of crazy systems, thinking that we had the experience and ability of Square's A-team.

I stopped working on the game when my mom became ill and passed away abruptly. It's hard to talk about, so I won't. I wanted to go back, but the longer I stayed away, the more difficult it became, first because it was apparent that this project was just too ambitious and that what we needed was scope control, and second, it was the hardest thing in the world to admit failure. Failure, not just to the people I was beholden to, the people who had misplaced their faith in my ability to make this massive, sprawling game, but to the people I worked with. I love, deeply, everyone who worked on Barkley. I love GZ, Laz, bort, bhroom, bisse, Konix, Frankie, Neon, everyone who ever tried to help this madcap dream a reality. And I didn't know how to say I was sorry, or that I'd failed. My regret is that I could't do that. I am sorry, everyone.

That said, I'm extremely proud of the work we did on the game, all of us. I think that everyone who worked on this project are among the best out there. The jokes, the world, the coding, the design, the art - it's awesome. I think the writing and music I did is some of my best work. There is nobody on the team who deserves more praise than GZ, who was the only voice of reason during all of this. It's to him that I'm most sorry.

As far as money goes, although I was never the money dude, it was all used to my knowledge pretty responsibly to hire contractors. At the beginning of the project, I think we all took $1000 for food and expenses and stuff, and then another $1000 for the same a while later. The company also took a $10,000 loan from my dad which I paid back with an absurd 20% interest. So at least for me, this endeavor netted me a whopping -$10,000. I'd say the only wasteful thing we did with money was take the game to PAX, which really was an amazing experience and at least people got to play the game there. It was met with an awesome reception, especially our booth, which involved bhroom dressing as a wizard and acting out our character creation - which I contend is still the best ever.

I think we were just too young and too ambitious and I want to say we tried to fly too close to the sun, but I don't think we ever took off. What we have is great, but I failed. And I'm sorry. I don't know what I can do to at least partially make things right, but I welcome suggestions.

cboy posted:

CuddlyZombie posted:

Did you have the plot worked out? I actually wanna know what happens in the Barkleyverse lmao.

Also I backed but I’m not mad. Barkley 1 was free so it’s even Stevens

Bisse posted:

For example, one legit funny joke was your Party. You only ever played as Hoopz, but on your equipment menu there were four party members. You could always see them in your menu but never in game. As I recall it, at the literal final second of the game the other 3 party members would appear out of Hoopz like in a Final Fantasy game and say "Wow, we did it!" "Hell yeah!". Kind of funny actually, but, it’s just one small joke.

Sleeveless posted:

For me this is a perfect example of why I had no faith in Barkley 2 from the very beginning. "In JRPGs your party members don't show up on the world map outside of cutscenes" is something that hasn't been true since the late 90s and pointing out that this is a thing would be a mediocre Penny Arcade or RPG World joke in 2002. Doing in 2014 let alone 2019 is embarrassing, it's the gaming version of making a reference to hanging chads or doing a Matrix bullet time parody.

The sad thing is that the closest thing to the kind of lovely gonzo RPGmaker game that Barkely 1 drew most of its humor from is failed Kickstarter games, and if they had waited another year or two and used the first wave of big failures as a source of inspiration for jokes it could have been amazing and cutting edge. Even now places like itch.io are full of games that successfully translate Barkley's humor to modern sensibilities, like a Ready Player One parody that satirizes the obnoxious pop culture references of the source material by just using stolen and stock Unity assets for everything or a Seinfeld dating sim that is a pitch perfect homage to the pacing and humor of a classic Seinfeld ep only set in a 90s anime visual novel rather then 90s New York. In a way trying to make Barkley 2 be an actual good game was probably the best course they could have taken because they've completely and utterly failed to keep up with the zeitgeist and the humor alone wouldn't be enough to carry them anymore.

Sleeveless posted:

Sleeveless posted:

For me this is a perfect example of why I had no faith in Barkley 2 from the very beginning. "In JRPGs your party members don't show up on the world map outside of cutscenes" is something that hasn't been true since the late 90s and pointing out that this is a thing would be a mediocre Penny Arcade or RPG World joke in 2002. Doing in 2014 let alone 2019 is embarrassing, it's the gaming version of making a reference to hanging chads or doing a Matrix bullet time parody.

The sad thing is that the closest thing to the kind of lovely gonzo RPGmaker game that Barkely 1 drew most of its humor from is failed Kickstarter games, and if they had waited another year or two and used the first wave of big failures as a source of inspiration for jokes it could have been amazing and cutting edge. Even now places like itch.io are full of games that successfully translate Barkley's humor to modern sensibilities, like a Ready Player One parody that satirizes the obnoxious pop culture references of the source material by just using stolen and stock Unity assets for everything or a Seinfeld dating sim that is a pitch perfect homage to the pacing and humor of a classic Seinfeld ep only set in a 90s anime visual novel rather then 90s New York. In a way trying to make Barkley 2 be an actual good game was probably the best course they could have taken because they've completely and utterly failed to keep up with the zeitgeist and the humor alone wouldn't be enough to carry them anymore.

Sleeveless posted:

For me this is a perfect example of why I had no faith in Barkley 2 from the very beginning. "In JRPGs your party members don't show up on the world map outside of cutscenes" is something that hasn't been true since the late 90s and pointing out that this is a thing would be a mediocre Penny Arcade or RPG World joke in 2002. Doing in 2014 let alone 2019 is embarrassing, it's the gaming version of making a reference to hanging chads or doing a Matrix bullet time parody.

Wrex Ruckus posted:

Barkley 1 is still the funniest game I've ever played, not counting stuff like Red Dead Redemption or Skyrim where the humor comes from glitches. I get that it's hard to do comedy right, since a lot of "funny" games come off as trying too hard. And I imagine it's worse when you have a good idea for a gag, but it would eat up a lot of manpower which is already at a premium.

everythingWasBees posted:

I feel like at this point the best solution would be to convince bhroom to just upload the repo and let it die as gracefully as it can.

and not attempt to spend another 6 years slowly making gradual progress on God knows what