Not Space Quest (Update: Demo is out, video within)

[epmode]

So this is strange: They're putting up playable prototypes even before the countdown ends. You can get the first one in the Chrome marketplace although it's not working at the moment.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...dbd9a0e4e05efa

[Frogacuda]

Works for me. It's more or less a scrolling concept art with some dialog over top, but it's a cool marketing idea. I like it.

[Andrew]

Are these the kinds of puzzles where if you do/don't do something early in the game, it ruins your chances of finishing it, but you don't find out until much later? Because that's fucking stupid.

I've only been glazing over posts here because I haven't played these games yet and I don't want them spoiled.

[Frogacuda]

Are these the kinds of puzzles where if you do/don't do something early in the game, it ruins your chances of finishing it, but you don't find out until much later? Because that's fucking stupid.

Only the SQ1 one. And remember that game was one of the first real third person graphic adventures and that type of design was RAMPANT back then.

[AaronChance]

Most of the puzzles in Space Quest are odd but understandable. There's always a couple though that are annoyingly obtuse.

[Frogacuda]

This campaign hasn't been going very well, but not so badly we should write it off just yet.

It's becoming ever clearer that this game is going to be awesomely old-school. They did a live chat yesterday where they discussed some of their ideas, which included a "hybrid interface that will allow text parser commands," which is pretty hard not to love. They seem pretty raw about not being able to get the license back.

Proto 2 looks a lot better and should becoming in the next couple days.

[Frogacuda]

Prototype 2 is live in the Chrome store

This time it actually has some nice looking backgrounds, a simple puzzle, and verbs. Oh, and death.

I hope more people give to this, it's sagging a bit.

[Darmonde]

I haven't gone through everything that has been released so far. Did they say for sure why they weren't able to acquire the SQ name?

I'm supporting this but it doesn't look like it will make it, unless someone just dumps in half the amount at the end. It's really silly but I personally would have had much less trouble donating if it had the SQ name. I wonder if it would have done much better if so.

[Frogacuda]

I haven't gone through everything that has been released so far. Did they say for sure why they weren't able to acquire the SQ name?

They've said Activision has the IP, and while there is a dialog, Paul Trowe from Replay (who I think had previously attempted to acquire the IP after he got Larry) said there's one AV exec in particular who is being an asshole and demanding an unreasonable price.

I'm supporting this but it doesn't look like it will make it, unless someone just dumps in half the amount at the end. It's really silly but I personally would have had much less trouble donating if it had the SQ name. I wonder if it would have done much better if so.

There are a whole bunch of things that went wrong here.

1) The pitch video is humorless and read off a teleprompter and sounds like a PBS pledge drive
2) Shitstorm controversy over whether or not HTML5 would be used to create it, and the guys refusing to definitively squash these concerns and just saying "We're looking at all options."
3) Going up against Tex Murphy, which has a very similar audience hurts both campaigns (although Tex is doing fine, it'll make it at least).
4) General lack of concrete information about the game, in conjunction with lack of SQ IP leaves a lot of questions.

It has not been an especially well run campaign, but I think the project itself has a lot of potential. I'll be really sad if it doesn't make it.

[cigsthecat]

Their website needs to not look like 1993.