Becca
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Registered: 10/01/10
Posts: 108
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| Posted 01/28/11 at 01:58 PM | Reply with quote #1 |
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| Post your thoughts here about the beginning of the game. |
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Becca
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Registered: 10/01/10
Posts: 108
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| Posted 01/29/11 at 12:55 PM | Reply with quote #2 |
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I really love the way this game looks. I'm not sure what you'd call this style/era of computer graphics. It's certainly got an MS-Paint feel to it. It's very pixelly, but I think the use of color is really great. The color on the Loom in particular I really like, though it is pretty gaudy.
The Loom just got me thinking about how sci-fi this game feels. Everything so far has definitely been magic-related, but the Loom almost seems like a computer. And then, of course, the mysterious sky rifts are certainly a little sci-fi. Anyone else getting this feeling?
I'm a little unsure about the story so far. The beginning seemed so traumatic and yet Bobbin's reaction was totally blasé. Is he following the swans to join them and eventually become one himself?
In terms of gameplay, I'm really impressed with the way objects in the environment make noises to teach you a song. None of it feels forced: the gulls and owls sing notes as they cry, the bubbling pot bubbles, the flask drips. Only things that make noise can suggest a spell to you. Maybe that's obvious, but it also makes the world more logical in a way. We'd find it a little contrived if a sedentary rock made 'rock' noises. |
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Atomicvege
Registered: 07/15/08
Posts: 43
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| Posted 01/30/11 at 01:02 AM | Reply with quote #3 |
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Yeah, one thing i've always loved about Loom is that its mechanics are so different than every other adventure game. Weaving spells i think helps to immerse the player more in the world and especially with the idea that Bobbin is a weaver.
One interesting thing i want to mention is this is the first time i've played the game with voice acting (the Steam version). I was a little weary at first, but the quality of it is quite good so i don't forsee any problems.
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coolmoose09
Registered: 01/21/11
Posts: 2
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| Posted 02/01/11 at 12:38 PM | Reply with quote #4 |
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| As I played the opening section of this game, I was really struck by how different the modern gaming landscape is compared to when this game was released. In particular, this game really highlights how tutorial-driven everything has become. If this game were remade today, you know there'd be a whole intro section telling you exactly how to do things, probably narrated by a fairy helper of some sort ("This is the distaff! Click on things to play melodies that will affect them!"). I love how old games like this one just drop you in a new, almost alien environment and expect you to learn through experimentation. For modern games, having this feature is a selling point or novelty rather than the norm. When a game like Limbo comes out, people praise it for being 'retro' or even 'innovative' for this lack of tutorial. Why is it that this has shifted? I think that as gaming has become more widespread, developers' view of their audience has shifted as well. I think most developers feel that not having a tutorial section will make their game seem inaccessible, and thus, unsellable.
Is this really true though? If a major game release (a Call of Duty or God of War game, say) had no tutorial whatsoever, would it really sell any less? |
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madsdk
Registered: 06/22/09
Posts: 68
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| Posted 02/01/11 at 05:29 PM | Reply with quote #5 |
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First off, I really appreciate the fact that I this time actually have knowledge of the events that lead up to where the game starts. So if you haven't already I strongly recommend reading the transcript that Becca posted a link to - or finding the actual audio drama on YouTube as danbruno suggested.
As for the graphics I must say that this is a really nice trip down memory lane for me :-) I'm playing the EGA version right now which looks very much like the Amiga version I played years ago (they may be completely identical, I don't know). I plan to play the "prettier" talkie version later on, just to see how that version feels, but for now the old school version is perfect for me. I like the overall graphical style. It is _very_ pixelated compared to todays standards, but that's part of the charm of playing a vintage game I think, which means that it ends up being a good thing. Funny, if a new game was released with graphics like that I would shun it I think.
Like Becca, I also enjoy the way you interact with the world by listening to the nodes being played and trying to reproduce them. I am playing it on expert level and so far the tunes have been very easy to decipher but I'm excited to see how difficult it gets further along in the game. So far the game is very easy, but that doesn't mean that it hasn't been rewarding - solving easy puzzles can be fun, as long as they are meaningful I guess...
One question before I continue discussing this game with you: how about spoilers? Are the threads meant to be read _after_ playing through the area they discuss, so that we may have spoilers for that area in the posts? Or should we use the threads to discuss _while_ we are in the area?
Best regards,
Mads
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Becca
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Registered: 10/01/10
Posts: 108
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| Posted 02/01/11 at 07:03 PM | Reply with quote #6 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by coolmoose09 I think most developers feel that not having a tutorial section will make their game seem inaccessible, and thus, unsellable.
I think you're forgetting that Loom is from the era of games when people actually read the manual. I've always assumed that most games have extended tutorials now because they know you won't read the manual. I'm sure you're right that a lot of it has to do with accessibility. Could you imagine trying to get through Bioshock with no explanation about plasmids? It would probably be totally doable but with some minor frustration at first and maybe the point is to cut out any chance of someone giving up on a game right away.
I have this hilarious image in my mind of a modern Loom with a little fairy guide. All Quest 64 style action-adventure nonsense where you learn a fireball song to shoot at enemies with your distaff. Barf.
Quote: Originally Posted by madsdk One question before I continue discussing this game with you: how about spoilers? Are the threads meant to be read _after_ playing through the area they discuss, so that we may have spoilers for that area in the posts? Or should we use the threads to discuss _while_ we are in the area?
This is tough. As you might have seen, I just posted asking for help in the next section and it would have been too bad if someone had already spoiled the solution there. I think maybe a spoiler tag would be wise if you're going to talk specifically about a puzzle solution. After a bit a time, though, if it seems like most people have gone through a section, I think that talking more freely is ok. If anyone has a better rule for this let me know. I've only done Mario 64 here and there aren't exactly spoilers for that. |
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davidcarlton
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Registered: 07/15/08
Posts: 548
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| Posted 02/02/11 at 01:19 AM | Reply with quote #7 |
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| I certainly had a fun time figuring out how the mechanics worked in the opening section of the game - a nice counterpart to what I'm used to in adventure games. Though I am curious if, now that I've figured out the mechanics, I'll end up feeling much the same way about this game as I do about inventory usage in traditional adventure games. (Which isn't a negative feeling by any means, but it's a mechanic with its downsides.) Maybe not - the advantage here is that there are, I'm assuming, relatively few tunes that can each be used more broadly, as compared to items in traditional adventure games, which are relatively single-usage.
(Hmm, when I think about it that way, it reminds me of spells in Golden Sun. I really need to go play Golden Sun DS!) |
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ILR
Registered: 08/27/08
Posts: 140
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| Posted 02/02/11 at 02:22 PM | Reply with quote #8 |
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| I first played Loom in the early 90s when my sister got a LucasArts collection that included it. The full intro wasn't in there but the manual included a written version of the story thus far. Which naturally went way over the head of a 10-year old non-English speaker. I don't remember being too put off by the strange opening, a lot point-n-clickers didn't particularly make sense to me back then and a kid at that age learns by clicking everything anyway.
Re-playing now, the hints for the more obtuse parts are obvious. Bobbin repeats the phrase 'Open the sky' after reading the tombstone, for example. I still remember the thrill when trying that for the first time. "Ok, so we apparently can't dye the sky, but could we open it?... WHOA, WHAT'S THAT?".
One LucasArts staple is the character turning towards the 'camera' at the end of a speech and making a final point. Here, it is seen when examining the last tapestry with its end cut off. No particular point to make there, just something I noticed.
Oh, and the voice acting isn't up to par here. Exhaling into the mic after a line is just a shoddy job from everyone involved, and the voice cuts annoyingly off every now and then. |
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Wouter
Registered: 02/03/11
Posts: 2
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| Posted 02/04/11 at 04:44 AM | Reply with quote #9 |
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This is the first time I'm joining in on a game here at VGC, wanted to replay Loom for a while now and read about it on brainygamer just in time to join in. Like the idea, plan to do this more often 
I played Loom before a long time ago in EGA with crappy sound, it's very nice to go through it again with better graphics and sound. I really like using the tunes instead of an inventory and a list of verbs, trying to figure out what the tunes do and how you can apply that feels a lot more creative.
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madsdk
Registered: 06/22/09
Posts: 68
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| Posted 02/07/11 at 04:06 PM | Reply with quote #10 |
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Quote: I played Loom before a long time ago in EGA with crappy sound
I just finished an EGA version of the game. And YES, some of the sound effects are crappy. The things you play on the distaff sounds nice enough, but some of the background noise is just teeth-grindingly annoying. If I _ever_ have to enter that forge again I will most definitely go crazy ;-)
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LouisF
Registered: 07/07/09
Posts: 117
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| Posted 02/09/11 at 12:26 AM | Reply with quote #11 |
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This game has been sitting in my Steam library for quite a while. A club playthrough is as good a reason as I'll ever have to try it!
Right now I have put two half-hours in trying to puzzle the opening section. I'll be completely honest: at this very early point, the quality of the visuals and a simple curiosity towards adventure game history are the only things motivating me to get back to it. The plodding pace of the character's movement (which is seemingly not altered by pressing F7), unreliable click detection, repetitive drafting mechanic and mediocre voice acting are all rubbing me the wrong way. Nothing to completely dispel my interest in the game, but irritations that might definitely push me to give up at some point.
Progress at this point has been mostly achieved through blind trial-and-error, but each little step has felt like a gift, as tends to be the case in adventure games. "Opening the sky" felt both logical and appropriately ethereal, and figuring out the effect of the owls' draft was satisfying. The musical interaction is certainly unusual and interesting, and I do hope I become able to draw associations more effectively (thus leading to less crossed-fingers fumbling-about). Sadly, unexpected and seemingly arbitrary results to my actions ("spinning the straw"... really?) keep me from holding out for much of a gaming epiphany.
Not sure if I'll stick around 'til the end, but we will see!
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whitewind
Registered: 02/07/11
Posts: 7
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| Posted 02/09/11 at 04:27 PM | Reply with quote #12 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by WouterThis is the first time I'm joining in on a game here at VGC, wanted to replay Loom for a while now and read about it on brainygamer just in time to join in. Like the idea, plan to do this more often I played Loom before a long time ago in EGA with crappy sound, it's very nice to go through it again with better graphics and sound. I really like using the tunes instead of an inventory and a list of verbs, trying to figure out what the tunes do and how you can apply that feels a lot more creative.
I happened to get here pretty much the same way. Loom is one of my favourite games, not to mention one of the first games I ever played on the PC (yeah, same EGA version), so I took the opportunity and had another play-through on my netbook using ScummVM.
About the in-game tutorial vs manual discussion, I could add that the user was pretty much forced to at least OPEN the manual, since Loom - like many games released around that time - had a copy protection mechanism that required you to look up symbols in the manual; this did not necessarily mean that the player would go ahead and READ the entire manual as well, but I think it helped in that respect. In any case, I personally feel that the game is structured pretty much as a single big tutorial, even if there are no tool-tips or other aids to figure out how to play: during the whole adventure, the player has to deal with one or at most two puzzles at once, and once these are cleared backtracking to already visited areas not only is unnecessary, it's not even allowed (except for the final act). As a result, it's impossible to get lost, and hard to get stuck: in some sense, Loom felt to me - even if I liked it a lot - more a proof of concept than a complete game....
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danbruno
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Registered: 07/14/08
Posts: 155
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| Posted 02/12/11 at 07:34 PM | Reply with quote #13 |
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I've now played through Loom twice and have yet to write anything! Time to get going.
As much as I like the atmosphere on the island, I think it's one of the weaker sections as far as actual gameplay is concerned -- the puzzles were so arbitrary that I wasn't even sure what problems I was trying to solve.
After visiting the graveyard Bobbin makes it pretty clear that "opening the sky" is the way forward. However, that's not enough -- the waterspout blocking your way involves an F, which your distaff won't play until you...go back to the island to bleach some fabric and transmute some straw. There are no particular reasons for these actions, other than that Bobbin doesn't really like the color green. (He even says he doesn't value gold, and there's no one left on the island anyway, so the latter action seems especially unnecessary.)
I suppose the designers need you to have a sizable collection of drafts before setting sail to the mainland -- otherwise the early puzzles could all be brute-forced. (If there are only two possible solutions to every problem, there wouldn't be much of a game!) Still, I didn't like that I was just doing random stuff to see what happened, without any sense of what my goal was. Luckily, this problem quickly alleviates itself; elsewhere in the game you "level up" your distaff enough on the critical path that you don't have to flail around to discover enough drafts and progress.
(As an aside, the "night vision" draft didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Why was I supposed to associate the owls' song with night vision specifically, instead of, say, "flying"? Or even "home," since they were all in their respective trees? And what was the point of making me scare the rabbit out of the bush so the fourth owl would grab it?) |
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Becca
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Registered: 10/01/10
Posts: 108
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| Posted 02/15/11 at 02:58 PM | Reply with quote #14 |
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I can definitely see what you mean about how arbitrary this part is. Instead of a barrier that you must puzzle your way out of, the barrier is more of a check point. The game doesn't want you to go ahead until it gives you the OK. It would be a much bigger problem if the whole game was like this, but as a beginning part, I think it's alright for it to be kind of like practice. Even though we talked about the lack of a tutorial earlier in this thread, maybe this is really it in a directionless sort of way. It's sort of sandbox-y. There is lots of straw to spin and unspin and lots of cloth to dye and bleach. You can get a feel for it all.
Admittedly, I doubt many people needed a whole island to get it right. It's not like we're practicing special moves or button combinations.
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