Rayman: Revenge of the Dark

[TeensieKing]

Ok,no problem.But I was thinking that you should do something at the ends...like somthing that prepared you for the start of R2,like a cutscene with an open end which is completed with the cutscene in R2 which shows you the pirates inprisioning everyone.Like a final cutscene where in the end,a shadow appears right behind Rayman and he says something like
"What the...!" and you see Rayman is catched by something never shown,supposed to be a robo-pirate.He should make a robo-pirate noise,though.But if you like the idea,you should remember doing it so you haven't seen Globox or Ly for a while because Globox is already there when Rayman gets in the prision ship,and Ly is supposed to be caught at the same time Globox was,because she gave Globox a power for Rayman...

[Adsolution]

I said that after you collect everything and the subplot is resolved, it prepares you for Rayman 2. I'm not saying any more my friend. Fro now on, I need to be a little more secretive about those sorts of things.

[Shrooblord]

I seem to have started quite the discussion with my remarks.

So sad that the biggest feed of interest in this community has been shut down by cruel fate... you're a weird place, you, Universe

I was simply dropping in to question some severe hyperbole.

Oh I'm sorry, did I say 'the biggest feed of interest'? I meant to say 'my biggest feed of interest', indicating this is the project that interests me most about this community, other than the community with all its lovey members (yes, you too, Spiral) itself.

@Shroob:
It's only been shut down temporarily. I'll have it up and running in a week or two.

Yes, I realised it would be temporary as I've been following those posts about the recovery and stuff.

In the mean time, I'be been working on some nice environmental assets and animations, so I in the next month or two I plan to have a huge update.

Wow, two weeks? That's great, especially compared to how long you thought it would take (six months and more).

By the way, 'huge' is completely subjective.

Well, I find that the best thing in the world (subjectively speaking of course).

And TK, I really liked the Ly levels too. I'm always in for a little race-like game, especially when it's on foot; the on-foot ones are usually the most intriguing and have the least limitations (whereas cars would normally have things like oversteer, skid and four-wheels-on-the-ground-at-all-times).

[Pusianka]

Bitch please. This got to be one of the most ignorant statements I've ever read on this board. This only proves that you're too blind to even realize what's residing outside your twisted world. Are you really underestimating all existing works in life that has been done voluntarily, by anarchism, groups or individuals? Even related to this context, have you ever looked at successful open source projects? Have you ever followed this thread actively to watch the demonstrations of this game in the more advanced state of its development? I seriously doubt it, because you couldn't care less about the community members and their works.

It's just funny when this guy shares his deep thoughts about the "twisted world" he lives in.

But speaking more ON topic. You said that Ancel isn't more creative. I ASSUME that's your PERSONAL view. Further more, you say taht Ancel is only well known(which in your opinion makes him LOOK more creative) but being perfectly honest he is not so known... and secondly, I think personally that he is MUCH more creative because he creates things which noone else does. He creates his own worlds which already maeks him very creative since these worlds are beautiful and involving(Rayman, BG&E). As for open source projects, I've never seen a successful fan game which was based off a real title. It always lacks sth. Though I know a few Fangames which were successful as "INSPIRED BY" a game. Which is why what does Rayfan is even harder. It's almost impossible to copy someone style and make your own thing especially when it comes to Ancel who isn't following any trends in the gaming industry. He stands for himself. Yet I wish RF luck with succeeding in project. She has given her self high mountain to climb and she hasn't stopped so far!

[spiraldoor]

Ancel is not more creative than any other artist, just because his work is more publically known, but we sure all appreciate the awesomeness that was given to us.

I don’t agree at all. Of all the games I have played, Ancel’s are some of the ones I have enjoyed the most. I don’t care how ‘publicly known’ his work is; that doesn’t affect my judgement of it. I could understand if you said he was not the most creative artist in the world, but ‘not more creative than any other artist’? I don’t buy the idea that all artists are equal, and I don’t think you do either. It brings to mind the schools that give a medal to every single child on sports day; very pleasant, but not concordant with reality.

The issues taken up by Spiral disregards the potential of any project to be successful, just because they weren't funded by any corporation. And his other issue is also comparable to a "fanboy" that only follows the "officials" just because they own the intellectual properties.

Yes, I find official works more interesting than fanworks, but does that really make me a fanboy? A corporate lapdog? I thought the majority of gamers played games developed by major companies; are they all corporate stooges as well? I find fanworks inherently less appealing than official works made by the original creators. I generally don’t read fanfiction either; do you also have a problem with this, or is your attitude limited to games?

Of course Spiral can express his opinions, but it would be far more appreciated if he actually came up with something helpful, relevant and constructive, instead of boasting about his preferences at our faces.

Where have I ‘boasted’? You know I stated my views flatly and with no aggression. There’s no need to fall back on odd emotive language like ‘at our faces’.

So far, I'm still patiently looking forward to all this, as I embrace the intuition and goal you have with it, unlike Spiral, who doesn't actually explain why it would be less creative than the official series.

I thought I made this clear already: I don’t think that an individual with limited resources can match the output of a creative team with hundreds of professional members and, yes, lots of money. You can argue that the very limited development budget of Revenge of the Dark makes it inherently more interesting, but that’s not how it works for me. You’ve made your views on the studio system abundantly clear.

For example when he said "it’s unfair to compare Rayfan with Michel Ancel, let alone with the entirety of Ubisoft Montpellier", when he was the one that compared your game indirectly in the first place, by saying "I find it highly unlikely that any Rayman fangame will ever match the levels of quality and creativity found in the official games created by Michel Ancel’s team"

My point was that mega-budget videogames developed by large teams of professionals are so far beyond what a single fan (or small team of fans) is realistically capable of as to render comparisons (like the one that inadvertently started this conversation) pointless. They are in another league.

[Shrooblord]

I don’t think that an individual with limited resources can match the output of a creative team with hundreds of professional members and, yes, lots of money. You can argue that the very limited development budget of Revenge of the Dark makes it inherently more interesting, but that’s not how it works for me.

I see where you're going here, but I believe that if one is to work hard enough on something, they'll get to studio quality, in time. The thing with big gaming studios is that they can develop great things in short time, because they have such a large workforce, creative asset and of course, loads of money. However, I think that if you work on the same kind of thing and chisel it bit by bit, like RayFan is doing, you could achieve something similar to what studios could do in mere months. Of course it might never reach that stage, but maybe it will, in some years time.
Indeed the low-budget part of it is an interesting factor to involve in this view; the fact that she's not only not a studio and inside a workforce of many, but that she's also not got loads of money to spend on really good grade things makes it even more amazing that she got where she is now. I mean, I plan on doing the same kind of thing myself... but I doubt I'll ever get there. Perhaps my father (who programs for a living) will be my workforce, together with me and my friends (some of whom also program a lot). Who knows where it'll go? I just say 'set sail and see where you ram into an island', that island of course being what you are aming for.

That said, I can understand perfectly well why all three of you think what you think and why you think it. Pusianka, I have a friend who has the same kind of opinion as you when it comes to this kind of matter; it's tough, but we can hope she can make it to the top. PowerPatrick, I'm more on your side in this - as long as she keeps working on what's already a great effort, she'll make it in the end. And spiraldoor, of course it will be harder or maybe even impossible to mimick studio-quality progress, but hopefully she'll get as good as she can get. I say give it all some time and let's see what we all think when the game's finally finished.

as to render comparisons (like the one that inadvertently started this conversation) pointless

Yes, once again, sorry for that.

[PowerPatrick]

After some consideration, I'm willing to respond again, as this is going in a slightly better direction. By the way, thanks a lot Shrooblord.

I've never seen a successful fan game which was based off a real title.

Here's just two random examples, as I'm not bothered to make an entire list of everything I can find around the internet:

I don’t agree at all. Of all the games I have played, Ancel’s are some of the ones I have enjoyed the most. I don’t care how ‘publicly known’ his work is; that doesn’t affect my judgement of it. I could understand if you said he was not the most creative artist in the world, but ‘not more creative than any other artist’? I don’t buy the idea that all artists are equal, and I don’t think you do either. It brings to mind the schools that give a medal to every single child on sports day; very pleasant, but not concordant with reality.

I meant "great artists", where it appears to be a lot of them, some more known than other. No artists are equal, because they all have different ideas, and different ways to approach them. We just happen to be very fond of the initial ideas of Ancel, even though it has varied inconsistently in the end. Remember, we aren't the only fandom around here, even though some of us do also like other franchises such as Crash Bandicoot and Oddworld. Ancel wasn't even involved in most of the development of R3, even though he only drew some very few guidelines. But some of the team members preserved their position, while the game managed to retain a portion of the mystical nature of the first two, even when it was going in a doubtful direction. Yet we still enjoyed the game so much, and we saw a lot of new interesting elements.

Yes, I find official works more interesting than fanworks, but does that really make me a fanboy? A corporate lapdog? I thought the majority of gamers played games developed by major companies; are they all corporate stooges as well? I find fanworks inherently less appealing than official works made by the original creators. I generally don’t read fanfiction either; do you also have a problem with this, or is your attitude limited to games?

The problem is, you don't even give them the slightest chance, contending in attempt to explain their "lack" of creativity without any judicious reasoning, when most of the creative details already was planned. I do understand why you wouldn't like fanworks, especially when it comes to fanfiction that happens to be in a too large quantity, in order to find the interesting ones that's hidden in the depth. But there's nothing wrong with fanworks, they're only trying to adapt those ideas to fit the wishes of the fandom as told, and sometimes finding aspects that can be improved as well. Remember that many studios have to follow the idea of one or few persons from the supervision, without accepting much input from employees.

I thought I made this clear already: I don’t think that an individual with limited resources can match the output of a creative team with hundreds of professional members and, yes, lots of money. You can argue that the very limited development budget of Revenge of the Dark makes it inherently more interesting, but that’s not how it works for me. You’ve made your views on the studio system abundantly clear.

Are you familiar with the term 'prosumer'? Money has never been paramount for any digital creation. With enough enthusiasm shown by skilled artists that are together by the same idea, what would exactly be the limiting factor to prevent them from accomplishing their goals? In a related context, there's a lot of hobby projects that started out from nothing, and yet managed to be very successful. You don't seem to realize how many artists that appears to be on this forum, and even other places where fandoms can unite, like DeviantART; sure you must have seen all those artists capable of creating something spectacular such as fan-made visual artworks? Far the most studios doesn't even give you much of the freedom to choose which task you want to deal with.

My point was that mega-budget videogames developed by large teams of professionals are so far beyond what a single fan (or small team of fans) is realistically capable of as to render comparisons (like the one that inadvertently started this conversation) pointless. They are in another league.

I've made some of my points in the past, that even larger studios can make awful quality, due to terrible supervision or superficial progress. This is just some of the examples of those being the worst, while slightly less bad ones aren't listed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vi ... _reception

[Shrooblord]

This is just some of the examples of those being the worst, while slightly less bad ones aren't listed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vi ... _reception

It's no surprise Wand of Gamelon and the Faces of Evil are in there.
They're so bad you just have to make parodies to it - you can't not make them.

[PowerPatrick]

It's no surprise Wand of Gamelon and the Faces of Evil are in there.
They're so bad you just have to make parodies to it - you can't not make them.

Hehe, yeah. It has been used in millions of YouTube Poop videos.
I also like the reviews by Angry Video Game Nerd:

[spiraldoor]

The problem is, you don't even give them the slightest chance, contending in attempt to explain their "lack" of creativity without any judicious reasoning, when most of the creative details already was planned. I do understand why you wouldn't like fanworks, especially when it comes to fanfiction that happens to be in a too large quantity, in order to find the interesting ones that's hidden in the depth. But there's nothing wrong with fanworks, they're only trying to adapt those ideas to fit the wishes of the fandom as told, and sometimes finding aspects that can be improved as well. Remember that many studios have to follow the idea of one or few persons from the supervision, without accepting much input from employees.

I didn’t say that fangames couldn’t be good or creative; just that they’re unlikely ever to be able to measure up to (or replace) the originals. That’s not to say that I’ll never give a fangame a chance, I just think I’ll wait until it’s released before I get invested in it. Almost every Rayman fangame I’ve shown interest in over the years has ended up being cancelled due to the developer’s own loss of interest.

A huge part of my interest in all things Rayman comes from the fractured mythology of the games, and the fun of trying to work out how they could fit together. It might seem like a trivial difference to some, but fanfiction and other fanworks being completely non-canon is a major problem for me, as it means that nothing which happens in them really ‘matters’ to the series or can be considered part of it. That’s part of the reason I prefer the idea of fan remakes like Super Mario Bros Crossover, which takes several seminal games and combines them in interesting ways, rather than attempting to present itself as a new chapter in any one series. Maybe you find my priorities strange or silly, but they’re my concern alone; I don’t mind what other people choose to play.

Are you familiar with the term 'prosumer'? Money has never been paramount for any digital creation. With enough enthusiasm shown by skilled artists that are together by the same idea, what would exactly be the limiting factor to prevent them from accomplishing their goals? In a related context, there's a lot of hobby projects that started out from nothing, and yet managed to be very successful. You don't seem to realize how many artists that appears to be on this forum, and even other places where fandoms can unite, like DeviantART; sure you must have seen all those artists capable of creating something spectacular such as fan-made visual artworks? Far the most studios doesn't even give you much of the freedom to choose which task you want to deal with.

I’m probably hanging myself out to dry here by continuing to debate this with you, as your knowledge of fangames clearly exceeds mine, but – you’re saying that the budget of a game isn’t important? That doesn’t sound right. What about the working time that the developers have to put in? A small team of talented amateurs would have to spend a tremendous amount of time and effort in order to bring a fangame up to the standards of a really good studio game that was developed by a team consisting of hundreds of professionals. Digital creations are no different to any other kind of creative endeavour in terms of the work they require. Rayfan has been working on Revenge of the Dark for four years and it’s still nowhere near completion. Most developers are not passionate and wealthy enough to work for years on end without any wages, and almost all attempted Rayman fangames I’ve seen have been developed by teenagers. I don’t see what paintings or other visual artwork made by individual fans has to do with this, as paintings are not produced by the studio system and don’t require anywhere near the amount of time, effort and personnel needed to create your average fully-fledged videogame.

I've made some of my points in the past, that even larger studios can make awful quality, due to terrible supervision or superficial progress. This is just some of the examples of those being the worst, while slightly less bad ones aren't listed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vi ... _reception

There are plenty of shoddy fangames too, not to mention the large number that do not even make it to completion, but I suppose that’s simply an expression of Sturgeon’s Law. I never said that all fangames are bad or that all studio games are good; just that I don’t think any fangame will have the same impact on me as the finest studio games do. I stated this in relation to the Rayman series only, but you extrapolated my statements to the realms of ‘all existing works in life that have ever been done voluntarily’, which is a discussion I’d rather not be having. Perhaps you could say that I prefer a polished and commercial experience to something more unusual and creative. If you’ve got what it takes to make a game independently, I think it is best to focus your efforts on creating something original, which you will own yourself, rather than building on a pre-existing intellectual property, which will fundamentally limit what you can do with your game.

[Adsolution]

Rayfan has been working on Revenge of the Dark for four years and it’s still nowhere near completion.

Well, I started in June 2009, so two and a half years. However I've had many preops of this game I've labeled as different things over the years. I started sketching out a 2D platformer when I was eight until I was ten named "Rayman & Moskito." It followed a similar premise in the sense that Dark Rayman was never actually defeated. In short though, it was nothing better than bad. Later, I began writing a FanFiction named "Dark Rayman & The Apocalypse" when I was twelve, but stopped writing when I turned fourteen. I actually might continue it, since I did actually like which way the story was headed, even though it's a little outdated.

Early production on Revenge of the Dark started in June 09, and it was originally intended to be a 3D remake of Rayman 1. Less than a month later I figured I could do something much more extravagant, so I decided to work on a game that linked Rayman 1 and Rayman 2, because it rather annoyed me how drastically irrelevant they were to each other.

If you want to go by the current development, I massively overhauled and basically restarted roughly two years later in August 2011, so in essence, it's really been in forward development for six months.

If you’ve got what it takes to make a game independently, I think it is best to focus your efforts on creating something original, which you will own yourself, rather than building on a pre-existing intellectual property, which will fundamentally limit what you can do with your game.

While I do agree to an extent, this game has so much Rayman in mind (obviously) that it would not work if I made it its own game with entirely original characters. It also has been my dream since the day I found Rayman to design a Rayman game, and I won't fall short of that coming true. Over the time I've been working on this, I've only become more and more motivated, despite some major bumps I've hit, like the one I'm trying to get over right now in regards to my hard drive. This is why I should get an SSD solely dedicated to Revenge of the Dark. Hey, that's not a half-bad idea!

In the future, I wish to start an independent developers group in which we will make our own original games, and then perhaps we can even become a large commercial company. Forgive me, I'm rather ambitious, though very determined.

[Lianna]

That's your story when you start doing with RoTD.

[R3fan2]

What was the fanfiction about?

[Adsolution]

What was the fanfiction about?

The same thing really, just written in a much more novelesque format obviously. Plus, it was a little more "OC'ish" back then. You can take a read if you want, though keep in mind I haven't updated it for three years, so the quality isn't up to my current expectations: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3808067/1/D ... apocalypse

The story progression is not the same at all, as it obviously wasn't based upon levels and such. "Raygirl" is already with Rayman here, although there are merely good friends, but they aren't in love (unlike most fanfics out there). The fic is quite dark, though I don't know if I would consider it "maturely dark," since I did write it between the ages of twelve to fourteen after all.

And lastly, it's only about 25% complete. I hope to finish it some day.

EDIT:

I just noticed how terrible my grammar and spelling was back then. I look like a freaking ESL student.

EDIT2:

They are in love. Fuck. Well, when I rewrite it, they won't appear to be.

[R3fan2]

I hope it is going to be more current. By the way I wanted to ask you if you are still going with my Henchman P idea.

[Adsolution]

I hope it is going to be more current. By the way I wanted to ask you if you are still going with my Henchman P idea.

I am.

[TeensieKing]

Actually,will you ever find a Henchman 800 in this game? They rocked!

[Shrooblord]

I just noticed how terrible my grammar and spelling was back then. I look like a freaking ESL student.

I had the same experience when I re-read one of my RPGs from roughly two or three years ago. I was quite bemused.

Aren't the Henchman supposed to appear in the Pirate's Prison ship?

PS
How come the inhabitants of Rayman's world aren't at all bothered about the Pirates invading?

[Adsolution]

Aren't the Henchman supposed to appear in the Pirate's Prison ship?

PS
How come the inhabitants of Rayman's world aren't at all bothered about the Pirates invading?

They are there, but like I said in the description, the Prison ship was originally created by Dark Rayman's people to act as a sort of Guantanamo Prison on the water, though Razorbeard jacks it and makes it fucking fly.

Also, I've just finished creating my longest and possibly best tracks yet, it's six minutes. It's for the Penumbra Ocean.

[Adsolution]

Heyo, we have a new logo:


Logo by RayFan9876 and dwho1994