Messages

Would you mind to define "blow beyond all belief"? I asked its meaning to 3 different persons and they each told me a different answer.

Excellent game as always, Dave!

Two thumbs up for Ivy and Thomas for creating this marvellous atmosphere which, when I wasn't taking long pause to enjoy the backgrounds' and musics' details, kept me under the security blankets, feeling uneasy at what could happen next. I also liked the easter eggs with the phone book and how The Shivah and the Blackwell series are slowly turning into one big universe.

I found a few glitches:

Spoiler

When Joey appears on the main menu screen, the bottom of the letters "UND" in the title disappear just above Joey's head.

When you listen at the dictation machine, there's no "click" sound played before the entry begining with "I'm in a huge house".

Mavis can be heard talking in the construction site, even when the speech is turned off.

In the bar, there are sprites resizing and walk behind glitches with Joey when you click on the music sheets while Joey's is in the back of the room.

During the ending sequence, once you lured the spooky old lady on the balcony with Joey, Lauren's sprite completly disappears for a moment before she stands up after being choked.

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Oh, and if it could be done, I would greatly appreciate if you could add subtitles for the audio commentary, Dave.

If I can comment on your poll, Quest For Glory and Hero's Quest are the same game and there's a few titles I'd vote for that aren't included.

I'd prefer a forum thread with some rules or restriction to avoid people from voting for all LucasArts games, half of the Sierra library, and every other games they liked in their lifetime because they can't decide which one they liked best. Two or three games (not series) top should be enough.

Then again, unless if we makes one strictly for LucasArts, one for Sierra, one for lesser known companies, and one for AGS games, I don't think a second free-for-all poll is necessary, as the AGS games library shows, the AGS forums mostly gather fans of clean, third person and point and click adventure games, a second poll would give the same results: 70% of LucasArts titles occupying the top positions with Monkey Island 1-2 on top and the others good games fighting for the last 30%.

I agree, CMI probably scored so high partly because of the hype behind Monkey Island and partly because it was actually a good game, it's not the still awaited Ron Gilbert's MI3, but I think the persons behind it did more to keep the quality, humor, feel and atmosphere than any fangame makers will even dream of. EMI's 8 votes on the other hand were only because it had "Monkey Island" in the title.

LSL1 is out of place, as I can see nearly every games with 8 votes taking its place, even LSL6 & 7 could have. I suppose it was just lucky to get one more vote than the rest.

Blueskirt, I'm sorry to say, but I don't think AITD even got a single "vote". Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and the non-existing LSL4 (two "votes" each) got more than that!

It's rather strange, if you go on any abandonware websites, there's a kind of general agreement that AITD is simply one of the best abandonware title out there. It got a complex story, inventory, puzzles, exploration... I suppose people are just quick to shun or rate as "action game" any adventure game with a bit of action in them. But with the popularity of spooky AGS adventure games in the last year, I think it's about time someone start taking bit from AITD to put them in their games.

Coktel Vision did some pretty good games too, Lost In Time, Ween, the Gobliiins series, but it's true that Revolution is hard to beat with BASS and the Broken Sword series.

I expected to see Loom or The Dig not because I felt they absolutly had a place in that list, but because I thought people would have massively voted for every LucasArts games except the three first games and EMI. I can understand people for not loving MM, Zak or The Last Crusade for the reasons Anym listed, but Loom and The Dig had the same chances to figures on the top 15 as the other LucasArts games.

Regarding Monkey Island, I personally prefer MI2 to MI1 because it was longer and more detailed. Every rooms are filled with countless of things to examine and laugh at, there's twice as many injokes and parodies crammed in MI2, there is a music for every scene and the cheer amount of puzzles, character and place to explore makes it one of the longest adventure games out there. Yes, the ending was rather enigmatic, but until the ending, the entire game was one long joyride. MI1 is quality, but MI2 is both quality and quantity, hence why it beat MI1 in my book.

I can't say for KQ6 and MM, but if The Last Crusade did one thing good, it was with non linearity and nailing how an evil fortress should be made. While I recognize the fighting was very difficult once you screwed up, and there had no hints to help you to bluff the guards, I thought it was well designed, just not well executed. While FOA beats TLC in every other aspects, for the non-linearity that characterise Indy's adventure games, FOA failed by dumbing down the non-linearity to 3 long strings where the method you picked do deal with problems would be the method you would use for the rest of the game. Compared to FOA's 3 strings system, TLC was a ball of spaghetti. TLC's non-linearity alone is nothing worth making it to the top list, but still something you don't see often.

One game that I would have liked to see in the top list is Alone In The Dark 1, but with Sierra and LucasArts in the list, there's simply not enough place for smaller developers.

It's also interesting that Quest For Glory 1 made the top list, while QFG fans generally agree that QFG 2 & 4 are the best of the series.

I think after all these years, reviewers and players put emphasis at describing/shopping for the gameplay, plot and graphics because these 3 elements could be fully described since the very begining in gaming magazines, you can write about the gameplay and story, and you can put screenshots of the games to show how it looks like, but unless if we're talking about a soundtrack made from radio songs, you can't really have a good idea on the musical aspect unless if you hear it.

But we've gone a long way since it was gaming magazines that informed us and bandwidth considerably increased since the old days of dialup, while I doubt they will, they could put music samples next to the screenshots and gameplay videos on reviewing websites, but I fear it will take a very long time until gamers see music like they see ingame screenshots.

Personally, while I find music as important as the plot, graphic and atmosphere, there's one advantage to music that the game's other aesthetics cannot have, when you love a game's music, you can search for the soundtrack and listen at it long after you're done playing the game.

Maybe Nelly has cooties.

The lack of Sierra titles (or the omnipresence of LucasArts games) isn't a surprise, Sierra was more about quantity rather than quality. Their game had gratuitous death sequence, dead ends, games were often shipped with countless bugs and unpolished, but they made sixty or so titles while the LucasArts adventure department concentrated their efforts on 13 polished titles. LucasArts also attracted far more people because all their titles were translated and had an easy to use interface, while Sierra games used text parser which repelled lot of people who weren't native with the english language.

Sierra's games were good but unless if we're talking about some QFG games or GK, an individual Sierra game cannot compete against an individual LucasArts' game. Would vote be counted by series, Sierra would score much better.

I'd like to see the results of a "No LucasArts, no Sierra, no AGS titles" poll, or one strictly for AGS games, as the current results aren't really surprising. The absence of Loom is rather surprising however.

Very nice atmosphere, MrColossal.

Spoiler

I'm a bit deceived I got all frightened for no reason after all.

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I agree with ProgZ too in that it's important to give new experiences to the players, but I thought that a platformer that manage to strike emotionnal strings with the players is something you don't see often. It's not a complex gameplay experience like it was in Within A Deep Forest, but it was still new or rare.

I will agree with ProgZ, but the thing is that I don't think that it's always necessary to be THAT creative, that unique, etc.

I think that when a genres reach a point where every new games looks like the previous one, like shoot 'em up for example, it's important to try to shine out of the lot. I'm not a shmup fan, so people who play a lot of them will probably correct me, but when I see screenshots and read reviews for shmups on the 2 or 3 indies games websites I visit, it seems like the sole improvements the new shoot 'em ups bring to the genre are trying to get even more abstract graphics and add one more bullet to number of bullet fired in the game, to a point where every games are unmemorable and offer the same experience: Dodging one hundred thousand millions bullets fired at the same time and killing generic baddies. I'm slowly getting the same problem with adventure games.

Game makers should always try to create a new or rare gameplay experience, not aim to be another unmemorable drop in the ocean.

If it was just me, I'd most likely stay there and keep a low profile, but if it was my family's safety that was at stake everyday, I would certainly find an appartment in a quiet suburb to move as soon as possible. Moving is a pain but if what you listed happened around your building, there are far worst things that could happen to you than moving. Add to this all the time and energy you'll waste constantly worrying everytime you or someone in your family have to leave your home.

But I've spend my entire life living in areas with very low criminality, so what do I know.

It is an excellent level, Ghormak, you should submit it on the KS forum.

So far I've finished the Tutorial and The Machine levels and I'm loving it. This guy has the strange ability to create games that generate emotions, I went from joy to sadness, fear, calm, wonder, anger, surprise and accomplishment while playing The Machine level.

Regarding Knytt, for what reason you didn't like it compared to WADF? Was it because there were no powerup to find or because it offered little challenge? Because if the problem was the lack of challenge, I suggest you to give the eXtra Hard version a try. At first glance it might looks like it's the same old Knytt with a few more things that can kill you or some critters turned into enemies, but later on you'll quickly discover the most nefarious things this version add are dead-ends and one way roads in several crucial places to really force you to use your brain to find how to reach the ship parts or the next area.

If you don't use the codes to run faster and jump higher, you'll often find yourself walking into a one way road, forcing you to walk all the way to the area you were before. There's also a few ship parts that can only be reached by some secret passages, several times the game will play some tricks with your mind and you'll find yourself completly lost, turning in circle and trapped in an areas with no visible exit. It's simply labyrinth exploration pushed to the extreme.

It took me 4 hours non-stop to collect all of the ship parts without using the powerups codes, and for at least 3 of the hardest parts I've simply been lucky to quickly spot how to reach them. If you liked Knytt but found it wasn't challenging enough, you should definitivly try the eXtra Hard version.

For everyone who loved Nifflas' previous games and for everyone who can't run Bioshock on their computer:

http://nifflas.ni2.se/index.php?main=02Knytt_Stories

I was planning to draw something for Dave Gilbert's fanart contest, but this completly change my plans.

Another reason why companies and governments are reticent to implement windmills is because of the wind's capriciousness and the incertitude regarding the rentability.

That and the protests of angry citizens accusing them of "destroying the landscape with their ugly fans" everytime they actually get to implement some. :

With the number of amateur games that feature music from Final Fantasy or LucasArts games, or all these flash movies on Newgrounds that feature actual songs, I don't think one more would make a big difference. Even Dance 'Til You Drop and The Infinity String didn't feature original soundtracks and I think there couldn't have more fitting soundtracks for these games than the current ones.

If you sincerely feel that no other music could fit any better than this one, as long your game is free and as long you give credits where credits are due, I say go ahead.

Thank m0ds, this John Titor thing just made my day, I haven't laughed this much in a while now. I can't believe there's no cheesy action/adventure game about this story. With C64 graphics!

Huh? Wasn't that post much more longer initially? Or did I daydream?
You had a valid opinion, so why did you change it???

You did not daydream. There are moments where I re-read post I made a few hours earlier and think it sound better in my head than in words, or I tell myself "This is crap" or "Thank you Captain Obvious! ". But I did save the post somewhere, and if you think it had its place, I can always repost it...

Regarding the quality of the KQ series:

KQ1 finally brought adventure games out of IF mess and first person text adventure. I doubt we'd be here without it.

KQ2 however doesn't improvement over the first KQ. Same gratuitous falling to your death sequences that were so awful in the first game, same illogical puzzles, no map, looping backgrounds to get yourself lost worst than any games featuring labyrinths, the game is shorter, KQ1's non-linearity isn't present in KQ2, and unless if I'm mistaken, it's generally considered as the weakest game of the series story speaking. When one take into account that sequels should do better than their predecessors, KQ2 fails at that.

With KQ3, Manannan's house was the only good thing in the entire KQ3. And even then, it had its flaws, yet again falling to your death sequences but on steroids this time, Manannan's popping out of nowhere at specific (and unknown to the player) time to kill the player, silly formula... As for the rest of the game, begining at the pirate ship the game sinks lower than the rest of the series, which kinda nullify the first's part goodness. At least this time, there had a map.

As for KQ5, as Radiant pointed, it's considered as one of the game with the highest number of walking deads ever made, to a point where it merely consist of walking deads.

My point is: if we would only count the King's Quest games which are good then there would only be a few leftover.

But back on the topic of accepting or denying games, all of this being said about KQ, I don't think the KQ series only consist of 3 games because only 3 of them were actually good, because the 6 first KQ games, careless of how good or bad you may find them, consist as the basis of what KQ is actually. There's no precise formula to determine which games should be accepted or denied, it's simply an individual case by case process. But usually, if the game has one of the condition listed below:

The game isn't made by someone close to the original creating process or the original creator
The game retcon some events
The game doesn't has the same feel and atmosphere
The game try to change the formula too much (New genre, aim for a completly different public)
The game's quality is ways too much subpar to the series' overall quality

Then there are big chances that it will be denied by some. And with at least the 6 first King's Quest, it's more or less the same team behind it, there's no retcon, the same atmosphere is preserved and even improved, the formula remains the same, and the game's quality is somehow consistant: you either love all games, or hate the series except KQ6. MOE however changed the formula and atmosphere, thus the door is open regarding accepting or denying its place in the series. It's the same for QFG5, CMI and EMI, the past and recent Indiana Jones action games, Star Trek Enterprise or the second Zelda game.

Regarding QFG3, while it's was mostly an initiation for the paladin and it was rather empty for the other classes, particuliary for the thief, I do think all of the classes can learn a lesson about honor and peace, and the game, while subpar to the series, was still above the average of most adventure games.

Btw, the first one isnt on an island, and only the latter part of 2 is on an island.

Also, KQ2 is in no way a copy of KQ1 except that they have the same main character and incorporate fairy tales, and neither is set on an island.

From a technical point of view, KQ2 is set on an island, two islands if you include the second island. The main land is indeed an island because the backgrounds loop and just in one direction. Just imagine a circle, on the outer rim of this circle are located all beach screens, and in the middle of the circle is the mountain. That's how it should look realistically speaking, unless if it's some sort of ring world. Since KQ1 loop in all direction, that pretty much means KQ1's Daventry is a very tiny planet, or something like that.

I've just pre-ordered here too.

now I have 2 copies of the Legacy Soundtrack

It was the reason why I did not pre-order the CD, I prefer to wait until the Unbound CD include the Unbound soundtrack, not the Legacy soundtrack. But I'm begining to think that I simply misunderstood and the Unbound soundtrack is included with the Unbound CD.