Monday 28 October 2013

Game 37: Loom - The Chromax Conundrum

Bobbin Threadbare Journal Entry 2: "For the first time in my life I have left the island of Loom behind me! The gravestone of Lady Cygna hinted that I should revisit the cliff where this strange day began, and there I cast a draft that gave me the means to travel to lands across the sea. I have already met a glassmaker named Master Goodmold in the beautiful city of Crystalgard, and learnt about things I never would have heard about in my guarded homeland. I plan to explore this city of glass thoroughly before I move on to destinations unknown. I am both nervous and excited at what the future may hold for me!"


It's time to leave this village behind and go exploring

My first Loom gameplay post didn’t make it far beyond the game’s introduction, so I’m going to cut to the chase and get on with it for this second one. I’d finished exploring the village, so it was time to go see what else I could find on the island of Loom. The overhead shot had hinted that I might be able to visit a pier next to the ocean shore, so I headed in that direction. It turned out to be only one screen west of the village edge, and on arrival I found four seagulls sitting atop wooden poles and what looked to be another egg amongst the rocks near the water. I walked up to one of the gulls and clicked on it. Oddly, the four threads of a draft were heard, and the notes E,C,E,D flashed above my distaff. I was about to go hunting through the Book of Patterns to see what draft it might be when I realised those notes matched the ones I’d previously used to open the egg. It was the Opening draft, but why was I hearing it when I clicked on a bird? Selecting the other gulls caused the same draft to play, so I turned my attention to the egg-like item on the rock. It wasn’t a rock at all! It was a clam, and clearly the birds were somehow urging me to open it so they could eat whatever was inside!


Let's hope these birds are not of the Hitchcock variety!

I obliged, and using the Opening draft did indeed open the clam. One of the gulls flew down and began eating the horrible looking morsel inside, but I couldn’t find any reason why doing this might be helpful to me. In the end I decided that this scene would help players learn the Opening draft if they either didn’t have the Book of Patterns or had failed to take notice of it, despite that going against the copy protection theory I’d had previously. Regardless, I headed for the trees in the top left corner of the island and soon found myself on an eerie moonlit path. Some of the trees had large holes in them, so I decided to take a closer look. When I clicked on the first one, the note D was heard and lit up on the staff, and I was told that “There’s an owl in there!”. That was interesting, but what did it mean? I then noticed that there were a total of four holes in trees on the screen, and deducted that clicking on each would likely produce the four threads I needed to make up a draft! I was convinced of this theory when the second hole had another owl in it, and the note C lit up. I found yet another owl and another C lit up for the third hole (oh my...that sentence appears very dirty in hindsight), so I confidently clicked on the fourth and final one. “This hole is empty.” What?! Not only was there no owl, but no note was heard either!


Awesomely spooky!

The game designers really got me with that one, and all I could do was continue along the path and hope that I’d come across the final thread. The next screen contained a cemetery, with an owl perched on top of one of the tombstones. I’ve not specifically discussed the graphics at this stage, but I will right now. Loom is just beautiful, and this screen is a perfect example of the wonder, the attention to detail, and the symmetry of it all! It’s simply astounding what the designers managed to do within the confines of EGA. I checked out the gravestone, but was informed that I couldn’t read anything on it because the “owl’s tail feathers are blocking my view.” I clicked on the owl, but it was sound asleep and seemingly non-responsive. I looked through the drafts I’d learnt so far, but none of them seemed useful in waking the owl up. I moved my cursor around the screen and found I could also investigate the sky and the brambles to the left. I clicked on the sky and was informed that “The view from the cliff is better”, so I turned my attention to the brambles. Clicking on them caused Bobbin to cut his finger, and the yell of “Ouch!” scared a bunny rabbit out of its hiding place! It ran across the front of the cemetery, scaring the owl away in the process!


Well this saved me hitting the owl over the head with my distaff

I was now able to read the gravestone, which had the following etched into it. “In Memory Of Lady Cygna Threadbare 7983-8004. Destiny shall draw the Lightning Down from the Heaven; roll its Thunder Far across the Sea, to where I Wait upon the Shore of Wonder, On the day the Sky is Opened And the Tree is split asunder.” After I’d finished reading the inscription, Bobbin made a point of saying “The day the sky is opened. Hmmm.” I figured there must be something important in that message, but I was keen to find out whether the owl had entered the fourth tree on the next screen. The message could wait! Just as I’d hoped, the owl had indeed flown into the fourth hole, and clicking on it produced a D. That meant the full draft must be D,C,C,D, but what would it do? I looked through the Book of Patterns, eventually coming across an obvious candidate. “Night Vision: The threads of this distinctive and beautiful draft are extrapolated from the song of nocturnal birds. At one time, Night Vision was prized by the Guild of Miners, whose legendary underground realm was chiefly illuminated by luminous tapestries bearing our Seal. Tragically, demand fell off after the Great Earthquake of 7331.” Night Vision would surely allow me to see better in the dark, and I knew exactly where that would be useful! I headed for the village, and entered the tent where I’d been unable to see beyond a pile of gold earlier on.


I think Adam West may Have written this Message

Selecting the darkness and then clicking the notes for Night Vision on my distaff caused the previously unseen part of the room to be illuminated! I could now see a wheel and some straw on the ground next to it. Selecting the wheel brought forth yet another draft, with this one containing the threads C,C,C and E. It didn’t take long to find which one it was in the Book of Patterns: “Straw Into Gold: When times are lean, the Elders may invoke this draft to generate extra revenue. Its use is strictly regulated by the Treasurer of the Guild to prevent inflation. Other Guilds, ignorant in the ways of spell-weaving, have concocted a variety of outlandish fairy tales involving this rather elementary weave.” It seemed pretty obvious what I should do with this draft, so I selected the straw and then the required threads. The straw turned into gold alright, but I still wasn’t able to take any of it. However, as I completed the draft, the blue sparks that lit the straw as it transformed continued up and over me. The note for F below the image of my distaff lit up! By now I’d realised that I could only cast “spells” that included only the lit up notes in my interface, so now I was going to be able perform more complicated drafts. I didn’t yet have any drafts that included the F note, but  the Emptying draft I’d learnt in one of the tents included a G. I was going to have to practice more before I’d be able to empty anything.


The wheel weaves as the wheel wills


Oh it's just another pile of useless gold pieces! At least now I have an f!

Since turning the straw into gold hadn’t given me any leads, I spent some time thinking about the message I’d found in the cemetery. Bobbin had made a point of repeating the line “the day the sky is opened”, and I’d been able to look at the sky on that screen. When I had though, I’d been informed that “the view from the cliff is better”. Should I head back to the cliff? How would I open the sky anyw...eureka! I could use my Opening draft to “open the sky” up on the mountain! I made my way back up there, selected the sky and then cast the Opening draft, admiring the large colourful portal that opened in the distance. Suddenly a bolt of lightning struck, hitting the tree right next to me and causing it to break off and crash into the ocean at the base of the cliff face. It didn’t merely sink though, instead drifting along the beachfront until it sat stationary in front of the pier. I wasn’t certain what I was going to do with it, but I raced down from the mountain and straight to the pier. When I clicked on the log, I unexpectedly fell into the water! I clicked on it again, and felt relieved when Bobbin climbed onto it as it began to drift out to sea. I really hadn’t expected to leave the island so soon! My immediate reaction was to be concerned that I might have missed something and created a dead end for myself. It didn’t seem likely that I was going to be able to return if I had! Then I remembered that Loom was the first game to follow the no dead end or dying LucasArts policy, and just went with the flow (literally).


Ooohhhh....pretty!!! It reminds me of....


...holy $%^$!!!! What the hell?!


I'd better find a Drying draft soon

I hadn’t travelled all that far when a very dangerous looking “waterspout” appeared in my path! I couldn’t get too close to it, nor could I bypass it, so I was going to have to do something with my distaff. Clicking on the waterspout got me the following message: “Whew! Listen to that twisty wind!” At the same time I heard the four notes of a draft, and recorded them as D,E,F,C. There just so happened to be a draft named Twisting in the Book of Patterns! “The origins of this ancient draft are lost in history. The earliest references to it are woven into the foremost hem of the Long Tapestry, beside threads depicting the manipulation of flax and yarn by hand. Tradition has it that the four notes were derived from the rhythmic squeak of First Elder Swellflax’s own spindle.” I couldn’t see how casting “Twisting” on something that was already twisting violently could help, but I gave it a shot anyway. “It’s twisting hard enough already! Must be SOME way to untwist it...” Hey, perhaps if I reversed the threads of the Twisting draft, it would untwist the waterspout? I tried it, and it worked, giving me free passage beyond, where a new land awaited! As soon as I set foot upon the sand of this new land, I “levelled up” and the note G lit up beneath my distaff. I was now ready to take on more complicated drafts!


Can't go round it, can't go over it, we'll have to untwist it!


Did I mention I hate green!?


After much dedication, Bobbin finally understood the mysteries of the G.

It was time to start exploring, and I decided to head off to the right of screen since there was something glistening in that direction. It was a city made of what appeared to be green crystal!!! There were two entrances that I could see on the side I arrived on, with one being on a dome and the other at the base of a tower. I could see quite a bit of movement at the top of the tower, and noticed I could select a couple of workers that were up there doing something or other. I looked through my drafts, but couldn’t see anything that could logically be applied to the workers (although I tried a couple for good measure), so left it alone for now. I entered the dome, reappearing inside where everything was made of transparent green crystal. The only things in the room I could select were a couple of plaques at the foot of sculptures, so I clicked on one. As I approached that part of the room, a man dressed in blue entered and greeted me. “Welcome to Crystalgard. I am Master Goodmold, thirty-first in the Noble Guild of Glassmakers. Who have I the honor of meeting?” He seemed surprised when I responded with my name and guild, and complimented me on my cloak. “Crystalgard’s wisdom includes many legends concerning your Guild. One is particularly strange and amusing. They say it is death to peer beneath the hood of a Weaver. Can this be true?”


The Glassmakers are not big on privacy


It probably lost its impact after about the third or fourth to be perfectly blunt


You may not find it so amusing when you see...THIS!!!!! Mwahaha!!!

I hadn’t been aware of this belief amongst other guilds, and apparently Bobbin hadn’t been either. “Don’t know. Nobody ever tried it on me.” Bobbin then asked Master Goodmold if he’d seen a flock of swans passing by, but he hadn’t. He did recommend I check out their fine selection of binoculars, telescopes and other precision optics though, before leaving me to look around. I now had a chance to read the two plaques, with both of them turning out to be gravestones. One read “Softshard, Wife of Luscent Bottleblower here attained Final Clarity.”, while the other read “Near this spot, Luscent Bottlesblower, Founder of the Noble Guild of Glassmakers, attained his Final Clarity.” I couldn’t make anything important out of the messages, so I went in the same direction Goodmold had gone (to the right of screen). I reappeared in a rather complicated looking room, with various exits and stairways found in the background. Right next to me was a large cup resting on a pedestal, and there was a bell hanging from the wall at the end of the pathway I was standing on. I focussed on the cup, with Bobbin commenting that he’d “never seen glass sparkle like this”. Master Goodmold entered the room at this point, explaining that the cup was in fact not glass at all. “The chalice was carved from a single crystal of diamond.” When Bobbin questioned why it was made with crystal instead of glass, given that this was the Guild of Glassmakers, Goodmold explained the “Chromax Conundrum”.


It is our most valuable asset. Which is why we leave it unguarded here in this otherwise empty room.

The crystal chalice was made by the Glassmaker’s founding member, Luscent Bottleblow. “Three centuries ago, our fair city was plundered by a dragon. The greedy beast emptied our museum and treasury. Even Bottleblow’s great masterpiece, the First Scrying Sphere, was lost. Fortunately, the Conundrum was on loan to the Guild of Vintners at the time. It is our only remaining example of Bottleblow’s transcendent genius.” The reason it’s called the Conundrum is because the glassmakers don’t know why the chalice was made with crystal instead of glass. Well that was all very interesting, but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with it. After Goodmold left the room, I tried the reverse draft of Emptying. To my surprise, this worked! The chalice filled with what I assumed was red wine, although when I clicked on it afterwards, Bobbin merely remarked “Wish I was old enough to drink.” I soon found that I could empty and fill the glass repeatedly, by casting the standard and reverse Emptying draft, but couldn’t figure out whether or not this achieved anything. Perhaps I need to come back later for this puzzle. This is where I stopped my first session of Loom about a week ago, and I’ve been dying to get back to it (blogging sometimes demands inhuman patience). I’m off to do exactly that, and as usual, will be back with a rundown in two or three days.


Dude, you're seventeen! GET ON IT!

Session Time: 0 hours 45 minutes
Total Time: 1 hours 15 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: I've written a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

71 comments:

  1. His seventeen what?

    Funny thing about the twister puzzle, when I and my family played this game, we were somewhat stuck there. The twisting draft was CFCC (or similar). So one of us tried the twist draft on it again, but misclicked so that the first note played twice - CCFCC - but the game only recognises drafts up to the fourth note, so it became CCFC. We were so confused at first why the apparently invalid draft worked!

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    1. Tricky drags himself out of bed and clamours for his tablet, eager to read the messages of approval and encouragement that must surely await him after his most recent late night effort.

      "Oh man, I got another word wrong! Damn it!"

      Tricky climbs back into bed, crying himself into a restless sleep where ghostly pirates and purple tentacles berate him repeatedly for not proof reading his captions again.

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    2. And you didn't spin the gold back into straw- which unlocks your next note.

      You will never learn the final C' note now (which gives access to the hidden Creation/Apocalypse draft that rips or mends the fabric of the universe) because there ain't no comin' back.

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    3. No, you're misremembering, Kenny! The real reason Trickster can't use the secret Apocalypse draft is because it requires the fabled H note, which is inaccessible because the game uses the English notation system.

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    4. I always thought Holly's idea of decimilising music was a good one.

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    5. @Kenny, this is how Internet rumors get started. I believe it was a B flat.

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    6. You guys are right. The last note does not even register on that bar and I don't even know what that last note is (I think Brian Moriarty was heavily influenced by Pythagorean philosopy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_geometry#Music). It only turns the distaff GOLD.

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    7. Draconius: Why not just use the frequency of the note? ;)

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    8. Canageek: Then I'd have to find my oscillator and tuning forks and to be honest it's all just too much. Plus it was an obscure Red Dwarf reference.

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  2. Some fun facts: Those gulls will return in later LucasArts games, such as Monkey Island 1 and 2, and Day of the Tentacle. Also, you've seen that screen of the shore earlier, in a room full of paintings somewhere in a Nazi castle...

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  3. Since I didn't have the manual the gulls were the only thing to clue me in on the Open draft.

    The first thing that stumped me in the was the twister because it took me awhile to realize I could try to do drafts backwards to get the opposite effect since nothing up until that point really let you know you could do that.

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    1. Now I'm really curious where I got this idea I could reverse drafts to create the opposite effect. Maybe it's listed in the TG-CD manual... I'll double check when I get home, but I knew this early on because I used it on the clam, the gold, and turned everything green back to white.

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    2. I'm not sure if it's just the FM-Towns version, but you can also get the Open draft by double-clicking on the egg straight after the opening.

      I was also stuck on the twister for a while. Am I the only one who went back to the forest and tried using the twist draft on the brambles? It seemed like the obvious thing to me - it ended up not doing anything of course.

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    3. Yes, in all versions, you get the opening draft from the egg when "It's trying to open!". Apparently Trickster and Schide didn't notice that. BTW, the egg opens anyway if you try to leave the screen.

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    4. You use Twist on the Loom that would screw up the entire Tapestry and kicks you back to the beginning of the game. Because, no Game Over.

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  4. I actually thought for a moment that Bobbin had been struck by lightning while I was playing. I also did the same thing with the chalice. Bobbin mentions how he's not old enough to drink it.

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  6. Unfortunately I had already read somewhere about being able to reverse drafts before I started playing, so the twister puzzle was a no brainer for me, especially as V unq nyernql orra erirefvat gur qlrvat qensg naq gur fgenj gb tbyq qensg onpx ba Ybbz.
    And next shameless CAPs plug (I've been getting good at this lately), I've been reading the Wheel of Time for months now, and I've been stuck in same chapter of book 11, Robert Jordan's last book before he died, for about 3 months. Read the first 10 1/2 books in less time than this one chapter. Most annoying.
    I also hate it when you hit sign out instead of publish on these comments as to my mind the publish button should be bottom right not bottom left.

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    1. The most interesting thing about your Wheel of Time plug here is that it's another universe where spellcasting uses weaving analogies.

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  7. We're going on a twister hunt
    What a beautiful day
    We're not scared

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  8. It took me a while to figure out the twister. In the meantime, I moved into it. If you have a saved game around there, do try that.

    Much of the text seems more detailed than what I saw playing the Steam version. I did not get the full graveyard text, which made that puzzle MUCH harder; I solved it almost by accident.

    The drafts appear to be randomized, or at least they are different between the Standard and Expert versions. I played through in Expert first, then decided to try Standard a few days later... and got stuck because I didn't record one of the changed drafts. I think I can go back to Loom Island and find it, but I decided there wasn't really much reason to replay anyway.

    The gorgeous LOOM artwork was created by Mark Ferrari (http://markferrari.com/). Brian Moriarty (LOOM game designer) said the LucasArts developers called him "the dither King". This was good, in that he made 16 colors seem like many more, but bad in that his images did not compress well, so they took up a lot of extra disk space.

    Sierra used automated dithering to convert their games to lower-color-space displays. For example, Sierra SCI games worked fine in the low-rez 16-color mode on the Atari ST. But in high-rez color and monochrome, the display had more pixels but fewer colors. So Bob Heitman and I developed code that created a dither pattern to give the impression of the desired colors. It looked at both the color of that pixel and adjacent colors, and actually worked rather well - 16-color Sierra games were very playable on the black-and-white Atari ST high-rez screen.

    Mark did the same thing, but "by hand", starting out with a color and "dithering" it with other colors to give the impression of a much larger palette.

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    1. Escept for open and transcendance every draft is randomized between three possibilities at game start. Which means you can pick the list up online and try the possibilities, 3 is not that many. But that wouldn't change a thing, they've managed the levelling nicely.

      OG.

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  9. As a note, I just discovered The Cutting Room Floor wiki, via metafilter. It chronicles hidden and unused game content; stuff that was created, but not used in the game, and I thought you lot might be interested in Loom's entry; Trickster should probably hold off until he beats it though: http://tcrf.net/Loom_%28PC%29

    Nothing in the original version, but it has a number of screens upgraded to VGA that were never used, and a lot of dialog for the CD version that was recorded and put on the disk, but not used; oddly enough, extended versions of what was used! Which seems odd, if you were fighting for disk space and had to cut things down to make it all fit!

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    1. On that note: Cory, was there anything that you remember having made that was cut from any of your games?

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    2. There, I went through the wiki up to 1990 (and all the PC games) and added every game I could find that you've played. 10 posts, 9 games (I had to go back and add stuff to Maniac Mansion). Enjoy! If I remember I'll try and keep doing this with future games, however, only really popular ones and Sierra games tend to have much. (You should see the Pokemon entry!)

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    3. You should also check out this site, which is a vast collection of all kinds of LucasArts and Sierra oddities, including cut content, early in-development screenshots and version differences. Those Loom things are shown there too and more.

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    4. The two most obvious cuts I remember were in Quest for Glory II. A programmer, Brian Hughes, talked an artist into creating a "Saurus Repair Shop" at the end of one of the alleyways in Shapeir. It looked like a repair garage except fixed broken Saurii instead of cars. Lori and I thought it was cute and planned to leave it in the game. But we couldn't find the floppy disk space for it, and it had to be cut.

      The other major QG2 cut was Wizard's Whirl, a sequel to the Mage's Maze game in Hero's Quest. This one was based on the Wizards controlling Elementals - Each player tried to manipulate the board by increasing the territory controlled by his Elementals. Unfortunately, a concept which seemed exciting just didn't feel fun as we fleshed out the design. We spent a week or two trying to fix it, then reluctantly stripped it from the game.

      Cut from the design, but never actually implemented, was the underground goblin cave in Hero's Quest. It would have taken too much time to build as well as too much disk space.

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    5. The saurus repair shop is of course in QFG2VGA, the remake version. They also added in extra stuff for magic users, but I can't recall if it was anything like the Wizard's Whirl (there are two training games to play with Keapon Laffin and Aziza).

      Would have loved to see the underground goblin cave, would have been a nice addition.

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    6. Repairs on sauri?! I don't even- I mean- what the- how does it even work?! (O_o;)

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    7. Yikes the introduction to Loom on that page is really negative , that seems unnecessary. Unless this wiki is supposed to double as a review site.

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    8. Tymoguin: I didn't really read that bit, to be honest, I just scrolled down to the cut bits.

      Corey: That is really cool. To bad you had to cut that stuff, but it is kind of awesome to hear you talking about it.

      Laukku: .....*sigh* You do realize that it took me quite a while to go and find what games that Trickster had done were on that wiki, and then add all those comments, right? Now you tell me I need to do it *again*? *sigh*

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  10. And so Loom is finished ba n engure fubeg naq hasvavfurq cbvag. V qba'g xabj ubj gurl pbhyq unir yrsg vg ng gur raqvat hayrff gurl jrer nyernql cynaavat n gevybtl. Vg whfg frrzf fb vapbzcyrgr jvgu abguvat erfbyirq. Di enjoy playing the game, wish they had made the sequels.

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    1. I agree, Draconius. Olav and the Lute this weekend, plus a write up on both to come.

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    2. Would love to, but I'm working this weekend. I'll see what I can do early next week.

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  11. Mmhh, I don't recall the owl getting scared by the rabbit. Didn't he actually swoop down and catch it?
    Bobbin saying "Poor fella" or something similar... this is from my playthrough back in the early 90s (CGA & EGA versions), so I may be mixing my games.

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    1. That happened in the version I played. I was fully expecting a puzzle on that screen too. Vg nyfb frrzf Gevpxfgre snvyrq gb bcra hc gur tenirlneq, ohg sberfunqbjf gur raqvat.

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    2. Speaking of expecting puzzles: Qvq nalbar svaq nalguvat gb qb jvgu gur pelfgny tboyrg bapr vg jnf svyyrq jvgu jvar?

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    3. Yes, I misremembered what happened here! The owl does swoop down and grab the rabbit. My bad!

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  12. I'll always remember the twister puzzle because the solution to it came to me in a dream when i was 11 or so. I woke up, turned on my PC, and lo and behold it worked. Just one reason I remember Loom so fondly :D

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    1. #1 Sign You Have Been Playing Too Much Computer Game Instead Of Studying:
      You start playing games in your dreams.

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    2. @Kenny: Not always. I didn't play much back then. In my experience, dreams based on adventure games are more about recreating settings and atmosphere, not unlike dreaming about any evocative story. Dreams where you actually play a game are quite different in quality. The ones I've had were usually the result of having playing repetitive twitch-based games like shooters (or puzzle games like Tetris!) for too long.

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    3. I've actually often had adventure game nightmares. I am playing (or taking part in) a familiar adventure game, in some potentially dangerous scene, with a starving monster or a trigger happy android etc., I know the ropes, I have all the right equipment with me, and still the familiar solution just doesn't work, because this time the bad guys are actually smart or I failed to pick up some crucial item or I fumble with the tight time limit...

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    4. Time limits, now *that* could inspire nightmares... :-D

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    5. What games inspire wet dreams?

      Not for my personal gratification, of course. For my thesis... whose paper will never be released. Or written.

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    6. I used to get a lot of nightmares from Baldur's Gate when I was in grade 5. Usually involving the spider fights and losing them over and over again. Occasionally I had nightmares due to it crashing on me just as I won.

      I've had some other game dreams since then, both being in the game and being stuck in a loop within the game, but I can't remember them now; none have had the lasting impression of those dreams back in grade 5.

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    7. Kenny: Well, Codename Iceman had that whole underwater sequence and in Fate of Atlants you also spend a lot of time in, near or under oceans. And then there’s King’s Quest IV, with Rosella swimming and being eaten by a whale.

      What, you meant something else than dreams where you are immersed in water?

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    8. Herp derp derp derp... Well played, Ilmari... well played...

      You earned yourself a picture of this piece of pussy I've been yearning a long time for...

      http://www.oscci.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/cute-little-princess.jpg

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  13. GoG Sale: Halloween games:

    I've even taken the time to find the adventure games on the list (Most of them, actually):

    Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs
    Amnesia: The Dark Descent
    I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream
    Penumbra Collection, The
    Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
    Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within
    Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
    Sanitarium
    Phantasmagoria 1 & 2
    Alone in the Dark 1+2+3
    The Cat Lady
    Sanitarium
    Pathologic
    Waxworks

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    1. Thanks Canageek. I picked up I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream since I've heard good things about it.

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    2. I got myself The Cat Lady! I love cats.

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    3. Zenic: I'm waiting to here Trickster's opinion on that one. Very plot heavy, but very disturbing, though less so then the book I hear. Some people apparently don't like it though. I've read the Crapshoot article on it, and there is one plot twist I don't like, as it is overused and poor writing (5 CAPs if you beat the game and correctly guess which one).

      Kenny: Any answers other then "I love cats" is punishable by shunning.

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    4. Had I not gotten married, I planned to own lots of cats and become The Cat Gentleman.

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  14. Steam Halloween Sale up and running, there's some adventure games there as well. 7th Guest and 11th Hour, The Whispered Word, Penumbra Collection, I Have No Mouth, Cognition. Those are the ones that leap immediately out at me. Ehh.. we can have Caanageek figure out all the rest.

    http://store.steampowered.com/sale/halloween2013

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  15. Time to break out my magic marker for the laziest Halloween costume ever...

    http://watchesinmovies.info/img/m/Constantine-Oris.jpg

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    1. ....Is that an adventure game character? It kind looks like the version of Constantine from the movie, but I don't remember tattoos, and dressing up as him might get comic book geeks chasing you down the street with torches and pitchforks.

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    2. ACTION Adventure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_(video_game)

      XD

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  16. So, The Walking Dead: Season 2 has been announced by Telltale and is available as a preorder (-10%) on Steam:

    http://store.steampowered.com/app/261030/

    I bought season 1 during the Steam summer sale, as I had heard how "critically acclaimed" it was, but haven't played it yet.

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    1. No wonder; one of the highest critically rated games lately, very few bad reviews, and not very expensive to make? I don't play things that dark, but I like the style of making lots of games with the same engine; I think we waste too much time rewriting things every single game.

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  17. I made a Loom pumpkin in honor of Trickster playing it. However, Trickster hasn't met the character on my pumpkin yet, as of this gameplay post. So, spoiler warning, to the extent that a pumpkin can be a spoiler. Also, I edited the color in photoshop, seemed wrong for it to be orange. http://i.imgur.com/AtcoGxr.png

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    1. You carved that out of a freaking pumpkin?! Sweet!

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    2. Ooh, nice. :-)

      I'm kinda wondering actually whether Trickster will pbzcner gur punenpgre gb Ahe-No-Fny be Znyrsvprag svefg.

      Sbe fbzr ernfba gurl znqr uvz srznyr va gur gnyxvr irefvba.

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    3. Either way, that's gotta be worth some shitload of CAPs!

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    4. This is amazing! I'm going to assume that you really did carve that thing Tymoguin and reward you with CAPs. Awesome effort!

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