Positive thinking time!

[GrahamRocks!]

Wait, you were on the SQ2 remake team!? Well, you guys did pretty damn good!! I liked it a lot!

Also, now I want to play Incinerations again. I played some of it, and while I did like it, my computer was messed up with something at the time and thusly kept deleting it for some reason.

[stika]

I think part of the reason for that may be due to how unique humor is. Every seemingly minor change can ruin a joke. A good example of this is the Monkey Island Special Edition.

While I enjoyed both Special Edition releases and I loved hearing the old cast making a return, some of the humor was lost due to the dichotomy between written and spoken humor. Both have different comedic timing and what works in one may not work in the other.

EDIT: Also, I should point out I haven't played the SQ remakes yet >.>

[JDHJANUS]

Infamous Adventures' Space Quest II remake is really amazing. I really enjoyed it, and that's saying something, considering that Space Quest II is one of the few AGI Sierra games that I actually really like to begin with. Your team did an amazing job on that, Lambonius!

I am definitely loving Incinerations. Chris Ushko's animations and backgrounds are really quite spectacular, especially considering he did almost all of it by himself. He blew it out of the water for me, personally! I'm really enjoying the game so far!

You know, I was thinking last night about trailers and how they can sometimes be misleading (especially teaser trailers). A perfect example popped into my mind: Frozen. Before I saw Frozen in theaters, the only trailer for the movie that I had seen was this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1x76DoACB8

Needless to say, I was expecting some sort of comedy movie that focused on a snowman and a reindeer. Boy, was I surprised! There is no mention of the plot at all in that trailer, and it's a scene that doesn't even happen in the movie (although a similar scenes does happen). There is no mention of Anna, Elsa, Hans, Kristoff, or any of the other principal characters in the story, and taken on its own, is quite misleading of what the film is actually going to be.

I think the new King's Quest trailer is similar. Matt Korba recently joined the Sierra Gamers group on Facebook, and posted the following message I wanted to share with everyone  here:

"
Hello Everybody!

I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself. I'm Matt Korba the Creative Director of the new King's Quest. Thanks for having me.

I'll start off by saying KQ really is my favorite franchise of all time. One of my first gaming memories is typing "eat carrot" into a B&W version of King's Quest I, and being amazed the game actually responded.


I'll try to answer any questions I can. There are certain questions I can't answer yet due to upcoming reveals and I don't want to get anyone in trouble (myself included ). I want to do a legitimate AMA probably later on in Jan after some more details have come to light.

The new King's Quest is an episodic adventure game that focuses on the stories King Graham tells his curious granddaughter Gwendolyn. Through these stories Gwendolyn realizes the true greatness of her Grandfather. The game is not point and click in the traditional sense, but is an updated take on the formula (more details to come). You can expect puzzles, exploration, and a humor filled wondrous story.

The trailer is cut with a lot of action (hopefully I can share more about why later) but keep in mind adventure game mechanics are hard to show in a trailer without making the trailer seem slow for a wide audience. The game however is certainly not an action game and certainly not a platformer.

We are super passionate and excited to be working on this game. This is the most fun game I have ever worked on (hopefully to play too). It's a big task to bring back KQ and perhaps being a small part of a genre coming back, but hopefully everyone can tell that we are pouring our souls into the game. If this game is successful, it could show the industry that people still want games where charm, storytelling, and using your mind are at the forefront. I'll answer the questions I can in the thread below. You can always reach out to me on twitter @mattkorba, sometimes that's faster.

I can't wait to show more, reveal the music, the gameplay, the story, etc. Oh and "Your Legacy Awaits" is a marketing slug not the subtitle, that will come later. If anyone wants to help me correct all the KQ wikis that would be awesome!"

He also said in the comments that these will be new adventures with new stories, not remakes/reboot of the original games, but will still have numerous nods to the original series. He said it was not going to be an action game, like Uncharted, but an Adventure game.

I hope that this alleviates quite a bit of concern that a lot of people may have.

Talk to you later!

JDHJANUS
Josh

[GrahamRocks!]

There was a version of KQ1 in black and white? Yeah, Frozen is a great example.

Yay for episodic game! I'm assuming it's a different time in Graham's life  for each episode. That would make the most logical sense to me.

[Numbers]

I found that Easter egg in the SQ2 remake, by the way. Pretty cool.

I believe I've already made my opinions on episodic releases clear at this point, but in case you don't know: I think episodic releases ruin the pacing of the game. Most of the time, it starts off slow, starts to build up, and then the episode ends just as things start to get interesting. TSL's episode 4 is a good example of this. Much of the episode is sluggish, thanks in no small part to that hedge maze, and the pace finally picks up with the last two challenges, but then the episode ends immediately after.

I also think episodic releases are just a way to wring more money out of customers. Having to continue to pay money to keep playing a game to completion is not very ideal in my book.

[GrahamRocks!]

Aw, but cliffhangers are fun.

[Lambonius]

I f***ing hate episodic games.  Episodic gaming has literally NEVER BEEN DONE WELL.  Not only does it hamper the game's pacing, like Numbers said, but it also ruins a game's sense of scope.  Each episode ends up being so self-contained, you're usually exploring only a small area, and playing through just a few scenarios before the episode comes to an end with a cliffhanger and you're forced to wait for the next one.  In my mind, episodic gaming is just an excuse to release the game in incomplete increments.

Consider this: Has any game ever been BETTER because it was episodic, as opposed to a full-length, complete experience?  Answer: No.  If you disagree, you are a piece of s***.

Telltale is mostly to blame for setting the turd standard for episodic gaming that every a****** with a dev kit wants to emulate now.  f*** EPISODIC GAMING.   

That said, I am cautiously optimistic that because the Odd Gentlemen are not Telltale, they might actually be able to pull it off reasonably well, or at least, better than Telltale (which is not a difficult bar to pass.)  I get the impression that they have a higher budget behind them than most Telltale games do, and Matt Korba has explicitly said that the game should appeal to fans of non-linear, exploration-heavy classic adventures, so here's hoping.  Of course, he COULD just be blowing smoke up our asses, but he does seem genuine, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for now.

[snabbott]

I'm making a Pac-Man clone. Do you think there's a way I could split it into episodes?

[Numbers]

I'm thinking of creating a game of Pong, but I just don't know if I can release it in its entirety...maybe if I sell the first level of the game for 20$, then I can work on level two, which is only slightly harder than level one, and sell that for 20$...

The only episodic game I think I've ever liked are the Wallace and Gromit games. Each episode is completely different from the rest and they all have their own scope. They never use the same locations, plot devices or villains more than once. That being said, the final episode was clearly the low point in the series, and the new voice actor for Wallace is...not the best. That's about the only exception I can think of, though.

[Lambonius]

I'm making a Pac-Man clone. Do you think there's a way I could split it into episodes?

I'm thinking of creating a game of Pong, but I just don't know if I can release it in its entirety...maybe if I sell the first level of the game for 20$, then I can work on level two, which is only slightly harder than level one, and sell that for 20$...

[GrahamRocks!]

Hahaha!

[daventry]

So Episodic means we may get Parts of KQ2015 like TellTale, like maybe an Episode every Month or 6 Months witch is Bad either way. 

Ah i love TSL Ep5 oh wait. 

[chucklas]

The main reason for releasing the game as episodes is to get the community to actually pay full price for a full game.  Most adventure game fans will not shell out $50-$60 bucks for an adventure game.  They feel as though $20 is over priced.  Why this is true is likely due to the community only getting free games/remakes for the last 15 years.  They have been trained to believe that adventure games for whatever reason (lack of multiplayer, replayability, etc) are not worth as much as pretty much every other game that they buy.  So, in order to get a full payment, developers are taking the QVC approach by making gamers think they are paying less by purchasing a chapter at a time. YOU CAN HAVE THE NEW KQ FOR 5 EASY PAYMENTS OF $9.99!  And at the end of the day, you pay $50 for the full game and people sit here complaining that the developers are trying to squeeze every possible dollar out of the consumer.  Well, if the consumer wont pay for a damn game, they should squeeze.  The games at the end suffer for the reasons already mentioned, but I feel as though the developers have been forced into doing this by the consumer, not the other way around.  I am sure they would rather release the whole game at once and get the full price, but the sales figures have proven that they cannot do that, so we get worse games as a result.

[snabbott]

@chucklas Yeah - I think people don't remember (or are too young to know) that Sierra games used to be $50+. It seems like at least in this community, the expectation for prices has changed a lot over the years.
$69.95 for the 256-color version of KQ5

[chucklas]

@chucklas Yeah - I think people don't remember (or are too young to know) that Sierra games used to be $50+. It seems like at least in this community, the expectation for prices has changed a lot over the years.
$69.95 for the 256-color version of KQ5

Which in turn has hurt the overall quality of the product.  You get what you pay for.

I hate to admit it, but all of the free games released over the years, although they have helped revive interest in adventure gaming, they have also hurt the chances of the games themselves being profitable, or profitable enough to warrant making them, or making them well. 

[Lambonius]

Yeah, agreed.

The free release of Heroine's Quest definitely hurt Quest for Infamy, both critically and commercially.  There were even one or two a****** reviewers (for mainstream sites, too!) who actually had the gall to bring up Heroine's Quest in the damn reviews!  The context was something like, "Quest for Infamy is a good game, but THIS similar good game was free, so..."

f*** THAT.

[GrahamRocks!]

Thinking about getting QFI someday, actually. And Incinerations. And MAYBE Vohaul Strikes Back, since I think I read somewhere that one of the endings is connected to Incinerations?

[chucklas]

Thinking about getting QFI someday, actually.

You missed a flash sale on GoG yesterday! 

Damn!  I keep killing the genre!

[GrahamRocks!]

Awwww...

Lambonius, I am so sorry!

[Numbers]

Well, I see both Lambonius' and Chucklas' points on the matter. It's too bad about the state adventure games are in today. I'm still bummed about Kingdom of Sorrow getting canned; it probably would've been the last game out there that felt like a traditional King's Quest game. As it is, KQ3 Redux takes that honor. And TSL...well, it's a KQ game, just not exactly a traditional KQ game, given its episodic nature, 3D engine, more complex plot, and so on.