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A more 3D view as in the 3rd Gabriel Knight would be fine. today.

Yes, I'm quoting myself. Sue me.

I read something somewhere, and i can't remember if it was Jane Jensen or one of the developers, who said it. But Sierra basically forced them to use this new engine for GK3, rather than the one everyone was familiar with. And that was the prime factor causing their delays to release, which led to the infamous cat hair puzzle.

I always got the impression that he was not meant to be found. I had been starting to worry. Glad that's resolved.

I am also fine with continuing to use AGS. This is supposed to be a retro game, right? It should have a retro look and feel.

You would get access to things like audio fidelity for example. Something this game has been heavily criticised for, as the voice acting is very good, but the compression format leaves heavy artifacts in the audio that is pretty hard on the ear. Things like the cartoon sequences could be done a lot better with higher framerates and less chopping. Being able to alt+tab cleanly, be ported to all platforms. I have made many games in AGS over the years (at a hobby level) and the engine does have many limitations. This can not be denied. I would bet the farm that there were design concepts in the game that didn't make it to release as the engine prevented them.

Retro gaming is a complex thing, imo. You want the retro feel, but we only really want the good stuff from those days. There are plenty of things about gaming in the 80s that sucked. They sucked then and they still suck and making a modern retro inspired game shouldn't, as far as I am concerned, bring all those terrible parts back as well as the good stuff. For example MI has an autosave. That is not "retro" but dying and loosing progress is lame as!!

I concede your points. Well made.

Should a sequel then go with a RPG perspective like Hero-U did, a FPS view, or try and have a lower angle (always pointing in one direction) view like the classic adventure games... only in 3D?
Just curious what people/fans of the genre like.

if you want to change the engine, and there are benefits to doing so, go for it. But if it's an FPS view, I probably won't play. A more 3D view as in the 3rd Gabriel Knight would be fine. Although that one looked awkward at times as you had 3D models interacting with 2D bitmaps. Still, that's something that could definitely be done better today.

If I wanted to go philosophical, I would say it is a good lesson that you do not have to kill everything you see, just what you need.
However, this is an adventure game in an RPG and FPS era, so I doubt it fits into that mould.

Well, the problem is that as I said, I was mapping. So, I didn't want to run into the next screen until I'd written down all I wanted to write. And the venom from the spiderlings made them a creature I couldn't ignore. I had to go ahead and kill them. Of course, in general, that's true of all the creatures, but the spiderlings were wimpy enough that I could let them hit me for a few rounds if I wasn't concerned about the venom.

I'm picking nits. I liked the game. I just felt like you should get something from defeating the mobs, other than the small (or even zero in the case of spiderlings) chance of random loot. This is something I always felt QfG did very well. You could work on your block, dodge, and parry skills, even against low level mobs, which helped you when you faced the higher level ones. I'm not saying you should mimic QfG. But it feels to me as if there's room for improvement here.

I don't mind new classes. The GameSpot review said basically the same thing about only having mages.

I am also fine with continuing to use AGS. This is supposed to be a retro game, right? It should have a retro look and feel.

My other light criticism of the game is this. I know that you need to support pacifist players, but I didn't like that combat earned me no XP at all, and didn't improve my skills or characteristics in any way. Really made all those wandering monsters in the forest while I was trying to map it incredibly annoying. Oh look, more spiderlings. I get nothing at all for killing them. Blegh.

Ah. Thanks. I did that the first time around, but might have forgotten this time. And I just picked up that item before I quit last night.

I went through the startup questions twice. Once Earth selected me, and the other time was, I think, Water. But I really wanted to play Fire. Curious how I would have had to answer to get that Element. Thankfully you're allowed to select your Element yourself after the questions.

I've restarted the game at Task 2. I think I did pretty much all the stuff for Task 1. I may have missed a point or two, but not much. So I didn't go back all the way.

During Task 2, I've now completed the Fire Mage quest, which I didn't the first time. I've sold the seeds to the Blacksmith. I've given the bundle back to the merchant.

[spoiler]I returned his incense burner too, also.[/spoiler]

Is there anything else other than the Flyteria & poster stuff, that I should complete before moving on to Task 3, if I'm trying to get closer to a perfect score?

Yes, and Leah Remini was great doing her voice.

Well, at least I have finished the Fire Mage quest now. Hopefully I can figure out the proof next time when I finally get back there.

I'm impressed with anyone who has an avatar from Gabriel Knight, no matter what character.

Well, since I never found the proof, I guess I'd find that frustrating too.  I probably need to redo task 2 and 3, because I never completed the Fire Mage quest either.

To reproduce:

• Go and meet Bashem.
• Talk to him. Learn that you're not to touch anything.
• Leave the forest. I eleported back to the Mage Tower, but I imagine it happens anytime as long as you leave the forest.
• Return to where you met Bashem. He'll be gone. I'm not sure if that's a bug or not.
• Use the hand cursor on the door of his hut. UI freezes. You're not able to click on anything after that or move or bring up the menu (I use the Compact form, but I doubt it makes a difference)

Heh. Yes, I guess I should.

[spoiler]Well, you see Bashem the same way you saw the castle on the island during your first task.[/spoiler]

Never mind.

Yeah, I can't find him either. I figured it was in the clearing, but haven't seen him there, just the piece of blue cloth.

There's an order to this.

[spoiler]IIRC, you put down the incense (unlit), then the meat, then light the incense.[/spoiler]

Wow, that brings the total to close to $130K. I have to say that midway through the KS that I would've said that number was merely a dream.

Nice to be proven wrong, particularly for a project that interests me as much as this one.

I think an 'Off Topic' category would be nice.  General should be kept to general discussion about stuff from Himalaya Studios.

+1

"Constant vigilance!" -Alastor "Mad Eye" Moody

Oooooh...purty.

<grabs pic>

Yeah, I had problems with the whole "Roman alphabet" thing too. This was what went through my mind: "alpha, beta, gamma, delta...now is the next epsilon...I can't remember...oh, crap, that's Greek anyway...what the heck is the Roman alphabet?"

Blake!

Glad to meet you. Just wanted you to know that I love your site. When I saw the thread, my first thought was "hey, we should add the info from that QfG site I love so much"...and then I realized it looked very similar already.

Welcome aboard, Anaxphone!

Congrats on making it to $65K in the KS! Now on to stretch goals. I really want that iPad port, but...well, we'll see.

I just wanted to pop in, say Hi, and let you know that I'm very excited about this game, and wish you all the luck in your Kickstarter and in the success of the game itself. I can't wait for my swag, but I'm far more excited about the game itself.