Is there interest in a Loom like game?

[+karri]

Hi guys,

 

my theater summer is over and I have been thinking about starting on a new game.

 

There was a lot of mistakes in the way I structured "On duty" and "Titan" and now I would like to get going on a new game in the same top down genre with good graphics.

 

I have been thinking on some kind of "Harry Potter" like adventure. Perhaps more tuned like Loom. But it would not be a port of Loom.

 

The game would consist of short 5 minute missions and I hope to build up a storyline with twists like in "On duty". So you could tackle the story like a book. Progress is saved in eeprom.

 

The graphics style would look like this - a top down tiled game with animated tiles.

 

The working title is "Wizzy".

[Turbo Laser Lynx]

I remember only once seeing Loom on a friends PC, but I can't remember much about it. I saw on wikipedia that it uses a a four musical note system for spells instead of point and click. Anything with as good level design and progression would be a treat for Lynx fans anyhow! ??

[+-^CrossBow^-]

23 minutes ago, Turbo Laser Lynx said:

I remember only once seeing Loom on a friends PC, but I can't remember much about it. I saw on wikipedia that it uses a a four musical note system for spells instead of point and click. Anything with as good level design and progression would be a treat for Lynx fans anyhow! ??

This is more or less correct yes. The game was still a point and click. But instead of an inventory to manage, you used your staff to create musical note sequences that would change the object in focus or parts of the scene to progress through the story. Only by clicking on certain objects in another screen nearby or even sometimes the same screen, would you learn the note pattern to do a particular thing. As an example that isn't really a spoiler, your character explores a tent with cloth hanging about and a large pot of green dye. By clicking on a flask you learn the note pattern to change the color white to green. Much later on in the game you actually end up using this pattern to progress within a scene in the game. 

 

It was a very unique and wonderful adventure game to play. No way to die or get stuck as was usual for most of Lucas Arts adventure games back then. It is one of my favorite adventure games (They all are LOL!) and I especially like to fire up the EGA version of the game on my PC in combination with my MT-32 module as I think the original midi tracks are better to listen to vs the redbook audio that came on the VGA CD version.

 

[+karri]

14 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

But instead of an inventory to manage, you used your staff to create musical note sequences that would change the object in focus or parts of the scene to progress through the story.

Yep. I kind of want to create a game where you can change the scenery within the game. In On Duty you could blow up pretty much anything. A wall of a house so you can enter without a key. So it is kind of open ended. The player may well invent some clever new ways of solving the missions.

 

The Lynx can play nice melodies. So it could give some nice vibes to a game to have spells cast by a musical instrument.

 

There won't be too many spells in the game as I don't want people to have to scroll through lists. Plus there may still be some traditional weapon like a bow or a staff.

 

The time of the game is probably the Golden Medieval times! - Not as they really were with plagues, hunger and powerty. But what they could have been in my fantasies. ?

 

The controls will be joypad for walking around. B for selecting your spell/weapon. And A for casting the spell on the object you have targetted.

 

Picking up stuff is automatic when you find something.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

I don't think having to manage a list of the musical spells is a bad thing. Heck on the Loom game you had to write the sequences down because they would change from game to game. I don't remember how many different combinations there were, but it wasn't more than about 4 or 5 different sets of patterns. Eventually I played the game enough that I had most of the patterns all memorized and never had to write them down anymore. Playing the game on the hardest difficulty was one of the memorable moments when I got to see the additional and more gruesome scene towards the end of the game hehe.

 

[+davidcalgary29]

I upgraded my AT clone to play Loom! I bought an ATI VGA wonder and an AdLib soundboard for it!

 

The musical sequences in Loom sort of remind me of the piano bonus rooms in Scrapyard Dog. Or should that be the other way around? Doesn't matter -- I love both games.

[+karri]

15 minutes ago, davidcalgary29 said:

I upgraded my AT clone to play Loom! I bought an ATI VGA wonder and an AdLib soundboard for it!

 

The musical sequences in Loom sort of remind me of the piano bonus rooms in Scrapyard Dog. Or should that be the other way around? Doesn't matter -- I love both games.

I wonder if the PC version was different. I played it on my Amiga 500 and I don't remember any special hard mode on that one.

 

Perhaps the easiest would be to stick to the white piano keys and a spell could just be a sequence like CEGA or FDGE. These should be easy targets for ABCmusic  

[+davidcalgary29]

It has been thirty years, but I recall having had to write down the actual musical sequence of each segment in order to complete it. But perhaps I was just really bad at that game.

[PFG 9000]

I've never played Loom, but I'm up for any new Lynx titles.  It sounds like a fun premise.  And Karri's games never disappoint!

[+karri]

1 minute ago, PFG 9000 said:

I've never played Loom, but I'm up for any new Lynx titles.  It sounds like a fun premise.  And Karri's games never disappoint!

How sweet! Thanks!

[+-^CrossBow^-]

I don't know about the other versions, but yes on the PC EGA version, if you played the game on hard mode where you didn't see the distaff light up and had to play completely by ear, you saw Cobb actually die when he lifts your hood instead of it being mentioned during Mandible's monologue just before summoning Chaos. 

 

I think it might have been exclusive to the original EGA release of the game as I believe it wasn't present in the VGA versions or the talking CD release. Lots of differences in those earlier EGA releases vs the VGA versions back then like character portrait closeups and the like being removed in the VGA versions.

 

 

 

[gambler172]

Hi Karri

Looks good.Lmk if you need a tester ?

[+karri]

59 minutes ago, gambler172 said:

Hi Karri

Looks good.Lmk if you need a tester ?

Hi Walter

You are in ?