Udvarnoky

Great interview. I have to say the more we learn about Iron Phoenix’s development, the less clear it becomes. The narrative/timeline I had understood for the longest time was: 1) The project initiates under Joe Pinney, who establishes the basic concept. 2) Pinney leaves the studio and Aric Wilmunder steps in to continue where he left off, developing a much, much more detailed design document to prepare for the largely outsourced production that LucasArts management decided to sign up for. 3) The external studio fails to deliver, which is more or less what kills the project. Aric explores the FMV route as a Hail Mary pass to do the art/animation quicker and cheaper, but ultimately the project withers away. The involvement of Dave Grossman and Mike Levine in these FMV tests throws things into a bit of confusion, because it suggests the FMV idea started earlier in development. Dave makes it sound like he got assigned to the project right after Pinney left, possibly as the lead, and that FMV had in fact been a proposed direction for a while leading up to that. Does that place his involvement during a brief transitional period before Aric took over? The history of aborted Indy games in the early 90s remains one of our most enduring enigmas.

Today's Frantic is a scandal. I'm writing my congressman.

Watching the playthrough of Fate, I was reminded of how even-handed the game is as a tribute to all three games of the series at the time. Where did those MIDIs of CMI tracks come from? Were those always around?

A Shtick to the Past will remain there, though Ron's pivoting to another game that supposedly releases in only a few months.

I think there's some real sketchy puzzle design in Grim, but the broad assertion that all the good parts of the game are non-interactive is major hyperbole and part of a narrative (one that, as you point out, finds a lot of sympathy in the comments) that makes Jimmy's take more familiar than dissenting. That Grim would have benefited from superior puzzles is a far cry from "Why is it a game at all?" but the former is more the position I take on it.

Great work! I gave them the boutique treatment and filed them under their own galleries. That catchall EMI Press gallery is due for some cleanup. https://mixnmojo.com/media/galleries/Computer-Games-Magazine-Feature-September-2000 https://mixnmojo.com/media/galleries/Playstation-Magazine-Review-2001

That's what makes me so curious about what Iron Phoenix would have looked like had it actually gotten made. I suspect it would have been very close to The Dig, where the majority of the game would have inclined toward a relatively realistic style akin to Fate of Atlantis, but with the cutscenes being significantly cartoonier. The storyboards we have look a lot like the FMV stuff in The Dig to me:

Not as much as I'm looking forward to watching somebody with the requisite hardware play it! Probably we can all agree that video games are the way to go with Indy going forward. I'm still baffled that an animated series never turned up, though.

I don't think the failure of Dial had to do with the quality of the movie or the marketing (though I certainly question the expense of a Rolling Stones song as the calling card for the trailers and TV spots). As a movie property at least, Indy just doesn't have a lot of currency among people beneath a certain age, and Skull already Hoover'd up the "long-anticipated revival of a legacy franchise" money. Skull was impervious to word of mouth -- the last memory of the series was the beloved Last Crusade, so everybody wanted to see it for themselves to form their own opinion. In addition, the idea of Spielberg/Lucas/Ford joining forces again still kind of meant something as a marketing hook in 2008, even to younger audiences. Dial was in just the opposite position. In some respects, I suspect Dial was left to settle Skull's check. Besides which, Disney/Lucasfilm did practically nothing to keep the property active since Skull's release, whereas by contrast they've been outright overprinting Star Wars, with oodles of movies and TV shows. Left unexploited, Indy firmly became Dad Movie material, and there was no multi-generational Top Gun: Maverick situation in the wings because Skull already got to fire that bolt. Combine that with all the weird, manufactured internet narratives that began before the movie even started shooting, a box office era that has proven time and time again to be merciless to movies that skew older (and the demographic data showed that Dial did), and a COVID-inflated budget, and you have all kinds of fine reasons for this to have failed before you even consider the movie itself. I'm not suggesting creative moves weren't made that might have turned audiences off, but an audience has to see a movie before they can hate it. I for one am pleased that Disney made this financial mistake, because I think, arguments over quality aside, it finishes the series on a much more appropriate note than Skull did. Future marathons are going to be a lot more satisfying now. Disney's balance sheet is somebody else's problem.

I guess he's indicting the puzzle in Year Four where you have to set fire to the flammable packing foam to bring it to the intention of the demons as a fuel source. It calls upon information you learned in Year One.

Oh they're smashing idols today over at The Digital Antiquarian. The latest piece is on Grim Fandango, and it's a spicy one.

Always does. If anything from Staff of Kings merits reprisal, it's him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSjbjoPAsJM

I'd love to get AVS1 on Switch, but based on this response to a question about a Linux port it doesn't sound like the source for AVS1 makes targeting additional platforms easy. It's a little confusing, though, because I thought AVS1 got rebuilt in Unity as part of its re-release in the last year or so. Regardless, they'd have to do some revamping of the interface for gamepad support. In contrast it sounds like AVS2 is being built from the ground-up with a ReMI-esque interface and consoles in mind.

Interview over at Adventure Game Hotspot. https://adventuregamehotspot.com/interview/2811/a-vampyre-story-lives-bill-tiller-and-sarunas-ledas-share-a-bats-tale

Judging from the press release, it sounds like it will still be the originally-planned continuation but will be designed in such a way to make sure new players aren't lost. The fact that they're dropping the "2" from the title points to that being the general marketing plan. I see Bill has confirmed on his Facebook page that Rebecca Schweitzer is back as Mona. What's significant about this is back in the day Bill had indicated that he would recast the character due to some negative reaction. In fact, the replacement actress can be heard in the A Vampyre Story: Year One Kickstarter campaign video. Guess he's come back around.