ATMcashpoint
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Posts posted by ATMcashpoint
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That looks like concept art drawn by Peter Chan to my eye. Nice to see him working with Tim Schafer again!
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Incredible find! Nice work!
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4 hours ago, KestrelPi said:
But if someone asks me what the first verb coin interface was I'm still gonna say Full Throttle every time (unless some other obscure game I don't know about got there first
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Arguably that was Return to Zork in 1993. It even had context-sensitive options that changed for each on-screen object, like Sierra would later do in Leisure Suit Larry 7 and Gabriel Knight 3 (or the text menu options in Delores).
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4 hours ago, OzzieMonkey said:
The best part is in the Disney Plus version: Greedo now says "Macklunkey" for no reason before they shoot
It's like Tuco Ramirez said in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, in the very scene that was the model for the original SW bar shootout in the first place: "When you gotta shoot, shoot, don't talk!"
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5 hours ago, Jenni said:
At least the 256 color DOS versions of the Monkey Island games are able to be extracted from the special editions. I don't really care one way or the other about the Star Wars Special Editions, but it is a shame that the original theatrical cut isn't available for those who do care .
Is not having any opinion about the Star Wars Special Editions an unpopular opinion? 😛
Not the original version of MI2, sadly, due to the SE dialogue changes being implemented in both game modes. And even the MI1 SE has a few dialogue tweaks, though nothing nearly as egregious.
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9 hours ago, OzzieMonkey said:
I feel like this post has leaned too negatively for an Appreciation thread, so I'll end on a more positive note; The idea of finding objects that you can't realistically pick up and take with you but will "keep in mind" being added to your inventory is a genius design choice, I love it.
This is actually something Bill Tiller has acknowledged borrowing from the unreleased Brian Moriarty/Bill Eaken version of The DIG, in which there was apparently an "idea inventory" for such objects (as well as more abstract concepts like the other crewmembers, for instance).
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3 hours ago, Thrik said:
Ah, I see. The blasted thing is a generic folk/rhyme tune, like the one used for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, etc. 🥲
Apparently the same tune is used for Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and
Mary Had a Little LambBaa, Baa, Black Sheep. I never realized that. Mind blown.-
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3 hours ago, Laserschwert said:
To be fair, Full Throttle used that interface first.
Personally, I think the Full Throttle interface was kind of clunky, in that it has a "Kick" verb that's only used for a couple of puzzles (kicking open the Kickstand door and the secret switch for the Corley Motors back entrane IIRC). And combining the "Eye" and "Mouth" icons into a single skull element felt like they were crammed into awkwardly small spaces.
In contrast, CMI has separate areas on the Verb Coin for the "Eye" and "Mouth" icons, which feels much easier to control when you're holding down the mouse button to select an action (rather than just simply clicking once to make a pop-up menu appear). It's not surprisng IMO why it was the CMI version of that interface that really became well-remembered.
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Funny, I'd been trying to figure out for weeks what song the Phatt Island roulette wheel was derived from, because somebody mentioned it long ago and I couldn't remember what it was. I finally figured it out about a week ago:
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I do have to say, it would be interesting if the reason we haven't seen any images of Guybrush so far is that I'm actually right in my crazy theory about the Secret of Monkey Island being that Guybrush is actually female. (Or "the Secret of Monkey Island is that Elaine is actually a guy", as one of the Flight of the Amazon Queen developers put it, just turned around 180 degrees.)
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2 hours ago, madmardi said:
I actually agree with you. I don't think I would have instigated a logo change, but I have no problems with the SE one, and I actually like it a lot for Tales.
However, for the sake of consistency, I wish they hadn't changed it... or only used it for the SEs.
I never thought about using the logo only for the SEs, but that's an interesting idea. On the other hand, it would emphasize their "Special Edition-ness" as something distinct from the original product rather than a "restoration", which the makers of such SEs (whether in film or video games) are often at pains to de-emphasize, even when they involve hugely drastic changes to the original works.
Both with MI and the Star Wars movies the "Special Editions" have entirely replaced the original versions in the marketplace, for instance, except for the odd releases like the Limited Run Games MI box set and the laserdisc-transfer DVD versions of the SW Episodes 4-6.
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Some answers for the prompt "Write an outline for a sequel to LOOM."
First try - not quite there yet:
Quote1. In the sequel, Loom, the main character discovers that she has the ability to time travel. 2. She uses her power to travel back in time to meet her ancestors and learn more about her family history. 3. She also meets other characters from her past, and learns about their lives and how they connect to her own. 4. In the end, Loom discovers that her power is not just limited to time travel, but that she can also use it to influence the present and change the future.
Second try - this one's much more in the right ballpark:
QuoteThe Weavers Guild has been disbanded and its members scattered. Bobbin, once a loom operator, is now a Weaverless and must find a new way to make a living. He takes a job as a carpet salesman, but finds the work unfulfilling. One day, he meets a woman who tells him about a group of Weaverless who are trying to start a new guild. Bobbin is intrigued and decides to join them. Together, they must overcome many challenges, including finding enough members and resources to get started, and dealing with the prejudice of the other guilds. If they succeed, they will have created a new home for themselves and a new way of life for the Weaverless.
A few attempts later, the AI has decided the Weavers need a rival Guild of some sort:
QuoteThe Weavers are in disarray after the events of the previous novel. Bobbin, the only one with any experience in leading the guild, tries to keep things together, but the other Weavers are reluctant to follow his lead. Meanwhile, the other guilds are trying to take advantage of the Weavers' weakness. Clothiers are selling fabric at exorbitant prices, and the Spinners are threatening to cut off the Weavers' supply of thread. The Weavers need to find a way to unify and strengthen their guild if they're going to survive. Bobbin comes up with a plan to improve the quality of their cloth, which will require the help of the other guilds. He also starts a clandestine operation to get the Spinners to provide them with better thread. With the Weavers' guild on the mend, they can start to take on the other guilds. They need to find allies among the other guilds, and expose the Clothiers' price-gouging. Bobbin also wants to find out what happened to his mother, who disappeared when he was a child. He suspects that she was taken by the mysterious organization that runs the city, and he's determined to find her.
Another random entry that seems to be drawing from very different source material:
QuoteIn the sequel to LOOM, the main character, a young woman named Lila, has to find a way to save her friends and family from a group of criminals who are after a powerful artifact that Lila's father has in his possession. Lila must use her intelligence and resourcefulness to outwit the criminals and keep the artifact safe. Along the way, she discovers new allies and learns more about her own abilities.
Or perhaps a Star Wars crossover:
QuoteThe Weaver's children, now grown, must continue their parents' fight against the Emperor's forces. They must find allies in other rebel groups and prepare for a final battle that will determine the fate of the world.
LOOM 2, by Electronic Arts
QuoteLoom 2: The Weaving The weavers are back and they're looking for revenge. After the events of the first game, they've been hiding in the shadows, biding their time. Now they're ready to take on the world again. The sequel will follow the weavers as they try to take over the world again. They'll face off against the same characters from the first game, as well as new ones. Expect more puzzles, more platforming, and more action.
This one's actually rather intriguing:
Quote1. The Weaver's Guild discovers that there are other weavers with the same ability to see the future in the patterns of the cloth they weave. 2. The weavers must band together to stop a war that is coming. 3. They must also find a way to deal with the fact that their abilities are slowly driving them insane. 4. Meanwhile, the Loom is destroyed and the weavers must find a new way to see the future. 5. In the end, the weavers must choose between their sanity and the greater good.
Speaking of crossovers... how about Halo?
QuoteThe Weavers Guild has been disbanded and its members are now outlaws. Bobbin, Cortana, and their friends must find a way to survive in a hostile world while evading capture by the Guild's enemies. They must also find a way to stop the Guild's machinations before more innocent people are hurt.
Some more input that is obviously based on different source material. I don't remember the "Sarans" from the first game.
QuoteLoom: The Weaving of a New World 1. The war with the Sarans is over, but the peace is tenuous at best. The Sarans have been defeated, but they are not gone. 2. The Weavers are now the ruling class, but they are not loved by all. There are those who resent their power and seek to overthrow them. 3. The Weavers must now find a way to govern the world they have won, and to protect themselves from those who would do them harm. 4. Meanwhile, the Sarans are regrouping and plotting their revenge. They will stop at nothing to destroy the Weavers and take back what is rightfully theirs. 5. The stage is set for a new conflict, one that could destroy both the Weavers and the Sarans. Who will prevail in this struggle for power?
And here's a storyline that pits "Loomweavers" against the "Weaver". I think video-game writers can keep their day jobs for now.
Quote1. The surviving members of the Loomweavers Guild must find a new home after their island is destroyed. 2. They must also find a way to stop the new evil that has been unleashed in the world. 3. The new evil is known as the Weaver, and he is determined to enslave all of humanity. 4. The Loomweavers must find a way to stop the Weaver and save the world.
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1 hour ago, KestrelPi said:
Today I asked an AI to "Write a detailed synopsis of a new game called Return to Monkey Island set directly after the end of Monkey Island 2, including details of how the key shop and courthouse are involved:"
The game begins with Guybrush Threepwood being shipwrecked on the shores of Monkey Island. He is soon met by a band of pirates led by Captain LeChuck who mistakes him for one of his long-lost crew members. After being taken captive, Guybrush manages to escape and finds himself in the middle of a battle between the pirates and the native monkeys. He eventually makes his way to the pirate headquarters where he meets up with LeChuck's first mate, Carla.
Carla tells him that LeChuck has been seeking a powerful artifact known as the Idol of Ultimate Piratey which will grant him absolute power. She also reveals that the only way to stop LeChuck is to find four pieces of a map which lead to the location of the idol. With Carla's help, Guybrush sets out to find the first piece of the map which is being held by Governor Marley in the governor's mansion.
After infiltrating the mansion and acquiring the first piece of the map, Guybrush attempts to leave but is caught by Marley who demands that he turn over all pirate treasure in exchange for his freedom. Guybrush manages to talk his way out of it and escapes but not before overhearing Marley mention something about meeting up with someone at The Cutthroat Arms tavern.
At The Cutthroat Arms, Guybrush eavesdrops on a conversation between Marley and Le Chuck wherein they discuss their plans to double cross each other once they have possession of the Idol. They also mention that there are two more pieces of the map, one held by Mr. Fossey at Fossey's Fabulous Key Shop and another held by Judge Grindstone at courthouse square.
With this new information, Guybrush sets out to acquire these last two pieces ofthe map so he can finally put an end to LeChuck's reign of terror...I like that the AI just completely forgot about one of the map pieces.
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4 hours ago, AndywinXp said:
Let's bring a more positive note to this thread
So, about the original COMI GUI not being in ScummVM...
Incredible! This is a feature I've wanted to see in ScummVM for years! Thank you so much for working on adding this!
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Besides On Stranger Tides, I feel on fairly safe ground in surmising that George MacDonald Fraser's satirical pirate novel The Pyrates was something Ron Gilbert read while brainstorming MI1 - mainly because the book's hero is a dashing Royal Navy man named Ben Avery, meant to be a younger version of the infamous historical pirate Henry Every, who seized the Mughal Emperor's treasure ship Ganj-i-Sawai (along with its escort ship the Fateh Muhammad), packed with many of the Emperor's close relatives who suffered great violence, while the ships were sailing back to India from a pilgrimage to Mecca. What happened to the real Henry Every after the raid is uncertain; as far as can be surmised, he seems to be one of the rare pirates who "got away with it".
The early design documents for MI1 describe the protagonist (then called "Smear West") as a pirate who seized a treasure fleet and then became a has-been from retelling the story a bunch of times, much like Guybrush in MI2 with killing LeChuck. That detail as presented in the design documents seems to be specifically modeled on Henry Every's career (few pirates ever seized prizes as rich as Every's), and the idea of seeing such an otherwise famous protagonist at different times in his life feels like something Gilbert might have picked up from Fraser's novel (though in this case taking inspiration from the unknown "after" of Every's career rather than the "before").
The early name of Largo LaGrande, "Lord Jack", also suggests a possible connection with Joseph Conrad's novel Lord Jim, about a disgraced sailor who ultimately finds redemption through death. Whatever bearing such a story might have on a planned storyline for Largo I couldn't say.
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If you're interested in trying to re-create the screenshots from the back of the Sam & Max Hit the Road box, the early version of the Wak-A-Rat score box is used in an early WIP pre-release demo (the one with Sam & Max as the LucasArts logo):
The left-hand number is the score and the right-hand number is the time elapsed so far.
There's also an alternate version of the Wak-A-Rat game background without the score box in both the early demo and the published game:
It's the same design in both versions AFAIK. In the published game the regular Wak-A-Rat room is Room 18 and the unused version is Room 19, while in the early demo they're Rooms 14 and 15 respectively.
As for the Mystery Vortex screenshot, you might want to have a look at the various random colors of the two other doors in the Mystery Vortex and try borrowing their palettes for re-coloring the doors visible in the screenshot accordingly. And also looking through the costume files to see if the animation of Sam's hat flying off is used anywhere (IIRC it is but I can't remember where). A good tool for that might be Tomas' SCUMM Costume Viewer.
And for Conroy Bumpus' "Aooooooooooo..." (with 11 Os) you might try using a tool like ScummTR to alter the dialogue text in that scene and manually alter the text color based on the dark blue text color that's probably used elsewhere in the game.
Note that the ellipsis (three dots) in dialog lines is treated as a special symbol in the SCUMM game fonts, so you'd want to see how ScummTR treats that when it dumps the game dialogue into a text file and match that accordingly. (And if you do use ScummTR, make sure to back up your game files first!)
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Some of the screenshots on the original Sam & Max box are different than in the published game.
In particular, the Wak-A-Rat score box is missing the "Hit 20 Win" text at the top; the screenshot of Conroy Bumpus singing in Bumpusville has him (and/or the stuffed animal heads) singing "Aooooooooooo..." in a blue font; and the Mystery Vortex hallway shows Sam's hat leaping off his head in amazement, while the doors at the front of the room are green and white in color (though in the published game those particular two doors seem to be hard-coded to be red and orange for some reason).
I definitely admire the work in making that facsimile box, though!
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In that case I wonder if the scene of Guybrush nailing Stan in the coffin in MI2 would be affected as well. The latter was a case where IIRC the programmers (mainly Tim Schafer, if memory serves) turned off the frame-rate limitations ("min-jiffies") to make the animation play as fast as possible. Something similar might be going on with the LOOM intro.
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7 hours ago, Trapezzoid said:
You're probably right. When you instinctively find a melody that "sounds right" it's not always clear if it's The Muse or a faded memory of something you heard years ago. LeChuck's theme more likely used Grim Grinning Ghosts as a conscious inspiration, but maybe another eerie 60s children's song got mixed into that process.
The Orient Express melody is a little less simple. Hit the Road is packed with great music, I'd love to listen to inspirational material they used.
This is exactly what I suspect happened with the origins of LeChuck's theme.
As for the Doug the Moleman music, it might be a musical joke of sorts, since it seems (like in the Agatha Christie novel) like everyone in the carnival except the Kushman Bros. either helped Bruno & Trixie to elope or was keeping their secrets safe.
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48 minutes ago, Zaxx said:
Oh come on no RtMI trailer? Well at least Card Shark continues to look awesome.
Indeed. I'd never seen it before, but that game looked amazing. I thought when I saw the trailer that it would be the perfect art style for a new version of Sid Meier's Pirates!
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This is incredible. Thank you so much!
Also, as a longtime LucasArts adventure game fan who grew up playing the Macintosh ports of their games, let me extend my heartfelt thanks to you for coding most of those ports. The DOTT port including the previously-unported Maniac Mansion in particular was crazy brilliance.
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29 minutes ago, elTee said:
Not sure what's happened here, but people have already been warned about certain topics of conversation that are not up for debate. That does not mean people aren't allowed to make a thread about differences between MI2 versions if they want to.
I asked Zaarin where we could talk about such things. (Admittedly, perhaps more harshly in the heat of the moment than I would have done with a cooler head, for which I apologize.) Nonetheless, he deleted my post.
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2 hours ago, Thrik said:
I am pretty sure it’s the presence of a gigantic robotic monkey that’s the secret. If you look closely at the skeleton, it’s strangely metallic. Could it be operated, I wonder.
Of note is that three rooms (rooms 66-68) are missing from the MI1 resource files between the entrance to the lava maze underground with the mysterious giant monkey skeleton (room 65) and the Giant Monkey Head exterior closeup (room 69). Controls for the Giant Monkey Robot perhaps?
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I'm afraid not. They said they would back in the day, but they never did. Which is why the currently available digital versions use Adam Harrington's voice even now.
Si trouve, envoyez-le au Louvre, poste paye
in General Discussion
Posted
If you're still in Florence, you can actually see Michelangelo's Dawn for yourself, since it's in the Medici Chapel there. For my money it's not Michelangelo's finest work by a long shot - his knowledge of female anatomy was evidently much less detailed (and probably less personal) than his familiarity with the intricacies of the male body.