Troels Pleimert

Hey ... The year is coming to an end, and so is season 1 of Back Seat Designers.
 
To commemorate this dubious occasion, Frede and I are having a grand ol' blast of a season finale live on Hangout/YouTube on December 20th at these times: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Back+Seat+Designers+Season+Finale+Hangout&iso=20141220T20&p1=69&ah=2
 
We will be joined by a roundtable of illustrious peeps in the adventure gaming community to talk about all the topics we've covered during the season, including moon logic, death in adventure games, pet peeves and "what the hell is an adventure game, anyway?". Currently confirmed guests are Steven Alexander (Infamous Quests), Joe Mastroianni (Upper Memory Block podcast) and Scott Murphy (some dude who wrote this game, I forget what it was, maybe Galaxy Quest or something).
 
We'll post the link to watch live on our Twitteries (@torbenfrost and @frederik_olsen) shortly before the broadcast begins, and you can tweet us your questions, comments and stupid remarks with the hashtag #BackSeatDesigners.

Huh?
 
Don't be discouraged by the lack of posts. This board is a fun and cozy place, but not exactly a whirlwind of activity.

Yeah, I'd suggest that you share this elsewhere too if you want more response, because not only can this place be pretty quiet at times (for better and for worse), but we rarely get that many newcomers either. Check out the "Sierra Chest", "Sierra Gamers" and "Space Quest" Facebook groups, if you're into that. If not, the Sierra Help Pages Forums are probably livelier.
 
For good measure, I will add that I think the stuff you're making and showcasing here is extremely cool and among the more successful attempts at moving Space Quest into 3D that I've seen  :)

There's something satisfying about the "monkey see, monkey do" element of copying the pinkun to get across the swamp on SQ2. Took me forever to work out what it was doing as a kid.

Hey ... The year is coming to an end, and so is season 1 of Back Seat Designers.
 
To commemorate this dubious occasion, Frede and I are having a grand ol' blast of a season finale live on Hangout/YouTube on December 20th at these times: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Back+Seat+Designers+Season+Finale+Hangout&iso=20141220T20&p1=69&ah=2
 
We will be joined by a roundtable of illustrious peeps in the adventure gaming community to talk about all the topics we've covered during the season, including moon logic, death in adventure games, pet peeves and "what the hell is an adventure game, anyway?". Currently confirmed guests are Steven Alexander (Infamous Quests), Joe Mastroianni (Upper Memory Block podcast) and Scott Murphy (some dude who wrote this game, I forget what it was, maybe Galaxy Quest or something).
 
We'll post the link to watch live on our Twitteries (@torbenfrost and @frederik_olsen) shortly before the broadcast begins, and you can tweet us your questions, comments and stupid remarks with the hashtag #BackSeatDesigners.

Studio back up and running. Maybe I should do that country-western album I've always wanted to do before doing a new Historian episode. Thoughts?

Okay, okay, you got me. But, still, making the skimmer sequence harmless takes away its impact. I liked how SQ1VGA just made it straight up skippable.

I have no short orders! But think of it as a tall request. ;)

It'll be a Candy Crush clone. I can just feel it.
 
"Tap here to buy extra gold coins to see Madame Mushka."

Hey ... The year is coming to an end, and so is season 1 of Back Seat Designers.
 
To commemorate this dubious occasion, Frede and I are having a grand ol' blast of a season finale live on Hangout/YouTube on December 20th at these times: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Back+Seat+Designers+Season+Finale+Hangout&iso=20141220T20&p1=69&ah=2
 
We will be joined by a roundtable of illustrious peeps in the adventure gaming community to talk about all the topics we've covered during the season, including moon logic, death in adventure games, pet peeves and "what the hell is an adventure game, anyway?". Currently confirmed guests are Steven Alexander (Infamous Quests), Joe Mastroianni (Upper Memory Block podcast) and Scott Murphy (some dude who wrote this game, I forget what it was, maybe Galaxy Quest or something).
 
We'll post the link to watch live on our Twitteries (@torbenfrost and @frederik_olsen) shortly before the broadcast begins, and you can tweet us your questions, comments and stupid remarks with the hashtag #BackSeatDesigners.

Mr. China: Yes, when the time comes. Things are much less stressful now. I'll have time to finish setting things up and get back in the "studio" (i.e. my bedroom, in my underpants).
 
Mr. Milliways: My wife doesn't listen to the podcast, either. She gets enough of me giving excited lectures on dull shit on a daily basis.

Okay, so ... screw the twangy-ness.
 
Here's what's up. I'm going to do one final episode for 2014 for Christmas (or whatever holidays you guys feel most comfortable with), and it's going to be about balls-out hard-as-shit puzzles. 'Cos, you know, what says Christmas more than "I needed a WHAT to get past those cave lasers?!"?
 
Now, to make this extra special, I was hoping I could get a bunch of you to let me know what your favorite HARD, BUT FAIR puzzle of Space Quest was. It can be the official games, or the fan games. I also plan to ask Scott about the origins of some of these puzzles, so the more suggestions, the merrier! (I will, however, cherry-pick. You know how this works.)
 
Note that I said hard, but fair. No Skate-o-Rama's. No running-out-of-oxygen-while-trying-to-save-Cliffy. I mean honest to goodness hard as balls puzzles. Your rock-in-jockstraps, your dropkicking-Arnoid-in-the-gears, your Super Computer laser grids, that sort of thing.
 
If you can get something to me by the end of the week, the episode will come out Thursday next week, just in time for Christmas! (Again, your choice of holiday celebration may vary.)
 
Edit: Of course, the only way this will be really special is if you send it to me as a voice file at troels@pleimert.dk :D

Okay, so ... screw the twangy-ness.
 
Here's what's up. I'm going to do one final episode for 2014 for Christmas (or whatever holidays you guys feel most comfortable with), and it's going to be about balls-out hard-as-shit puzzles. 'Cos, you know, what says Christmas more than "I needed a WHAT to get past those cave lasers?!"?
 
Now, to make this extra special, I was hoping I could get a bunch of you to let me know what your favorite HARD, BUT FAIR puzzle of Space Quest was. It can be the official games, or the fan games. I also plan to ask Scott about the origins of some of these puzzles, so the more suggestions, the merrier! (I will, however, cherry-pick. You know how this works.)
 
Note that I said hard, but fair. No Skate-o-Rama's. No running-out-of-oxygen-while-trying-to-save-Cliffy. I mean honest to goodness hard as balls puzzles. Your rock-in-jockstraps, your dropkicking-Arnoid-in-the-gears, your Super Computer laser grids, that sort of thing.
 
If you can get something to me by the end of the week, the episode will come out Thursday next week, just in time for Christmas! (Again, your choice of holiday celebration may vary.)
 
Edit: Of course, the only way this will be really special is if you send it to me as a voice file at troels@pleimert.dk :D

It's a weird thing they try to do with adventure game franchises...
 
It's like buying Pizza Hut as a brand, but then only selling burgers...
With the logic that they think kids today are too dumb to appreciate the complexity of pizzas.
 
Or associating point-and-click with some mythical past world like, "people only liked that in the 90s",
like some weird rare breed of people who were psychically in tune with point-and-click...
 
No one ever goes, "oh, jumping, that went out in the late 80s with Mario, no one will buy a jumping game today,"
"shooting stuff is SO 1992 and went out with Wolfenstein, you think kids want to shoot stuff today?
Get your head out the 90s."
 
I just wish game makers had a bit of confidence in the format/genre, without switching the whole genre of the game.
You don't see it with other types of games, you don't get a new Call of Duty where it's now a car racing game and
there is no shooting and fans going, "I'm happy Call of Duty is branching out and being different, we can't expect
it to be stuck in the past with all that shooting, car racing is what the kids want now."
 
It also doesn't make any sense from a marketing angle either:
You're supposedly making an adventure game, but you water down or almost completely remove the adventure game
elements. So that's your core market gone - adventure gamers who actually recognize the franchise name, or new
gamers who might be open to the idea of an adventure game. Those are out of the picture now.
 
But here is the part that is even crazier: you then try to make a big action game with your minuscule adventure game budget.
A game that will now have to compete in the same genre with games with huge budgets and massive teams with ginormous marketing pushes.
So you leave the niche in which you could totally dominate for a mainstream arena that you don't have a chance in.
 
What would get more of an audience is not trying to swap the existing audience for a different, larger audience (who everyone
is trying to target already) by changing the type of game, but to grow the existing audience for adventure games by
making a really good one.

It'll be a Candy Crush clone. I can just feel it.
 
"Tap here to buy extra gold coins to see Madame Mushka."

NEEDS MOAR SLIDER PUZZLES

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vW4ooLQrAA&feature=youtu.be&t=1s

NEEDS MOAR SWITCH-FLIPPING

Achievements or GTFO!!!!

But on the plus side, they did an awesome job of completely overhauling Grim Fandango for the remaster...
New character models and animation, beautiful redrawn/rendered backgrounds, can switch between control systems,
surround sound mix of the music, 16:9 aspect ratio...
 
Joking... they just did new lighting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi_uHSTbL6g

NEEDS MOAR SLIDER PUZZLES

Who are you and how did you log into Troels' account??

Studio back up and running. Maybe I should do that country-western album I've always wanted to do before doing a new Historian episode. Thoughts?

Honestly, hearing Pete Toleman belt out "Always On My Mind" is cringe-inducing in all the right ways. :)
 
 
I'm just imagining Gareth's wife off to the side, going, "Right, he's officially off the deep end. This'll be a hard one to explain to mum."

Sure, you could do that. But wouldn't perhaps a top-down Legend of Zelda-style NES adventure game be more fun? Like Zelda, but without all the stats and weapons and shit.