Has anyone tried a "Loom" Sequel fangame?

[PureGhostGR]

Probably this is something that has been previously debated, but since the search engine doesn't show up anything, I'll go right ahead and ask.

Is there a team working on a sequel of Loom?

I've been searching for one for such a long time, but nothings comes up.

From what I read the game is a fav. with many, so how come nobody has tried making something?

Is there a "Copyright" restriction by Lucasarts?

Just a question really..

[Privateer Puddin']

well, Lucasarts might have a copyright on Loom 2 as well as Loom as they were making a sequel at one time

[scotch]

The game is popular, but not quite as popular as many other adventures.. there aren't a really big amount of remakes made with ags (well, successful ones anyway)  I can't remember a loom fan game being started..

Copyright isn't a big concern to most people here.. the game is old, lucasarts haven't shut down FoY or any other AGS remake yet.

[MrColossal]

as far as my information tells me there was a sequel to Loom planned called Forge

as far as my information tells me there isn't anyone working on a sequel

and please please please no one do it!

thank you

eric

[PureGhostGR]

MrColossal you wouldn't happen to have a link on that? (forge)

search engine only gives me a broken link.

.. can I ask why you don't want one? I would love to play it. (provided it is the right stuff)..

[Las Naranjas]

The odds on it being the right stuff are small.

And if the maker has the qualities to make it the right stuff, they'd be much better invested in their own work rather than reducing themselves to leeching off another's.

[foz]

I thought loom was shit.......worst lucas arts game i`ve played.....

....i would`nt play a loom fan game......

Unless it was nothing like loom.......

Maybe you could make a game called ....LOON.....or BROOM........or WOMB......

I dunno ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,my brain hurts.......,////////,,,,,,,,,07000055559

[remixor]

Forge was cancelled years ago and is in all likelihood never going to happen.

I loved Loom, it's one of my favorite LEC adventures (which pretty much makes it one of my favorite adventures of any kind).  I thought it was a brilliant and very well-written game.  I actually wouldn't mind a fan sequel, as long as it was done by people who know what they're doing.

[MrColossal]

pureghost

as las said, if someone has the ability to make a good loom sequel why not make a good original game anyway and leave the game as it is?

not that i think anyone would be able to do it without being silly [especially to recreate anything as close to the awesomeness that the game had, the creation myth mostly]

i also don't remember where i heard the whole Forge thing it was a while ago that i learned of it

eric

best i can do:

http://www.sebelinteractive.de/scummvm/manual/man_scummvm_morphos-19.html

[big brother]

Loom was clever, innovative, and stand-alone, definitely top ten on my list.

I don't think that anyone could make a sequel (or prequel) with comparative story or execution.

The story doesn't really have room for a sequel anyways.

Just out of curiousity, has everyone played the 256 color VGA version? Outstanding.

[Gilbert]

Make Boom... as hinted in SQ4!111!! GL0RY!1!

And there's Shroom!, which in fact was an short short AGS demo!1!


Seriously though, if you're really interested, just make whatever you like, but remember Loom is a game unique to it own, so it may not be that easy to create a game compariable with its originality, playability, etc. just by mocking it.

[remixor]

Well, I think Loom did set itself up for a sequel of sorts, but you'd have to REALLY know what you're doing to take it on.  And big brother: definitely in my top 10 as well.  Very unique, excellent game.

I have never played the VGA version.  I'm always looking on Ebay though for an original boxed copy that doesn't reach astronomical prices.  CD-only auctions are common but I'm a sucker for boxes  I hear the VGA release has full voice.  Is this true?  If so, I want to play it even more.

[Las Naranjas]

Yes, and since it was so early a talkie game, all the audio is in CD Audio format.

Which means several things.
1) The quality is very good, and since characters can talk over each other etc. it sounds much more natural.
2) You can put the CD in your CD player and listen to the whole dialogue.
3)There wasn't enough space on the CD, so some dialogue was cut and, in Gilbert's words, "towards the end they're talking like they have a gun to their head".

However, it's absolutely wonderful.

[Gilbert]

I think a boxed version of it was quite rare, I think the Loom CDs were mostly released as boxless bundle versions (like mine).

And yes, 256 colour CD version has full CD audio voice, and won't need a soundcard to run (won't need, and won't use either). It has beautiful backgrounds and (sorta) high quality voice castings, but due to the lack of experience in CD game creation at that time (it's one of the earlier CDROM games, I remembered buying it when I got my 1X CDROM Drive, and I didn't have a soundcard at that time), there're some incompleteness compared to the original versions (which I had typed many times in the old forums and I don't want to repeat) but still, it's a nice thingie to collect.

[remixor]

Ah, interesting.  Why don't more games use CD audio for voices?  Is it a space issue and it's just outdated?  One thing I've always hated about voice acting in games is that even when one character cuts another off (as in "Hey, now you just--" "Shut up!") there's a big old pause that really destroys the effect.  It would seem to me that this wouldn't be an issue with CD audio.  I guess in adventure games with multiple dialogue choices it would be tough, though.  I suppose the main issue is space.

[Gilbert]

Yes indeed, the voice actings in Loom were actually quite good and lifelike -- in the first half of the game.

The problem was that a CD can only hold a maximum of somewhat 70 minutes of CD audio, there are lots of sacrifices in that game:
1. In game pure BG music tracks were mostly absent, as most space was already used for speech, so you wont hear the fabulous Swamlake music 90% of the time (in cutscenes the speeches were recorded alongside with BGMs, but there're NO standalone ingame  BGM).
2. Starting from the second half of the game, prolly they realized the lack of space while dubbing, most of the dialogs were rushed to finished, so it'll be like you're hearing people speaking quickly, like someone is pointing a gun on their backs, and that the cutscenes runs like they're in fastforward mode to shorten it's durations, not to mention that they changed many lines of dialogs to shorten them, which rendered the story unclear.
3. Even the "CDEFABC" tones were recorded tone by tone in Cd audio
4. because of HW restrictions, there can only be one CD track playing at one time, so if you trigger something that would play a sound/speech/etc (eg cast a spell, see 3), the previously sound in play would be cut abruptly...
5. The game runs on CD, and they're not very good in organizing resources, stuffs (BG, character graphics, etc) were loaded into your comp.'s memory only when they're needed, so even in a cutscene, it's often time you'll hear skips in sound (as they have to load CD data, which cut the sound being playing)
6. Since cutscene voices were recorded and mixed into some nonflexible format (remember only one channel at one time), at least one spell which in the original game may differ each time you played the game had now its tone fixed in every game in the CD version :p

And not to mention the other scrafices, such as the lazy artists won't want to convert everything into 256 colours, so 90% of the character close-ups were removed   (though the small character animations added weren't bad...)

[remixor]

Ah, well some of that is rather disappointing.  However, since I've already played and enjoyed the standard version, anything else is just extra enjoyment, so I'm still going to try to hunt it down.  I'm curious if nothing else.  And thanks for all the info, Gil.

[Las Naranjas]

Yeah, I forgot about the loss of the closeups, that was dissapointing.

[remixor]

This is kind of OT, but since we're on the subject of Loom anyway...  Probably doesn't need spoiler tags, but just in case:

Spoiler

I heard that if you play the game on the highest difficulty level, you get to see Bobbin's face when you're in the castle.  I played through the game on the hardest difficulty, but never saw anything like that.  Is this just a rumour, or have I done something wrong?

[close]

[Gilbert]

Spoiler

As far as I remember, that it's not really you will see bobbin's face, but at least some extra animations with someone (I forgot the name) want to see bobbin's face, which I can confirmed as I had played the (Japanese) PCE CD version.

To be honest, I never played the original HDD/Floppy version so I cant tell.

For the PC CD version, though I had played it MANY times, but I didn't play it recently, so i can't remember, but according to Plum, that there're NO difference in that scene for the CD version with regard to difficulty levels, probably because they have to sync the CD audio tracks so don't want to make different versions...

[close]