When can we expect to see SOMETHING about Telltale's KQ?

[wilco64256]

Maybe the castle was built on top of an indian graveyard? Ironically when I built a castle replica in Minecraft there turned out to be a zombie spawner directly below that exact cell.

[BagginsKQ]

I don't think it implied the kid died there. It was just a nice lonely place to hide and cry. And wail. You know, ghost stuff.

Lonely, dank and dark places to haunt... The guard dogs say, they don't like hanging around the cells, because they are all haunted!

zombie spawner directly below that exact cell.

The ghost can actually appear in at least 2 of the three cells... The north cell, and the middle cell. At least commonly.

[exo]

Originally Posted by Chyron8472

If you reach the island, the only thing of value there (besides the means to leave, which you are able to do at any time) is the bridle, and the whale only starts appearing after Lollotte tells you to obtain the unicorn. Not before. It follows that you need to use the whale to get at what you're looking for if the whale never appeared before you were ever looking for it. The same goes for the ogre/ogress after she tells you to obtain the hen. There is no evidence at the associated puzzle or anywhere leading up to it pointing to the fact that you need cheese...

First of all, you are using hindsight to make your argument. How, as a first time player, am I supposed to realize that a whale out in the ocean is only showing up because my character realized she needed a bridle? You assume that the desert island exists to provide the bridle, when there are several locations in Kings Quest games that exist solely as a puzzle to escape the screen. Not every screen in every kings quest game provides a useful item, so arguing that the island HAD to be important is absolute crap. Every argument you have made in regards to the bridle is based on hindsite and analyzing the specific events in the game which you would only know after you had beaten it AND read up on it. And as for your little rant about the parsar interface, that is bull too. Tell me a single instance in another KQ game where the parsar LOOK command doesn't work for the entire room, and opts to hide descriptions for items that are laying out in the open (not behind doors or in cabinets, but out in the open). Yea, that is what I thought. You can't.

Secondly, you are arguing that you didn't know you needed the cheese. Want me to list all the puzzles where you needed an item and didn't know? Half the time you pick up an item and you don't use it until later. Kings Quest was NEVER about knowing what item you needed, it was about picking up every thing that isn't nailed down and trying to use it in every situation.

As others have said, you are reaching and at this point you sound like you are desperately clinging to any excuse you can dig up.

Originally Posted by Chyron8472

Mice leave the screen in the catacombs in KQ6. Mice leave the screen in the dungeon in KQ5. Alexander can get caught, thrown in a dungeon cell and is rescued after a time in KQ6. Graham can get caught, thrown in a dungeon cell and is rescued after a time in KQ5. There is nothing of interest or value in Alexander's cell in KQ6.

It is logical to see a correlation.

Seriously? You just argued that there HAD to be something of value on the island, and now you are arguing that you had no indication there was anything of value in the cell. Do you realize the double standard you have set yourself up for here?

[Chyron8472]

Originally Posted by exo

First of all, you are using hindsight to make your argument. How, as a first time player, am I supposed to realize that a whale out in the ocean is only showing up because my character realized she needed a bridle?

because if you swim out into the ocean before Lolotte tells you to get the unicorn, you will never encounter the whale. You only encounter it after you begin to need something to help you get the unicorn. It's not hard to associate one with the other. It's not hindsight. It's how my family knew they were supposed to be on the island when they got there.

Tell me a single instance in another KQ game where the parser LOOK command doesn't work for the entire room, and opts to hide descriptions for items that are laying out in the open (not behind doors or in cabinets, but out in the open).

I said "parser games" not just KQ games. And why does it constitute "out in the open" for the item to be behind a wooden barrier that is not on a hinge where it is not for a wooden barrier that is on a hinge (ie. a door) even if said door is already open?

I'm not going to go through every room of every parser game (nor every parser KQ game) I've ever played and test it out. For example, I'm not sure if when you open the closet door in the ogre's house and walk into it without closing the door (ie. the perspective doesn't change) it describes the inside of the closet if I told it to look around, but I would understand completely if it did. Are you wanting me to play through KQ4 just to see if it does?

Secondly, you are arguing that you didn't know you needed the cheese.

I am arguing that if you missed it, there is nothing anywhere to indicate that the cheese is what you needed, so there is no way to determine what it is that you're looking for if you reload and start searching the castle for something you missed to use on the machine.

Seriously? You just argued that there HAD to be something of value on the island, and now you are arguing that you had no indication there was anything of value in the cell. Do you realize the double standard you have set yourself up for here?

It's not a double standard to say that you can't get onto the island until you need what is there so that when you do get there you should know there is something there that you need; whereas when you reach the cell in KQ5 and are rescued, if you had played KQ6 beforehand (which I did), you may recall uninteresting mice running out of rooms in the catacombs as well as remember being captured and thrown into an apparently empty cell and released with nothing to gain by it.

[Blackthorne519]

Well, I just hope that Tell Tale's King's Quest doesn't have a puzzle like the magic cheese OR the Island Bridle. Those were both just pretty poorly designed puzzles. There was definitely some more refinement that could have been put on both to make them better.


Bt

[exo]

Originally Posted by Blackthorne519

Well, I just hope that Tell Tale's King's Quest doesn't have a puzzle like the magic cheese OR the Island Bridle. Those were both just pretty poorly designed puzzles. There was definitely some more refinement that could have been put on both to make them better.


Bt

Well, at least we know Chyron's "family" won't have any problems finding obtuse crap laying around. But hopefully they don't hide something in a place he has already been to in Kings Quest 6, or he will assume there was nothing there last time and so he better just keep on moving this time.

And as for you Chyron - your on your own here. No one agrees with you. I, and several others, have shown how retarded your logic is.

[MusicallyInspired]

Originally Posted by Chyron8472

because if you swim out into the ocean before Lolotte tells you to get the unicorn, you will never encounter the whale. You only encounter it after you begin to need something to help you get the unicorn. It's not hard to associate one with the other. It's not hindsight. It's how my family knew they were supposed to be on the island when they got there.

It is so hindsight! How is a first time player supposed to know that the whale only shows up after the unicorn puzzle is launched? These game events were meant to appear random. For all a first time player knows it could appear at any point in the game. Nice to know your gene pool is capable of clairvoyance, though. Good on ya. At best your family was lucky to come to that conclusion and be correct. Just because they got Sierra's programmer logic on the first try doesn't mean everybody does.

Basically, most of King's Quest revolves around hindsight. The dead ends, the deaths, etc. They all show solutions to puzzles by presenting themselves when they end your quest. At least most of them do. Nowadays people don't like hindsight puzzles, though. It's all here-and-now "silver platter" logic.

[Chyron8472]

Originally Posted by exo

No one agrees with you.

First, don't be a troll.

Second, TTG's KQ isn't coming out for a long time so not a whole lot of people have been visiting this forum.

Third, have you ever considered that there are people who agree with me and have nothing to add, or people who just don't care to continue the argument?

Besides, my logic is not flawed, you just don't agree with it, no matter how sound it is.

Fourth, don't be a troll.

Originally Posted by MusicallyInspired

It is so hindsight! How is a first time player supposed to know that the whale only shows up after the unicorn puzzle is launched?

Because you can swim back and forth between the mainland and Genesta's island, and the whale never appears before you meet Lolotte. My parents were first time players of adventure games in general and encountered this. At a later time, I tried to get the whale to appear beforehand and only ever encountered sharks. After you speak with Lolotte, the appearance of the whale is highly likely to happen, whereas I tried for 5 minutes straight to try to get it to appear before and it wouldn't.

Originally Posted by MusicallyInspired

Nice to know your gene pool is capable of clairvoyance, though.

How is it clairvoyance to swim out into the sea to find where Genesta flew off to, explore her island, swim back, die a few times to sharks or drowning while doing this, and then later discover that when you swim out to sea again after talking to Lolotte you encounter a whale when before you were told to get the unicorn you didn't?

[BagginsKQ]

First, don't be a troll.

Fourth, don't be a troll.

How did his comment make him a troll?

Whose to say, maybe you are one, or not?

I think his comment is 'true' in that yes, several us do not necessarily agree with all your points... Some even find some of your points 'hypocritical', 'contradictory', or 'contrarian'...

But that doesn't mean that because we disagree with you, that we are trolls! Nor does it mean that because you might disagree with us, that you are a 'troll'...

First of all, you are using hindsight to make your argument. How, as a first time player, am I supposed to realize that a whale out in the ocean is only showing up because my character realized she needed a bridle? You assume that the desert island exists to provide the bridle, when there are several locations in Kings Quest games that exist solely as a puzzle to escape the screen. Not every screen in every kings quest game provides a useful item, so arguing that the island HAD to be important is absolute crap. Every argument you have made in regards to the bridle is based on hindsite and analyzing the specific events in the game which you would only know after you had beaten it AND read up on it. And as for your little rant about the parsar interface, that is bull too. Tell me a single instance in another KQ game where the parsar LOOK command doesn't work for the entire room, and opts to hide descriptions for items that are laying out in the open (not behind doors or in cabinets, but out in the open). Yea, that is what I thought. You can't.

Yes, a new player isn't likely to realize that;

1. he needs a bridle to ride a unicorn...

Considering that in mythology and fairy tales, unicorns generally let maidens ride them without any bridles. Infact they tend to hate bridles... Instead they are ridden bareback and their manes are used as a means of holding on.

But for sake of arguement, someone might assume the boxart holds a clue (as it shows Rosella holding on to a terrified unicorn via a bridle). Although it doesn't really accurately show any event or even Rosella's appearance during the game!

2. likely to discover that he needs the bridle after shooting the Unicorn. Oops, first dead end created! Or rather moving the game towards one of the 'bad endings' death scenes.

3. Maybe assume the bridle would be in a logical place such as the castle Stable! As opposed to 'out at sea'. Will quickly realize this doesn't work, as the monkeys, will capture her again...

4. There is next to nothing telling the player to 'go explore the ocean'. The whale is completely random encounter at that point. Since a player would have to physically decide, 'oh I think I'll go swim out at sea, and see what's out there.' Perhaps, thinking they need to go check on Genesta on her island again? Even if they think that, there is no guerrentee that they will encounter the whale... They might run into the shark, or see nothing at all!

5. You must have first been to Genesta's island to get the 'feather'. Or the player will be stuck in a dead-end/death inside the whale! Suffocation/digestion! There may also be a few other items needed for inside the whale (lantern?), or it becomes a dead end?

6. There are a few things that can be done on the island, other than finding the bridle... For example preparing the escape, to get the whistle from the bird (perhaps making the player think that the 'whistle' is the important item to get on the island)!

7. Oh, but did you forget the fish, so that he can get the whistle? Uhoh, another dead end, and timed death (exposure and dehydration!).

Like the dungeon in KQ5, if a player isn't being careful he might just assume its a 'trap' (choosing to ignore the rules of adventure games to explore all new locations thoroughly, and try to pick up everything)! But he doesn't have the luxury of an automatic eye cursor/hand cursor taking him to the interactive spots as in KQ5. Unlike the dungeon, the player will come off the island with at least one new item, the 'whistle'!

There are so many factors that have to be running perfect for the player to figure out that he needs the bridle, or even escape from the predicament.

The 'dungeon' is actually somewhat less complicated, in that to escape, you only really needed to have solved one previous puzzle (befriending Cassima), and there is only one puzzle involved with finding the special item (using a hook). It's quite similar, but somewhat simpler (less complicated) in construction.

Whereas in KQ4, you really have to have several things prepared (2-3 items collected) in advance to even escape, both the whale, and the island! As well as not screw up the end-game by shooting the Unicorn too early!

The whale is located in a 'non-linear' location with no clues pointing to its existence (the dungeon beast appears on a linear path through Mordack's castle, that you know you have to explore to reach your family's location)...

[Chyron8472]

-.- You must not have picked up on the tone of his post, how he basically is telling me that no one likes me so I should shut the hell up, and also saying that my parents and I are uniquely observant yet stupid at the same time.

[exo]

Thanks for making all those wonderful points BagginsKQ and MusicallyInspired.

And thanks for not addressing any of them Chyron8472, and instead harping on your insistence that I'm a troll that has it out for you and your clairvoyant family.

How about to go back and address all of BagginsKQ's nicely organized points, or simply drop your insistence that

<deep breath>

just because a unicorn is walking around that it is somehow blatantly obvious that one needs a bridle from an island because a whale didn't show up earlier and you apparently like to take swims out to sea every time you accomplish anything (or have a conversation) which allows you to know that the SPECIFIC event that triggered the whale MUST have been the unicorn and not anything else you might have seen or done which in turn means anyplace you find due to the whale MUST contain the solve for the unicorn (in which case one could just as easily assume the bridle is under the whales tongue) and therefor when you arrive on the island even though a cursory examination (LOOK) reveals nothing and even a further examination reveals nothing (LOOK AT GROUND), you had the forsight (not hindsight apparently) to repeat the process of looking at the ground behind the bird, by the ship wreck, and every other onscreen object in the slight chance that rosella is not able to see something as massive as a bloody bridle over the top of the wooden ship EVEN THOUGH the command LOOK AT GROUND reveals everything on the ground in every other scene in that game, and all three games leading up to it.

<deep breath>

If you and your family stumbled upon it accidentally, then good for you. Don't mistake coincidence and circumstance for a standard puzzle design. And don't even try and convince me that you swam in the ocean so much that you knew exactly why the whale had appeared, and therefor, upon arriving at the island, where 100% clear that the means by which you could mount the unicorn must be hidden here somewhere. That is an absolutely ridiculous claim for anyone to make, and even more of a stretch when it becomes the crux of your argument that it is not an obtuse turn of events in the first place.

And if you would like to continue discussing this, I will remind you that there is no precedence for items being hidden behind things (that are laying on the ground), and yet you cling to "precedence" like a life preserver in terms of trying to convince everyone here that you had absolutely NO REASON WHAT-SO-EVER to try looking in the obviously drawn mouse hole.

You aren't convincing anyone here, and the more you go on and on the more contrary your arguments seem to get. As far as the "quality" or number of the KQ fans currently on this board, it is no accident that most of the people here are either extremely well versed in the lore and run fan sites or somehow involved with the production of fan made KQ games. IE: The most diehard of diehard KQ fans are here for the most part. BagginsKQ here is giving you a step by step list of the problems with your logic, and the best you can do is try to convince him that I am a troll.

If you would like to point out precedence for me being a troll, then you might be able to tie it into your original argument. Or maybe you can identify the exact point in this conversation where the troll appeared, in which case you could then derive that the following post contains the solution to ridding yourself of the troll. Or maybe it is all much simpler than that and if you were to only ask the troll to leave you be using the correct parser terminology (and from the correct room in the forum), it would then leave you be.

I rest my case, unless you would like to continue this farce of hind sighted nonsense, in which case I shall continue and taunt you a second time.

[BagginsKQ]

Another place a person might search and hi and low for 'bridles' might be the various houses... There is alot of junk in the Fisherman's house... The manor is a pretty big place... Rich people often own horses! ...or even try to get past the scary forest! Whose to say that someone hadn't lost their horse, while trying ride through the woods!

There is clearly no 'logical' explanation for why a bridle would be 'out at sea' (horses are land mammals)... or that you would need to be eaten by a whale to find it!

Whereas, 'cheese found in a mouse hole' makes perfect sense... It just breaks down from there (once you have found it)...

Encountering the whale is dumb luck, 'non-linear randomness', in a out of the way location... That also requires so many other factors to even get out of the predicament. A player has to assume, that finding the 'whistle' isn't the only reason he ended upon the island!

[KatieHal]

The two puzzles have the same problem of lack of logic at different ends.

There's no logical reason to look for a bridle on an island you only reach by being swallowed by a whale. However, once you have it, it's pretty clear what to do with it.

It's no great leap of logic that cheese will be in a mouse's hole. However, once you get it, there's no logical reason to use it to jumpstart a wand machine.

[Lambonius]

This thread is a rip-roaring good time!

[Anakin Skywalker]

All this madness over a piece of cheese.
Look, King's Quest is CHEESY. Therefore, it is only logical that machines in the series be powered by Cheese. Simple.

[Chyron8472]

Originally Posted by exo

[...] I'm a troll [...]

Yes, I know.

[blueskirt]

Exo's post did come off as insulting, in a "Nobody here agrees with you so shut up and go away already" kind of way. I would not call him a troll, but "Agree to disagree?" would have been a much better and polite way to voice what he wanted to say. Just saying.

Back on topic, I'm with Blackthorne and Katie on this one, both puzzles are retarded and their only purpose was to incite people to buy hint books or dial the Sierra's hint line. Telltale will hopefully not pull off something this retarded in their game.

Back on on topic, walking deads or dead ends are hardly a generational thing. The Secret Of Monkey Island was released a year after King's Quest V. It, and the many dead end free LucasArts games that followed it were damn hard none-the-less, it was regarded as a breath of fresh air when it was released and I cannot think of a single post-Loom LucasArts game that would be improved if dead ends were included.

I also disagree that it only takes thirty minutes to restart from the start when you encounter a dead end in an adventure game. When you know where you screwed up or where the item you need is, sure, it takes thirty minutes, but when you don't know the exact moment where you screwed up, and that was the case in many old school adventure games, you have to double and triple check every rooms looking for something you didn't pick up or didn't do correctly, hardly something you can do under thirty minutes.

But the more I think about it, the more I think that dead ends, like death, are not inherently frustrating, it's just that more often than not they have been badly implemented, and if it's possible to make dying in adventure games a logical, fair and non frustrating process that add to the immersion and realism, or in the case of some Sierra games, is part of the fun, maybe the same could be done with dead ends.

What if dead ends were fair, logical and not tied to moon logic puzzles, if the solutions were located in the same chapter as the dead ends and you only had to replay a small portion of the game, not the whole thing, if the game warned you that you are currently in an unwinnable state, hinted where exactly you screwed up, didn't not force you to replay maze or action sequences, warned you beforehand that you had to be prepared before entering an area you cannot come back from, provided automatic saves, that could not be overwritten, at specific moments in the game like the beginning of each chapters, or what if the game was still completable, if only with a sub-par ending... well, maybe dead ends could be tolerable.

I do not believe dead ends will get a revival in commercial projects, there is simply too much stigmata linked to them, doing so would simply drive away everyone but a minority of ultra hardcore players, it would be a financial suicidal move. But in freeware indie adventure games? Who knows. Maybe designing a game where dead ends are present, tolerable and a welcome feature could be a project Infamous Adventures could try to tackle.

[Blackthorne519]

I kind of like dead ends, if the objective is pretty clearly given to you earlier in the game. I don't like them when they come out of nowhere, but the idea that you didn't accomplish something earlier can bite you in the ass later appeals to me.

Dead ends can be used, but they must be handled with a lot of planning and care, for sure. In the end, no game is perfect - it's entertainment, and sometime what seems to work well for a designer doesn't end up working well out in practice. I'd rather designers take a risk like that - far too often (but not always, I cannot stress that enough) clinging to a no-dead ends philosophy leads to bland and safe game design.


Bt

[Irishmile]

I really hope they release something soon... even a little teaser art or something.

[Chyron8472]

I agree. However, it seems to be standard procedure for TTG to not give very many details about their projects until they're almost at the release date.