Adventure Gamers - Forums

Oh man, people here can tend to be very critical about every word.  Let’s not linger on the term HD shall we(just consider it enhanced graphics), and just concentrate on the game. As far as the game, why did you choose to go with Android exclusively when iOS is a bigger market? I don’t have an Android device so will have to wait for a port if it ever comes.

Would you consider offering a demo version or something similar? I’m curious to see how this plays on my phone before I buy.

I hate the graphics on display here. HD, enhanced graphics, call it what you will, it really doesn’t look very good on the character of Simon. He looks like a freakish monster. Sure, some of the environment art looks better or just as good with it, but some of it looks worse because of the shader applied.

While I won’t be buying this myself, as the only touch device I have is my PS Vita, it’ll be very interesting to see whether or not the game does well. Aside from the weird shader choice Simon the Sorcerer is still an amazing game and as it’s mentioned you can play it with the original graphics too.

If the game is a success, do you guys plan on porting it to other devices than Android, like say the aforementioned PS Vita, or is that not an option?

Regarding ports to other platforms - it’s in the plans, and we might even start a kickstarter campaign, in case the Android version is successful.
iOS is high priority, and other platforms might come as well.

The reason for choosing Android is because of: 1. Market, which is mostly European and contains more Android users. 2. Was easier based on certain tasks that need to be done.

Regarding demo version - that’s a possibility, it will be decided based on market response.

Sir^Knigget - 25 August 2013 01:28 PM

Regarding ports to other platforms - it’s in the plans, and we might even start a kickstarter campaign, in case the Android version is successful.
iOS is high priority, and other platforms might come as well.

The reason for choosing Android is because of: 1. Market, which is mostly European and contains more Android users. 2. Was easier based on certain tasks that need to be done.

Regarding demo version - that’s a possibility, it will be decided based on market response.

Wasn’t there already a ios version of the first two Simon games? at least according to the official AdventureSoft site.

Hi All,

My name is Liron Barzilai and I am the founder of MojoTouch (previously “iPhSoft”). Omer, our Android developer started this discussion.

I would like to tell you about us and this latest release. We are a small game studio and mobile app development company that has exclusive mobile platforms distribution rights for the following adventure games: Flight of the Amazon Queen, Inherit the Earth the ‘Adventure Soft’ portfolio.

Since we hold the Adventure Gamers website and community in high esteem, it is important for us to better explain the 20th Anniversary Edition release of ‘Simon the Sorcerer’. It is a new project that started from scratch, was 6 months in the making, and is not related to our 4 years old release on iOS (which we hope to replace soon with a similar 20th Anniversary Edition).

First, it’s a completely new game experience and not just “a new port release” (although the player can choose to play also with the old original version by changing the settings). 
Also, the graphic scaling is not considered to be the most important addition in this release. We understood from your feedbacks that it was confusing, and we have fixed the order and paraphrasing in our product page.

Here is a list of the features with more details:

1. Totally new, modern, game play controls – hotspot based (no more pixel hunting!) that were built from the ground up for touch-screens -  with all-new slick icons and animations.
Please see our tutorial video here:

2. New remastered music of the entire game score, and in stereo. Recorded with new high-end hardware (Yamaha Tyros4).

3. Completely new game menus and save/load system.

4. Combining all seven different original language releases into one modern version -  which allows for the first time both English voice and English subtitles at the same time. This combined version has a lower price than any other version of the game (excluding our own very old iOS version).

5. Four graphic modes that scale the graphics beautifully (depends on the user’s liking and his hardware limitations).
Although the “High” mode is not loved by some adventure gamers, it’s really sought-after by many new, younger, adventure gamers (I am guessing you are already familiar with the RetroArch community). It is also preferred by a large number of “old” adventure gamers that just don’t like pixelated graphics on their smartphones, especially on their big-screen tablets.

Also, technically speaking, this is the first time that graphic scaling is achieved for a mobile version of an adventure game. The algorithm we are using for our “High” mode (the latest xBR shader) is considered to bring the best image quality (sharpness and accuracy) from any publicly known scaler – even from desktop scalers.

I still want to try adding a mode for gamers that like “pixlate” graphics, but I will probably again be facing the feedbacks of how bad my taste is Maybe later in a separate discussion…

We used the term ‘HD’ in our marketing, since it is an ‘upscale to HD’ – this term is commonly used by video scalers and game consoles (and always means that no extra details are added to the image). This is used even when the scaling logic is bad, so we felt confident to use it when we use a high-end scaler and actually upscale to 1280X800 (which is even larger than HD definition).
Anyway, I apologize to anyone who was offended by it – we didn’t mean to give any impression that we’ve redrawn the game artwork and was positive it is clear from the video and 8 screenshots on Google Play. We’ve specifically stated that we just upscale ( sorry, but we didn’t get a 700K USD check from Kickstarter ), and surely didn’t intend to scam anyone.

I will be happy to know your thoughts and thank you for reading this.

Also, we would like to give away 5 licenses for a free download – which will also participate in beta tests of future versions.
If you would like to be a part of the draw, please send us an email with your forum username and Android device model to: contact at mojo-touch.com

Best,
Liron.

I don’t have an Android device, but even if it did eventually come to iOS, the fact that it uses James Woodcock’s barftastic “enhanced” soundtrack is enough to ensure that I wouldn’t touch this thing with a 10-foot pole. Simon 1 had a great score, and it’s a shame to hear it mangled this way.

Kurufinwe - 27 August 2013 08:27 AM

I don’t have an Android device, but even if it did eventually come to iOS, the fact that it uses James Woodcock’s barftastic “enhanced” soundtrack is enough to ensure that I wouldn’t touch this thing with a 10-foot pole. Simon 1 had a great score, and it’s a shame to hear it mangled this way.

First, you can play the game with the Original soundtrack (and enjoy the rest of the 20th Anniversary Edition features - or disabled them too).

Second, I guess it’s a taste discussion, since we got a lot of good feedbacks on the new music score.