Reply With QuoteThey're playing volleyball with a chandelier?
I should have been more sarcastic.
They're playing volleyball with a chandelier?
Good idea.Originally Posted by Dave Perkins
Not very current with the gaming industry, are ya?
No, without the news post or some other explanation, that comic really didn't make much sense.
The room is featureless, so you dont really have context to interpret it as a chandelier. The perspectives are off so that it doesn't look like the camera panned up to see something hidden, it looks like the chandelier suddenly materialized, and Tycho's face in #2 doesn't really read "just put my hand through shard of broken glass". I don't really know what it reads.
I thought he had summoned a magic Grappling hook thing (that's why it was white and glowy, it's magic) and stabbed Gabe in the head with it.
I had the exact same experience.
It was immediately obvious to me that the first panel was them playing Kinect and that the second panel was them hitting an overhead chandelier a la this guy. Not that I'm calling you guys stupid or anything.
Well, i read the comic without reading first the related text and i guessed correctly the theme (Kinect) and interpreted easily the draw of the chandelier.
If I hadn't recently seen the video of the dad elbow dropping his kid, I might've been unaware enough to not get it immediately, and too disinterested to spend much longer examining the meaning.
I'm still not sure I get it. I guess the idea is that they're playing Kinect, and Tycho accidentally (?) grabs a real chandelier (?) and hits Gabe with it?
In other PA news, I got my PA: The Series DVD set today. When they announced the series it seemed pretty gimmicky, but I ended up really enjoying it (needless to say). The second season starts Friday, though it's not being produced by 2 Player for reasons unclear to me. I thought they did a fantastic job with the first season.
He hits the chandelier accidentally while "spiking" a ball in the Kinect game and it impales Gabe in the back of his skull. Anyone even vaguely aware of the current events in gaming would get this as the obvious situation being presented. The strange void they're playing in makes it difficult to parse for the uninformed, and even for someone who does get it, it doesn't flow particularly well. As we have seen in the past, linear storytelling is not Gabe's forte.
The point is, for $0.99 you can't go wrong.
That excludes me, then.
So then you probably shouldn't be shocked when the gaming comic seems a little impenetrable at times.
I often have to read the accompanying news post to understand it.
I have to do that when the strip veers into card games and PnP RPGs much of the time.
Those are the strips I don't need explained. Of course, I don't think this needs a lot of explanation:
Would it have killed the joke to add an Xbox or a tv in the first panel? Maybe I'm not the target audience.
Well, those comics still need some context for their full effect. Tycho's fatherly look of acceptance as Gabe anxiously removes a fresh set of dice from the royal dice bag has more impact if you know the history of Tycho trying to get Gabe into PnP gaming.
Last edited by Pogo; 11-18-2010 at 01:24 PM. Reason: character mixup
Well, maybe it does need explanation after all. Pogo's right, the joke depends on the long-standing back-and-forth between Gabe and Tycho over DMing, and the punchline is at least as much about Gabe shattering Tycho's hopes for him as a D&D player as anything else.
fixed. seriously, who doesn't keep their dice in an RC bag?
The people who keep their dice in a Crown Royal bag?
RC = Cola.
doh, whatever.
Ohhhhh anti-fail fail.
ITYM "Tycho trying to get Gabe into PnP gaming." Tycho is the one in the blue shirt that knows what Warhammer is. Gabe is the one in the yellow shirt that likes Barbies and ponies.
It isn't a particularly strong joke to begin with, and unfortunately the only thing it has going for it is the lack of context, I think. That such tragedy should arise simply from them flailing about like idiots.
If by "even vaguely aware of the current events in gaming" you mean "with specific knowledge of Kinect shovelware" then I agree. I didn't know there was a volleyball game included with Kinect Sports, and their posture in the first panel did not immediately suggest volleyball to me, though they were obviously playing a Kinect game. With that in mind the narrative of the strip becomes clear.
The guy on the bottom looked like he was getting ready to bump the ball, but I couldn't figure out what the brown-hair guy was doing. He looked like he was going to karate chop someone.
The flailing around started, and have been made fun of, long before Kinect. Making the connection in a gaming comic is not exactly brain surgery, people.
The problem is that regardless of context, the visuals of the strip don't make sense. Due to the poor use of angles and framing, it looks like the chandelier just suddenly falls on them, not that Tycho leaps and puts his hand through it. The motion of those actions is not sufficiently communicated, so it becomes confusing. This is exacerbated by the fact that the photography-studio matte background doesn't evoke a room that would have a chandelier in it, so it isn't so much a surprise reveal as "what the hell is that doing there?"
These are issues that exist in the visual storytelling regardless of whether or not you understand the initial setting is them playing Kinect.
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