Thoughts on episode 4 and an idea for episode 5

edited November 2009 in Tales of Monkey Island
Just thought I'd leave a few comments about what I think so far.
I finally caught up to the episodes so I can come onto the site without seeing spoilers. A note to readers. I'm probably going to say things that could be considered "spoilers" so if you don't want to know then don't look.
Anyway, just a few things:

1. Bugs - Found some bugs in the game and not just fireflies and moths. There is a cut off voice segment in the courtroom and a mystery object to the right of club 41 that guybrush can't seem to walk to. I noticed a couple things like this in other episodes too. In episode 2 I was able to get an item twice. It wasn't scripted for some characters when I tried to give it to them since at that point in the game I should no longer have the item in my inventory.

I think a little more testing is an order. The entire industry has pretty much given up on trying to ship things without bugs. Since console games can now be patched, few developers worry about shipping with bugs (sometimes game breaking ones too).

2. Polish - I imagine you pay Dom by the word spoken for each episode. It seems like there are plenty of missed opportunities for Guybrush to say funny or interesting things with various combinations. It feels like the sam & max games had more polish and little things added.

3. Sparse - This kind of falls into the polish category. It doesn't feel like there is all that much to look at in some of the areas. The previous episode felt really cramped. This episode felt a bit better in that respect but the amount of scripted objects is probably about the same. The voodoo shack and lab have been the best places to explore in the game thus far.

4. Short & formulaic- So many episodes seem to turn into the:
"Collect 3 things" -> " OK now collect 3 more things" -> "Mini puzzle and end"
formula it kind of pulls you out of the experience. It's one of the difficult to avoid pitfalls of episodic gaming.

Ideas

1. I think it would be great to finish off the last episode with a bang. Have the adventure span all the islands and even the manatee. You've already developed these resources. It would require making new puzzles and such but a good chunk of the ground work is done already. Expanding the locations will also add to the difficulty of the game.

2. A few more items in the inventory would be nice. It seems like I never have more than 4 or 5 things. I'm not saying we should be carrying around 50 things in our pants but thinking back to MI 2. I seem to recall having quite the inventory of stuff. Adding more objects and an extra step to solve a puzzle here and there wouldn't hurt either.


A final note:

Keep up the good work. Not trying to slam you guys or anything. It's just constructive criticism.


ps: Let me know if you ever change your mind on sponsoring visas. I'm still interested.
Sign in to comment in this discussion.