Adventure Gamers - Forums

Awesome. Jim’s voice is like something out of a Hollywood movie.

I like that it’s 1st person although I hope the adventure part has more to it than selecting from a bunch of choices.

Darn, no Physical Edition Tiers?

This could be fun:

Check back daily for a new bit of history you’ve never heard before, including; visits to the old Sierra buildings in Oakhurst, a visit Ken and Roberta’s old house, and several fascinating stories from Robert and Jim as they reminisce about the old days at Sierra.

I really can’t imagine what this will be like. They are calling it an adventure which would suit the 500k budget and the QTE kind of gameplay in the drawings, and then there’s this: “intense fast action gameplay sequences that include shootouts, high speed car chases, investigations, foot pursuits, hand-to-hand combat, and more.” With the kind of graphics in the preview combined with the GTA-sounding gameplay they are describing that’s going to cost a lot more if it’s going to be done properly. And for the realism they are aiming for, a relatively large and open-world is needed with the ability to roam by car and on foot. That’s tough work.

Mind you, I think it will easily get to 500k.

Oh boy. I’ve got as much nostalgia for Police Quest as anyone but this just seems like trouble. $500,000 is an insane amount to ask for, especially when the details they’ve giving about it are so vague that it doesn’t even seem like they know what kind of game they’re making. Everything they have just seems to be the roughest of concept material, even the footage in their video is completely pre-rendered and can’t be trusted as an accurate gauge of what they’re working on will look like. The only gameplay concept they’re actually showing us is the exciting ability to see a list of options to choose from in tense scenarios like “draw gun” or “spray mace”. As of right now, all I’m seeing from the game aside from some pie-in-the-sky ideas are some very loose concepts for a choose your own adventure game.

They’re estimating a June 2014 release. That’s less than a year from now. I wish them all the best but…oy vey.

Lucien21 - 16 July 2013 02:26 PM

I wish they had some new ideas. Double Fine was funded for an original idea, but nobody else seems to have followed that example. Instead going for the easy option.

None of these adventure gaming names have anywhere near the cachet among general gamers that Tim Schafer’s name does.  I can’t blame them for focusing on what they’re good at.  Jim Walls will get more money doing a police game than a ballet simulator.

The atmosphere in the art test video seems quite promising but those multiple choice menus aren’t doing much for me. I hope they update with more of their game design plans.

I also wonder if it should be more prominent on the Kickstarter page that Jim Walls was one of the designers on Blade Runner and a content designer on Earth and Beyond. I know it’s in his bio, but I wonder how many people will make it that far.

The fact that Mr. Walls is now retired means people sometimes seem to interpret him as a has-been (if this thread is any indication). Blade Runner and Earth and Beyond help offset this impression by showing that he has worked on somewhat more modern games, since a lot changed in how games were made between the golden age Sierra days and 2002 (Earth and Beyond), but really not as much has changed between 2002 and now. Also, as the Dreamfall Chapters guys once said about The Secret World (paraphrasing)—MMOs are complicated, and if you’ve worked on an MMO, it’s almost like having worked on several kinds of game (action adventure, RPG, resource management, etc.) So to me, the work on Earth and Beyond is valuable experience for making a game in 2013. (It also helps a ton of course that the rest of the Precinct team has extensive and recent game making experience.) As a Sierra fan, I appreciate the emphasis on the history, but I hope it is also balanced out.

I have real reservations about backing any project that doesn’t have an established development studio behind it. I made an exception for SpaceVenture, and I might end up regretting it. Hero U is more good evidence. These are talented people but it’s tough to make a game without a real office and a full staff of people.

I’m a Sierra fan for life, and I might take the gamble if it was $15, but for $30, I’m not going to risk it. But good luck to him, I hope he makes it, and I’ll definitely check the game out if it gets made.

Lucien21 - 16 July 2013 02:26 PM

I wish they had some new ideas. Double Fine was funded for an original idea, but nobody else seems to have followed that example. Instead going for the easy option.

Huh? DFA was funded with the idea “let’s make a classic point-and-click adventure”.

A modern police game could be original, it depends entirely on the execution. I think needs to be focused on police procedures, not just charging in shooting everything or investigating murders. The problem is people find that boring, failing an assignment because you didn’t read the accused his rights. They need to find a way around that which doesn’t turn it into a shooter.