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Old 11-05-2003, 01:24 AM   #1
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Default The I LOVE LOOM thread

LOOM is, visually, my favourite LucasArts game. The gameplay was fun although pretty short. But wow, I'll never forget borrowing that game from a friend of my dad's and staying up ALL night imagining what playing the game would be like. All I could see was walking around that mysterious island. I was SO anxious! My dad heard me trying to install it at like 3 am....

"GET YOUR ASS TO BED!"

I even stayed home from school the next day and played it sick after he left for work.

Loom met every one of my expectations. The style, the interface, the music. PURE MAGIC! It was the game that really made me fall in love with Lucasfilm Games all over again. After Maniac Mansion of course.

To date, no game has influenced my artistic style like Loom has. With the exception of the Kyrandia games 1 & 2, no other games had that spectacular otherworldly fantasy feel that I love so much. All of these games have a very specific look to them. The colors are unafraid. Each scene has a palette and theme. The soft edges of the graphics are soooo pretty! (eyes blinking in wonderment emoticon)

How do you all feel about Loom? What other games you find as visually enticing or on par with the artwork in Loom?






Last edited by eriq; 11-05-2003 at 01:45 AM.
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Old 11-05-2003, 01:25 AM   #2
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>:| I think you know how I feel
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Old 11-05-2003, 01:41 AM   #3
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>:| I think you know how I feel

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Old 11-05-2003, 01:56 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by eriq
How do you all feel about Loom?
I feel that I need to somehow obtain the VGA version ASAP! Wow, that's gorgeous! I already thought the game was beautiful and I have the non-remade (and non-voice) one! Holy crap!

Anyway, I love this game (as stated in this other thread). It's a totally original world, with its own mythology and societies, but it doesn't get lost in the uniqueness; ie, the game does an excellent job of simply existing in the world it sets up, rather than trying to have the entire game just be a showcase for it. The Book of Patterns goes a long way towards achieving this goal. How cool was the Book of Patterns, by the way? Well, I'll tell you: awesomely cool.

And it's a musical adventure! This I felt was very cool in itself. It didn't require you to be a musician, but it still presented the interface in such a way that the player really was doing what Bobbin would actually be doing. Not many adventure games do this (with their bottomless pocket inventories and so forth). I know it's not a traditional interface, but I thought it was great. It took the fundamentals of an inventory-based adventure and modified them to rid itself of extraneous elements and make sense within the presented world. Acquiring drafts is congruous to obtaining inventory items, and using drafts is congrous to using inventory items with characters or objects in the game. The game still has puzzles, of course, but they're puzzles that Bobbin would realistically need to do in order to progress. As much as adventure games are generally built around the "pulley in the rubber chicken" variety of puzzle, this was a very welcome (and still very unique) change.

And I love the whole story of the game. It's obviously fairly short, but I think that this is in large part due to the removal of some of the more non-essential elements of typical adventure gaming. The game in no way came off worse for wear. I thought it was great.

And I loved Bobbin's character. You never learn too much about him, but his mystery fits well within the backstory that's set up, and Moriarty did a fine job of dropping little hints about his personality. I really liked Bobbin's reserved but still subtly defiant attitude.


In short--this game is awesome. Play it now. And somebody give me a copy of the CD version. Now. Please.
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Old 11-05-2003, 02:32 AM   #5
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I have a Kixx XL budget version of Loom, it's the cd version with voices, I have been searching for the original box for years.

I've played Loom through only once, it should be about time to play it again, it's been something like 7 years since I played it.

I was wondering about the rumoured "special ending" when you play the game at it's hardest level. Is there a ending like that?
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Old 11-05-2003, 02:33 AM   #6
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Loom was very original. It has the looks of a Sierra game, btw.

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Old 11-05-2003, 02:49 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kolzig
I have a Kixx XL budget version of Loom, it's the cd version with voices, I have been searching for the original box for years.

I've played Loom through only once, it should be about time to play it again, it's been something like 7 years since I played it.

I was wondering about the rumoured "special ending" when you play the game at it's hardest level. Is there a ending like that?
I've played through it at the hardest level, and the ending is the same but you get a little extra scene in the middle, sort of near the end. It's pretty cool.
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Old 11-05-2003, 02:55 AM   #8
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* AGA pokes remix0r in the eye with a PM
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Old 11-05-2003, 03:55 AM   #9
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Quote:
I've played through it at the hardest level, and the ending is the same but you get a little extra scene in the middle, sort of near the end. It's pretty cool.
I played only hardest level. What scenes are not in other levels?
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Old 11-05-2003, 04:25 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Zanthia
I played only hardest level. What scenes are not in other levels?
Zanthia, I was expecting you to comment on how much you loved the graphics in the Kyrandia games too. You silly woman.

I absolutely LOVED the graphics in those games. Especially Kyrandia 2. Some of THOSE graphics took my breath away!





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Old 11-05-2003, 04:31 AM   #11
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I REALLY LOVE graphics in kyrandia games. Buts its Loom' thread.
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Old 11-05-2003, 04:36 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Zanthia
I REALLY LOVE graphics in kyrandia games. Buts its Loom' thread.
yea they sure are purty!

psst... I mentioned Kyrandia in the very first post. I am a big fan too. I finally got my hands on the box for Hand of Fate. The rare short-print run of the cover with Xanthia on the cover reaching up with the island behind her. It's a great box cover. You've seen it right?

Pulling this right back into Loom... can we just say GORGEOUS box. I've always loved the back of the box as well. And Remixor, YES! the book of patterns was just ingenious.

And that's the weather. Now Zanthia, back to you.
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Old 11-05-2003, 12:03 PM   #13
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Loom is very, very special to me, as it was the first LucasArts (or Lucasfilm Games )game I played, waay back in 1991 or something.

But as great and wonderful as this game is, it really bothers me that there is no "ultimate" version of it. The CD-ROM version has got wonderful graphics, and voice acting, BUT: It removes all the *beautiful* close-ups of the characters (and instead uses more detailed animation on the characters), which is a great shame. Besides, the dialouge is completely rewritten for the CD-ROM version, it is actually been quite simplified, thereby losing a great deal of its original poetic appeal, which is also indeed a great, great shame.

After playing both versions to death I have to stick to the original EGA version, simply because the dialouge and the close-ups are so staggeringly beautiful that they manage to overcome the awesome graphics of the CD version. I wish I could understand why they did not keep the original dialouge and the close-ups for the CD version...
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Old 11-05-2003, 12:09 PM   #14
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I need to play Loom through again. I loved it back in the day, played the disk and CD versions through. I've got the stupid thing installed and set up in ScummVM, I just haven't had the time


As for Kyrandia, the ScummVM guys were going to support some or all of the games (the original designers of the series were all for it, and even petitioned EA to allow it) but EA, who owns the Kyrandia license after purchasing Westwood, shot them down entirely.
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Old 11-05-2003, 12:14 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by myhrik
I wish I could understand why they did not keep the original dialouge and the close-ups for the CD version...
Probably both because of budget and technology. The voice and music in the Loom CD version is all stored as standard CD audio tracks, instead of digital sound files on the CD itself (probably to keep the audio quality high, instead of the standard crap 8 bit digital audio common to games of that era). That seems to sort of limit how much audio is going on since using actual CD audio like that extremely limits interactivity, and reduces the number of minutes you can have of dialogue. I bet the closeups were cut just so they didn't have to pay someone to re-paint them like they did for the 256 color version of Monkey Island 1 (that's just a guess though).
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Old 11-05-2003, 07:14 PM   #16
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Default I LOVE LOOM too... ;-)

Hello everyone...

I'm new to the forum (as is clearly visible from my posts number... ,
although I've been an on/off lurker for a loooong time here...

Didn't feel like I had much to say, but whenever I see a thread like this one, I MUST participate!! :-))
(sorry 'bout the simplified smilies, didn't learn how to use graphic ones yet in this forum...)

I've always been a fantasy fan, but I barely knew that when Loom went out in 1990-91 (I was 11). I first played it on my cousin's Amiga computer (anyone remember those??) and was COMPLETELY captivated. And that was even without the MUSIC in the background! (bad copy, or something..) The graphics were just so fantastic... I HAD to have it!!! So I asked my parents to buy me a copy. Meanwhile, during classes at school I started drawing in my notebooks... Remember all those stories about children drawing Unicorns and such instead of listening at class? (Neverending Story anyone?) Well, I drew those twinkling Loom stars that you see in the game's sky at the beginning... :-)

Was I THRILLED when my copy arrived! Combining music and magic is what I really loved about it, together with the story, the ambience... (and it took me a LONG time to finish, It took me a while to come up with what to do with all those sheep... :-)

Years later, I still think of it as one of (if not the) all-time favourite of mine. I too was VERY dissapointed to finally find a CD version, and find out the dialogue has been changed, almost completely... and no close-ups!
Still, I had to wait 10 whole years for another game to capture my imagination like Loom did... And then came The Longest Journey!! (and later Syberia..) "But that is another story..." ;-)


If you got this far, thanx for listening! :-)

Last edited by Rusty; 11-05-2003 at 07:29 PM.
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Old 11-05-2003, 07:39 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rusty
Years later, I still think of it as one of (if not the) all-time favourite of mine. I too was VERY dissapointed to finally find a CD version, and find out the dialogue has been changed, almost completely... and no close-ups!
Still, I had to wait 10 whole years for another game to capture my imagination like Loom did... And then came The Longest Journey!! (and later Syberia..) "But that is another story..." ;-)


If you got this far, thanx for listening! :-)
Thanks for sharing that Rusty! I, too, fell in LOVE with Loom. There was just something very magical about it! The graphics and sound really merged perfectly for me. I cannot think of any game I was SO excited to play.

I have the CD version but I have NEVER played it! The dialogue is different? And there are no closeups? wow...
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Old 11-05-2003, 09:10 PM   #18
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I got Loom for free when I bought a new computer (286?), way back when. Free games can't be good, right? So it was gathering dust for a long time. One day someone told me it was a Brian Moriarty game and I dropped everything and started playing.

Brian Moriarty RULES!


I find the same magic in his text adventures. Where oh where is Brian now??
 
Old 11-05-2003, 09:55 PM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fienepien
I got Loom for free when I bought a new computer (286?), way back when. Free games can't be good, right? So it was gathering dust for a long time. One day someone told me it was a Brian Moriarty game and I dropped everything and started playing.

Brian Moriarty RULES!


I find the same magic in his text adventures. Where oh where is Brian now??
I myself got Fate of Atlantis for free when I bought...uh...something way back when. It was the game that began my addiction to adventure games. Personally, my motto is that free games can't be bad! If they suck, well, nothing lost. If they're good, hooray!
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Old 11-06-2003, 04:27 AM   #20
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Loom's graphics are nothing special imo, though the game is revolutionary. Kyrandia games are one of my favourites - the innovative touch to them was incredible.
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