Re: [TuxKart-devel] Thoughts on Kart Models.

[Ingo R. <gr...@gm...>]

Steve Baker <sjb...@ai...> writes:

> I'd like to know what process you'd like to use to try to get some
> kind of 'recognition' into these critters?

First of, simply by not reusing some companies logo, ie. somethings
which people have seen for years, yet never have seen it move, speak
or whatever. Sure that doesn't guarantee for anything, but at least it
gives people something new, something that isn't already spoiled due
to the context it was used in the past.

> If you have a better way - I'd truly like to hear it. However,
> simply tossing out somewhat established characters and putting in
> wholly new ones doesn't really acomplish very much.

I simply doubt that the characters are established.

Tux might be the only one that is reasonable established, even so
their is still a whole lot of room to let him do whatever we want, ie.
no kind of bonuses and powerups has really been established beside the
herring and even that is used for all kinds of different things.

Gown on the other side still runs around as pink penguin in xtux,
looks quite different in tuxkart, and isn't GUI-selectable in TuxAQFH.
I am not even able to find a picture of her on images.google.

Geeko isn't used anywhere beside Tuxkart I think.

Bsod was used in the old SuperTux but got stripped away, beside I
think Microsoft-bashing is something that we should really avoid.
After all if 'we' don't like Microsoft, we shouldn't let them
influence our character design.

> Characters don't have to be deep - it's not like I need to know
> their opinions or politics - but I DO need to know who the good
> guys are and who the bad guys are...

There are no good guys in a Kart game and beside that even Nintendo
happily lets them switch from the bad side to the good one and back,
nothing wrong with that.

> who likes herring and who would be likely to shoot CD-ROMS.

So far there isn't any kind of established 'magic-system' so far for
Tux and friends, so we are still rather free on that topic. What
should happens if Tux collect herring? Should they act as coins, make
him invulnurable, let him grow or what?

> We have to have *SOMETHING* like that or else it's just random and
> meaningless.

Well, Mario doesn't throw around with plumber items either, but
instead consumes mushrooms and throws around turtles. So stuff can
actually be rather random, as long as it is consistent in the game
itself.

I don't think that cross-game consistentency is all that important,
sure you shouldn't have and item and give it one role in some game and
a whole other in a similar game, but thats not what we are doing
anyway.

> Game players don't read manuals...you have to do SOMETHING to make
> that connection.

In-game consistentency should be more then enough for that, if the
player collects an item the first time he shouldn't be completly
suprised by what happens, but there is little need to know what
exactly is going to happen either (mushrooms boost you in MarioKart,
but let you grow in MarioWorld, knowing that they are collectable is
already enough to know).

> OK - I'll bite.  Which languages had this problem?

German, Portuguese, English (yeah, its an english word, yet native
speakers didn't like it much at all when used as name), maybe more,
can't remember.

> How did you figure out that 'Penny' was OK? How many languages did
> you survey?

All of the above maybe a few more that where around.

> Where did you get in contact with all those native speakers in order
> to be sure that "Penny" doesn't mean "Stinking Pile of Dog Pooh" in
> Mongolian?

We didn't try to find a name perfectly prouncable in every language
possible, just something people playing the game would be ok with. And
the little world play between Tux and Gown wasn't really enough to
keep it.

> Be honest - someone didn't like the name

Well, it started just as a misunderstanding and with the name Gwen:

http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=4193986&forum_id=36963

which was then later fixed to Penny.

> At least in English 'Gown' has mild humor value and it's memorable for
> that reason

Yes, it has a mild humor value, but there is really not much more than
that to it. And well, I prefer a name that I can pronounce about one
which I can't and which has humour that requires a lexicon for me to
understand.

> - and the vast proportion of Linux gamers must speak English because
> the overwhelming majority of Linux games are written only in English
> and never get translated into anything else.

SuperTux already has translations in CVS and so do most other games
that have any content worth a translation. And well, I speak english
as second language and still neither did get the 'joke' at first nor
do I like the name itself.

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