Mailbag: Sausage Men

I hadn't heard news on s&box for a long time. When I saw the poker video, I audibly laughed out loud. If s&box can be a less exploitative, and more adult-oriented version of Roblox, I think they're onto something wonderful.

Given that >50% of the Roblox userbase wasn't alive when Garry's Mod first released on Steam[1], I'd love to see a proper essayist (video or written) do a proper retrospective on the influence that the game had on the industry. Was it the first commercially successful "The Game Engine Is The Game"? It came out around the same time as Falling Sand(2005). Falling Sand was similar in that it had no objectives, but I doubt many would call them the same, as GMod truly encouraged players to create their own game types within the sandbox. Personally, I have yet to experience a variant on Prop Hunt or Trouble in Terrorist Town that truly felt like it "elevated" those genres beyond the modes I played as a kid on different GMod servers. But perhaps I haven't given the newer games a fair chance.

1: https://backlinko.com/roblox-users#age-distribution-of-roblo...

I've played Garry's Mod on and off for almost 20 years. One of the first games I ended up buying instead of pirating, actually causing me to buy the Orange Box :)

The "non-sexiness" (for lack of a better word) of the character models was literally never an issues. It was charming and fun because it's a sandbox. Don't like it? Just change it yourself. My only gripe here is that the default character model will no longer be random city 17 civilians!

IMO, they're in a weird place. Their proportions/shape are clearly cartoon-y, but the rest of them is relatively "realistic". It makes them a little unsettling.

If the whole art style was more cartoon-y, then they'd fit right in. As is, they feel a little mismatched.

That's just me though. And they are unique

I agree with the assessment of eg Fortnite models that are all colorful and beautiful. Gets tiresome. I see the appeal, it wouldn't stop me from playing a game, but especially as games with heroes or champions or whatever proliferate, as in-game fashion and cosmetic customization in multiplayer only becomes more popular, it becomes a wash of boring indistinguishable colors and hot people. They're unique in that they're distinct from one another but boring because those differences don't mean anything. Kudos to them for doing something a little different.

I was with the author until I got to the picture of the sausage people. I like the idea of normal-looking people, too, but these all have the same face! Their eyes, nose, and mouth are all in the same locations. None of them stand out in any way. They're remarkably... unremarkable.

They don't have to be attractive, but at least make them look different from each other.

I think the model is great in a sandboxy kind of way - you don’t feel weird launching the sausage man out of a cannon, it makes it funnier. It’s kind of like complaining that crash test dummies don’t have wigs on. Who cares?

The sausage men are genius.

Rather than being instantly modded out of S&Box by new players, I predict these will be modded into Skyrim and a host of other games in a very short period of time.

Who wouldn't want to see Whiterun peopled entirely by sausage men at least once?

These little guys feel like they are coming from a distinctly British puppet/stopmotion animation vibe of Schlubby Middle-Class Cartoon People. They'd fit in right next to Wallace and Gromit.

If this is a complaint they're getting a lot of then I feel like the proper response to this is an "I Hate Sausages" switch in the prefs that has a 75% chance of replacing all these models with generic artist maquette models, and a 25% chance of initiating a mode where the game just starts dropping slippery sausages everywhere until the entire level is completely impassible and running slower and slower because it is filled entirely with sausages.

Damn those are some gross sausage people. Will definitely buy.

May be worth reading this update from September, where more facial features/clothes were added to the sausages: https://sbox.facepunch.com/news/september2022#ClothingandHai... https://sbox.facepunch.com/news/september2022#CitizenSkin

Makes them have a little more character.

I have to agree, those look like crap. It would affect if I wanted to play the game.

There’s something about the size of the hands that goes in uncanny valley territory. That being said I’m not a big open world game player so no need to care at all about what I think, there’s no chance I’m buying this game.

Well, put me in the "I don't like sausage people" column.

these sausage men are great, and I personally consider their cartoonish, everyman nature to be a selling point. Bob's Burgers has a similar aesthetic, and people complain about it. Anyone who says that its a bad decision though is empirically in the wrong.

No one gives positive feedback on anything, so you are almost always doing the right thing by ignoring negative feedback below some threshold. I hope that this person and their friends have not one iota of influence on your character design.

> I tend to think that a lot of people have the general feeling that real looking people are nicer than good looking people. That’s why it’s always such a surprise when someone good looking isn’t a complete arshole, suprising enough to tell people that they aren’t an arshole. Because the assumption is that good looking people are arsholes.

I'm one of the nicest people you'll ever see!

In the modern gaming market, GMod is akin to shooting up in the middle of a crowded playground. I'd wager Garry's next game will be no different. If it doesn't succeed, I can pretty much guarantee that the sausage men will not be materially important to its failure.

You now have a huge head hitbox in an FPS game engine. The stock models will need to be thrown out if you had intentions of a location based damage shooter.

More energy should be put towards the framework, & usability with sensible defaults, and less on character studies.

I feel like this is one of those instances where it's better to be polarising than blandly likeable. That said, I would fall on the 'don't like' part of that polarization for most games - some games this feels very appropriate for though.

I do worry that this look will keep the modders who want to make great cool stuff away, and we will be left with only the people who want to cash out on a new marketplace

it's hilarious seeing two worlds collide like this and reading the "HN take" on how to succeed in video games.. garry has always found success by following his gut as a gamer and building what he wants to play. I have no doubt this game is going to be a wild success. and if it isn't, I don't think he cares too much, so long as he's proud of the thing he built. in any case, failure wouldn't be because of some sausages.

i always played as the burnt corpse, but the sausage people add to the wackiness. time to reinstall gmod

Only 5%-10% of your customers will ever give feedback, of that only 1 % will complain loudly about bad service, product faults, etc. The rest will smile, wave and never use your product again. Also way more will bad-word-of-mouth you if you screw up. Something like this feedback is the only warningshot you might ever get during a product release. Thus, paneltest it annonymously way ahead of time.

Michael Scott is a likeable character? Good at his job?

Isn't he famously unlikeable and bad at his job?

I didn't watch more than a couple of seasons of the US office, did they really give him that strong of a "redemption arc" that he's seen as likeable and an effective employee?

in my opinion a lot of the humor and enjoyment in Gary's mod was in the hilarious physics based violence. that generation of gamers had a much tougher stomach for that sort of content. (I still love it). look at soldier of fortune 2 footage for example.

these days unfortunately developers believe they need to be more sensitive to appeal to a different (wider?) audience of people who will be able to better appreciate unspeakable violence on cartoony characters.

I think the realism is funnier because it's more shocking and visceral. like dead baby jokes and dark humor in general. dead baby jokes aren't funny when you replace the babies with stuffed animals.