Messages

To the best of my knowledge, the only Sierra related fangames that received C&D from Vivendi or Activision were the fan made Space Quest VII project and The Silver Lining (back when it was called King's Quest IX), back in 2005. I do not know whether the graphical aspect of the projects (both were going for 3D graphics) played a role in the C&D letter but most certainly the title itself and the numeral that accompanied it was a pretty big deal. Both projects wanted to attract the attention of as much fans as possible (for extra visibility but also to attract as many potential artists, coders and developers as possible) and went for those specific titles and that rather important numeral to accompany them and that attracted the attention of a lot of fans but that also attracted the attention of Vivendi at the same time. Both projects were made an offer:

They had to change the title of their project,
They had to agree that the project would be 100% owned by Vivendi/Activision on release,

The King's Quest IX project agreed and changed the title to The Silver Lining. The Space Quest VII project however refused the offer and cancelled their project.

And while AGDI's four remakes were released with the permission of Vivendi/Activision, you'll most likely remember that Vivendi didn't seem to care when Infamous Adventures released their King's Quest III remake without their permission, nor did Activision break a sweat back in 2012 when fans released three Space Quest projects during the same month: A remake to Space Quest II and two sequels to Space Quest VI that didn't feature "VII" in their titles.

So, the chances that your King's Quest IV remake receive a C&D letter, if you're not claiming to be an official sequel, if art wise it looks like a fan project in Activision's eyes and not a game that would make their official sequels in the series look bad, if you don't try to make money out of it... those chances are pretty slim, and worse case scenario, you can most likely try to negotiate with Activision to get their permission, the same way they allowed AGDI's four remakes or The Silver Lining to release their project. Plus, you've been keeping such a low profile that myself, being a fan of those projects, I never know whether you're still working on the game or whether you moved on to something else, and big companies tend to not waste lawyer money for low profile projects that, in their eyes, may simply disappear on their own.

That was an interesting article, thanks for sharing!

Regarding the bit on story and puzzles, I don't think it's meant to be interpreted as "less story, more puzzles" but rather that puzzles will be given just as much importance as the story, that puzzles and story will be designed conjointly, that they won't be an after shot and they'll enhance the plot and atmosphere rather than detract from it. Those guys, from back in the days, those guys told stories in video games back in an era where all that mattered in video games were gameplay, back when it was all about jumping on monsters, shooting down UFO, flying planes or driving cars, back when people thought it was impossible to tell stories in games (I recall reading on Ron's site that he had an argument about that with Steve Jobs back in the days). I don't think that's going to change. And if you take a look at Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle or Grim Fandango, those games were games where, IMO, the whimsy aspect of puzzle solving improved the plot, atmosphere and comedic aspect of the game.

Regarding the bit on interface, the verb interface may be unstreamlined, but that was Ron's baby, that was his way of having his cake and eating it too when it came to having some of the depth of the text parser interface of ye olde days without the frustrations that came with it. Ron and Tim's games... one could argue about the un-streamline-ness of that requiring the player to choose inconsequential dialogue options in dialogue tree that led to the same outcome no matter which choice you did, but those guys did it anyway, simply because it would allow them to tell four different jokes with the same setup. It's with this in mind that one should regard the verb interface in games by Ron, I recall the first two Monkey Island games had moments in them where the interface was used for humor, where Guybrush went off screen and the sentence bar would input weird commands on your behalf or where verbs would change to suit whatever location/situation you were in. I don't know if he'll do it, but if one really wanted to, one could push the verb interface to its limit (by giving different playable characters different verbs, or constantly messing around with the available verbs, because a change in the player character environment requires it, or because you're shooting for a contextualized interface, or because you're trying to convey a loss of control for the player, or just because you've found funny interactions with the environment that you just cannot miss...) and create a game where the verb interface itself is so important to the gameplay that any attempt to streamline it or simplify it would be detrimental to the experience and atmosphere.

-blueskirt "no, I'm not dead"

Is it Forge?

To each their own I suppose. I had a dreadful experience watching it in HFR, it totally broke my immersion, every movement looked accelerated, during a couple scenes I had the Benny Hill chase theme playing in my head, the whole time I was constantly reminded I was sitting in a dark room, with a bunch of other people, in front of a screen. I dunno, maybe it's my brain that's wrong or maybe it's the projector at that cinema that wasn't suited for HFR.

I went there a second time to watch it in 2D, no glasses, no HFR, and I really had a blast the second time around, I could instead focus on what was going on in the movie rather than the quality of the picture.

Silly Grand Theft Auto III speedruns made me want to replay the game again, at 99%, thinking of playing Liberty City Stories next.

BTW, I wanted to know, in Grand Theft Auto V, these missions that seems to require multiple players acting simultaneously, how is that handled in single player? Are the other two guys handled by the AI? Or is there a "switch to character in trouble" button? Or are those missions locked when you're in single player mode?

1. Stranger
2. Mirror
3. Horseshoe

3. A hand?

I've got a quick question, why did you decide to make that episode the last one? I recall in the early days of the series you said you'd never stop making Blackwell titles if you could help it, but in a recent interview, I think you once expressed regrets for not having given enough thought about where you wanted the series to go early on, or for not having a grand plan for the series before you wrote Blackwell Legacy. Is it because you feel the series reached its natural conclusion that you are closing the series? Or is it because this lack of planning early on was nagging you and you've got in your sleeve something better, more planned, more laid out and more fun to write once Epiphany will be out?

I ask because, well, you could have wrote that grand finale and not made Blackwell games for a very long time, until you suddenly got a urge to tell another tale, prequel, sequel or interquel, starring Rosa or Lauren... and all would have been fine. That announcement that it's going to be the last one makes it sounds like you don't wanna revisit that world once Epiphany will be out.

I agree. I recall watching a great interview with Josh Mandel on that channel.

I don't know if he would have been successful, point and click adventure or not.

There's no real fanbase for Police Quest. King's Quest, Gabriel Knight, Space Quest, Quest For Glory, Leisure Suit Larry, these series had truckloads of fans and many of them had forums where these games are still discussed or at the very least a place where the fans can hang together, that helps somehow. Police Quest never had that. Adventure games are a niche in video games, Police Quest is a niche of adventure games, that's just too little.

Plus, Police Quest was half police procedural, half investigation, and that second half I believe got outclassed by games like Gabriel Knight and Broken Sword which elevated the standards of quality in term of story telling and mystery in adventure games, recent indie horror adventure games also elevated further higher mystery type of game, people who want a good investigation or mystery game with good stories are more likely to think about to the latter series than Police Quest. Police Quest would mostly attract players who are fans of the police procedural side of it, they exists however, but they're a small number.

The police procedural aspect of the latter games have also been ridiculed a lot on youtube, which doesn't help either.

But...

They still managed to amass 85K with their wonky pitch. An indie project with a smaller goal and a better pitch would probably have succeeded. I would say, aim smaller, more adventure, less simulator, try to achieve something like AGDI or IA did, a small goal, something indie. Bonus points if you go for the hand drawn 2D point and click look to attract as much of the retros as possible. Double bonus points if you pick and choose the best aspect of the Police Quest series and Blue Force, like the second game's text parser (there is something empowering in typing "FREEZE SCUMBAG!" which get lost in the transition to icons).

I would also say keep it simple and police-y, don't try to beat investigation and mystery at their own games. Serial killers, cultists and copycats have been done plenty of time in adventure games and often done better than Police Quest did, there is however an untapped potential for plots focusing on the minutiae of police work and techniques, plots featuring drug dealers, weapon smugglers, mafia, biker gangs, crooked cops, bank robbers... or plots featuring hostage situations, dealing with internal affairs, going undercover (thinking Donnie Brasco here, where the lines between going deeper and not becoming a criminal yourself get blurred, where you've got to remind yourself who you are, who's a friend and who's a foe). Plots dealing with the consequences that being a cop has on one's personal life, like General Knox is aiming for in his game I believe. Plots dealing with corruption in the law enforcement, either for personal gain, or general disrespect of civil rights, or to solve a case, or endemic to your environment like in Serpico. What if the game gave you the freedom to break the law, for personal gain or to solve a case? What if, in good old Columbo fashion, the focus wasn't to figure out who the bad guy is, but figuring out how to arrest him? (It's funny, I think there's one movie starring Al Pacino for each aspects I listed above...) If serial killers and cults and whodunit have been overdone, there is still room for other type of law enforcement stories in adventure games.

Under these conditions, I believe a kickstarter for a spiritual sequel to Police Quest and Blue Force would be successful.

I think the main reason why there aren't many (or any) fan-made Police Quest games out there right now, is that most people probably don't know about proper police procedure/police science/legal system.

I had to buy a crap-load of books on police tactics, verbal judo, police politics/internal affairs, forensics, etc...I guess it is harder to write a  realistic police story that makes sense than a fantasy story where you can just make everything up.

That's an aspect I never ever considered of your game or the creation of a Police Quest inspired game in general. I'd have thought using the manuals supplied in the other games, maybe contacting some of the retired police officers who did AMA for knowledge regarding proper procedures and the legal system or anecdotes that can find their way into the game, would have been enough.

Here is another tip I once wanted to write a thread about but couldn't find the motivation to in between all of these games:

For those who releases big huge game saga in episodic format or plans to, it helps to release an original, non sequel, non prequel, non episodic game once in a while. Here's why...

Let's imagine a fictional game creator, which we'll call Ponchislav, and a fictional player, which we'll call Bobskirt. Now, Ponchislav is known for his episodic epic adventure game series called Ben Runner. Now, Bobskirt tried Ben Runner Episode 1 a long time ago, but he didn't like it, and so when episode 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 came out, he just ignored them, because:
a) Bobskirt plays games in chronological order, and sequels are bound to be full of references to past events, and
b) Bobskirt didn't like Bpisode 1.

And as a result, Bobskirt totally ignored the Ben Runner series. But, in the decade between the release of Ben Runner Episode 1 and Episode 6, Ponchislav became an uber game developer, who now knows how to design games really good, and all of the flaws that Bobskirt didn't like in Episode 1 have been ironed out a crazy long time ago, like by Episode 3, and if he played Ben Runner Episode 6, his mind would most certainly explode.

Except Bobskirt has no way to know how awesome Ponchislav has become at game designing because he'd need to play Ben Runner Episode 6 to see that, and to play Episode 6, he'd first need to play Episode 1, which he didn't like.

But then Ponchislav decided to release a non Ben Runner game for the One Background, One Week competition and the Quadra Weekly AGS competition, Bobskirt downloaded that game, saw how awesome Ponchislav has become at making games and then was more inclined to play Ben Runner Episode 1 to 6 now that he knew how awesome the series will get by Episode 6.

TL;DR Making an accessible, non episodic game to showcase how good you've become at game making is a good way to make people download and try your entire back catalog.

Disclaimer: Name parodies used for comedic purpose only, don't read to far into it

I'd also second Planescape Torment. I haven't played it but the way a friend described it to me, even battles are unnecessary and sometimes failing and dying in battle and then resurrecting can lead to much better story telling and even plot progression.

Yume Nikki is pretty good at this. You walk around, exploring and finding new things to explore, and items to interact with the world with. Not a battle in sight.

There is nothing Yume Nikki can do in its current form which couldn't be done infinitely better with an actual adventure game interface and breathtaking backgrounds and character conversations and puzzles to solve, except of course frustrating me with untapped and wasted potential and endless and senseless walking around.[/derail]

Many people's vision of advertising is to upload their newly finished game on some relatively unknown (in the great picture that is the entire internet) database and then call it a day. This is not how it works. There are gaming sites out there that covers indie or adventure games, there are forums out there where people who are fan of those hang out at. If you truly and sincerely believe your game deserves to be played by as many people as possible, then do your part and go find your player base, because people have better things to do than search the nooks and crannies of the internet in search for non-played gems and word of mouth these games to viralness. And if one's brilliant plan is to get out of day job and make commercial games as a living, one should know that the game making part is only the first half of the job description.

It takes money to make money. And when you own a business and want it to thrive, you don't count the hours you invest in it. I don't think they should have planned every details, but they should have made a plan.

I'm gonna stop talking about it because it boggles my mind, and I'd rather not taint my enjoyment of the game with stories like this.

I don't understand the backlash.

Because this is bad news for crowd funding in general. When the fourth most successful video gaming kickstarter in history, the most well known, the one that launched the trend, announces that it ran out of money after they got eight time more than they originally asked, it casts a looming shadow of doubt and failure over every other kickstarters, whether they're funded or to be announced. And it's especially worse in this context of kickstarter fatigue where people want to see some actual results after an entire year of backing projects.

And it's a point and click adventure game we're talking about here, it can't be this costly to produce an adventure game, if an adventure game fails with three million in funding, what about all of these non linear, open world roleplaying games that harken back to the glory days of Baldur's Gates, Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment and Jagged Alliance 2 that were funded with kickstarter, games with more epic scope, games that requires much more testing, coding, branching conversation trees and animations? A simple point and click adventure game failing with three millions is bad news for everyone who backed all of these roleplaying games. Double Fine are lucky the linear nature of adventure games allow them to save face by cutting the game in half because I know plenty of projects that won't have this luxury should they fail this bad.

At least this sends a big "Don't screw this up like they did" message to every other projects out there and we have Leisure Suit Larry and Shadowrun Returns later this month to cushion the impact of this bad news. But yes, this is bad.

No, it's just been a constant with kickstarters, people only go into crazy pledge mode during the first and the last few days.

Horror, like eroticism, is about showing just what you need and letting the brain imagines the rest.

What happened to the good old jobs. Hard jobs! Man jobs!
Am I the only porn theatre janitor around here?

When I said I played too much Space Quest for my own good as kid, it wasn't for the Space Guy part

Hahahaha!

Nice milestone thingy! At this rate I'll get my thousand posts in 2021, when everyone will reminisce of the time they hit their tenth thousand posts.