The MONKEY ISLAND and other Adventure Games thread

[Marian Schedenig 8,207]

32 minutes ago, ckappes said:

Same as Return to Monkey Island. I hope my PC copy of Return to Monkey Island Collector's Edition is a audio CD. It is not clearly stated but I thought PC Game + Original Soundtrack means either the game plus audio in only one CD or 2CD's (1CD game and the other CD is the soundtrack). Or LRG doesn't want to list two jewel cases at the same time and then they stated "Includes... Original Soundtrack".

 

In the picture you clearly see the jewel case says "Original Soundtrack", but the description stated "Orignial soundtrack + PC game". Or maybe an error because they designed that picture for the console games first and forget to change the cover of the jewel case.

 

Exactly. In this case it didn't stop me, because it's ReMI (GF is GF, but in that case there was the additional feeling of "it's only a replica, not the original" - this time it's the original boxed release), and there wasn't (at the time) any version of the soundtrack at all anyway, so a file-only version would still have been much better than nothing. But yes, I do hope we're getting an actual CD.

[Laserschwert 475]

I'm pretty sure it includes the actual soundtrack CD, because the console versions ALSO show a jewel case labeled Soundtrack, while the game gets its respective PS/XB/Switch case.

[Jay 37,372]

On 20/01/2023 at 10:04 AM, Jay said:

Just ordered the physical PC edition from Limited Run Games

 

And it just arrived today

[Marian Schedenig 8,207]

14 hours ago, Jay said:

On 20/01/2023 at 4:04 PM, Jay said:

Just ordered the physical PC edition from Limited Run Games

 

And it just arrived today

 

The regular edition or the Collector's Edition? I'm still waiting for any news for the latter.

[The Dark Trilogy 39]

Mine (Collector's Edition) was shipped a few days ago and it's on the way to my country.

[Marian Schedenig 8,207]

Oh, so they're finally coming! I've never received any info from them about the production schedule (except for the initial prognosis, which clearly didn't work out).

[Jay 37,372]

44 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

The regular edition or the Collector's Edition? I'm still waiting for any news for the latter.

Collector's

[Romão 2,274]

How's the soundtrack CD? 

[Faleel 5,359]

He probably hasn't taken it out of the shrink-wrap yet!

[Jay 37,372]

I haven't even opened the box the thing came in yet!

 

I got home from work late and saw it had arrived, spent time with my wife and went to bed, and now I'm back at the office.

 

I'll open it up tomorrow

[Faleel 5,359]

How unnerdy of you.

 

[Jay 37,372]

Here it is!

 

[Marian Schedenig 8,207]

That's the second biggest Monkey Island Collector's Edition I've ever seen!

 

PS: The soundtrack is a proper CD! Included in the 2 CD jewel case that also holds the Windows version of the game (Mac and Linux version come on separate discs in paper sleeves). The jewel case design serves nicely as a soundtrack case, so I'll put that in the CD shelf and the box with my other games.

[Laserschwert 475]

The console versions of the CE have the soundtrack in their own jewel case. Still awaiting mine.

 

[Marian Schedenig 8,207]

[Jay 37,372]

Cool!  I didn't want to open mine until I had opportunity to play it.  Which will hopefully be soon!

[Marian Schedenig 8,207]

Collector's boxes are nice. It's not my favourite point & click series (I like it, but not as much as the Lucas/Doublefine games), but I couldn't skip this:

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/revolution-software/broken-sword-reforged-collectors-edition?ref=section-homepage-featured-project#

 

 

[Laserschwert 475]

I keep pestering them about offering a CD as an alternative to the soundtrack vinyl, but they haven't replied.

 

 

[filip 53]

I'm so conflicted about Broken Sword Reforged.

 

They keep boasting about the graphical update but, from what I can tell, Charles Cecil confirmed that they did not go back to original tapes for SPEECH (I presume they are lost? Because if they were just lazy... EHHHHH) and just edited&enhanced old in-game audio files. You could really hear that in trailers but I was hoping it maybe was not final... Alas. It sucks for a game like BS.

And the FMVs? Wiggly smudgey upscales next to crisp 4k in-game backgrounds. EH.

 

I don't think I realized how lucky I/we got with Day of the Tentacle/Full Throttle Double Fine remasters. And yes, I know a lot of people don't like those or their updated soundtracks.

[Marian Schedenig 8,207]

12 hours ago, filip said:

They keep boasting about the graphical update but, from what I can tell, Charles Cecil confirmed that they did not go back to original tapes for SPEECH (I presume they are lost? Because if they were just lazy... EHHHHH) and just edited&enhanced old in-game audio files. You could really hear that in trailers but I was hoping it maybe was not final... Alas. It sucks for a game like BS.

 

I suppose the original raw assets might well be lost, or maybe they never were stored in high quality to begin with. I haven't followed reports about the remaster though. Perhaps he'll talk a bit about at at Reboot Develop next month.

 

12 hours ago, filip said:

And the FMVs? Wiggly smudgey upscales next to crisp 4k in-game backgrounds. EH.

 

Huh? You mean the cinematic sequences? They look good to me in the trailer - not like mere upscales?

 

12 hours ago, filip said:

I don't think I realized how lucky I/we got with Day of the Tentacle/Full Throttle Double Fine remasters. And yes, I know a lot of people don't like those or their updated soundtracks.

 

Don't forget Grim Fandango! And yes, those surely were special. On the other hand, Revolution are also making a *new* BS game simultaneously (I think?). That's the one I'm mostly looking forward to anyway.

[Laserschwert 475]

13 hours ago, filip said:

And the FMVs? Wiggly smudgey upscales next to crisp 4k in-game backgrounds. EH.

While there were some shots in the video, where the animation cells where upscaled, they did get some crisp paint overs where detail was crucial (the eyes, for example). But then again there were other clips, like the opening panorama shot of Paris, where the background was a fully reworked high-res version of the painting, with stunning detail. So I guess wherever possible they rebuilt the cutscenes from scratch, while animation cells were too much work to re-paint completely. It doesn't look like simply upscaling the original compressed cutscenes was ever the plan (unless some material is missing completely).

 

That being said, the Kickstarter is still active, with the collected money ALSO utilized to further improve the remaster (and not just pay for the merch).

[filip 53]

Outside of the shot of Paris everything in the intro looks upscaled to me in the footage they showed so far. They did draw some character details over the upscale for sure but it's still all wiggly and smudgey and the backgrounds are absolutely mere upscales.

The ending cutscene parts that they show in the KS video has new backgrounds ('cause they're mostly stills), unfortunate results on explosions in the background, but man you cannot tell me the character art, even if they updated some parts (Nico is obviously a different design), doesn't look trash - the way George's hair fluctuates and disgustingly morphs presumably interpolating frames that weren't there... Yuck.

Of course, as you say, they may yet address some of this - Cecil stated in one FAQ video that they are doing stuff manually over AI upscales.

 

Again, I am conflicted. I want to believe they are doing the best they can, working with the best sources they can... but I still don't know if I'm on board.

 

2 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Don't forget Grim Fandango!

You're right. How dared I.

[Marian Schedenig 8,207]

Earlier this week, Charles Cecil gave two talks at Reboot Develop in Dubrovnik, about remastering the first Broken Sword game. Here's a couple of things I remember - all from memory, in my own words, so hopefully I'll manage to convey his meaning.

 

 

The idea behind the remaster is to not only bring the game back for those who already know it, but to also make the genre accessible for newer generations of gamers. Quoting Richard Cobbett, he said that adventure games have been backward looking for too long and should stop treating their own genre as retro.

 

 

Revolution rely heavily on playtesting, and early on were shocked to find that modern audiences couldn't handle the interface. He says they got ratings of 50%-60% and lower (when their games used to reliable score 80%-90%) for their initial remaster attempts because contrary to what seemed obvious to them, newer audiences don't intuitively understand the point and click concept. He also says though that he believes the interface itself is sound, and the general Broken Sword interface is still valid today, but the presentation has to be updated not just for modern audiences but modern systems. He also didn't want to add a straightforward walkthrough hint system, because players inevitably choose the path of least resistance, and once you start using a hint system, it's almost impossible to stop yourself from going back to it instead of trying to figure out a puzzle yourself. Instead, they added some mechanics to nudge people in the right direction, e.g. automatic hints that nudge you in the right direction when you're stuck for too long, and items/clickable hot spots that disappear automatically after it has been established that they're of no more use. However, all of this is optional, as the game will offer a choice between classic mode and "story mode" and allow seamless switching during play.

 

They're also making very slight changes to some other things, mostly because game development was always rushed to meet deadlines and things were overlooked that would otherwise have been fixed, like that pipe that the clown used to escape although it didn't extend all the way to the top of the wall (as already mentioned in the Kickstarter campaign). He was adamant though that they changed nothing substantial, as he himself wanted to preserve the original game, except in cases that he would always have fixed if he had been able to. They also went through the script and (maybe - I'm not sure) made very minor tweaks, but were happy to discover that it still held up today; he said that one of his original motivations was that women were heavily underrepresented and objectified in video games at the time and he wanted to make a game that didn't do the same*, and that naturally they wouldn't like to release something today that would conflict with modern sensibilities, but that happily the original script was fine as it is.

 

*) He related an anecdote about Lure of the Temptress, the first game by Revolution, published by Virgin Interactive. When the game was mostly finished and it came to choosing a title, he racked his brain to come up with a list of possible titles to send to the publisher, and added "Lure of the Temptress (this is a joke)" at the end because he found it sounded intriguing, but didn't have anything to do with the game and would be totally wrong. To his dismay the publisher loved it and insisted that they use it, and when he pointed out that it's rubbish and that there wasn't any temptress in the game to begin with, the response was "… can you put one in?" So they had to rewrite the game to add a temptress at the last minute…

 

He also said that they would have gone ahead with the remaster with or without the Kickstarter, but it allowed them to improve some things. If I understood correctly, it was meant mostly help them bridge the gap before the console ports are ready and do a simultaneous cross platform release.

 

The original game contains 30,000 sprites, and manually redrawing them in 4K takes 1 hour per frame, i.e. 30k hours in total, which is obviously a lot of money. The experimented with AI upscaling, but found that especially the eyes of the characters didn't work, because they would be looking in the wrong direction in the automatic upscale (because the low res sources didn't have enough information). So the funds also allowed them to either fully redraw everything or to manual touch ups of all shortcomings (I'm not sure which of the two).

 

Here's Charles Cecil presenting a slide about how film narratives can and cannot be applied to games, before showing the idol sequence from Raiders of the Lost Ark as an example clip:

 

[Marian Schedenig 8,207]

Remembered two more things:

 

CC says that point & click adventure games are a niche, but they've always been a niche, and they're a consistent niche. I.e. they're hard to market, but there are still enough people to play and buy them. Publishers hate them, but they've done so since the 90s.

 

He also recounted an anecdote about when they first presented a version of Broken Sword to their would be publisher. They had everything on one PC, hugely expensive for them at the time at 1,000 pounds. They brought it with them in the car to London the day before the presentation and went out for drinks. When he woke up hungover the next day, he looked out the window and saw the car windows smashed, and suddenly remembered that they had forgotten to take the computer out of the car. The thieves had taken everything - except for the PC. CC said that he can say with confidence that had the PC been taken as well, there would never have been a Broken Sword game, and there would be no Revolution today.