Adventure Gaming Catch-All

Wait, what? Ok, interest gone. That cast was amazing.

billybob476 wrote:

One downside is they will be re-recording the VO with different actors.

You can thank Vivendi for that or CUC/Cendant. Following Ken William's departure the new executives literally trashed all their art assets along with their scanning setup that was used to digitize all the paintings that were done for the games in the early 90's. Which is why they had to try extracting the compressed audio from the game files instead of re-encoding the original files.

The source code for their games is thought to be lost too. Replay Games had to reverse engineer everything from Leisure Suit Larry for the Reloaded version this year, and a couple of fan sites have pointed out that the SQ, PQ, KQ, and LSL collections that were put out in 2006 were based on pirated copies of the games (hence why KQ6 or KQ7 crashes at the end due to a missing ending movie file).

I imagine that making HD versions of the games for modern systems would've been a lot easier to do if it was just a matter of re-encoding the audio and re-scanning the backgrounds as a starting point. Really one of the sadder moments in the industry's history.

I never finished Sins of the Fathers so I will be delighted when this comes out. Yippiee!

Hmm...I'd rather a new game than a remake, but I guess this'll do in the interim
I wonder if they'll keep all the same voice work or if that'll all have to be re-cast & recorded?

billybob476 wrote:

Same here. Very excited about this. One downside is they will be re-recording the VO with different actors.

*That's what I get for not refreshing the thread before posting.

Sad but it makes sense - the audio quality in that game is not great at all (and to be honest, Tim Curry's N'orleans accent was pretty bad). Sad to lose the narrator lady though

stevenmack wrote:

Sad but it makes sense - the audio quality in that game is not great at all (and to be honest, Tim Curry's N'orleans accent was pretty bad). Sad to lose the narrator lady though :(

Yeah, I was actually thinking the same thing about Tim Curry's accent. Too bad we'll lose Mark Hammil's detective though.

tanstaafl wrote:
stevenmack wrote:

Sad but it makes sense - the audio quality in that game is not great at all (and to be honest, Tim Curry's N'orleans accent was pretty bad). Sad to lose the narrator lady though :(

Yeah, I was actually thinking the same thing about Tim Curry's accent. Too bad we'll lose Mark Hammil's detective though.

Not to Mention Micheal Dorn's Doctor John (though I feel like they could probably afford him).

billybob476 wrote:
tanstaafl wrote:
stevenmack wrote:

Sad but it makes sense - the audio quality in that game is not great at all (and to be honest, Tim Curry's N'orleans accent was pretty bad). Sad to lose the narrator lady though :(

Yeah, I was actually thinking the same thing about Tim Curry's accent. Too bad we'll lose Mark Hammil's detective though.

Not to Mention Micheal Dorn's Doctor John.

And Leah Remini's Grace.. (I even liked Tim Curry as GK)

Right! Totally forgot about Leah Remini!

Tanglebones wrote:

(I even liked Tim Curry as GK)

Me too.

They could always get Dean whatever from the sequels My only issue with him is I always thought he looked like a porn star.

IMAGE(http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/9999/j1l.gif)

Yo shoptroll, I'm doing my part to make you famous: http://www.reddoorbluekey.com/pc-new...

Lobo wrote:

Yo shoptroll, I'm doing my part to make you famous: http://www.reddoorbluekey.com/pc-new...

Ummm thanks? I wish I had sources to back that up. Maybe get in touch with the people from Art of Sierra? It was either there (before they redid their website) or in one of the interviews on Adventure Classic Gaming that mentioned the destruction of the art assets. I'll try and poke around when I get home.

EDIT: And they're redoing the voices with new actors, so it's not like the new game will be voice-less. Oh, and adding your site to Feedly. I saw it was linked from DQ a couple days ago. Congrats!

Thanks! Here's hoping the new voice cast measures up. I'm actually not too terribly attached to the old voices, but I do hate that those old assets were treated so carelessly.

This sort of thing seems to happen often when studios close down. Overhaul Games can't rescan the old hand-painted Baldur's Gate assets for much the same reason.

Lobo wrote:

This sort of thing seems to happen often when studios close down.

The thing that's weird is that Sierra was never fully shutdown. But a lot of material was destroyed according to the following sources:

Al Lowe interview earlier this year
An interview with Scott Murphy (Space Quest) has scans of some original concept art he salvaged from a box in "one of the last Oakhurst buildings". The Oakhurst offices were shuttered in 1999 when he, Al and others were finally laid off.
A 2012 message board post by one of the Art of Sierra staff mentions that everything was lost during the shutdown, and they're still seeking out donations for the project from Sierra Alums, collectors, and fans.
Some more details on the 2006 King's Quest collection here, including a little more information on what was lost in the shutdown. I'll admit I was wrong, the 2006 collections issued by Vivendi werent't cobbled from abandonware sites but they were done in a very sloppy manor so they might as well have been.

I know this isn't the gaming confessions and blasphemies thread, but I never played a Gabriel Knight game. I was a bit young when they came out, and my dad didn't buy it for us. So I won't miss the old voices. But I'm excited about this new Gabriel Knight! And to be honest, seeing the names of the original cast... I'd totally throw money at a Kickstarter to bring them back!!

Really a shame about the Sierra materials being lost in the shutdown....

I may have missed it, but I'm assuming they've found funding for this? Otherwise I figured they'd have launched their kickstarter already. Pinkerton is publishing, not Activision, right?

Well... I'm guessing "yes". They had a Kickstarter but the stated goal was to two new graphic-adventure games titled Moebius and Mystery Game X (which is what I can gather from their Wikipedia page, because I'm at work, and stupid computer is stupid and blocking Kickstarter). Now is Mystery Game X actually Gabriel Knight 20th anniversary edition? I have no idea at this juncture, and would need to do more digging on a browser that doesn't block half of the links I click. Maybe, maybe not, I couldn't say.
What I will say, and what I do mean, is that judging from what I heard in the UMB podcast on the Gabriel Knight games, I would totally throw money at an entire separate Kickstarter devoted specifically to getting Tim Curry, Mark Hamill, Leah Remini, Efrem Zimbalist Jr and Michael Dorn on board to redo their lines.
[size=8]What's *really* going to happen, in all likelihood, is me getting the games on GOG one of these days and just playing the originals. ;)[/size]

My understanding is Mystery Game X is Gabriel Knight 20th Anniversary. Funding was via the earlier Kickstarter and "slacker backer" Paypal signups at the Pinkerton Road website.

I don't usually plug, but since Eliema mentioned it, I might as well drop a link. If anyone hasn't played any Gabriel Knight and would like to know a bit more, I covered it on my show about a year ago: http://umbcast.com/episode-14-gabrie...

Please disregard the year old news section about the demo for X-COM dropping

I also hope that the new remake of Gabriel Knight will somehow lead to another new game. GK1 lends itself perfectly to a remake, but I don't see how 2 or 3 will.

I'd rather them do original sequels if the remake is successful.

billybob476 wrote:

I don't usually plug, but since Eliema mentioned it, I might as well drop a link.

"I" before "e" except after "c". And well, I guess this is an exception. ^_^
And you should totally plug, your awesome podcast covers many of the greatest adventure games ever.

PaladinTom wrote:

I also hope that the new remake of Gabriel Knight will somehow lead to another new game. GK1 lends itself perfectly to a remake, but I don't see how 2 or 3 will.

I'd rather them do original sequels if the remake is successful.

I think for them to redo GK2/3 would basically be fully remaking those games into more traditional P&C style games.

I can't see this not being successful. By all accounts, it's a much bigger and better game than LSL1 (which is the only other recent Sierra remake) so they should have an easier time justifying a $15-20 price tag. Plus they're targeting iOS/Android and I'd like to think the genre is doing well on those devices. Otherwise, why would Wadjet Eye continue porting their games?

PaladinTom wrote:

I also hope that the new remake of Gabriel Knight will somehow lead to another new game. GK1 lends itself perfectly to a remake, but I don't see how 2 or 3 will.

I'd rather them do original sequels if the remake is successful.

I think once you've re-established the characters & story from the first game you could easily jump into a new storyline that could be set before/after any of the other games

stevenmack wrote:

I think once you've re-established the characters & story from the first game you could easily jump into a new storyline that could be set before/after any of the other games

According to this new interview, that certainly sounds like the plan assuming the game sells well.

Also, it's weird that Activision reached out to her about doing something with the GK license, but apparently Murphy & Crowe couldn't get the license for a proper Space Quest game for their Kickstarter the following month. Same with the Coles for Quest for Glory. Was GK that popular?

shoptroll wrote:
stevenmack wrote:

I think once you've re-established the characters & story from the first game you could easily jump into a new storyline that could be set before/after any of the other games

According to this new interview, that certainly sounds like the plan assuming the game sells well.

Also, it's weird that Activision reached out to her about doing something with the GK license, but apparently Murphy & Crowe couldn't get the license for a proper Space Quest game for their Kickstarter the following month. Same with the Coles for Quest for Glory. Was GK that popular?

I thought they only reached out to her recently, that's why they didn't announce the GK stuff during her kickstarter. It would have been a huge selling point during the campaign.

According to the interview I linked they contacted her during the Kickstarter which is what sparked the Mystery Game X thing about two weeks before the drive ended.

Finally finished Memoria. VERY impressed by it, especially because it's an aventure game with a satisfying ending for once! Well worth playing, even if you skip the first game.

Cross-posting from the indie game thread:

shoptroll wrote:

Yoinking this from RPS: Project Rakuen by Laura Shigihara & Emmy Toyonaga. It appears to be a 16-bit JRPG styled adventure game. Drawing influences from Maniac Mansion, To The Moon, and Legend of Zelda: LttP (in terms of level design, not combat).

Hark! A new kickstarter appears! And it is from Cyan, makers of Myst and Riven... you gotta back that, right?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...

Neat. I read somewhere that one of the Millers had returned to Cyan and there was speculation of a new game. That's some pretty concept art too. Will give it a better look tonight.