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LittleRose

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Shadowgate is coming, August 21st.

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My biggest gripes about the game at the moment is, that I hope they’d used projection mapping on the scnese, as they are a bit too static. If this sells enough and they do a sequal, I do hope they’ll start looking into that kind of tech as well. Also, the inventory usage is a bit of a hassle. It would be nice to have the inventory on the screen, as it would streamline the gameplay a bit and remove some extra clicks.

But all in all, I’d say it is a solid game.

     
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I love that I can listen to the original NES tracks! I loved that soundtrack.

I met the composer, Rich Douglas, at the Adventure Party during GDC, and he was just such a nice guy and great fellow. I thought I was excited for the game, but this guy took the cake.  It was nice to meet someone with that much enthusiasm for a project, and I’ve been enjoying his work. 

I’ve really been digging it - it’s a great update, but it also still reminds me of the classic I grew up with!  I would love to see them do Uninvited and Deja Vu.


Bt

     
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I’m loving this, too.  I’ve only played the NES version a few times, and never progressed very far into it.  I’m enjoying all the hilariously over-the-top “Gotcha!” deaths.  Just make it a common practice to save your game every time you come onto a new screen, and you don’t lose much progress.  I love that the game doesn’t do it for you (at least, it doesn’t seem to on Master difficulty—haven’t tried the others.)

     
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I can’t help but to feel that Shadowgate will be a hard slap against the face for many players. It’s so delightfully old school and difficult game even on the easier dificulty levels. And I really dig it more than I thought I would, considering I pretty much pledged because I just love the original 8-bit title song.

     
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tomimt - 22 August 2014 12:36 PM

I can’t help but to feel that Shadowgate will be a hard slap against the face for many players. It’s so delightfully old school and difficult game even on the easier dificulty levels. And I really dig it more than I thought I would, considering I pretty much pledged because I just love the original 8-bit title song.

It’s pretty much perfect at what it does though.  It should be appreciated for what it is, not what it isn’t.  Smile

It’s just so great and atmospheric, and a lot of fun to try different things and see what happens.  I’m having a great time with it.

     
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tomimt - 22 August 2014 03:22 AM

My biggest gripes about the game at the moment is, that I hope they’d used projection mapping on the scnese, as they are a bit too static. If this sells enough and they do a sequal, I do hope they’ll start looking into that kind of tech as well.

Do you mean for the cutscenes, when the camera is moving? Because for the backgrounds, I don’t think projection mapping would be that useful.

Projection mapping like in Book of Unwritten Tales 2 is useful because the camera moves. Even during gameplay, there’s a character who walks across screen (generally in the horizontal axis) and when he or she moves, the camera angle changes.

Since Shadowgate is in first-person with node-based movement, the camera is fixed for each background. The only time I’ve noticed so far that the camera moves (mostly in the depth axis) is when you fly from one screen to the next—assuming you have modern transitions enabled—and that’s just a brief effect with a fade-out. I guess projection mapping could make this scene transition look a bit cooler, but I don’t think it would be useful for the gameplay backgrounds themselves unless you had a moving camera there as well. Or at least a moving light source to cast across the 3-D geometry.

Personally, I actually like the mostly static nature of the backgrounds—not for every game, but for this game, it works. I never played the original Shadowgate but I did play text adventures with graphics, so maybe this is just nostalgia talking, but I think there may be a little more to it than that. For me, the mostly static scenes make the game feel like an interactive book or a Dungeons and Dragons-esque campaign with illustrations in the style of a great genre painter like John Howe or Frank Frazetta. (I have no idea if those two specifically were influences on Shadowgate, they’re just examples—I’m no expert on art.) I like that there’s enough movement to make the backgrounds “breathe” but not so much as to overwhelm the illustrative quality.

Somehow I find that this approach stimulates the imagination more. Obviously there are very specific images on screen, so maybe this is not strictly true, but I feel like the game is suggestive rather than prescriptive and I get to fill in the gaps of what it would be like to be in that environment myself. For example, I know there’s stuff off-screen that I can’t see. I can’t walk up to a cliff and look down, so I have to imagine what’s there. I know that a real dragon wouldn’t move quite like what I’m seeing, so the limited animations become almost like a storyteller’s suggestion of how the dragon moves. These might sound like negatives for immersion, but until we invent perfect VR tech, I like that it gives my imagination room to play, while still giving lots of lovely art to stimulate it.

Also, the inventory usage is a bit of a hassle. It would be nice to have the inventory on the screen, as it would streamline the gameplay a bit and remove some extra clicks.

I suspect it’s too big an inventory to fit on the screen all the time.

It might be nice if the inventory closed itself automatically after you click Use + object, since the next thing you presumably want to do is use that object in the room. But maybe there are times when you need to combine objects in your inventory and you wouldn’t want the inventory to auto-close. So there goes that idea, as well.

Anyway, I agree that the inventory is a tad cumbersome to click in and out of, even if it perhaps couldn’t be helped without a significantly different interface. As it is, the “I” key binding is probably the best way to get in and out of the inventory. This game really seems to want to be played with mouse and keyboard combined, and it plays pretty well that way.

If I were designing this game, I probably would have made right click assignable like the key bindings. Then the player could put whatever action they want on it, such as opening or closing the inventory.

But all in all, I’d say it is a solid game.

Agreed. Smile And you make good comments, so please don’t take my thoughtful quibbles in response to your thoughtful quibbles as any kind of grand argument. I think I understand what you’re saying, overall, and I’m enjoying discussing the game with you.

tomimt - 22 August 2014 12:36 PM

I can’t help but to feel that Shadowgate will be a hard slap against the face for many players. It’s so delightfully old school and difficult game even on the easier dificulty levels. And I really dig it more than I thought I would, considering I pretty much pledged because I just love the original 8-bit title song.

Yeah, this Shadowgate remake is clearly aimed squarely at players who think “old-school gameplay” can be a compliment or at least a neutral observation. Fortunately, I know we’ve got some folks like that here in the AG community and I doubt we’re the only ones, but I’m not at all surprised that so far it’s just the four of us who’ve said we’re jazzed about the game. This is a niche-within-a-niche sort of game.

Lovely illustrations, large environments to explore, challenging puzzles, an interface reminiscent of text adventures (minus the potential frustration of an actual text parser), and the tension of possible death… I like modern games, but I won’t deny that I enjoy these things, too.

     
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Caliburn - 22 August 2014 01:20 PM

Somehow I find that this approach stimulates the imagination more. Obviously there are very specific images on screen, so maybe this is not strictly true, but I feel like the game is suggestive rather than prescriptive and I get to fill in the gaps of what it would be like to be in that environment myself. For example, I know there’s stuff off-screen that I can’t see. I can’t walk up to a cliff and look down, so I have to imagine what’s there. I know that a real dragon wouldn’t move quite like what I’m seeing, so the limited animations become almost like a storyteller’s suggestion of how the dragon moves. These might sound like negatives for immersion, but until we invent perfect VR tech, I like that it gives my imagination room to play, while still giving lots of lovely art to stimulate it.

I would go so far as to say that this might be the ideal graphical approach for this kind of game, and for exactly the reasons you described above.  Beautiful, evocative illustrations, enough movement that each background feels somewhat “alive,” but still plenty of room for imagination.  It really does feel like a modern day text adventure in a lot of ways.

     
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Lambonius - 22 August 2014 12:18 PM

Just make it a common practice to save your game every time you come onto a new screen, and you don’t lose much progress.  I love that the game doesn’t do it for you (at least, it doesn’t seem to on Master difficulty—haven’t tried the others.)

There’s some autosaving on the lower difficulties. I’m not sure how frequent it is.

     
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Lambonius - 22 August 2014 01:32 PM

I would go so far as to say that this might be the ideal graphical approach for this kind of game, and for exactly the reasons you described above.  Beautiful, evocative illustrations, enough movement that each background feels somewhat “alive,” but still plenty of room for imagination.  It really does feel like a modern day text adventure in a lot of ways.

Unfortunately, it will also be the exact reason a lot of people won’t pick the game up. They’ll argue the graphics are ancient and have no place in a modern game, and that only real-time 3D is satisfactory in a first-person game.

     
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Sure, using projection mapping would propably not add that much on most scenes, as they are initially just rooms. But it could bring a nice additional touch on scene transitions on places where there’s more objects on the screen, or more animation.

My only real improvement for this versions would be the inventory handeling. One thing to consider would be to tie it on some corner, where it pops up when you take mouse there. That would make the inventory use a bit more fluent I think.

Shadowgate is, in the end, the way I think “oldschool” influenced designers should consider doing games. You can mix old school mechanics on a game that also embraces modern day advancements like high res graphics (not meant as a jab at you Lamb and BT).

     

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My favorite NES game since 87 I believe it was, and this remake has been so enjoyable. I’m also in the credits Smile

     
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I don’t like the art style. Too reminiscent of casual games, which are almost universally terrible games.

The original was okay, but nothing great.

     
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Zifnab - 23 August 2014 06:09 AM

Too reminiscent of casual games, which are almost universally terrible games.

And for those that aren’t, there’s this thread. Wink

     

The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka

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Zifnab - 23 August 2014 06:09 AM

I don’t like the art style. Too reminiscent of casual games, which are almost universally terrible games.

The original was okay, but nothing great.

The music alone was so memorable, and mood setting. That game has stuck with me all this time, because back then it stood out over your Zelda and Mario etc…Shadowgate, FF and Dragon warrior were the games that to me made the mark.

And I disagree, the art style they used worked nicely. It looks very well crafted for a remake, love it.

     
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The art style is moody and atmospheric and works well for the proceedings.  This game will get you stuck, even if you’ve played the original.  So much has been expanded, changed, and added.  It’s awesome.

     

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