By Justin Amirkhani, Creative Director
Always Sometimes Monsters started as an attempt to find the answer to one of the biggest questions I had ever come across. What else could my life be?
Whether the game was ever able to successfully answer it, or if it was even able to pose the question to players is not what's worth talking about here. Over the course of producing ASM I have come to understand that in life there is no certainty in anything, and possibilities exist only in the realm of curious wonderings. No matter what angle I analyze the question from, or how I use the game and the experience making it as a filter, I will be forever uncertain whether my life could ever be anything other than what it is.
This is the real heartbreak of the game.
In many ways, the story of ASM is the story of making ASM. Like the protagonist we set out on a mission with a hard deadline, no real clue how to progress, and mired in the tedium of work. Here and there we'd find lessons and misadventures, all in pursuit of a highly intangible goal we only really appreciated in dreams. As we pull to the end of the journey, sacrifices need to be made, and we come to an ending that is equal parts celebratory and gut-wrenching. A guilty feeling overtakes as the credits roll and we think of all the ways we could have done things better, and we want to play again.
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Being happy with what you've made is probably the most difficult thing about creating any form of art. Even when your praises are being sung, it can be hard to believe what people are saying because you know how much better it could have been given just a little more time. Sadly, with a game like ASM there is no "done". No matter what you do or how much effort you put in, you will inevitably release something that may be good, maybe even great, but will always feel incomplete to the creator.
It's like running on a track by yourself; only you decide how many laps is enough.
Still, I look at myself and my life now that we're through with our first game and things look good. We're comfortable and fulfilled, making a living doing something we love. Nothing is perfect, our naive ideals are unmet, but everything about life is better than it was before we started. Perhaps this is what the game was trying to teach me all along.
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What else could my life be? With persistence and effort, it could be better.
Seeing an idea of yours come to life and success from scratch leaves you with no doubt that hard work has its rewards. I now know that regardless of circumstance, I can always improve my station with the will to endure. That's a valuable lesson to learn, and probably the most important thing gained from making a game.
As we move forward from Always Sometimes Monsters, and on to whatever comes next, it's with a confidence that we never had before. With luck it bolsters our ability to deliver games that continue to impact people emotionally, and never cripples us by turning into cheap hubris. Vagabond Dog has only started telling its stories, but now that we know someone is listening, there's all the more reason to keep talking.
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Day 8 | Vagabond Dog
The friendly folks over at Razer recently sent us their full size Kishi Ultra mobile gaming controller, and this thing didn't disappoint.
VGChartz's Mark Nielsen: "Upon finally finishing Devil May Cry 5 recently - after it spent several years on my “I’ll play that soon” list - I considered giving it a fittingly-named Late Look article. However, considering that this was indeed the final piece I was missing in the DMC puzzle, I decided to instead take this opportunity to take a look back at the entirety of this genre-defining series and rank the entries. What also made this a particularly tempting notion was that while most high-profile series have developed fairly evenly over time, with a few bumps on the road, the history of Devil May Cry has, at least in my eyes, been an absolute roller coaster, with everything from total disasters to action game gold."
Me leaving it out should be telling of my thoughts on it. Better than 2 as a DMC game.
Still a good game though.
3,1,4,5 to me, never played 2. 5 gameplay is amazing but level design was really disappointing to me, just a bunch of plain arenas, the story felt like a worse written rehash of the 3rd and the charater models looked weird ( specially the ladies ). Another problem with 5 was that there was not enough content for 3 charaters so I could never really familiarize with any of them
2.
Dmc.
4.
5.
1.
3.
God DMC2 was an awful game.
And in case this isn't obvious it goes worst to best
Order changes depending on your focus. I tend to focus on gameplay/fun factor, so...
5, 3, 1, 4, 2.
I really didn't like 4 but commend Dante's weapon diversity. The retreading of old ground was pretty unacceptable to me.
But even then... Still more enjoyable than 2 for me
TSA go hands on with the beta for Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road, but how is the game transitioning to the post-stylus era?
This game seems like it goes real deep, gotta play it
A game about life, if it's fun - I'll play it.
" A guilty feeling overtakes as the credits roll and we think of all the ways we could have done things better, and we want to play again"
Life would be a lot more interesting if there were save points i could return to.
Seems like the game can spawn some pretty humorous stories.