Eternity’s Red-Headed Stepchild

By: Derek Yu

On: August 7th, 2008

Eternity's Child

Eternity’s Child, a once promising-looking indie game, got slammed recently by Destructoid and the game’s developer, Luc Bernard, responded, er, slightly ungracefully to his critics in the comments under the post:

P.S I’m drunk and why i take things personally is because its my baby

I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to continue this train wreck, but like Kieron Gillen (Rock, Paper, Shotgun), I think there’s a good lesson here on how to handle criticism as a developer (including the unfair, thoughtless, and/or overly cruel kind). I see Jeff Minter and Denis Dyack’s names being bandied about in threads like these all the time and it makes me sad that such talented and influential individuals are now thought of as poster children for bad behavior (unlike, say, certain people who might truly deserve it!). I can’t see much value in these public arguments and there are certainly plenty I’ve been involved in that I wish I hadn’t been!

Also, I’m curious… if the game is so completely broken, how did it end up on Steam?

Posted in Community, Developers, Steam | Tags: LucBernard

Koholint

The issue isn’t really that the game was bad, it was that the game could have been good if they had, say, had an outsider beta test the game. Also, it’s never good to hear a developer say that one control scheme is broken. Also, I understand that the Destructoid reviews were harsh, but that’s sort of their gimmic. But know this, developers: the best way to deal with people bashing your game is not to insult the site and personally attack its users.
GeneralValter

Wooh! It’s soliloquy hour at TIGS!

When you make a game, there’s really a certain amount of, you know, playtesting that needs to happen. Especially when you’re going to put a price tag onto it. It seems to me like he provided the artwork for his game, and the promptly forgot to pay attention to it for even a second until it came out. Then he got confused on why it wasn’t good. You really, really have to actually see if your own game is good before you defend it.
GeneralValter

Also, John H.

When you make a shitty game, you’re going to get some flak for it. When you make a shitty game and have people pay money for it, you’re going to get a lot of flak for it. Your game is your responsibility, and it’s your job to suck it up if people don’t like it. Sorry.
Ilia Chentsov

FISH: Yep, he made it when he was fifteen, neve changed since then.
magallanes

I don’t known if it is viral marketing and who is involved on this “scam” if the game developer or the critics. Anyways, all of this is amusing.

Anyways, for me :eternity child and destructoroid (lousy name) was unknown until now.
namefag

I thought it was a Cave Story rip-off
saint bernard

I believe the only hopes and dreams of Luc Bernard, is money. That’s all I’ve ever really noticed from his posting of this game and others. You could always tell how bad the gameplay looked from videos but that didn’t stop him from publishing it. He even planned merchandise and a film around it. $5 adds up quickly when you think about how many possible purchases can come from Steam and WiiWare. This ontop of his subject matter which always has to “shock”. This game contains an orphaned gay, drug addicted… homeless prostitute. Oh and this one is about a lesbian and a drug addicted, alcoholic, mechanical rabbit. Oh and this one is about the Holocaust. I feel none of these things would be that big of a deal, but he seems to makes it a big deal and creates his own controversy.

He needs to start small. Get some free games under his belt, learn what makes games fun. Everyone has ideas, but it takes someone special to actually make them work. How much time did he really spend on the artwork, a week… a month at the most? And his only job was the artwork(game design and story don’t amount to much it seems)? He could of at least animated all of the characters instead of cheating his way out.

WW: “Do you see yourself as a videogame creator or an artist, and do you think it’s possible to be both without one area of expertise suffering?”

LB: “Videogames are entertainement, you just need to be good at entertaining. People should stop thinking that videogames should only be done by game designers. Now everyone plays games this industry needs more people from other areas in it. For example, one of my friends is a singer and she came up with the best gameplay ideas and she hardly ever touches videogames.”

To learn more about this and everything else about Mr. Bernard read these interviews:
WiiWare World 1

WiiWare World 2

Game Girl

Gay Gamer

Konsolifin
http://www.deadpanda.com Dock

Wow, what a mess. It’s a shame that Eternity’s Child turned out to be such a poorly designed game, but perhaps it’s for the best that it’s over and everyone can move on.

I was a little suspicious about Eternity’s Child because of the references to it being the introduction to the ‘world’, and how it would be addressed in the ‘film version’. These are the sorts of things an emo teenager would say, and are perfect excuses for poor writing and verbose storytelling.

I hope they are able to address some of the most basic issues of the game and release some patches, but most of all it’s an exercise in how not to handle yourself online.

There’s a good [blog entry][http://danvado.livejournal.com/5415.html] by Dan Vado of Slave Labor Graphics on the topic of not responding to this sort of criticism, because there’s nothing to gain.
Foppy

I didn’t read all but that site reminds me of You Tube for some reason… oh I know the reason, it’s 500 comments saying “fuck you”.
Paul Eres

Update: he says he’s giving up games. I’m hesitant to post the URL because I just know it’ll be screened, so just search for Luc Bernard Blog and scroll down till you see the post that says “Won’t be Contuning [sic]”.
Derek

Here’s the link:

http://lucbernard.blogspot.com/2008/08/wont-be-contuning.html