#someone took a joke sign to a show like are you a flat earther and louis was like haha point and then the antis were like

[statementlou]

tbh i've never understand the louis hate train because lets be real he didn't appear in public as much as i'd like him to, never bother anybody. he's living his silly little tour life with his silly little indie alt/rock bands and laying low most of the time so like literally what about him that warranted that much hate

I mean her most recent message to me was that I should hate him because he thinks the earth is flat, rationality is simply not a factor here 😂

[give-me-back-my-rhodey]

The Life of a Vampire (and His Boyfriend) - Chapter 1 - AUgust Day 14

Title: The Life of a Vampire (and His Boyfriend)

Author: Purple_ducky00

Rating: Teen

Warnings: N/A

Pairing: Bucky/Tony, background Sam/Steve

Link: Read on AO3

Summary: Bucky believes Tony Stark is a vampire; his friends are worried about him. Will they be more worried if he starts to date said vampire?

Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

+++++++++

“I finally figured it out. Tony Stark is a vampire.” Bucky announces.

 Sam doesn’t even look up from his phone, and Steve gives Bucky a very concerned look. “Bucky, what are you talking about?”

 “Look at this! This is Tony’s band, the Iron Legion. They get portraits done for their album art. When they get photographed going to their trailers, Tony is never with them. Why? Because he’s a vampire. He can’t get his picture taken. I also heard they don’t allow photography at their shows.”

“Or, just hear me out on this one, Stark is just a douchebag who feels the need to be a star.” Sam suggests.

 “I have more evidence. Look!” Bucky pulls up a picture of a painting from the 1500’s. “This is Stark. I’m sure of it.”

 “While it looks sort of like Stark, you can’t just say he’s a vampire.” Steve tries to reason with Bucky.

Bucky is not taking any of it. “You’ll see. I’m going to meet him.” He holds up a ticket. “I’ve got a VIP stage pass for their concert here in two weeks.”

 “Woohoo.” Sam waves his hand boredly. “Steve, you really want to call this guy your best friend?” He jokes.

 “Shut up, Wilson. Next time I won’t let you share my peanut butter crunch cereal.” Cap’n Crunch’s Peanut Butter Crunch is a sacred food in Bucky and Steve house. You do not eat it unless 1.) you bought it or 2.) the owner of the crunch lets you have a bowl. Bucky hoards this peanut butter crunch like a crow hoards its treasure.

 Sam apologizes. “I’m sorry. Please let me eat the crunch.”

 “Bow before the crunch king!” Bucky yells. Sam falls to his knees.

 “Forgive me!”

Bucky nods solemnly. “By the power vested in me by the Holy Crunch, you are forgiven. Be free to crunch said crunch once more.”

 Bucky loves Steve and Sam. They’re his best friends, but they just don’t get why he’s interested in conspiracies. Why he needs this.

 After getting discharged the Army for losing his arm in combat, Bucky was drowning. He was sinking further and further with nothing to hold on to… until he found his people. Now, Bucky knows more than half of the theories are at least 98% percent untrue, but they keep his mind focused on something. He’s not stupid; he’s not a Flat-Earther. He also knows there’s a big chance that Tony Stark is not a vampire, and he won’t care if he’s wrong. To tell the truth, Bucky started researching him because he found Tony incredibly interesting and attractive. He then started seeing the signs. Now he believes it. Tony Stark is a vampire. He’ll take garlic backstage if he needs to.

 Tony Stark – a Vampire? He types out as on his blog to post. He types out his long explanation, showing his reasoning and examples. Hitting “Post”, he logs out and goes to bed. He’s too tired to look at any replies he might get tonight.

 There. Are. 15k notes on his post when he logs back in the next day around noon. His online friends have added their thoughts. The one he really paid attention to is the reblog of BlackWidow who added more pictures and a long addition. She said, “Wowwwww… you made me think. And think I did… got no sleep last night. Look at this! Here’s a picture of immigrants arriving here in the 1800s. Someone took a black-and-white photo, while someone else painted the same scene. Who do you see here, in the back?” She circled a person in the painting that does not show up in the photograph. “Tell me that does not look like Tony Stark.”

 SciencePrincess, another online mutual of his, tacks on a few more additions. He reads them all until he is almost fully convinced that Tony is a vampire. What’s he going to do if he’s right? Bucky shrugs. He’ll cross that bridge when he gets to it.

[incorrectpredators]

a summary of what personalities i give the boys

The Dumb Boys

kevin fiala - the slutty dumb boy. usually flirting with someone else. young, dumb, and full of You Know ;) has been essentially adopted/taken in by kyle turris

juuse saros - not so much dumb as he is clueless. he is like a little baby whom needs someone to tell him what to do essentially adopted/taken in by pekka rinne

ryan johansen - the greasy dumb boy pt 1

craig smith - the greasy dumb boy pt 2

The Fathers

pekka rinne - the most mischievous of “the fathers”, most likely to joke around with and prank his adoptees, still loves taking care of them though, most notable children: juuse saros, eeli tolvanen, miikka salomaki, patrik laine, sebastian aho, mikko rantanen, and Possibly connor brown (based on photographic evidence i have). someone please stop him

kyle turris - the new father. he’s new around here and he has already adopted a child. he’s a little messy with it bc he’s so new to it but is the most organized of the fathers. most notable children: kevin fiala

dan hamhuis - hammer is technically new here, but he really isn’t. he may be just over a month younger than pekka, but is the oldest soul of the fathers. he is wise and the most responsible of the fathers. notable children: none so far, but that may be because he just got back to nashville and is having to take care of Everyone.

The Pretty Boys

roman josi - viewed as the prettiest boy, but is he?, the Dumb pretty boy. he literally admitted he never read a book. thats very concerning to me. he is the residential dumb pretty boy, but kevin fiala is definitely coming for his role. “can we talk? one ten to another?”

pk subban - the answer is no. jos is not the prettiest boy. i love josi but pk just came in and not only took his spot as prettiest defenseman but is also the prettiest player in general. he’s the pretty boy who is just here to have a genuinely good time. he’s also pretty smart, do not doubt him. he is regina george if regina george wasnt white, a girl, and a complete asshole. he is possibly the nicest on the team. “i’m an eleven but continue”

The Cryptids

ryan hartman - hartsy just got here from chicago and he is still a mystery to me. my profile may say filip forsberg is secretly the grunch road monster but hartsy is definitely the most likely to be an actual cryptid. i think it’s possible he’s the goatman. so watch your back shane madej bc hartsy is coming for you.

dan hamhuis - listen, i may not like the fact that we signed him but i do love hammer. im a little disappointed he’s never played for the sharks though, as i really want to call him a hammerhead shark. but hammer is a cryptid, perhaps simply because i have no idea what he’s been up to since he left nashville. how well will he mesh w our d core this year? is he happy he finally got his number five in nashville? does he like beets? i know nothing about him.

frederick gaudreau - i was tempted to put him in the final category of this post but i just couldn’t. freddie hockey is a pretty boy, but he isn’t around enough to be classified With the pretty boys. he’s definitely a cryptid though. who is he? does he like his nickname? does he have any pets? did he ever get his damn locker? these are all questions i may never get the answer to.

The Inbetweeners/Other

note: this is a category that is a combination of players who 1. had traits of at least one category, but not enough to be put in it 2. players who are alone in their own categories and 3. players who technically probably shouldn’t be on this blog, but are

eeli tolvanen - exhibits cryptid traits, but isnt used in that role on here. tends to hang out with the younger guys (juuse and kevin most often) but is a bit of a wildcard. he is usually being flirted with by kevin or being paired of with his “boyfriend” (note that this is a joke blog, i dont actually believe him and the player who will be talked about later on are dating. it’s simply a joke and i tag posts that show hints of any of the players being in a relationship as “rpf” because i know even just the implication can make some ppl uncomfortable) is mostly known for being unskilled in the comforting/emotion side of things (“would a glowstick make you feel better?”) and tends to be a bit blunt or cynical at times, although he might throw around a joke or two if necessary.

filip forsberg - is both a cryptid and a pretty boy, but not enough to be put in those categories. is the meme loving fuck of the jofa line. known for fidget spinners and being put down for chicken (as he’s watching his figure)

viktor arvidsson - could be one of “The Fathers” but he really isn’t. he is just forced to be because JOEY AND FIL DON’T KNOW HOW TO BEHAVE THEMSELVES. but neither does he so it tends to be a big old mess when they’re together.

calle jarnkrok - calle is just tired ok. he’s tired and pretty grumpy. he’s a new dad and he’s surrounded by grown adults who act like children, so cut him some slack please. known for tearing up at a marshmallow rendition of himself and hanging out with ekky

mattias ekholm - ah the swedish elk himself. is also a new father and is usually just too tired to even show up in my quotes. when he does, he’s usually hanging out with calle. 

anthony bitetto - PROBABLY should’ve been in the dumb boys category but im not going back to put him in there. a flat earther? most likely. i really need the colorado avalanche to send colin back please he was the only smart one on the team now tony is lost. also im not entirely sure him and colton sissons are seperate ppl.

colton sissons - is the most normal of the group. but is also lowkey dumb. doing his best i think? i hope? once again im not entirely convinced him and tony are seperate people

colin wilson - one of two players who fall into the  “once a pred always a pred” tag. usually seen trying to help tony understand.... literally anything.... and being mourned by me. i miss him. colorado give him back to me :(

james neal - the other “once a pred always a pred” player. he doesn’t appear often but when he does usually something about hating himself is involved. he’s a greasy boy and used to be the pred’s greaseball but now that he’s gone craig smith has taken his place as Main Greaseball

sebastian aho - isn’t on here a lot, but he’s mentioned from time to time. one of pekka’s kids but their relationship is strained due to aho not being on the preds.

miro heiskanen - the Honorary Pred of the account. he may be a dallas star but he’s a pred in my heart. most commonly used as the goofy sidekick boyfriend of eeli tolvanen, which is taken from a commercial they were in together. i joked about them being forbidden lovers and now its just the role he plays on this account. all posts that (keep in mind, i mean it jokingly) refer to miro and eeli as being boyfriends is tagged with “rpf” so you can blacklist it if the implication of players dating makes you uncomfortable

[funface2]

How a joke about the milkman inspired Psychonauts' best level – PC Gamer

The Milkman Conspiracy started, as many great things do, in a Thai restaurant. Or maybe it didn’t. Tim Schafer can’t remember exactly. Somebody—perhaps him—came up with the phrase ‘I am the milkman, my milk is delicious’, and it may or may not have been during a Double Fine team meal. “I wish someone had said it at the restaurant, because their milk was delicious,” he says.

Either way, those eight words unified ideas that had been buzzing around his head for a conspiracy theory-themed Psychonauts level. It’s how most levels for the zany platformer started: Schafer brought the concept, the artists re-imagined it, the designers dreamt up the gameplay, and then the world builders and programmers brought it to life. So how did The Milkman Conspiracy go from a simple, silly phrase to one of the most beloved levels in a beloved game?

How did The Milkman Conspiracy go from a simple, silly phrase to one of the most beloved levels in a beloved game?

Schafer has always been fascinated by people who genuinely believed conspiracy theories, and wanted to know what was going on inside their heads. “I loved the movie Capricorn One when I was a kid, on faking the moon landing. Just the idea that someone would think [it was true] was so funny to me, in the same way some people think flat earthers are funny now, but I find it very sad, because it’s just a symptom of how scary and misleading the internet can be,” he says.

He drew up a chart of conspiracies and linked them all to a central character, Boyd. Some of the theories were famous, or taken from movies. Some were inspired by office chats, others by a homeless man named Doug, who lived on the streets nearby. “We’d pay him $10 a week to sweep our driveway,” Schafer says. “He had ups and downs. Certain days he thought the government was trying to do things with him, and some days he didn’t. It was interesting to talk to him… trying to get inside of his head was very inspirational for the level. I still see him around the neighbourhood.”

Psychonauts was an exercise in dealing with mental illness in a comic way—the team were conscious of never “punching down” and wanted players to empathise with the characters, Schafer says. For Boyd, that meant showing the problems he’d been wrestling with: Being fired from a string of jobs and having an alter-ego implanted in his mind by Psychonauts villain Oleander.

That alter-ego was, of course, the Milkman.

Image 1 of 5

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 2 of 5

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 3 of 5

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 4 of 5

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 5 of 5

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Visually, Schafer imagined Boyd’s mind world as a giant spider’s web, with Boyd’s house at the centre. He also wanted it to give it a retro, ’50s spy vibe, and thought a suburban neighborhood would be the perfect setting: Relatively mundane on the surface, but hiding a dark secret. He gave the concept to his artists. 

Art director Scott Campbell tells me he wanted to emphasise paranoia, and he drew eyes and binoculars popping out of trashcans, mailboxes and bushes to make the player feel like they were being watched. He also came up with the G-Men, who kept an eye out for suspicious activities. 

“I based their outfits on the classic ’50s G-Men detectives in their overcoats and hats, reminiscent of the Spy vs Spy comics in Mad magazine and every single TV show from that time period,” he says. “I just loved that spies always wore those overcoats and people were supposed to not notice them in hotel lobbies or on park benches with their newspapers covering their faces, with just their eyes showing.”

Campbell says the team found it funny to simply give the G-Men a single object as a disguise, and have them act out what was clearly the wrong use for that object. It’s why you see G-Men using red stop signs to hammer in imaginary nails, or playing a bouquet of flowers like a guitar, and it’s the root of much of the level’s humour. 

Schafer recalls the initial magic of the level coming from a drawing by concept artist Peter Chan. “Suburbia is supposed to look mundane, but what if it was all just vaulted up against the sky? He had this drawing of the roads bent and twisted in the air, like [Boyd’s] thinking was twisting back on itself and illogical.

“And I was like, ‘woah’, the programmers were like, ‘woah’.”

Image 1 of 4

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 2 of 4

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 3 of 4

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 4 of 4

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Schafer knew instantly that was the road to pursue, but he still had no idea what the gameplay would look like, so he brought in lead designer Erik Robson. Up until that point in the game, the team hadn’t used the player’s inventory much, and Robson was keen on an adventure game-style level where players combined items in their inventories to solve puzzles.

Those puzzles would be themed around the G-Men guarding certain areas, and the players would have to carry the right item to blend in. It fit well with Clairvoyance, a psychic power that let protagonist Raz see through the eyes of other characters, which had come from Schafer’s research into psychic abilities.

The trick, Robson tells me, was to make every possible item and Clairvoyance interaction entertaining, including failures. The team knew players would try to combine seemingly unconnected items, or try out their powers on inanimate objects, so they created a huge spreadsheet of every possible interaction, filling each box with a new idea.

“We know we have to have something fun for if I use the clairvoyance on the feather I’m holding, for example,” he says, “We knew those interactions would all be possible… it ends up being a situation where a bunch of creative people have to brainstorm and come up with fun solutions, and hopefully, that ends up being entertaining for a player.”

Sometimes those interactions would be simple: When used on a keypad, Raz is seen as a giant finger. But others would require more time and effort, and one of the brilliant things about Double Fine was that three designers were allowed to take three days to come up with the right concept.

Image 1 of 10

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 2 of 10

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 3 of 10

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 4 of 10

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 5 of 10

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 6 of 10

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 7 of 10

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 8 of 10

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 9 of 10

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 10 of 10

(Image credit: Double Fine)

All the things that seem like antagonists, in the level, are… like an immune system trying to understand an alien body in its midst.

Designer Erik Robson

The Milkman Conspiracy ended up much larger than originally planned, partly because of the team’s relative gravity tech. The programmers came up with a way to flip gravity as you moved between the twisted, spiralling streets that Chan had drawn, and the camera would react in kind. It worked brilliantly, and the level naturally expanded as Robson took players off in different directions.

The sprawling design also fit into the theme, he says. “Broadly, the goal of every Psychonauts mind level was to express the personality of the character in whatever way possible. I think there was something appealing about it being an open-air maze. That’s a weird contradiction that seems consistent with Boyd: ‘I’m lost, but I can see everything. I see my goals, but I can’t suss out how I’m going to get there.'”

In the end, Robson feels Milkman sprawled too much. “There’s maybe two or three of those ambient houses when there should really only be one. As a level designer, my proclivity is to make things too big, so there might be a bit of guilt kicking in there.”

Robson also wishes the team could’ve better expressed Boyd’s inner turmoil throughout the level. The opening sequence, where the player uses Clairvoyance on Boyd and sees the conspiratorial scrawls he’s made on the walls of his house, is an example of when it worked, because it gave the player a sense of what was to come while revealing something about Boyd’s character, Robson says.

“All the things that seem like antagonists, in the level, are… like an immune system trying to understand an alien body in its midst. And that alien body is the what the Milkman represents, this thing that is there and buried, but he can’t get rid of, and he knows something bad is going to happen as a result. There are a bunch of things I think we did get, the sort of confusion and how nothing is quite what it seems, the open-air maze. But I think that would have been cool to kind of drive that emotional point home better.”

[embedded content]

Partly because of these niggles, Robson says he’s never thought of Milkman as a standout level. But he says it’s one of the funniest, and Schafer’s writing undoubtedly brings the whole thing together. Simply written down, the jokes—”The most pleasant sewers can be found in Paris, France”—have almost zero impact. But their deadpan delivery works so well in the context of the level, and the ultra-serious G-Men talking about how “rhubarb is a controversial pie flavor” as they try hopelessly to blend in with their given roles proves to be hilarious.

That was only possible because writing all the dialogue came last. After the designers and gameplay programmers had finished, Schafer would assess every piece of the level, and write dialogue based on all the work that came before. “That was the most solid foundation for the jokes to get layered on top,” Robson says. “Half of my memory of Milkman is playing it without any of that dialogue, so that stuff still almost feels like a sort of recent edition. And then after you’re done with the level, six or eight weeks later, this dialogue appears all of a sudden in the game.”

Schafer tells me he wanted Erik Wolpaw to write the dialogue, but Wolpaw ended up being too busy. “So I ended up writing all the G-Men dialogue myself and I’m so happy I did, because it was so fun,” he says. “It’s just that matter of fact, straight-laced: ‘Who was the milkman? What was the purpose of the goggles?’

“We just happened to be talking about pie a lot, about people thinking rhubarb can be dangerous if you cook it wrong. You can poison people. So it’s a very controversial variety of pie—being able to sneak stuff like that in was really fun. It was really relaxing to write in that flat tone. ‘My helicopter goes up and down.'” 

It’s those jokes that I, and many other players, remember best about The Milkman Conspiracy. But for Double Fine, it carries its own legacy: a reminder that “no one person makes a level”, Schafer says. “I didn’t think of the twisting roads, and I didn’t think of the way the G-Men functioned. But I still feel like the ideas that I cared about are in there, and each department got to contribute an essential part of the level. Any one piece of that, you took it away, and it’s not the same,” he says.

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Source link

Bài viết How a joke about the milkman inspired Psychonauts' best level – PC Gamer đã xuất hiện đầu tiên vào ngày Funface.

from Funface https://funface.net/best-jokes/how-a-joke-about-the-milkman-inspired-psychonauts-best-level-pc-gamer/

[funface2]

How a joke about the milkman inspired Psychonauts' best level – PC Gamer

The Milkman Conspiracy started, as many great things do, in a Thai restaurant. Or maybe it didn’t. Tim Schafer can’t remember exactly. Somebody—perhaps him—came up with the phrase ‘I am the milkman, my milk is delicious’, and it may or may not have been during a Double Fine team meal. “I wish someone had said it at the restaurant, because their milk was delicious,” he says.

Either way, those eight words unified ideas that had been buzzing around his head for a conspiracy theory-themed Psychonauts level. It’s how most levels for the zany platformer started: Schafer brought the concept, the artists re-imagined it, the designers dreamt up the gameplay, and then the world builders and programmers brought it to life. So how did The Milkman Conspiracy go from a simple, silly phrase to one of the most beloved levels in a beloved game?

How did The Milkman Conspiracy go from a simple, silly phrase to one of the most beloved levels in a beloved game?

Schafer has always been fascinated by people who genuinely believed conspiracy theories, and wanted to know what was going on inside their heads. “I loved the movie Capricorn One when I was a kid, on faking the moon landing. Just the idea that someone would think [it was true] was so funny to me, in the same way some people think flat earthers are funny now, but I find it very sad, because it’s just a symptom of how scary and misleading the internet can be,” he says.

He drew up a chart of conspiracies and linked them all to a central character, Boyd. Some of the theories were famous, or taken from movies. Some were inspired by office chats, others by a homeless man named Doug, who lived on the streets nearby. “We’d pay him $10 a week to sweep our driveway,” Schafer says. “He had ups and downs. Certain days he thought the government was trying to do things with him, and some days he didn’t. It was interesting to talk to him… trying to get inside of his head was very inspirational for the level. I still see him around the neighbourhood.”

Psychonauts was an exercise in dealing with mental illness in a comic way—the team were conscious of never “punching down” and wanted players to empathise with the characters, Schafer says. For Boyd, that meant showing the problems he’d been wrestling with: Being fired from a string of jobs and having an alter-ego implanted in his mind by Psychonauts villain Oleander.

That alter-ego was, of course, the Milkman.

Image 1 of 5

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 2 of 5

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 3 of 5

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 4 of 5

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 5 of 5

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Visually, Schafer imagined Boyd’s mind world as a giant spider’s web, with Boyd’s house at the centre. He also wanted it to give it a retro, ’50s spy vibe, and thought a suburban neighborhood would be the perfect setting: Relatively mundane on the surface, but hiding a dark secret. He gave the concept to his artists. 

Art director Scott Campbell tells me he wanted to emphasise paranoia, and he drew eyes and binoculars popping out of trashcans, mailboxes and bushes to make the player feel like they were being watched. He also came up with the G-Men, who kept an eye out for suspicious activities. 

“I based their outfits on the classic ’50s G-Men detectives in their overcoats and hats, reminiscent of the Spy vs Spy comics in Mad magazine and every single TV show from that time period,” he says. “I just loved that spies always wore those overcoats and people were supposed to not notice them in hotel lobbies or on park benches with their newspapers covering their faces, with just their eyes showing.”

Campbell says the team found it funny to simply give the G-Men a single object as a disguise, and have them act out what was clearly the wrong use for that object. It’s why you see G-Men using red stop signs to hammer in imaginary nails, or playing a bouquet of flowers like a guitar, and it’s the root of much of the level’s humour. 

Schafer recalls the initial magic of the level coming from a drawing by concept artist Peter Chan. “Suburbia is supposed to look mundane, but what if it was all just vaulted up against the sky? He had this drawing of the roads bent and twisted in the air, like [Boyd’s] thinking was twisting back on itself and illogical.

��And I was like, ‘woah’, the programmers were like, ‘woah’.”

Image 1 of 4

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 2 of 4

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 3 of 4

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 4 of 4

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Schafer knew instantly that was the road to pursue, but he still had no idea what the gameplay would look like, so he brought in lead designer Erik Robson. Up until that point in the game, the team hadn’t used the player’s inventory much, and Robson was keen on an adventure game-style level where players combined items in their inventories to solve puzzles.

Those puzzles would be themed around the G-Men guarding certain areas, and the players would have to carry the right item to blend in. It fit well with Clairvoyance, a psychic power that let protagonist Raz see through the eyes of other characters, which had come from Schafer’s research into psychic abilities.

The trick, Robson tells me, was to make every possible item and Clairvoyance interaction entertaining, including failures. The team knew players would try to combine seemingly unconnected items, or try out their powers on inanimate objects, so they created a huge spreadsheet of every possible interaction, filling each box with a new idea.

“We know we have to have something fun for if I use the clairvoyance on the feather I’m holding, for example,” he says, “We knew those interactions would all be possible… it ends up being a situation where a bunch of creative people have to brainstorm and come up with fun solutions, and hopefully, that ends up being entertaining for a player.”

Sometimes those interactions would be simple: When used on a keypad, Raz is seen as a giant finger. But others would require more time and effort, and one of the brilliant things about Double Fine was that three designers were allowed to take three days to come up with the right concept.

Image 1 of 10

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 2 of 10

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 3 of 10

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 4 of 10

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 5 of 10

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 6 of 10

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 7 of 10

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 8 of 10

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 9 of 10

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Image 10 of 10

(Image credit: Double Fine)

All the things that seem like antagonists, in the level, are… like an immune system trying to understand an alien body in its midst.

Designer Erik Robson

The Milkman Conspiracy ended up much larger than originally planned, partly because of the team’s relative gravity tech. The programmers came up with a way to flip gravity as you moved between the twisted, spiralling streets that Chan had drawn, and the camera would react in kind. It worked brilliantly, and the level naturally expanded as Robson took players off in different directions.

The sprawling design also fit into the theme, he says. “Broadly, the goal of every Psychonauts mind level was to express the personality of the character in whatever way possible. I think there was something appealing about it being an open-air maze. That’s a weird contradiction that seems consistent with Boyd: ‘I’m lost, but I can see everything. I see my goals, but I can’t suss out how I’m going to get there.'”

In the end, Robson feels Milkman sprawled too much. “There’s maybe two or three of those ambient houses when there should really only be one. As a level designer, my proclivity is to make things too big, so there might be a bit of guilt kicking in there.”

Robson also wishes the team could’ve better expressed Boyd’s inner turmoil throughout the level. The opening sequence, where the player uses Clairvoyance on Boyd and sees the conspiratorial scrawls he’s made on the walls of his house, is an example of when it worked, because it gave the player a sense of what was to come while revealing something about Boyd’s character, Robson says.

“All the things that seem like antagonists, in the level, are… like an immune system trying to understand an alien body in its midst. And that alien body is the what the Milkman represents, this thing that is there and buried, but he can’t get rid of, and he knows something bad is going to happen as a result. There are a bunch of things I think we did get, the sort of confusion and how nothing is quite what it seems, the open-air maze. But I think that would have been cool to kind of drive that emotional point home better.”

[embedded content]

Partly because of these niggles, Robson says he’s never thought of Milkman as a standout level. But he says it’s one of the funniest, and Schafer’s writing undoubtedly brings the whole thing together. Simply written down, the jokes—”The most pleasant sewers can be found in Paris, France”—have almost zero impact. But their deadpan delivery works so well in the context of the level, and the ultra-serious G-Men talking about how “rhubarb is a controversial pie flavor” as they try hopelessly to blend in with their given roles proves to be hilarious.

That was only possible because writing all the dialogue came last. After the designers and gameplay programmers had finished, Schafer would assess every piece of the level, and write dialogue based on all the work that came before. “That was the most solid foundation for the jokes to get layered on top,” Robson says. “Half of my memory of Milkman is playing it without any of that dialogue, so that stuff still almost feels like a sort of recent edition. And then after you’re done with the level, six or eight weeks later, this dialogue appears all of a sudden in the game.”

Schafer tells me he wanted Erik Wolpaw to write the dialogue, but Wolpaw ended up being too busy. “So I ended up writing all the G-Men dialogue myself and I’m so happy I did, because it was so fun,” he says. “It’s just that matter of fact, straight-laced: ‘Who was the milkman? What was the purpose of the goggles?’

“We just happened to be talking about pie a lot, about people thinking rhubarb can be dangerous if you cook it wrong. You can poison people. So it’s a very controversial variety of pie—being able to sneak stuff like that in was really fun. It was really relaxing to write in that flat tone. ‘My helicopter goes up and down.'” 

It’s those jokes that I, and many other players, remember best about The Milkman Conspiracy. But for Double Fine, it carries its own legacy: a reminder that “no one person makes a level”, Schafer says. “I didn’t think of the twisting roads, and I didn’t think of the way the G-Men functioned. But I still feel like the ideas that I cared about are in there, and each department got to contribute an essential part of the level. Any one piece of that, you took it away, and it’s not the same,” he says.

(Image credit: Double Fine)

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Source link

Bài viết How a joke about the milkman inspired Psychonauts' best level – PC Gamer đã xuất hiện đầu tiên vào ngày Funface.

from Funface https://funface.net/best-jokes/how-a-joke-about-the-milkman-inspired-psychonauts-best-level-pc-gamer/