Jake

Wait you’re not playing the same word over and over until you guess it really fast? Okay this is harder than I thought.

Love Michael Giacchino’s Star Trek score.

Tried it again and did better. Think I’m getting the hang of this! 👕 I beat #MojoleXtremiest #972 and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 1/6 💚💚💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

I’ve been away too long and this game is insane now and yet 👕 I beat #MojoleXtremiest #972 and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 5/6 🖤🖤💛🖤💛🖤🖤 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤💛💛 💛🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤 💛💛💛💚💛💛💛 💚💚💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

I saw some well received fan attempt at an animated series treatment for Indy and it put everything so firmly into a kids entertainment space I had trouble buying it as the same franchise. Not to say Indy is for grown ups, but more that part of the appeal is the fact that it takes pulpy all-ages a venture tropes and infuses them with a touch of more complex humanity and “realism,” and you’re just inevitably going to lose some of that when you stylize everything for animation I think Fate of Atlantis gets away with feeling so much like a real Indy story in part because everything is so low res and tiny. Theres never a close up on a stylized face, the voice acting is scratchy and low res. My brain can take the presented outline of a story and its pacing and globe trotting map and postcard views, and imagine the Spielberg movie running on top of it. There aren’t a bunch of stylistic signifiers on top of it signaling to me “actually, this is something other than what your imagination is telling you it should be.” Great Circle looks like it will have its own vibe - inevitable in a conversion to another medium and of course being first person - but it’s still trading in the language of live action cinema, even though it’s a 3D video game, which excites me for an Indy product.

That’s all true Jason, but I still didn’t have a very fun time watching it. looking forward to Great Circle though.

Everything seems in order here.

Iconic though.

Ah yeah, probably not. This remastering process has been very straightforward and drama free, and was done by a very small team (4-8 people at the max), all working remotely, so a doc would be pretty boring. We might do a stream at some point and show some things, but I don’t think there’s an audience for a GDC talk unfortunately.

What sort of juicy stuff are you looking for? I’m happy to dish out any dirt as a Mojo Forums exclusive.

That’s a great shirt.

I think you can have both good graphics and responsive and “clean” gameplay, just not by taking the path “cinematic” adventure games took. Changing the subject back to Broussard’s original post, I think Broken Age is an example of an adventure game made by one of the classic LucasArts designers that tried to be very forward looking in its content, and (in Part 1 at least) in its design ethos. That game doesn’t feel beholden to the past other than it being a graphic adventure game by Tim Schafer.

This sounds goofy but I think that the decision to try and make adventure games seem more cinematic (eg: characters turn beautifully, they reach out with a full animation to open the door, they raise their hand then reach into their pocket and rummage around before pulling up an inventory item) had the effect of making them actually feel significantly less cinematic to play. Monkey Island or Fate of Atlantis moved as quickly and responsively as any other game at that time. It’s true they didn’t have a bunch of detailed embellishments as you clicked around, but the story advanced as quickly as it possibly could at the micro-level in response to your actions.

Im of many minds on this, in that I think I agree with you and with George. The part that I fully agree with is that developers should stop saying “I’m making my own spin on Monkey Island,” which is a sentiment that somehow keeps coming up directly from developers mouths. 1) no you aren’t, and 2) if you’re trying that, you probably shouldn’t be. (are you asking yourself what the actual developers of monkey island thought they were doing that led to the creation of that game? what media they were engaging with? they definitely did not set out to make “a monkey island game” when none existed before.) I think making a genre work that fits in a well-worn groove is a fine and good thing to do. But the reason the LucasArts games hit as hard as they did when they were new was the surprise and variety of them - you never knew what you were going to get next, even with the ones that were sequels. (With the exception of Last Crusade to FoA, but I think they’re the exception that proves the rule.) So is “LucasArts” a genre on any front? I’m not sure. It’s a mostly common user interface, it’s a design philosophy (as written out explicitly in many of their manuals), but I don’t think those are the things devs mean when they say they’re making a LucasArts game. I think they usually mean “has 9 verbs and has jokes in,” and probably has a guy say “look behind you a four headed monkey” in it. I obviously have muddled thoughts on this but I mostly think, taking from a game or developer or genre you like is fine, but I’d hope you are trying to actually examine their work and figure out what in it was successful and unique and spoke to you, and try to figure out how to make your own version of that. Just quoting the references or lifting the art style or name dropping the games won’t get you much, beyond something to pander to lowest hanging fans with.