It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
Demons at the door, your village laid to waste. The only answer is to throw on some Pjs and unleash justice, ninja justice.

The retro-inspired The Messenger pre-orders double flip onto GOG, packing all the throwing stars and special abilities that would make Shinobi proud. Bosses, hidden levels, a toe-tapping original soundtrack. Relive the golden age of the action platformer, without half the hairspray or lack of internet connection.

100% Ninja, 100% up for pre-order.
avatar
Zoidberg: 16,79€ but still 60 cents off for fair price package?

Strange...
oops i havent seen the price tag i was so wondered by the game and the Deja Vu feeling i forgot to look for the price:
16.79 ?

Mastertronic tape game would have gotten me 3 games at 6.99 guilders back then ( 16.79 euro = about 37. dutch guilders before 2000, that would have been 37/9.99 almost 4 games that look like this.

I googled and found this add: original url: aguter.plus.com/images_mastertronic/americanad.jpg

in case the server is down or removed i uploaded a copy here
check attachment

avatar
amok: hehe, so gOg refused Tanglewood, but accepted this. Lets see... hmmm... publisher Devolver Digital.... guess that's curation for you...
avatar
i_hope_you_rot: * female voice *

Devolver Digital. Quality games since 2008 .
name sounds familair but doesnt ring a bell yet, i do know the old Mastertronic they said they had highquality software
and cheap , i had a few tapes (not every game was available only some they were able to get into the dutch shops)

I wonder when a Spy vs Spy game lookalike will arrive , also freshly designed on a modern PC with very high min. requirements.
The good thing is i might be able to get a new(er) pc, gonna take a while but it is required cause even the simplest looking games require a powerful CPU, so i am aiming for a i3 ( new builds at 4 cores ( instead of 2)and 3.x GHZ)

a new i5 with 6 cores nowadays or even a i7 with more cores is way too expensive.... but needed cause the min req. of todays games are getting higher and higher .....

Anyway the old days 80s had smaller better optimised games and ran on a low system.... today everything is so 'heavy'

back to playing some old games and a few simple visual novels
Attachments:
Post edited August 17, 2018 by gamesfreak64
low rated
deleted
Nice!
And with a true gameplay-trailer.
Wishlisted.
low rated
deleted
This game looks fantastic to me. Wishlisted for now. Plan to buy on release.
high rated
avatar
amok: hehe, so gOg refused Tanglewood, but accepted this. Lets see... hmmm... publisher Devolver Digital.... guess that's curation for you...
Curation doesn't come without some nasty caveats, but I'd rather have a curated store, prone to the whims and personal tastes of a few people, than a store that just accepts every single game. And you can argue all you want about walking sims and visual novels and all the games you don't like, but, trust me: those were curated, too. If you ask some fans of the genre, GOG brought some of the best games available, if you like those kinds of games. If you don't, that's your prerogative, but it doesn't make the games bad, per se; GOG could have done much worse, instead, they are selling the best games within the genre. Which, coincidentally, a lot of users wanted in here.

I'm not saying it's "OK for GOG to leave these games out, because I don't care about them, personally" (and I honestly couldn't care less about Tanglewood, to be fair), because apparently quite a few people would like to buy them on GOG, given the chance -- I'm not GOG's only customer, fortunately, and other people deserve to get the games they want, too.

Having said this, can we stop with the blind despising of Devolver? Personally, I think some of the best indies on GOG are Devolver's, and I've been supporting them since way before the E3 mock conferences that put them on the map of many gamers. I don't think it's fair to Devolver or their fans to keep bringing them up every time you want to complain about a game you wanted not making it to GOG. Make a thread about it, or multiple, but why doing it here, crapping on Devolver just because you don't like their games or because you probably think "enough is enough, these guys are monopolizing the video game industry with their crappy indies" (which I disagree with, but that's beside the point). Yes, it's sad that GOG refuses a game that many people wanted, but is it Devolver's fault? Should the people who like Devolver and buy their games feel bad? A lot of GOG customers wanted Tanglewood in here, and it's a bummer that GOG refused to sell it, but many people have been following The Messenger's development, and we wanted this game here, too, should we feel bad that we're getting a game we wanted because you're not? It's not my fault, it's not the fans' fault, it's not Devolver's fault. GOG could have chosen to sell both Tanglewood and The Messenger, sadly, for fans of the former, they only went with the latter (and, yes, maybe the fact it's a Devolver-published game has something to do with it, they created a name for themselves, kind of like Wadjet Eye with adventure games, what's wrong with that? They're giving indies visibility, and that's a good thing, in my book).

Anyway. I'll buy The Messenger, I've actually been following the development, seen a bunch of Devolver twitch streams of this game, and I'm hyped for it. It's on my wishlist, maybe I'll even end up pre-ordering it. Thanks for bringing it here, GOG!
Post edited August 18, 2018 by groze
I was convinced this was going to be an adaptation of the late-Nineties, Luc Besson-directed Milla Jovovich picture about Jeanne d'Arc. But it's only about ninjas. :.(
avatar
amok: hehe, so gOg refused Tanglewood, but accepted this. Lets see... hmmm... publisher Devolver Digital.... guess that's curation for you...
Yes, and if the situation were reversed, there would be some other yahoo posting the same thing about this game not having been let in, while implying that Tanglewood was the inferior game that was undeservedly accepted. See the problem?
Post edited August 18, 2018 by HunchBluntley
avatar
HunchBluntley: Yes, and if the situation were reversed, there would be some other yahoo posting the same thing about this game not having been let in, while implying that Tanglewood was the inferior game that was undeservedly accepted. See the problem?
why does it need to be reversed? why not have both, or for consistency sake, refuse both? i'm just a bit confused about the curation 'standards' here.
avatar
groze: [...]
Having said this, can we stop with the blind despising of Devolver?
[...]
I don't despise Devolver, i quite like many of the games they publish. it is more, again, about the curation standards. we curate, as long as you do not have a publisher we like.
Post edited August 18, 2018 by amok
avatar
HunchBluntley: Yes, and if the situation were reversed, there would be some other yahoo posting the same thing about this game not having been let in, while implying that Tanglewood was the inferior game that was undeservedly accepted. See the problem?
avatar
amok: why does it need to be reversed? why not have both, or for consistency sake, refuse both? i'm just a bit confused about the curation 'standards' here.
It was just an example -- pick any game, or two games, or five games: the point is, whatever titles they do let in will always be used as ammo by people who dislike or are indifferent to those titles to denigrate the store's curation standards, or even the idea of curation in general, on behalf of games or companies those people wish were here. It's not something that any store with any level of curation can fix.
As I said in the topic about this last week (and as part of this interview with GOG staffer elcook since made clear), they try to give a reasonable amount of promotion to most every game that they decide to release, so that's necessarily going to mean there's a limit to what they can release (and thus effectively publicize) within a given time frame.
Also, aside from the usual "curator's personal taste" thing, there are many other possible reasons why a game could be rejected beyond simple issues of game quality.
Post edited August 19, 2018 by HunchBluntley
Bit sprites. Chiptune soundtrack. Funny dialogue. Almost twelve minutes of actual gameplay footage. Ninjas! I am very seduced. Wishlisted!! :P I will purchase when it is released.
low rated
deleted
avatar
amok: why does it need to be reversed? why not have both, or for consistency sake, refuse both? i'm just a bit confused about the curation 'standards' here.
avatar
HunchBluntley: It was just an example -- pick any game, or two games, or five games: the point is, whatever titles they do let in will always be used as ammo by people who dislike or are indifferent to those titles to denigrate the store's curation standards, or even the idea of curation in general, on behalf of games or companies those people wish were here. It's not something that any store with any level of curation can fix.
As I said in the topic about this last week (and as part of this interview with GOG staffer elcook since made clear), they try to give a reasonable amount of promotion to most every game that they decide to release, so that's necessarily going to mean there's a limit to what they can release (and thus effectively publicize) within a given time frame.
Also, aside from the usual "curator's personal taste" thing, there are many other possible reasons why a game could be rejected beyond simple issues of game quality.
hm... no. you miss my point... it is about transparency and consistency. I have no problem as such with curation, but then curate. If you refuse one game because there "it does not fit our audience" then why let another similar game through? if there was a 'proper' curation, then both games should then be refused. but as we see here, curation happens only if you do not have the right publisher. this is not curation.

I am fine with either approach, but alt least do not try to dress it up as something it is not.
Post edited August 20, 2018 by amok
avatar
HunchBluntley: It was just an example -- pick any game, or two games, or five games: the point is, whatever titles they do let in will always be used as ammo by people who dislike or are indifferent to those titles to denigrate the store's curation standards, or even the idea of curation in general, on behalf of games or companies those people wish were here. It's not something that any store with any level of curation can fix.
As I said in the topic about this last week (and as part of this interview with GOG staffer elcook since made clear), they try to give a reasonable amount of promotion to most every game that they decide to release, so that's necessarily going to mean there's a limit to what they can release (and thus effectively publicize) within a given time frame.
Also, aside from the usual "curator's personal taste" thing, there are many other possible reasons why a game could be rejected beyond simple issues of game quality.
avatar
amok: hm... no. you miss my point... it is about transparency and consistency. I have no problem as such with curation, but then curate. If you refuse one game because there "it does not fit our audience" then why let another similar game through? if there was a 'proper' curation, then both games should then be refused. but as we see here, curation happens only if you do not have the right publisher. this is not curation.

I am fine with either approach, but alt least do not try to dress it up as something it is not.
When you are talking about personal tastes, there is no consistency to be had. Are your tastes within a given genre totally consistent? You may well think so, but I can virtually guarantee that any outside observer -- someone querying you for what games you like and dislike, and which ones interested you -- would probably find your tastes inconsistent, too. I cannot stress this enough: personal curation is always going to be deeply subjective, especially when viewed casually from the outside in. Couple that with the aforementioned limitations in the number of releases they can effectively promote, as well as (presumably) a desire to try not to release too many unrelated new release titles with similar gameplay and graphics within too short a period (though sometimes release dates and a lack of anything else that they deem interesting conspire against them on the latter), and you're in classic "please most of the people some of the time" territory. Trying to please everyone, all the time, is a fool's errand.

Regarding "proper" curation: see above about subjectivity. You have your ideas about curation standards, I have mine, GOG has theirs, et cetera. The "proper" way is, arguably, whatever way keeps bringing in customers (both new and repeat).
I'm not even going to seriously address your specific idea on this except to say that, "They turned away this game, so they should turn away any number of somewhat similar games because 'fairness'," seems like childish vindictiveness dressed up (poorly) in the garb of rational even-handedness. (I'm sure you didn't mean it like that, but that's how it comes across.) It is exactly as terrible and counterproductive an idea as some people's notion that GOG/devs should artificially withhold Galaxy-delivered updates for games until the offline installers are ready, even if that takes a couple days.
avatar
amok: hm... no. you miss my point... it is about transparency and consistency. I have no problem as such with curation, but then curate. If you refuse one game because there "it does not fit our audience" then why let another similar game through? if there was a 'proper' curation, then both games should then be refused. but as we see here, curation happens only if you do not have the right publisher. this is not curation.

I am fine with either approach, but alt least do not try to dress it up as something it is not.
avatar
HunchBluntley: When you are talking about personal tastes, there is no consistency to be had. Are your tastes within a given genre totally consistent? You may well think so, but I can virtually guarantee that any outside observer -- someone querying you for what games you like and dislike, and which ones interested you -- would probably find your tastes inconsistent, too. I cannot stress this enough: personal curation is always going to be deeply subjective, especially when viewed casually from the outside in. Couple that with the aforementioned limitations in the number of releases they can effectively promote, as well as (presumably) a desire to try not to release too many unrelated new release titles with similar gameplay and graphics within too short a period (though sometimes release dates and a lack of anything else that they deem interesting conspire against them on the latter), and you're in classic "please most of the people some of the time" territory. Trying to please everyone, all the time, is a fool's errand.

Regarding "proper" curation: see above about subjectivity. You have your ideas about curation standards, I have mine, GOG has theirs, et cetera. The "proper" way is, arguably, whatever way keeps bringing in customers (both new and repeat).
I'm not even going to seriously address your specific idea on this except to say that, "They turned away this game, so they should turn away any number of somewhat similar games because 'fairness'," seems like childish vindictiveness dressed up (poorly) in the garb of rational even-handedness. (I'm sure you didn't mean it like that, but that's how it comes across.) It is exactly as terrible and counterproductive an idea as some people's notion that GOG/devs should artificially withhold Galaxy-delivered updates for games until the offline installers are ready, even if that takes a couple days.
again - I am not talking about personal tastes here, I have not done so at all in this thread. I don't mind curation, but I do think that it should be "fair". As it ia now, curation applies if you do not have a publisher, if you do not then it does not. That's all. Is it how it should be? perhaps... but then a gOg acceptance is not a 'proof of quality'.... but sign of how connected you are and your business decisions... and no one should be told other.