For context: the whole reason I found out about/decided to watch Gameoverse was because of the Chimptopia controversy where the totally not right-wing and boring as hell looking characters of that show beat up Gobbles. I knew it [Gameoverse] was a thing that was happening, but, I hadn't actively tuned into it or followed the hype train like I did Knights of Guinevere. So Chimptopia did it a bizarre advertisement in my book which I'm sure totally normal fanbases are being totally normal and non accusatory about.
As far as all the Glitch Productions pilots/shows, my exposure/discovery of them has been as thus:
The Amazing Digital Circus = Saw the thumbnail to pilot the day it premiered. Enjoyed it though I knew nothing of the crew other then "oh yeah aren't these guys with Spindlehorse or something?" As I actually got into TADC I subscribed to Glitch to obviously watched the premiers of that show and it's merchdrop videos. As such I was aware of the other shows and pilots they were making but not actively following.
Murder Drones = Watched because of my affinity to Amazing Digital Circus and finished because I saw "oh shoot that's the Cliffside guy k I'll watch the rest" (it had already ended by the time I watched any of it).
Gaslight District = Saw it being promo'd and premiered in my feed but wasn't actively keeping up with the hype or saw the pilot until months after it had come out. Once I had I was blown away, personally.
Knights of Guinevere = the only Glitch pilot I was watching the promos of and so getting hyped for until finally tuning into the pilot premiere last year.
Gameoverse = same story as Gaslight District.
Knights of Guinevere was fun and interesting to take part in/understand like with it's ARG and stuff. To be clear: I like it, BUT I also found it a little too vague/underwhelming as standalone pilot. I'm glad it's getting picked up, but I do think it was a hype train that led me to feeling the way I do. I don't know anyone who doing the same with Gaslight District or even TADC before it's premiere, but I bring all this up in order to guess that 50% of the shade+distaste for Gameoverse has all to do with people being hyped for the series and being let down with the pilot in some way.
Again, for me personally, as someone who was not keeping up or caring about the hype/knew ANY of the 'needed' background lore...I found it perfectly fine.
Like, I hadn't even seen the trailers for the pilot like the Gobbles one where we see how his gameworld was destroyed. I saw that one after watching the pilot. I went in blind and...it worked. It all worked and made sense and flowed pretty well, even better I think than Gaslight District which I like even more.
A big problem with ALL of these indieshow pilots is just HOW MUCH lore/logic and characters 'need' to be dumped in all at once, making even the best produced shows feel like glorified glazing of a person's OCs than they do a proper introduction to a series.
That's always the problem I had with Hazbin Hotel and the Lackadaisy pilots (tho, in it's case I was straight upn more familiar with the webcomic and found it jarring as a reader of it). TADC I think otherwise succeeded in setting up and showing off all of Pomni, Caine, Ragatha and Jax's characters and the lore behind everything was really easy to follow. Gaslight District also had/has very strong characters and dynamics with each other but it is VERY lore heavy; already mentioned how KOG feels the most vague and so the hardest to love as a standalone short. Oh, and Murder Drones' pilot was a hot mess just like the rest of it's show. I don't hate it or anything but, like it is a mess.
Gameoverse was perfectly fine character and lore wise. As it starts with it's cold open I was immediately like "ah okay here's a waifu-catgirl version of Ratchet & Clank; there that's her fam and friends okay now this is the final boss fight and her villain. Wonder what the twist is gonna be- WOAH what's happening!!" > cut to title. I thought it was all VERY good at establishing the set up of first an in-unverse gameworld and story we're only ofc getting snippets of before the story of the actual pilot begins. Once it got to the mark where Kit was doing an exposition dump to the other characters, I personally understood exactly how the world works and what the stakes the story was about.
The pilot IS fast-paced and jumping around a lot, I'll give ya that- but where Gaslight District took at least three rewatches to understand or 'get' what the character's deals were- much as I liked them from the story -...idk what the rest of ya'll are talking about; Gameoverse did a great job fleshing out it's characters in relation to it's plot/world, kind of especially WITH that much lore, pacing and storytelling all at once. I'm especially taken with the characters' interactions and how they shaped who exactly they are.
As a non-gamer (I watched my sister play games growing up. Will watch Lets Plays; the only games I've ever personally played for myself were Hamtaro and a bunch of Humongous Entertainment titles as a kid. Neopets doesn't count); I understood almost exactly what each character was a pastich of: Kit & Kaboodle = Ratchet and Klank/Banjo Kazooie with a hint of Sonic; Gobbles and possibly Flappers = PuttPutt, Miss Information = RPG ala Pokemon or maybe Final Fantasy, Dusk = Castlevania/Final Fantasy...I didn't need to spend forever within their own worlds and have their backstories to 'get' anyone, if that makes sense? And I don't even think it's that the character design for each of the different games are "incredibly strong" or anything. I think they just nailed the mood and 'vibe' everyone was trying to go for.
Like I said I didn't even see the teaser trailer which shows how Gobbles' world was destroyed to know what the deal was with his character. The concept of different types of video games meeting up and teaming up to fight a greater foe has been seen so much that I barely needed an elaboration on Starcade either. The fact that all the game's worlds are literally planets that can be traversed like space even felt pretty organic to me. Idk maybe it's that it reminded me of the Gummi ship in Kingdom Hearts, but a lot less stupid here than it is in KH. I always hated (watching) the Gummi ship levels because I found it so much stupider and non-immersive that all the Disney worlds are just planets out in space somehow rather than just being some kind of magic portals to one or the other. The setup of that concept worked much MUCH better here!
It was all...fine. Like, I'm hyped for it getting picked up and being filled in more. I guess not on the edge of my seat or anything, but I got the gist of everything and enjoyed it otherwise.
I'm more of a storytelling/character establishment girlie myself. Gameoverse is A-okay in my book. YET, for some reason, I see a lot of critical videos of the pilot for a lot of things I think other indie pilots actually committed than it being called out for it's own shortcomings.
Don't get me wrong- I never said it was "PERFECT" or anything but I gotta say as an outsider to whatever hype was going around to this one I don't understand the criticisms I've been hearing.
Did the crew do something sketchy or bad that I'm not aware of? I know one of the co-creators are some of the less-racist guys from GameGrumps and all. What happened? Why are/were people more collectively "meh/I have notes" about this pilot in particular?
EDIT:: thank you to @thecatinyourtrashcan for at least one explanation:
Okay then...did like...any of the creators show any other deeply concerning misogynist behavior or say anything about women that I should know of?
I have a whole dissertation to be made about the issues I have with 'same face syndrome' as complaint; the issue as it pertains to Frozen and basically all modern Disney is how the directors said they "have to make the women pretty" first and foremost, as if the first and only thing that matters in a design for a woman is her appearance; also the trope is so much easier to see for yourself in cgi than it is in 2D, but my point stands.
You don't need to tell me why and how Kit is popular and with what audiences. I get it. I gotta say tho I personally resent the way critics are attributing that design flaw to her actual character and if she's bad by proxy of a weak design. Come on, I thought we were over that--
