Frede

Of course. Screw the remake.

I like VGA, but it's not a Two Guys from Andromeda game. It's a Bunch of Random Guys from Korea game. That takes some of the glitter off it. So I went with "No", even though I'm not sure you can even answer the question you posed with a no. Whatever - you sure as hell aren't getting a "Yes".
 
Also, 4chan called. They want their posting style back.

More like 9.5 years, actually :wink:
 
Anyway, like pcj, I hope you'll enjoy the game. It's quite overwhelming to finally be able to release it and hopefully give Space Quest a new lease of life. I also want to thank everyone who has contributed to the game and supported us, even when we were acting like a group of dorks :)
 
Oh, and do feel free to join us on our forums. Comments, criticism, hint requests, bug reports and nonsensical banter are all very welcome.

Stuff like that will always happen, but I think it's unfair to assume that something will fail only because it failed once before. Moving adventure games into 3D was mostly a mistake. I say "mostly" because Escape from Monkey island wasn't that bad, and people speak fondly of Grim Fandango to this day. But to say that playing around with the genre will equate similar problems is like refusing to watch any film that has a CG-generated leading character in it because Jar Jar Binks sucked. History allows people to learn from the mistakes of others. Also, I think the Sierra of then and the Sierra are now are driven by very different motivations. The Sierra of then seems to have been struggling to find its footing. You're bound to make mistakes if you see your house of cards tumbling down.
 

That is your opinion. Which is fine, but again, games like Grim Fandango challenge your assertion. There is also a more recent game, such as the PlayStation-exclusive Journey which is extremely simple, but, I would argue, is still an adventure game. It's simplified to the point where this no in-game text, nor any verbal lines. And yet, it's all about exploring and uncovering the story behind the world you're in. Bear in mind, though, that "simplify" was a word you choose yourself; as far as I know, The Odd Gentlemen have promised us an adventure game that doesn't use the mouse. Not a simplified game.
 

If you really want to play it safe, sure. And you could, but you'd not really be exploring the boundaries of game storytelling, in my opinion, which would be a shame.
 

Hmm. I don't agree. What you're talking about arguably has to do with the skill of the artist(s) and possibly the budget (which I believe was why BS5 went with 3D characters on drawn backgrounds). Not with the resolution. The early-90's Sierra/LucasArts-look is not tied exclusively to 320x200. Also, I agree with Tomint. I've seen a lot of AGS games with art that has just been scaled down and blurred to oblivion. Most SQ3 remake projects have been all about fucking up Mark Crowe's great art and make it look as if the player has Glaucoma. To me, that spells out that, to most artists, that way of working is kind of a lost art. There are exceptions, but do what you do best. Don't try to do what Mark Crowe did best because... y'know, can't beat Mark Crowe ca. 1989-1993.
 

If they're interested in building a new audience, which I assume they are, because that'd be more viable, that won't fly. The market for "retro" games will always be a niche market, even if it has grown to be a rather big one.
 

I get what you're saying, but the game scene of today is very much one strike and you're out. Or, rather, one strike and people will have made up their minds about you. Phil Fish will forever be known as an asshole, even if he makes amends and restarts development on Fez II. Pulling in all the "kids" and making them appreciate this form of interactive storytelling is more likely to be their top priority, rather than appealing to all us old farts. And hell, that's how it should be. Sierra On-Line could easily have sold a rehash of Mystery House to IBM. But they didn't - they had a team of 6-7 people working for 18 months on a computer game. Something that was pretty daring back then.
 
I get that this is not the Sierra. But still, that is the name this company is now operating under. And if they want to carry on the spirit of yore (which does not equate the technical qualities), playing it safe should be the last thing they ever do.

This is why I have continuing love/hate affair with the adventure community. Because going from text adventure, to parser, to point 'n click was somehow fine. But that's also it. "I only want to play point 'n click games from now on. And I can deal with graphics that have a resolution higher than 640x480, but I am probably still going to mention that I long for 'the good old days'." If Sierra On-Line had to deal with that shitty attitude whenever they started using a new engine, they'd have folded in the early 90's.
 
What makes a game an "adventure" is the focus on exploration and storytelling over action.  Every single time someone can't get that through his/her thick skull, a legendary adventure game designer has to pee a shard of glass. Screw the mouse and the parser. Just use whatever you need to make the game world and the story come alive. Give me something I want to explore every inch of and fawn over. Supposedly, only the 1990's wield that power. If you want to make a tradiotional game, cool with me. If you want to take the genre to new places, you're only really doing what's been done since it was first invented, up until the early 2000's.
 
If The Odd Gentlemen can make a different approach work, I say we let 'em. Technologically, we're in a different place than we were back when GK3 and KQ8 were forced to become low-polygon horrors. Cut them some slack.

Here's a little something I just finished and you guys might recognize.

 

If you ever find yourself in the presence of Scott, don't ever imply that he's interested in working closely with Mr. Moneybags. You'd find yourself with a boxed copy of SQ1VGA up your ass in no time.
 
If they wanted that kind of my help, my gut feeling they would've asked straightforward for it where possible a long time ago. I'm sure a company like Phoenix wouldn't mind throwing some dough in their direction. But they seem to be hell-bent on staying independent. Can't say I blame them either. Could be that IGN were the ones to reach out.

There could be a whole host of reasons. It wouldn't be in keeping with the Two Guys' (and Chris's) style to do this to drum up capital investment and/or an impending release, but, yeah, could be that.
 
There's also nothing to suggest that it wasn't just a fan, or someone following the kickstarter story who wanted to do a very easy, very quick piece of e-mail copy and paste to get something up on the site and earn his/her $1.75 for a puff piece. There's no analysis there - it's just like one of those "interviews" the fan sites used to do back in the day.
 
What concerns me more than anything is the cynicism. Free thinking and critique requires questioning people in the public eye. It doesn't mean assuming that everyone is up to shenanigans and everyone is out to screw people over. Ask those questions about Scott and Mark. But don't assume it's the default position. Because if you think that's how they operate, then why give them any money in the first place? I prefer Hanlon's razor - Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
 
If you genuinely think all journalists, businessmen and politicians are totally corrupted and have no desire to do good, then either:
 
a) do something about it and become a good journalist, businessman or politician; or
b) find your nearest doomsday prepper colony and ask about their long-term membership programme.

I actually do consider it to be more important for the success of SpaceVenture for the big sites to even cover anything related to Two Guys rather than just being 100% accurate on their developement history. And besides, if they'd wanted to, I'm sure Scott and Mark could have corrected the interviewer.

The most heinous crime a journalist can commit is not being specific enough for gamers. Boils my piss.

So a local radio station in my town had a summer show about video game music this year and asked me to come into their studio to do an interview seeing as I compose music for video games. We discussed, among many things, what makes video game music special, how composing for video games can be very different from any other media, I talked at length about Sierra adventure games and their soundtracks and the MT-32, and some of the music I've written for games in the past were featured, as well as some upcoming that haven't been released yet such as Mage's Initiation and another secret project.
 
Check it out! Click on the September 9th link (I recommend 128kbps for best quality). The show starts at around the 3:35 mark.
 
https://ckuw.ca/programs/detail/system-kidz

Replay doesn't own jackshit. They got a license from Codemasters to remake the first Larry game, nothing more. Codemasters owns LSL.

Well, my personal problem with classic Sierra deaths (and hence my love of the retry button) is that - to name an example - it frankly isn't very fair that King Graham, the bravest, most dashing and most cunning knight of all of Daventry, is unable to survive a 2-inch fall. If you're going to make the hero that frail, consider giving him malignant melanoma during his desert hike. No wonder the guy has a heart attack in KQ4; his entire body must be made of glass.
 
Some Sierra games were just illogical and cruel. In games like Gabriel Knight 1 or Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (one of the few LucasArts games in which you can die, for the few who haven't played it), the deaths seemed very realistic and natural. So it really depends how death is implemented. If it's borderline unfair like my example above, I'd like a "Retry"-button. But if you can spot your own mistake from a million miles away, I'm more than cool with people re-learning how to "save early, save often" instead.

I think adventure game fans are their own worst enemies.
They supposedly want the genre to survive, they supposedly want it to rise again. They claim to want a new era of glorious adventure titles--but only if it's in a format exactly like the '90s, except with hi-res graphics of course.
 
The massively negative reaction to the new KQ game revealed to be not a pure "point and click" game is evidence enough that for one, this game is damned no matter how good it is, and two, that the adventure genre will remain a niche genre--and it's because of adventure gamers.
 
The guys working for Sierra to make the game have alread clarified that it's still going to be an adventure game, you're just not going to simply use the mouse--and that still wasn't enough. The game is pretty much DOA because of one little statement--that is how rabid adventure gamers and Sierra fans are.
 
What people seem to forget is that the Sierra of old was changing the adventure genre all the time. In 1980, when Mystery House came out, it introduced graphics.
 
If that was today, you'd have adventure gamers on social media damning this new company called Sierra for dumbing down the genre with graphics. "The whole point of adventure games is that it's an interactive novel, we play it out in our minds, and now this company Sierra is forcing the images on us."
 
When KQ came out, it introduced non-static animation and more accessible controls.
 
When King's Quest V came out in 1990, it made the genre even more simplified---
 
Imagine how adventure gamers of today would react to point and click "You've taken away the challenge! The fun! The parser, oh the parser!"
 
And relying on the old Sierra team as if they were Gods.
If Roberta Williams isn't involved, it's not KQ!", oh, you mean the Roberta Williams who spear-headed KQ8?
If the Two Guys or Josh Mandel aren't involved, it's not SQ! - Oh, like, Space Quest 5 and 6, which have the most mixed reactions of the series?
 
I'm not trying to downgrade Roberta, Scott, Mark, or Josh. I'm saying they aren't Gods. They're great, creative people. But there are much younger minds out there who could really do series like King's Quest and Space Quest justice. We're in a time where it's ripe for games like KQ and SQ. Look at the success of Frozen and Guardians of the Galaxy. People want light hearted, good old fashioned fun fantasy and sci-fi again.
 
But, no, let's all get pissed off because the new King's Quest isn't purely point and click.
Let's all boycott Sierra because Ken Williams isn't the CEO and the original gang isn't designing the games.
 
Adventure gamers lie in the bed they made and helped make themselves. And the adventure genre--once the leading genre when it came to innovation and revolutionizing gameplay--suffers and has grown stagnant for it, because of the loud voices of the purists.

Meh. There's a difference between talking about SpaceVenture and bringing up political correctness and feminism all the time. Or going "Wow, this guy sucks!" in your first post. And I was mainly referring to those.
 
No one is saying "don't talk about SpaceVenture" as far as I can tell. But several of us are asking that those who are critical of the game consider listening to what the development team representatives here might have to say before going "Yes, but..."

Was going to draft a full reply, but then I saw this. You've clearly never watch South Park, or at the very least haven't seen it in the past 10 years. Possibly the best satire on TV at the moment. I'm a university lecturer and use it as a teaching aid. If you haven't seen it recently, I'd urge you to do so. If you have and still think it's fart jokes, then it's clearly gone straight over your head. 
I'm not asking for stuff to be banned, either, which undermines that point you made.
 
So... meh. Boring argument is becoming even more boring. Time to bow out.

Boy, with a thread topic like "Political correctness and feminism", one can hardly expect anything less than the greatest of forum theatrics - and this thread has certainly delivered. After all of the words and pages, what have we really learned here after walking away? I certainly haven't gleaned anything of value, and I read every post. :mellow: Again, I find myself agreeing with Drslashvohaul the most.

This is why I have continuing love/hate affair with the adventure community. Because going from text adventure, to parser, to point 'n click was somehow fine. But that's also it. "I only want to play point 'n click games from now on. And I can deal with graphics that have a resolution higher than 640x480, but I am probably still going to mention that I long for 'the good old days'." If Sierra On-Line had to deal with that shitty attitude whenever they started using a new engine, they'd have folded in the early 90's.
 
What makes a game an "adventure" is the focus on exploration and storytelling over action.  Every single time someone can't get that through his/her thick skull, a legendary adventure game designer has to pee a shard of glass. Screw the mouse and the parser. Just use whatever you need to make the game world and the story come alive. Give me something I want to explore every inch of and fawn over. Supposedly, only the 1990's wield that power. If you want to make a tradiotional game, cool with me. If you want to take the genre to new places, you're only really doing what's been done since it was first invented, up until the early 2000's.
 
If The Odd Gentlemen can make a different approach work, I say we let 'em. Technologically, we're in a different place than we were back when GK3 and KQ8 were forced to become low-polygon horrors. Cut them some slack.

I don't like the idea that some indie developers ought to have been "consulted" first before the announcement. As for Blackthorne and Infamous Quests, I respect their passion and contributions, but they are far from top tier in terms of quality, even just among lower budget indie teams. There are far better, more appropriate teams for ActiVision to work with. I stress again that I respect Infamous Quests and am sure they will continue to improve.
 
Sometimes the adventure gaming community can feel small or cliquish if we visit only certain forums visited by a regular, relatively small group of people, but there are so many more adventure game fans/designers out there whom we don't hear from as much in these places. If we start suggesting that some people should, in part because they familiar from these forums, have "first dibs" or be given special info access, then it starts feeling a little like a form of cronyism. And that wouldn't be thinking of what's best for the games.
 
As for this news, I think it's great!! Finally the door has opened to creating new, official games using the Sierra IP. This is something I, as a longtime Sierra fan, had been waiting for. This could lead to great things. And, yes, it feels good to see that classic logo come alive again.

Well, geez. You get all lazy and don't check the SubChan for a few1 months, and then something like this goes and happens. Now the cheeping, winged piglets nesting in the tree behind my house suddenly make more sense.
 
After reading everything posted so far, I'm personally in the 'wait and see' camp here. I approve whole-heartedly of the idea of using the Sierra publishing brand constructively in this manner; the name certainly still means something even outside of our little cabal, and leveraging it in the right ways could have some interesting results. Somewhat more worrisome is the idea of classic Sierra adventure game franchises possibly being dug out of their graves and butchered in a misguided attempt at appealing to the nostalgia market. Will this be the case, or will this new King's Quest (and possibly other games) actually be quality spiritual successors to their namesakes? Only time, and sequels, will tell.
 
I will say up front that, personally, I hope that Space Quest doesn't get that treatment. Besides Troels' comment about the 2.5 Guys from Andromeda2 needing to be involved (which I agree with), I feel that SQ already got a  tasteful (and amazing) resurgence and send-off with the latest round of fan games. Incinerations, especially, is the perfect cap-stone to the series IMHO, even if it is technically 'just' a fan game. If this new Sierra were to try and ressurect the series without the Guys, I doubt they would be able to do as good a job as our own dedicated fans have done - we'd end up with a cash-grabby, sub-par Space Quest zombie instead of a series that, though essentially dead, is at least resting peacefully in a beautiful hand-carved mahogany casket after having been lovingly laid to rest at a lavish-yet-tasteful funeral attended by everyone who ever knew and loved it dearly3 , who even now cherish its heartwarming, un-zombified memory. I love the series too much to want to see that happen to it; if it comes to that, I'd rather let SQ lie and focus instead on Space Quest: The Next Generation (aka Spaceventure).
 
 
...buuuut, as for ports of the existing Sierra games to current OSes? *Hell* yes. Port the hell out of them. Whore those bad boys out to every smart phone, tablet, and VR headset there is. B) More exposure for the classics is never a bad thing. Nintendo figured this out - they sell their own classic library on their current-day consoles, and make money hand over fist from it. You don't have to do anything fancy to 'em - just keep circulating the tapes.
 
 
 
 
1) Eight. Eight months since I last posted. I need to get off my virtual ass more often.
 
2) We love ya, Josh, really.
 
3) I'm suddenly recalling the end scenes of Full Throttle here.

Everyone needs to stop throwing a hissy fit and see what comes from all of this. Just because it might not use the same interface as the classic titles doesn't automatically invalidate it. I think too many people around here are stuck wearing rose-tinted glasses, or else just can't enjoy anything that's not a Sierra adventure game. I love the classic titles as much as the next person, but what, exactly, is so wrong with the torch being passed? Just because it's not the original developers working on it? Get a grip and wait for some actualy screenshots or gameplay videos! At this rate the project will get shitcanned before the end of the year thanks to "lack of interest".

This is why I have continuing love/hate affair with the adventure community. Because going from text adventure, to parser, to point 'n click was somehow fine. But that's also it. "I only want to play point 'n click games from now on. And I can deal with graphics that have a resolution higher than 640x480, but I am probably still going to mention that I long for 'the good old days'." If Sierra On-Line had to deal with that shitty attitude whenever they started using a new engine, they'd have folded in the early 90's.
 
What makes a game an "adventure" is the focus on exploration and storytelling over action.  Every single time someone can't get that through his/her thick skull, a legendary adventure game designer has to pee a shard of glass. Screw the mouse and the parser. Just use whatever you need to make the game world and the story come alive. Give me something I want to explore every inch of and fawn over. Supposedly, only the 1990's wield that power. If you want to make a tradiotional game, cool with me. If you want to take the genre to new places, you're only really doing what's been done since it was first invented, up until the early 2000's.
 
If The Odd Gentlemen can make a different approach work, I say we let 'em. Technologically, we're in a different place than we were back when GK3 and KQ8 were forced to become low-polygon horrors. Cut them some slack.

Personally I find most modern low res games to have pretty terrible artistic aesthetics. Old low res games tend to look much better because the artists who worked on them knew how to work in those resolutions in order to bring out the most from the limited tech they had to work with. Sierra AGI games for an example often balance wery nicely with the technical limitations and stylis end result. Not all of them, but there's some surprisingly stylish looking stuff there.
 
Many modern low resolution games on the other hand look like they are done by people who try to imitatet the style but they don't necessarily have thr required know how on how to make the low resolution art look actually good. Of course there is good looking stuff there as well, but in many cases the art just looks like the developers were trying to hide the already poor quality of art by lowering the resolution instead of really working with the limitations of resolution. 

This is why I have continuing love/hate affair with the adventure community. Because going from text adventure, to parser, to point 'n click was somehow fine. But that's also it. "I only want to play point 'n click games from now on. And I can deal with graphics that have a resolution higher than 640x480, but I am probably still going to mention that I long for 'the good old days'." If Sierra On-Line had to deal with that shitty attitude whenever they started using a new engine, they'd have folded in the early 90's.
 
What makes a game an "adventure" is the focus on exploration and storytelling over action.  Every single time someone can't get that through his/her thick skull, a legendary adventure game designer has to pee a shard of glass. Screw the mouse and the parser. Just use whatever you need to make the game world and the story come alive. Give me something I want to explore every inch of and fawn over. Supposedly, only the 1990's wield that power. If you want to make a tradiotional game, cool with me. If you want to take the genre to new places, you're only really doing what's been done since it was first invented, up until the early 2000's.
 
If The Odd Gentlemen can make a different approach work, I say we let 'em. Technologically, we're in a different place than we were back when GK3 and KQ8 were forced to become low-polygon horrors. Cut them some slack.

I think the real problem was that the original quote was from someone at Activision and went along the lines of: "I've seen it, and it's not a point-and-click, and it's awesome." 

This led to misunderstanding that it wasn't even an adventure game at all-- I'm guilty of having made the same mistake and lashing out on Twitter. They corrected the misunderstanding and I apologized.
 
So I think people will only really be upset pre-release if it's not an adventure game... or of course if it looks awful.