drdrslashvohaul

Right on, brother. Who gives a fuck if prevailing attitudes against women and ethnic minorities keep white men in power. I'm a white man. Why should I give a shit?
 
The only thing more annoying than a PC bore is an anti-PC bore. I have no problem with jokes or themes that aren't "polite", providing there's a point to them and providing they fit properly within the context of the story that is being told. It's the unthinking, cliché drivel that turns me off. A film like Dallas Buyers Club, for example, isn't PC, but tells an important story about how screwed up the world is/was. A film that simply shouts "fag" to get laughs isn't. Not a difficult concept to get your head around, really.
 
All I'd ask of developers is that they don't live in the 1950s. I find the sorts of stories that play on the "thou gaineth a WOMAN" plot tropes to do something new and interesting are worthwhile in themselves because... er... they're new and interesting. 
 
The ultimate ideal of political correctness, by the way, is that people won't have to censor themselves because they won't think like idiots in the first place. :)
 
I do love how "er... quite like this game, but does it have to treat women as objects>" is automatically painted as "free speech chilling". A very good tactic by those who want the freedom to act like dicks to censor... well, obvious irony is obvious.

It's the melon puzzle that really crosses the line.

It's the melon puzzle that really crosses the line.

It's the melon puzzle that really crosses the line.

The trouble with gaining a woman as an object is it's always difficult to combine them with other objects...  "Use woman with datacorder," "use woman with chicken-on-pulley," etc.

Corridor Quest 2015.
 
Sign me up.

Right on, brother. Who gives a fuck if prevailing attitudes against women and ethnic minorities keep white men in power. I'm a white man. Why should I give a shit?
 
The only thing more annoying than a PC bore is an anti-PC bore. I have no problem with jokes or themes that aren't "polite", providing there's a point to them and providing they fit properly within the context of the story that is being told. It's the unthinking, cliché drivel that turns me off. A film like Dallas Buyers Club, for example, isn't PC, but tells an important story about how screwed up the world is/was. A film that simply shouts "fag" to get laughs isn't. Not a difficult concept to get your head around, really.
 
All I'd ask of developers is that they don't live in the 1950s. I find the sorts of stories that play on the "thou gaineth a WOMAN" plot tropes to do something new and interesting are worthwhile in themselves because... er... they're new and interesting. 
 
The ultimate ideal of political correctness, by the way, is that people won't have to censor themselves because they won't think like idiots in the first place. :)
 
I do love how "er... quite like this game, but does it have to treat women as objects>" is automatically painted as "free speech chilling". A very good tactic by those who want the freedom to act like dicks to censor... well, obvious irony is obvious.

Right on, brother. Who gives a fuck if prevailing attitudes against women and ethnic minorities keep white men in power. I'm a white man. Why should I give a shit?
 
The only thing more annoying than a PC bore is an anti-PC bore. I have no problem with jokes or themes that aren't "polite", providing there's a point to them and providing they fit properly within the context of the story that is being told. It's the unthinking, cliché drivel that turns me off. A film like Dallas Buyers Club, for example, isn't PC, but tells an important story about how screwed up the world is/was. A film that simply shouts "fag" to get laughs isn't. Not a difficult concept to get your head around, really.
 
All I'd ask of developers is that they don't live in the 1950s. I find the sorts of stories that play on the "thou gaineth a WOMAN" plot tropes to do something new and interesting are worthwhile in themselves because... er... they're new and interesting. 
 
The ultimate ideal of political correctness, by the way, is that people won't have to censor themselves because they won't think like idiots in the first place. :)
 
I do love how "er... quite like this game, but does it have to treat women as objects>" is automatically painted as "free speech chilling". A very good tactic by those who want the freedom to act like dicks to censor... well, obvious irony is obvious.

Right on, brother. Who gives a fuck if prevailing attitudes against women and ethnic minorities keep white men in power. I'm a white man. Why should I give a shit?
 
The only thing more annoying than a PC bore is an anti-PC bore. I have no problem with jokes or themes that aren't "polite", providing there's a point to them and providing they fit properly within the context of the story that is being told. It's the unthinking, cliché drivel that turns me off. A film like Dallas Buyers Club, for example, isn't PC, but tells an important story about how screwed up the world is/was. A film that simply shouts "fag" to get laughs isn't. Not a difficult concept to get your head around, really.
 
All I'd ask of developers is that they don't live in the 1950s. I find the sorts of stories that play on the "thou gaineth a WOMAN" plot tropes to do something new and interesting are worthwhile in themselves because... er... they're new and interesting. 
 
The ultimate ideal of political correctness, by the way, is that people won't have to censor themselves because they won't think like idiots in the first place. :)
 
I do love how "er... quite like this game, but does it have to treat women as objects>" is automatically painted as "free speech chilling". A very good tactic by those who want the freedom to act like dicks to censor... well, obvious irony is obvious.

Yes! It could be everyone's favorite corridors from all the SQ games linked together, and you've basically just got
to run away from the slime from SQ4 and the robot from SQ2...
 
And at the very end of all the corridors is the SQ4 skate-o-rama where you have to dodge the sequel police and the
slime and the SQ2 robot all at the same time.

Corridor Quest 2015.
 
Sign me up.

I think you also have to remember that most of the stuff we've seen involve being on a ship
with corridors...
 
You could judge all the Space Quests pretty harshly if all you saw was:
 





 
 
And I think this Spaceventure room and others from the demo are already up there with the best and most interesting ship
rooms from the Space Quests:
 

Even if I sort of agree, they're obviously not going to release their best stuff right now. The style of the Crowemurphyist cult (as led by the Space Pope) has been to release pretty underwhelming spoilers, with the hope that hardcore fans will be turned on (without spoling the actual plot/surprises for said fans).
 
Is that a good strategy? I don't know. But I would see these scenes as "typical" or "average" examples of what's going on. Not the best-of-the-best.
 
But I don't know anything. If I ran a games company, I'd probably base it around boobs. Toleman isn't as much as a caricature as I'd like him to be...

My preference would also be for a full game. I wouldn't really mind episodic either. But my gut feeling is that we'll be getting the former. Even if they haven't outright specified that, I think they've more than hinted at it.

If people with money can't dictate to the poor what clothing is acceptable, where will it end? It all went to hell on a hand cart once we let people without property vote, imo. ;)

I think the HTML 5 environment would be a good place for small "episodes" to be released. Sort of 30 minute adventure games, with a parser being part of the fun of interacting with the story. Serena (although not a parser, obviously) showed brilliantly how a short story could work in a computer game environment, and not sacrifice artistic merit for the sake of brevity. </cannot_be_said_without_sounding_wanky>

I think "outdated" also applies to the right tool for the right job. Parsers were removed primarily because, as Collector alludes to, it's easier to design a passable point n' click interface than a good parser. By the same token, for most gameplay needs better 3D graphics convey more information in a more pleasing format. But if you design a game around certain mechanics, old 3D or a parser might be a better tool to get you where you want to go.
 
Horseshoes are "outdated" because so few people have horses. But for the ones that do...
 
Anyway. I like a good parser. A GOOD parser. And I think they could be used very effectively in modern games, especially if tied into a more "Siri" type environment where you can "talk" to the character in the game. That could be through the keyboard or the microphone. It will only work, though, if the game is built specifically around that mechanic rather than being bolted on.

I guess I should admit that I am a Man With Opinions when it comes to fairytales; which is to say, it's not really old-school fantasy either in the sense of following the giants of C20th fantasy writing or in the sense of having much of a basis in folk fairy stories. It's 19th century style sanitised upper middle class Victorian fantasy, which I just don't like much as a genre. I dislike the "thou gaineth a WOMAN" plot trope that makes the female character a barely-animate quest objective with no agency, and the original KQ2 ending is very, very definitely falling into that trap in my opinion. It's obviously a matter of personal preferences and I imagine it may be just me that thinks this, but I think a few simple changes to the portrayal could have made the whole thing feel a bit less bland and C19th-tacky whilst keeping the "this is a shiny fantasy story of shininess" theme wholly intact.

I'm against the notion that most everything gets outdated. Not everything gets outdated as much as people say they do. 3D graphics were terrible when they first came out, so they were outdated. However people even feel nostalgia for that. Interfaces, however, were made and perfected in their time. There were no mice when parsers were made. Parsers are the most versatile interface there is. That's why we still type when we program rather than "point & click" commands together. Yes, the GUI has overcome the command line interface, but it's still not as powerful as the latter.
 
My point being, it's not a matter of being outdated it's a matter of being unpopular, something people often confuse. And it bugs me. There is nothing wrong at all with a parser anymore than there is anything wrong with 2D graphics. It's just a matter of patience and being willing to align your way of thinking with that of the game designer rather than the designer trying to guess how best the players like to play. It's not like people have lost their patience. The PC gaming population 25+ years ago was much smaller and comprised of very different types of people than today.

My favourite sci-fi is the Star Trek universe.
 
My favourite comedy sci-fi is Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy (the original radio series). I'd even probably put Red Dwarf ahead of Space Quest, though they're obviously different media.
 
"Drama" is not really the same as "deep", and this is why I also prefer TNG to DS9, though both are brilliant. I enjoyed the character development and interaction in DS9 (just recently completed a complete re-watch of that), but I think the individual sci-fi stories in TNG were much better. In an almost completely unrelated note, it's why I love South Park too - they use a weird version of reality to tell the truth about how screwed up the world is. Sci-fi, like good satire, does that, and makes you think.

So... where do we stand on Big Bang Theory? :P

It's hard for Space Quest-obsessed people like us to pin down what makes each Space Quest game better than the other. So I've tried stepping out of my subjective navel-gazing and offer this handy guide:
 
SQ1: Play if you like being marooned on desert planets.
SQ2: Play if you like being marooned on jungle planets.
SQ3: Play if you like hopping around planets and playing arcade sequences.
SQ4: Play if you like hopping through time and being in constant mortal danger.
SQ5: Play if you like hopping around planets while solving a mystery of conspiracy and bossing people around.
SQ6: Play if you like hopping around planets, then some chick's inner organs.

I like shows that can handle a variety of sci-fi. "Doctor Who", "Red Dwarf", "Star Trek: TNG" and "Futurama", for example, are all well set for exploring several aspects of science-fiction. With shows like these, you can get robots, time travel, cloning, A.I., aliens, shrink rays and psychic powers all in one show without it being out-of-place (I especially like how "Futurama" manages to keep track of the continuity through all its time travel stories.) "Space Quest" would fall in with this crowd, although most comedy sci-fi probably would. It's usually the dramas like BSG that like to stick with a few ideas so they can expand on them.

Good SF can be both fun and "meaty" at the same time.

Don't take this as a personal attack, but to make such an argument indicates someone who has not read a lot of science fiction or paid much attention to certain shows and movies. SQ is a great comedy adventure game series with an SF motif, but is pretty shallow when stacked up against the likes of Phillip K. Dick or Fredrick Pohl. Even shows like TNG's The Measure of a Man carries some pretty heavy philosophical questions. Science Fiction is more than rocket ships and ray guns. It is venue to explore ideas that cannot be explored through conventional means.

At least The Matrix doesn't get the primary blame for that anymore...