Horticulture Tycoon

Okay then, I was always under the impression iMuse worked with MIDI only. My mistake. Regardless, it seems to me just from a fan of these games that the switchover from MIDI to recorded audio fundamentally changed the way in which interactive music was used. That's all I meant.

Most of those late LEC adventure games still used the concepts behind iMuse well after the actual iMuse system had been phased out, I think. Curse of Monkey Island is the perfect example, like for example in the barber shop there's a single piece of music that has all these different variations that can play depending on which character you're talking to. But each of those different varations is a prerecorded track, and the game is simply choosing between a set of very similar pieces of music, as opposed to iMuse which dynamically adds and removes instruments on the fly. I'm pretty sure Full Throttle has some of that faux-iMuse in there, even if technically it's not using the iMuse system. Really for all the attention iMuse gets, it was only actually used in, what? Three games? I know it was in MI2, and then in both X-Wing and TIE Fighter. Is that it? Is there a version of Sam and Max Hit the Road that used it?

Oh God, yes. Both annoying and baffling. I got in the habit of using the D-Pad to select my verb because I didn't want to have to pull up that damn verb table every time. But whenever I encountered an object where "Look" was not the default action, I ended up spending about thirty seconds hitting every direction possible on the D-Pad going "Wait a second, which direction is "Look?" OH RIGHT, it's none of them." I'm less down on the Special Edition than most of you guys though. No question it was rushed, and much of the artwork is subpar, and there's rough edges galore. But all the great new audio stuff mitigates the mediocre-to-terrible visual stuff in my opinion. Plus, the existence of the game on XBLA means non-PC-gamers are being exposed to Monkey Island, which is a positive thing in and of itself. They obviously wouldn't have released it on Live Arcade without the new bells and/or whistles. That said, I agree that giving Monkey 2 the same treatment would be a bad idea. I'm hoping that success (does anyone know how well it's selling?) of the SoMI SE would mean a much higher budget and more care taken with a MI2 SE. But they would definitely need to seriously step up their game if they're thinking of tackling that next.

I'll tell you, the reason why I played adventure games as a youth was primarily because those were the games that told the best stories. But now, I think the quality of writing across all other genres have been elevated to the point that adventure games can no longer claim the distinction of being the only story-driven genre. Sure, adventure games can still tell a good story, but now an action game or platformer or strategy game can tell the same story just as well. That's wasn't really the case 15 years ago. It's funny, because the gameplay mechanics that make up adventure games are actually the least conducive to storytelling, since as a mechanic it is designed to deliberately and repeatedly grind the story to a halt, preventing you from progressing further in the story until a puzzle is solved. Other genres might create a stretch of gameplay that is prohibitively difficult, but generally that is due to poor balancing and playtesting; it isn't a deliberate design choice to create that roadblock.

I actually think the voicework is surprisingly well done considering the lines were written with the intention of being read and not heard. (Somehow the actor playing Otis manages to sell the "my least favorite kind of picary is CONSpiracy" joke, even though it only makes sense in text.) And I quite like the music, including the LeChuck theme. (He's really pretty scary in MI2 and even CMI to a degree, but in Secret I never thought he was all that menacing. The guy almost marries two monkeys stacked on top of each other, for Pete's sake) Other than that, everything you've said is pretty much spot on, ThunderPeel. There's no question that the Special Edition is just littered all sorts of technical problems, and feels like it was rushed out the door.

Forget the night vision goggles, I want that creepy disembodied foam rubber head that serves as the NVG's display. I could put it next to my I Robot Japanese Special Edition DVD head, my Alien 25th Anniversary Limited Edition Boxed Set head, and my Planet of the Apes Ultimate Collection head*. I could dress them all up in silly hats! Or put them all on pikes and pretend I'm a feudal lord! * Disclaimer: I do not actually own any of these.

I found it and sent it in to save you the trouble of having to do it yourself, Marek. That's gratitude for you! This is totally tangential and not Video game related at all, but it's so weird to hear you guys talk about Great America in California, because so many of my fondest childhood memories revolve around the Great America in Illinois. Apparently when they built those places in the 70's, they built both parks to be exactly alike in every way (for some reason), but in the mid-80s Six Flags bought the Chicago Great America and fixed it up and added a whole new slew of rides over the course of 25 years and made it super-awesome, while the California Six Flags remained exactly the same as it was in the 70s and was allowed to fall into semi-disrepair and is kind of a dump from what I hear. It's weird that there's like this dilapidated version of the awesome theme park I spent half my childhood in. It makes me think of some kind of Dickensian story about a pair of twins, and one was given every advantage and lived like a prince and the other was chained in an attic and fed gruel all his life.

The Monkey Island remake has a few weird glithes though. I had a situation where the Voodoo Lady music wouldn't stop playing no matter what room I was in, it only stopped when I entered another area with music. Also I examined my 173 pieces of eight and Guybrush told be I had 371 pieces of eight. Though that glitch was somewhat overshadowed by the amazing revelation that they specifically recorded every number possible, all the way into the high three-hundreds. Jesus. But yeah, remake is great. I especially love how in the insult swordfights, they recorded two voiceover versions of every retort: A snappy one when you get it right, and then a more uncertain line reading when you use the wrong one. Nice touch. At this moment I'm actually

Yup, I was saying something similar earlier in the thread:

The axe is very, very dull. Mystery solved!

I'm not neccessarily talking about a self-contained segment of gameplay, obviously all adventure games have that. But the ship(s) in MI1 and the endgame of MI2 are both multi-room areas that need to be explored, whereas I'm talking about the game literally locking the player in a room and thereby making him virually (or sometimes literally) immobile. I can't really think of a similar situation in any other adventure game off the top of my head. In Grim you get locked into a toolshed (or something), but the way out isn't really through solving a puzzle. Also in DOTT a character is stuck in a tree for a while, but the player isn't stuck there with them, so that's not really the same either. Same goes for Maniac Mansion and the dungeon. Eh whatever, I just thought those sequences I mentioned were charmingly similar is all I'm saying.

This is just a random observation, but it occurred to me today that whether it's by design or by complete coincidence, every Monkey Island game has a sequence where Guybrush is trapped in a confined space and has to use puzzlin' to escape. In SoMI it's (and also ), in MI2 it's when , in CMI he , and in EMI . It's somehow comforting that ToMI has continued that tradition with the sequence, but I can't help but wonder if this is a deliberately constructed tradition on the part of the designers, or if it's something that's common in all adventure games and I never noticed, or if it's pure happenstance, or what. Anyway I felt like sharing my random Monkey Island related thought.

Hooray! (For you!)

Plus if you don't continually acknowledge the absurdity of calling mail sent to a podcast "reader mail", eventually you're going to start getting emails from people trying to correct your terminology, as if you didn't already know it.

I just finished my 30 minutes of trial, I spent most of the time looking longingly towards the skies hoping to spawn next to a plane at some point, then I finally did and summarily crashed the fucker into the sea. Is flying supposed to be that hard or is the control scheme broken? Seemed like the game is 50% guys running around randomly killing people without any regard for tactics, 40% guys randomly driving/flying vehicles around in circles and occasionally dragging a good samaritan gunner with them, and 10% people actually playing the game for real. In other words, seems like team-based shooters have changed very little since I stopped playing them about 10 years ago.

By the way guys, if you're looking for audio of Bronstring Marek Bronstring doing an impression of Arnold, indeed it can be found on your very own site! Or it could, if your nether-regions were accessible. Check the original (I'm talking way, way original) Idle Thumbs Podcast #3, dated 5/13/06. I'd link if I could. That'll up my old school Thumbs cred for sure...

I believe Gilbert has said in the past that "it's all a dream" is not the Secret. Which isn't necessarily the same thing as saying it's not true.

I'm pleased to discover that according to Google, I am the only Horticulture Tycoon in existence. Probably for good reason.

Great, I just bought it. Actually the CD version is the only one I ever played, so if I can just forget I ever saw this thread I can remain blissfully ignorant of what I'm missing.

Wow, that was fast, I was expecting a few weeks at least before they went up for sale. Just picked up Last Crusade, and Loom will be bought soon. Goddamn, I'm spending way too much on games this month. My memories of Loom are very vague (as I said I lost my copy, so I haven't played it in probably 15 years), but as I recall the biggest difference is that it wasn't as inventory based as other LucasArts games, and most of the puzzles are solved by casting spells and the like (ala an Ocarina-of-Time-esque magical musical instrument). In fact was there even an inventory in that game? I can't remember, I want to say there wasn't.

Well I took the day off from work today because I had a ton or errands to run, and I was glad to have a podcast to listen to while I ran them... Until I was sitting in the Department of Motor Vehicles waiting to renew my driver's license, and the complete out-of-the-blue sucker punch that was Remo's Trine song caused me to suddenly burst into hysterics in the middle of a big room full of strangers. Everyone turned and stared. In a room full of weirdos and degenerates, I was the biggest degenerate weirdo of all. Thanks Remo.

Oh, nobody in particular.

Well I hadn't planned on it, but I ended up finishing it in one sitting. Not because it was short (in fact it was far longer than I'd expected), but because I was enjoying it too much and didn't want to stop. The sequence was a real standout... Fantastic puzzle, that. Loved the cliffhanger too, I can't wait to see where things go from here. My only real complaint aside from the inventory annoyances Noyb's talking about is that , but that's a minor quibble. Weird playing a Monkey Island game though. I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

Eh, The Dig is okay, but atmpsphere only gets you so far until you're stuck aimlessly wandering in a big empty place with nobody to talk to. I would've liked it if they had let you switch between all three characters ala Day of the Tentacle, at the very least so you're not hearing Robert Patrick's sleep-inducing monotone so much. And it would've been interesting to see that world through Brink's eyes, especially after . I'm excited to finally have a chance to play Last Crusade, though I'm sure it'll be a letdown after Fate of Atlantis. Also to play Loom again, the only LucasArts game I've ever been careless enough to lose. Unless you count when I threw Yoda Stories in the trash.

Hey, I was at work all day, I had to wait until now to ruin the thread. Your analogy is interesting though (aww, you edited it out... well I'm not erasing this paragraph, so everyone else will just have to be confused) because while I totally agree that we should assume that your fire engine is headed toward the burning building, it doesn't necessarily make it so. Maybe it's all an elaborate scheme for a group of thieves dressed as firefighters to stage the GREATEST HEIST IN HISTORY! Misdirection is also an essential narrative tool. I think you're assuming that Elaine's statement has more validity because she has the last word, but I don't see why it couldn't be Guybrush speculating how people in his imaginary world he's created might be reacting to his sudden absence. Same goes for LeChuck/Chucky's eyes. Not that I believe this is true mind you, I just believe that it might be true. If you want to interpret things differently that's fine, but I don't see how you can claim that my take on it is entirely invalid... Now, if Ron's MI3 would've come out and definitively said that it was all the imagination of a little boy, then I agree that would've been lame. But if he'd left it ambiguous (like I believe MI2 is) so that it might all be the imagination of a little boy? Eh, I'm fine with that.