tomimt

This is something little I've been tinkering on. I'm aiming at re-creating the whole mansion as well as the the island surrounding in 3D. The 3rd floor and the roof  is still missing from the mansion itself, but there's already some place holder stuff outside.

This is actually something I've been wanting to do for a good while now. Colonel's Bequest is propably my favourite Roberta Williams game and among my favourite Sierra games in general.
 
Let's hope DropBox let's you stream it. Use WASD and mouse to move. Space jumps.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25945454/cb_mansion/CB_mansion.html
 
Here's a standalone version for Windows. I recommend using a windowed mode, as otherwise you'll need to alt tab out from the app. The web version is upadted to this as well. Now you can walk all the way upstairs with out need to jump on the stairs. You can also go to the attick and Fifi's room. Downstairs you can see the places for secrets doors.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25945454/cb_mansion/bequest.zip

Black and white is always a good choise for fashion, so why not for art.

If something really does disappoint me about SV is the underuse of SWrewards site. It has at time had some pretty promising updates, but everytime it has looked like the use of the site woudl have turned meatier, it has kind of dwindeled out. I'd really love to see more concept art in there, more stuff about how designing an adventure game and the tools have changed over the years.

Yeah, the artwork for SpaceVenture does look pretty damn nice. I love how it reminds me of the art from first 4 SQ games, but in much higher resolution and quality. The character art is top notch as well and presonally I do think SV looks much nicer than some other KS funded adventures with similar budgets. Hell, I'd say it won't crumble down in shame in comparision to bigger budget titles with much bigger art crews.

Yeah, the artwork for SpaceVenture does look pretty damn nice. I love how it reminds me of the art from first 4 SQ games, but in much higher resolution and quality. The character art is top notch as well and presonally I do think SV looks much nicer than some other KS funded adventures with similar budgets. Hell, I'd say it won't crumble down in shame in comparision to bigger budget titles with much bigger art crews.

Yeah, the artwork for SpaceVenture does look pretty damn nice. I love how it reminds me of the art from first 4 SQ games, but in much higher resolution and quality. The character art is top notch as well and presonally I do think SV looks much nicer than some other KS funded adventures with similar budgets. Hell, I'd say it won't crumble down in shame in comparision to bigger budget titles with much bigger art crews.

Personally I can say, that the little we have seen of the game, even the proto alpha, demo thingy, does look very promising to me. There is potentially a great game there, so there's no red flags for me as far the content or the looks of the game goes. And I do guess I've been vocal enough about the one matter which worries me to most about this lenghty development, so I have no reason to go there here.

Enterting Kickstarter and producing a game after that takes a level headed developers. I've been following my own share of different KS projects and if something is evident it is, that there's always people who disagree what is happening with the project. On some cases it does worry me a bit, that the devs might start trying to please everyone and make changes that might not be so beneficial to the game (I do think this has happened on a couple of occasions, as the devs have decided to change something just to shut some people up).
 
This is such an open way of developing something, that it's just good if the devs know how to filter fan feedback out. In the end they need to do the game they want to do despite that would be entirely different from what the fans were expecting. Otherwise you'll might end up with a product that doesn't please anyone.

Not sure if this has been discussed, but I believe it is an important consideration.
 
What is something many of us do as soon as we start certain adventure games? Turn up the character's walking speeds, right? Who wants to sit and wait while a character lumbers from one side of the screen to the next, over and over?
 
I was recently playing Moebius (disappointing product from a developer who apparently struggled technically to make the game work, but no need to get into that here), and I found it annoying how slowly the main character walks around and performs many actions. Even in tense scenes, where the character's safety is at risk, he still strolls around as if he hasn't a care in the world.
 
My suggestion for SpaceVenture: definitely give us the option to make the playable character run/jog whenever we want, rather than simply walk.

Big Finish already had a team in place and they also have a lot of knowledge on how FMV is done. Also doing FMV is much, much more easier today than it was in the 90's. You can get better results with on the shelf applications today with more ease than you could when FMV games were actually hotter than hot. Also Chris Jones is a long term producer as well as a designer, so he seems to have a very good grasp on financial realities. And they had their own money to spend as well, so their budget is higher than what they got from the KS.  There's also some speculaton that Atlus might have pitched in some extra.
 
What comes to SpaceVenture, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd announce the game to be split in half in the vein of Broken Age and Broken Sword 5. The guys have been stretching the budget pretty thin, so there must be pressure to get something released so they can get some cash flow.

I actually have very short tolerance span towards puzzles these days. Perhaps it's because there's so much more to entertain myself with, but I've noticed that especially in cases where the puzzle solution is based hopping in different places I just often opt to look where I should go rather than try to figure it out. And then there's certain types of puzzles which I just flat out always look from a walkthrough. Those would be the kind of that use mathematics (not a huge fan) or any music based puzzle (use more than 3 tones I just give up).

Troels and Gareth are both spot on in their respective readings of my post. There is a major difference between wanting games that focus on good storytelling and puzzle-solving and wanting games that are near-exact recreations of what we had in the 1990's, right down to 320x200 VGA graphics and/or outdated mechanics. Asking for the old masters to strictly stick to oldschool endeavours is by no means encouraging. It's creativity-stifling.
 
Something I have pointed out repeatedly in similar discussions is that Sierra was always moving forward. By the end of their heyday, as 3D reared its ugly, low-poly head, they arguably did so at the expense of quality. But Ken Williams constantly had his finger on the pulse of technology. In that light, I find it a bit odd to take the Sierra brand and have it be the basis of an endeavour that would mainly be about looking backward and simultaneously hoping that the games developed by such a company will be mainstream blockbusters.
 
How well do you think an AGI game would've sold in 1993, charming as the aesthetics of those games were?

If it's again the one who shall not be named there's no face palm big enough to handle this situation.

If it's again the one who shall not be named there's no face palm big enough to handle this situation.

That was quick!
 
I have been informed, and have left (what I hope is) an appropriate response to that comment. Needless to say, it was NOT my comment.
 
Thank you! I'm disheartened to see this, and I've asked Sticky Trigger to investigate.
 
Josh

You rarely see such efficient bridge burning though.

In some cases companies might not even know all the rights they own, especially with older assets acquired through mergers and sales.  Companies also like to own IP's and rights "just in case", because you never know what is going to make you money, be it some one offering ridiculous amount to get the rights or if some specific genre shows new potential.
 
At this moment there's people at Activision looking very closely what is happening with the adventure revivals from Kickstarter. If they end up doing money Activision will most likely put more assets in active development besides Gabriel Knight. One good example is Ubisoft, which started to develope new Might and Magic RPG because of the success of old school RPG revival. Though in their case M&M series has been on the surface because of Heroes of Might and Magic series, but they aren't RPG's.

In some cases companies might not even know all the rights they own, especially with older assets acquired through mergers and sales.  Companies also like to own IP's and rights "just in case", because you never know what is going to make you money, be it some one offering ridiculous amount to get the rights or if some specific genre shows new potential.
 
At this moment there's people at Activision looking very closely what is happening with the adventure revivals from Kickstarter. If they end up doing money Activision will most likely put more assets in active development besides Gabriel Knight. One good example is Ubisoft, which started to develope new Might and Magic RPG because of the success of old school RPG revival. Though in their case M&M series has been on the surface because of Heroes of Might and Magic series, but they aren't RPG's.

You rarely see such efficient bridge burning though.

Am I the only one who thinks this quote should be trademarked? It's a tarantinoesque catchphrase waiting to happen! This could be printed on t-shirts!
 
Despite that, sorry, don't feel I'm qualified to apply. I suck at everything (mostly at composing, idea helping and artist...ing).

There's aspects I liked about the VGA remake. The way to cheat in the slotmachine with a magnet was one of them, as I've always found the money grinding bits in the old Sierra games to be a waste ot time. But I can see why Scott is sore with the game, especially if it was made behind their backs.

That turned out pretty nice. Well done everyone.

That turned out pretty nice. Well done everyone.

That turned out pretty nice. Well done everyone.

It'll be interesting to see what kind of sin and depravity you can cook up.