Victor Vran Says Goodbye To Early Access, Hello To Being Awesome

Quoting: KimyrielleOther than a few exceptions such as the ones you listed in your post, gender or skin colour almost never matters.

I still think the author should be allowed to choose. In the real world details such as gender, sexuality, ethnicity, age, social status, upbringing and pretty much everything else do influence the way people interact with their peers. You simply must keep them in mind if you're going for a believable character living in a world even slightly resembling our own. You give Tolkien's Frodo as an example, and indeed he's a good one: Hard to find a character that is easier to replace. He is pretty much a blank slate living in an intentionally unrealistic fantasy world. Not bashing the story though, even if it's not one of my favourites.

Now I'm not saying you couldn't replace a significant chunk of all game protagonists as well, but giving the choice to the player would in most cases require at least additional art assets, code and writing. You can't deny that. In any case, let's hope your message reaches the developers and we'll see a bigger percentage of games feature female leads in the future. Wouldn't change my gaming habits, seeing as pretty much half of the games I've bought in the last couple of years already seem to feature heroines instead of heroes.

EDIT: Some inane drivel replaced with other drivel.


Last edited by tuubi on 27 July 2015 at 6:51 pm UTC

Seems like the game isn't coming to GOG.com for Linux any time soon.

"To quote our CTO – “The Steam Linux build relies heavily on the Steam runtime to smooth over differences between different Linux distros.”

We are looking into the compatibility problem but we currently have no timeline for it since we are focused on the post-release updates and free DLCs."

Source: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/victor_vran_developer_qa_b9a24/post15

Well, might as well pick the game up later on sales then, if and when the game has become available on GOG.com, completely with all kind of DLCs and what not by then.

Quoting: KimyrielleA little thought experiment: Get your copy of Lord of the Rings, search for "Frodo" and replace with "Frida". Change all gender pronouns accordingly. Then tell me what impact that change had on the story.

You're right: None.

It would certainly add a significant wrinkle to the Frodo and Sam dynamic and color our perception of their relationship, so saying that the impact would be none is not entirely accurate.

Now imagine if Eowyn's gender was changed to male. That would have a huge impact on that particular subplot.


Last edited by Mountain Man on 28 July 2015 at 11:32 am UTC

For those that do not follow TotalBiscuit (and are more interested about the game rather than SJW-nonsense) he did a pretty good first impressions video about Victor Vran, which pretty much covers everything you might want to know before purchasing it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KlZkAZILZc

Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: KimyrielleA little thought experiment: Get your copy of Lord of the Rings, search for "Frodo" and replace with "Frida". Change all gender pronouns accordingly. Then tell me what impact that change had on the story.

You're right: None.

It would certainly add a significant wrinkle to the Frodo and Sam dynamic and color our perception of their relationship, so saying that the impact would be none is not entirely accurate.

Now imagine if Eowyn's gender was changed to male. That would have a huge impact on that particular subplot.

This whole discussion is moot anyway since the writing in VV is not great and the story/characters quite bland. Instead, I suspect the single protagonist thing is entirely related to budget. I'm sure if enough people ask, they might be persuaded to make it possible to play the maps/challenges as Irene, for example. Maybe even with some new outfits and demon powers.

Quoting: skryFor those that do not follow TotalBiscuit (and are more interested about the game rather than SJW-nonsense) he did a pretty good first impressions video about Victor Vran, which pretty much covers everything you might want to know before purchasing it

What you refer to as "SJW-nonsense" is actually a worthwhile discussion to have and you'd have to completely lack empathy to not see that.

Quoting: rustybroomhandle

Quoting: skryFor those that do not follow TotalBiscuit (and are more interested about the game rather than SJW-nonsense) he did a pretty good first impressions video about Victor Vran, which pretty much covers everything you might want to know before purchasing it

What you refer to as "SJW-nonsense" is actually a worthwhile discussion to have and you'd have to completely lack empathy to not see that.

Whether I'm capable of empathy or not has nothing to do with this. Every writer regardless of his/her skills has the (artistic) right to decide his/her characters gender or if it can be chosen by player or not. Depending of the story and overall atmosphere, depth, those decisions can matter greatly.

When it comes to females in games, come on.. Some of the biggest franchises in industry have female protagonists, most games nowadays have the option to play as a female and there are games where you can't choose to be a male character. It's not a new thing either, remember Ms. Pacman? Metroid? Tomb Raider? Most fighting games? It's a long list really..

So, discussion which is based on an issue which in reality does not even exist, is in my book nonsense. I understand (no, I really don't sorry) that someone might be offended that he/she cannot play every game in existence as a black transgender cripple (hint: Skyrim is probably your best bet) or whatever. What I don't get is, why should everything be so overly PC with the expense of artistic vision and freedom.

EDIT: playable Irene as a DLC is an awesome idea!


Last edited by skry on 30 July 2015 at 11:39 am UTC

My only problem (still only 15-20 minutes into gameplay) is that I have ti start at the beginning, even after passing two checkpoints :><: .

It is still one awesome game .

Quoting: oldrocker99My only problem (still only 15-20 minutes into gameplay) is that I have ti start at the beginning, even after passing two checkpoints :><: .

Oh, didn't see that. Perhaps because I didn't actually manage to die once in the couple of hours I've played. :P

Quoting: oldrocker99It is still one awesome game .

It sure is a blast. I know I've only scratched the surface but thus far I find it much more enjoyable than Torchlight. A big plus for good gamepad support.

@Oldrocker99: Oh, I think I finally got what you meant by having to start at the beginning. Monsters and stuff get reset when you quit the game or leave an area/level, but you keep the loot and experience you've collected. The levels aren't that long and this way you can return as many times as you want for the challenges, extra loot or whatever. You can access all the locations you've found from the castle map, so pretty much the only downside is that you have to play through the levels in one sitting. Anyway, this is clearly by design.