Adventure Gamers - Forums

Jim Montanus - 13 February 2013 09:11 AM

There are a number of issues that make full vocalisation difficult:

- Additional expense and time of recording, implementation, and testing
- Audio is slower than text and so not always desirable
- Makes localisation more expensive (not necessarily an issue for CCS)

But most importantly in my mind, it makes the finished project more rigid - it is much more difficult to make last minute changes (and worse, the need to track and update last minute changes). Since Josh is a perfectionist (a character trait we tend to share, although he is more perfect at it than I…) he needed the freedom to make last minute changes to improve whatever he could. That goes from fixing typos, rewording jokes, but most importantly, adding transition narration to help the flow of the story when necessary. If we had done full vocalisation, his ability to polish the game would have been severely hampered. As it was, we had trouble ensuring that everything that should have been recorded was. Another question for Josh, along with the Astrolabe.

 

Very understandable reasons and I actually prefer the silent narrator with lots of text (like in RPGs) with the exception being Space Quest, of course
If now adventure games are cut because of the lack of funds for voice-acting it’s a waste…

Sefir - 13 February 2013 02:46 AM

I find very interesting the fact that the narrator is voiceless. How come? Was it purposely because of the fact that the person he/she would have an incredible amount of lines to work? It would have been amazing if every pun, quote or comment in the game was voiced…

This would make the game unplayable for me. You can’t have that much text voiced unless you’ve got a world-class performance from the narrator. It would be excruciatingly slow. One of the only adventure games I’ve ever played where I am okay with listening to a lot of voice is Gabriel Knight 1.

rtrooney - 13 February 2013 07:07 PM

TimovieMan - 13 February 2013 11:49 AM

This is making me wonder. How well did CCS do commercially?

If I recall correctly, and I am sure Josh will correct my recollections, the game was not an “Instant Classic”. First, like the CCS game, Spider Robinson had a cult following, but was certainly not a mainstream author in the US. So his contribution to game sales was probably marginal. Second, there were all sorts of manufacturing and marketing snafus. If memory serves, the game that was initially released was not the Gold version, but a prior version. Thus the almost-immediate release of a patch. Third, I believe there was a bind-in demo of the game that was released to the gamer mags with more than a few bugs.

The result was that Take2 torpedoed sales of its own game. Obviously none of this was intentional. But it happened.

Good summary. Also advertising was almost nonexistent. And sadly the one ad in one magazine that I saw was really unflattering. I’m sure Josh has a copy of it - if he’s not too busy with LSL perhaps he could post an image of it?

I’ll see if I can dig up a copy. It advertised the game as a Western because the fine folks in Take Two’s marketing department never booted up the game or even bothered to ask Legend what it was about; they just assumed that, with the name “Saloon” in the title, it must be a Western-themed game.

I have no idea what the game sold in terms of numbers, but I’m guessing it probably didn’t even 100,000.

Fien - 14 February 2013 08:19 AM

I knew I’d seen a Callahan’s ad before. Found the link at the old forums.
Cowboy hats, spurs, guns.

http://www.przygodoskop.pl/rzutokiem/11-08-08.htm

Lots of other interesting adventure ads.

OMG!!! Sorry, but these are just two dreadful ads!! What this green goblin is supposed to be anyway??!!

PS: The best ads in this site are GK and TSB. By far.

So I just saw this thread last night and ordered the game on Amazon. It should be here by Monday. I haven’t read through this thread because I didn’t want to see any spoilers but I was curious if I’m too far behind to catch up and join in. I should be able to get some solid playing time in on Monday when it arrives.

CoyoteAG - 14 February 2013 12:12 PM

So I just saw this thread last night and ordered the game on Amazon. It should be here by Monday. I haven’t read through this thread because I didn’t want to see any spoilers but I was curious if I’m too far behind to catch up and join in. I should be able to get some solid playing time in on Monday when it arrives.

Monday is the day to start the 2nd chapter (I think/hope it is , correct if I’m wrong Sefir), so far we only played the first part - Pyotr’s story so I think you should catch up fast.

wilco - 14 February 2013 12:22 PM

CoyoteAG - 14 February 2013 12:12 PM

So I just saw this thread last night and ordered the game on Amazon. It should be here by Monday. I haven’t read through this thread because I didn’t want to see any spoilers but I was curious if I’m too far behind to catch up and join in. I should be able to get some solid playing time in on Monday when it arrives.

Monday is the day to start the 2nd chapter (I think/hope it is , correct if I’m wrong Sefir), so far we only played the first part - Pyotr’s story so I think you should catch up fast.

Excellent—thanks! I’m really looking forward to playing a game I haven’t played before as part of a group.