TNT didn't make Lyra's Escape, and why it's especially bad

[redespeon]

Rememeber the plot that was supposed to be going on? Well, it updated! And boy oh boy, there's a game to play! 

JN mentions it's "A reskinned Pterattack"...but man, do I wish it was. 

What it ACTUALLY is, is a reskin of a cheap license game you can buy pre-made for your site. Anyone can pay $999 to get the rights to the game use, and reskin it for their site. Which is depressing, since TNT felt the need to spend one grand on a game that a first-year CS student can crap out in half an hour.

This has an important implication.

This means that currently there's no free coders on the Neopets staff able to produce this excuse for a game right now. They didn't have a single intern with minimal programming knowledge that they could lock in a closet after being told "We need this kind of game within an hour or two, stat".

[jaydeed]

It's disturbing that when I open it, my virus checker goes wild and sends it to quarantine, threat detected.

[queenofthebats]

They paid 1K for this?? Holy crap
I don't know what's more ridiculous - that someone would sell this bad, simple game for a whole grand or that someone would purchase it for that price. 

EDIT- I just looked at the site and apparently you have to pay extra to be allowed to reskin it?? Who knows how much they paid, since you have to contact them for a quote.

[Angeló]

wow

double wow

and they haven't fixed the first game with the bad coding and super slow Lyra

[Kute]

Omg. This is actually really disturbing! I didn't think this post was going this way as I clicked on it. LOL good catch, also how did you figure this out? 

[hrtbrk]

I don't see the big deal. If they are putting all their resources into getting the site HTML5 ready - with a functioning mobile app - in the next handful of months, I really cannot blame them for taking this route. We know they are short on hands and their to-do list is ever growing. 

The game actually works smoothly on all platforms and they can continue focusing their efforts on things that will matter in the long term. People are only going to play this game for a shot period of time and never again once they get the achievements. 

Pretty fair trade off if it allows them to continue focusing on things that will benefit us in the future, rather than putting that massive project on hold for something that will benefit us for a hot 5 minutes. 

[queenofthebats]

I feel like they really should put the plot on hold. If they're all busy making the site ready for the mobile version + completely HTML5, plots/events and things of that nature are just going to suffer. 

I'd rather wait to have content that's well made and thought out than the awkward art and story situation that's happening now.

[jellysundae]

I don't see this as a big deal either, re-skinning existing games is a very common thing. *shrug*

You guys are maybe over-reacting because you were unaware this was a thing?

It's a cheap and easy way of getting legal game content onto your site though, where as it's a much bigger out-lay to code one from scratch (personal experience of this is a cost of $5000, and this was nearly 10 years ago) . Much better to get a ready-made one, that, importantly, is already bug-tested and works on all platforms, and just needs a new face to meet your visual needs.

[GillyTook]

But hey, if nothing else, the game worked.  It didn't make my decade old laptop lag either.  And here I was kinda impressed that they'd made something fully functioning!

[Mouseykins]

I have to admit, at first I was a tad bit bothered that they purchased and re-skinned the game for their needs. After thinking on it, they were smart to go this route as they're busy with other more important things on the site like converting everything from flash and fixing existing ongoing bugs. Yes, I would prefer they did the work themselves, but that's just not always possible with the resources at hand.

[splitting]

On 2/22/2019 at 6:39 PM, jellysundae said:

I don't see this as a big deal either, re-skinning existing games is a very common thing. *shrug*

Agreed. Especially since they have always "lovingly borrowed" flash game ideas before (for example, flycatcher is basically space invaders). Buying the game wholesale isn't much different imo.

I think they were trying to be responsive to people's complaints that the plot wasn't going anywhere.

[redespeon]

After your replies I agree that my title was maybe too catastrophic and that buying a reskinned game may not be the end of the world.

I hope you're right and that this plot's lack of production values on the artistic side is only because their creative team is busy with the app, and not because they're currently lacking one.

Right now the thing what would make me go "Yes, the creative team is back", as unrealistic as that sounds,  would be the return of comic page narration for the plot story.

[barrelchic22]

Although I can't say it bothers me much that they bought a reskinned game, but the plot itself was definitely still terrible, IMO. I finished it just because, after a long hiatus, it was a new thing on the TDN dailies page. When it was over I found myself sitting there thinking... That's it? 

Is it still ongoing?