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Old 06-25-2011, 04:54 PM   #1
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Default A Loom lost room, early The Dig previews, early Fate of Atlantis, and more

Long time between drinks, no?

Um... I haven't been here in a while, really. I've been enjoying myself at Telltale's site for the past few years, but with the controversy over BTTF and Telltale's aggressive shift to reach out to non-adventure gamers, I figure I ought to return here.

The last few days have been especially fruitful in terms of "adventure game archaeology." I discovered so much that I had to share some of what I've found here. (I've FINALLY decided to update my long-dormant website... but here's a preview of what I'm planning to do with it!)

First things first.

(Note to mods: Several magazine scans are featured below, but as none of these issues have been on sale for at least 18 years and the magazines have been defunct since 1994-5, I don't think I'm preventing any purchases.)

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Five years ago (five! Can it really have been that long?) I posted a thread in which I speculated there might have been a demo or other preview of an early version of LucasArts' The Dig. I put out an appeal to find it, but nothing ever turned up.

Until now.

This video on YouTube is a preview of The Dig featured in the September 1994 issue of Interactive Entertainment Magazine, a PC gaming magazine that came out monthly on CD. This electronic publication lasted about a year, from 1994 to 1995.

The IE Dig preview is the fabled "slideshow" demo from which some very early screenshots of Sean Clark's The Dig originated. Notably, it also includes a short video, which I'd never seen before, showing off how the original 5-icon interface worked.

After seeing the YouTube version, I managed to track down the actual preview itself, allowing me to view the images and video files it included. Although I've shown off these early Sean Clark Dig screenshots before, this is the first time I've found them in their proper original .pcx format (as opposed to .jpg conversions saved by someone else years ago). Here they are, good as new (though I've converted them from antiquated .pcx to more modern .png so you can see them).











Here's the video demonstrating the early interface in its original format.

This is a screenshot used to preview the article in the IE CD menu:


Using the art assets from the Brian Moriarty Dig which I have, I managed to repair the screenshot and eliminate the WordArt.


Although this preview was featured in the IE September 1994 issue, the August 1994 issue also talked about The Dig in its "LucasArts at CES" article.

The August preview suggests that by this point, the decision had already been made to replace the early character sprites from Brian Moriarty's Dig, although the initial plan was to incorporate footage of live actors for the character animations (a la The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Rose Tattoo). The final game used a more detailed set of hand-animated sprites instead.
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So much for what I discovered earlier in the week.

Today, I've found another treasure trove: scans of French gaming magazine Tilt from the early 1990s. They've provided me with several interesting gems.

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Below is a room from Loom which was cut from the final game for disk space reasons. I'd heard of its existence long before, and had searched fruitlessly for a picture of it for years. Until today, when it fell into my lap.



It features three large sandglasses in Crystalgard (the Glassmakers' city). Two of them (with closed tops) have emptied, and one is still running (and has an open top). On a ledge above, a worker is standing next to a pile of sand.

I guess that, symbolically, these hourglasses represent the Three Shadows of the Loom universe: the sands count the time until darkness descends upon the world. The first two hourglasses stand for the first two Shadows, long past. The third hourglass, still running, showcases the imminence of the Third Shadow yet to come. (I wonder if there's a mystical component at work, if the Glassmakers could actually hold off the Shadow by always filling the sandglass. Does this mean Bobbin was to interfere with this guard's duty in a puzzle?)

Also, here's a very early version of the exterior shot of Crystalgard, which was later almost entirely redrawn. Next to it is the initial version of Hetchel's tent on Loom Island, in which the straw-into-gold spinning wheel is located there instead of in a separate tent. To accommodate this, the table with the Book of Patterns is mirrored, and placed on the other side of the screen.



And, just in case you haven't had your fill of Crystalgard, here's a view of it (in final form this time) with the caption "City of the Guild of Glassmakers." That sounds like a descriptive caption for use in a cutscene, but no such scene is in the final game.



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Now for a Sierra interlude.

Here are two Tilt magazine pages showing off Conquests of the Longbow. They reveal that the original top score in the game was 7575 instead of 7325. Somewhere on the route to the final game, 250 points went missing.

And here are two screenshots of early Space Quest IV.


Observe that, originally, Roger had dark gray pants, and the Time Rippers were dressed differently.


Space Quest XII - Vohaul's Revenge II was originally Space Quest XII - Vohaul's Revenge Again.

An article previewing Space Quest V includes an interesting close-up background of Roger in the captain's chair, punching data into a Star Trek-style console, which was later scrapped:



Here's the full SQ5 article, with a couple of extra images.

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Back to LucasArts.

Here are a couple of magazine articles on very early Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. They're so early, Indy's sprite isn't even finalized yet, being a prototype version.





The GUI is a very early version, based on what was used in Last Crusade/Monkey Island 1. Inventory items are displayed in a text menu. (Note also the "National Geographic" magazine, later changed to "National Archaeology" no doubt at the urging of LucasArts' lawyers.)

The backgrounds are also very early, being far from their finalized counterparts in many details.

It's clear that Indy and Sophia's sprites for their "business dress" haven't been completed. Instead placeholders are used: Indy is in his suit from the EGA Last Crusade game, and Elaine Marley from MI1 EGA doubles for Sophia. (Nor is the Nur-Ab-Sal theater puppet finished; its place is filled by Chaos from Loom.)

Here's a slightly later picture, still with the old-style GUI, but with Indy's sprite finalized. The background isn't quite done, though, and the knife-thrower's dartboard has an ominous outline painted on it.



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Finally, we come full circle with an article previewing Brian Moriarty's The Dig, as seen at CES in summer 1993. I'd seen a scan of this before, but at a much lower resolution. Here it is at a more intelligible size.



Looks like Brink is bleeding all over the place. Poor guy... I'd guess he needs a life crystal more than a tourniquet. Good thing Low seems to have both in his inventory.

Also note the original StoryDroid 4-icon GUI, slightly different from the early Sean Clark/SCUMM 5-icon version, as well as the unfamilar inventory items. (You can make out a crystal pyramid, which I think was to be used in a console in the museum, as well as what I'm pretty sure is the original pocket-size trowel, just left and right of the green crystal, respectively. Also, is that an early version of the nuclear arming key in the third slot from the left?)

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How's this for a return to form?
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Old 06-25-2011, 06:35 PM   #2
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Welcome back, ATMachine! I absolutely love that kind of stuff, the little details of how the finished products came into being. The Dig is particularly interesting... It feels a lot like Tolkien's Silmarillion: the released product is just a small amount of all the material that was related to it at one time or another --- except of course that in the book's case, all the drafts and variants have been preserved and published, whereas for the Dig everything has probably been deleted long ago, and we only have little bits and pieces to go by.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ATMachine View Post
Today, I've found another treasure trove: scans of French gaming magazine Tilt from the early 1990s. They've provided me with several interesting gems.
That's what you get for not hanging around here anymore. I've been aware of that site with the scans for (literally) half a decade. If you had asked for scans of old magazines here, I would have pointed you to it.

You know, after almost 20 years, I still miss Tilt. It was a fantastic gaming mag. Back then, all the other French computer-gaming magazines felt like they were written by excited teenagers. Tilt was much more mature and professional, and each month I was eagerly waiting for my Dad to come back home with the new issue. And it had a full section devoted to adventure games every month! It ended right at the pinnacle of "classic" adventure gaming: the last issue had reviews of GK, LSL6 and Sam & Max (those were the days...).

My Dad has all the issues starting from number 56 at home (what prompted him to buy that particular issue is anyone's guess... ), and that's something we treasure.

Let me know if there are texts you might want translated, I should be able to help.

Quote:
I'd seen a scan of this before, but at a much lower resolution.
Hey, that was my scan! Well over a decade ago, as I was browsing our Tilt collection for whatever reason, I stumbled upon that preview, scanned it and sent it some guy that had a Dig fansite that was investigating the early versions of the game ("The Dig Museum", or something like that?). (Was that you, by the way?) Sorry for the low quality scan; good scanners were expensive back then.

Anyway, welcome back and thanks for all the fantastic work.
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Old 06-25-2011, 06:43 PM   #3
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Thanks for the welcome! I'm glad to have finally brought this early stuff to light; even if the scans have been online for years, they've been unheralded and unsung. Now it's time to give them the attention they deserve
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Old 06-27-2011, 04:44 AM   #4
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I've always loved that early image of Space Quest V. It seemed like the game was going to be more "serious" at first, without that comic book feel. While the final game isn't that bad, it turned out being one of the weakest in the series.

We can only wonder what could have been...
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Old 06-27-2011, 06:06 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Agustin View Post
I've always loved that early image of Space Quest V. It seemed like the game was going to be more "serious" at first, without that comic book feel. While the final game isn't that bad, it turned out being one of the weakest in the series.

We can only wonder what could have been...

SQ5 is my favorite (haven´t played SQ6)

thanks for the great scans !

took me down a bittersweet trip down memory lane ...
which is cool
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Old 06-27-2011, 09:38 AM   #6
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As I've been digging further into the archive of French computer game magazines, I've found more and more interesting images.

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Here's an image of Indy Last Crusade which features a joke in the Sentence Line description of the knight's casket in Venice. Somehow I bet Ron Gilbert was responsible.



Here's a bigger view of the unused caption in a Crystalgard scene from Loom.

Here are a couple of other alternate shots from Loom. Another image of the original version of Hetchel's tent, and a very early pass at Stoke's workbench in the Forge.

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This is an alternate version of the original EGA Monkey Island 1 title screen. It was essentially completely redrawn for the final game.



Here are some images of MI1 where the inventory featured greyed-out inventory arrows when Guybrush wasn't carrying much. (Also note the capitalization of the "Pieces of Eight".)

And here's an early version of Guybrush's VGA sprite:



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These two magazine scans from Monkey Island 2 show off a very early version of the game, with 12 green verbs in the GUI and Guybrush's MI1 sprite used as a placeholder.

Here're some pictures showing off some original MI2 background art.

Below are pics of Guybrush on Kate Capsize's boat and at the Phatt Island waterfall. The boat background was almost entirely redrawn, and the water pattern of the falls was later changed. (Also notice the early, bright purple inventory arrows.)



Here's an image of Guybrush in LeChuck's fortress. The voodoo crate he arrived in was later completely redrawn.

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Here are some more early images of the Space Quest IV intro. They show that the idle cursor from SQ3 was initially being reused.

A couple of highlights from the scans, including an early version of Roger's close-up inside the cantina and a better picture of the Time Rippers' arrival:





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An early shot from King's Quest VI, with an alternate font for text dialogue windows.



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For your viewing pleasure, a magazine scan featuring more screenshots of very early Fate of Atlantis with green verbs and a text inventory.

A couple more screenshots of very early Fate.

Here's an image showing how one of the game's backgrounds was created.

Below are shots from a bit later in development on Fate of Atlantis, when the icon inventory had been added, but the icon drawings were still not finalized.





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And finally, here are some more scans of The Dig.

This is from Génération 4 magazine, covering CES summer 1993.


This article shows an uncropped version of the picture with the early GUI. Also, we can see Low and Judy Robbins (later renamed Maggie) reacting to the death of the monstrous eel (in this version, by electrocution).

The below images are from Joystick magazine. Here are the scans of the full article.


A larger scan of the screenshot with the original GUI. Here it's possible to make out that the Sentence Line seems to be in high resolution. I'd guess that the new StoryDroid game engine (later abandoned for the reuse of SCUMM) used the AdvMame2X graphics filter originally used by LucasArts for its Macintosh ports of SCUMM games.


A broken rock shard with a glowing crystal filament inside.


Brink and Low in the room where Brink will later get his hand cut off. This image, and those below, were actually taken by cameras capturing the demo shown at CES that year.


A bloody scene of one of the four astronauts dying horribly.

Génération 4 reported: "The game is full of animations that are sometimes quite savage. For example, you will have the chance to see one of your crewmates fall into a hitherto suspicious pool and disintegrate in under 10 seconds."

What appears to have happened here is that the four astronauts have found a lake of acid blocking their path of exploration. The acid is covered over with a thin, hard, dry crust.

As seen in the screenshot, Low has managed to cross the encrusted acid safely. However, Toshi Olema (the fourth crewmember, later removed by Sean Clark) took a different path across, broke through the crust, and is now literally melting to death as he thrashes his way to the other bank of the acid pool.


The four astronauts take off their suits after arriving on the alien planet. It seems the background (which was produced as a grayscale painting) had been scanned in but not yet colorized at the time of the CES demo.


The original version of the bone puzzle. Génération 4 notes that in this version, the creature's bones were not all present in the same place. Low would have to find several different groups of bones from various locations around the alien world, and bring them together to form a complete creature (which he would, as in the final game, resurrect with a life crystal).

Bonus! The Joystick article contains this information about the original Dig television script which was intended for Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories TV show.

"It was about a team of future archaeologists who unearth a statue of Mickey Mouse, then Sleeping Beauty's castle, etc., ultimately discovering that they have located Disneyland."

Wow. That's... different. I guess this was set in the far future, when humans had colonized the galaxy and abandoned (indeed forgotten) their original home planet. This makes a certain amount of sense: the very first version of The Dig, under project leader Noah Falstein, was set well into the future, when faster-than-light travel had become commonplace.
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Old 06-27-2011, 02:27 PM   #7
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Thanx for these ATMachine, and i suppose this is your site too which i often visited and found very interesting, especially Monkey Island sections.


Quote:
Originally Posted by ATMachine View Post
I've been enjoying myself at Telltale's site for the past few years, but with the controversy over BTTF and Telltale's aggressive shift to reach out to non-adventure gamers, I figure I ought to return here.
Yes, but i sorta expected something like this especially with franchises like BTTF and Jurassic Park which are expected to attract many people who loved movies but are not necessarily adventure gamers.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ATMachine View Post
The last few days have been especially fruitful in terms of "adventure game archaeology."
hehe, isn't that interesting, being gaming "Indiana Jones"


I'm sure you know this, but i was doing research of cancelled Full Throttle games, specifically Full Throttle: Payback, and here's one of the concept arts in full size:

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/751...tlepayback.jpg
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