You're a girl? Well, that just invalidates everything you've ever said. Everyone knows GIRLS can't think thoughts!
Just kidding. That is funny, though. With a name like Thom, I assumed you were a dude. My bad. You are very well spoken on the subject of these games we all like, and it's nice to hear a rational voice amongst the mess!
No, no, it's not your bad or your mistake, it's my fault for taking a user ID based on my surname. I was starting to feel guilty about being misleading is all.
I sure hope so. If they can deliver Tales of Monkey Island quality or better (preferably better, as even ToMI doesn't compare to any of the originals) then I will probably be at least marginally happy with it.
As long as its plot is nothing like TSL.
I stopped playing Tsl after beating the first episode? I can't remember if I beat the actual episode or the demo before that since the episode was so short. If the episode ends after visiting the Isles of Mist to receive some vision, then yeah, I have beaten it.
No offense for the ppl who like TSL, but the storyline have gotten really convoluted and silly; having Rosella's wedding at the Green Isles rather than Prince Edger's kingdom with only the citizens from the green isles (aside from Edger's parents) in attendance. I recall it was the twin's birthday in the demo, but regardless, I think they should have used something else that made more sense than Rosella's wedding. How about officially opening the isles to the public again or a royal birth announcement?
Anyway, I think TT will do well in the storyline dept. I am glad that the official license didn't fall into the hands of AGDI. If they have received the license, characters like "The Father" and the Sharkees would be canon...*shrugs*
Anyway, I think TT will do well in the storyline dept. I am glad that the official license didn't fall into the hands of AGDI. If they have received the license, characters like "The Father" and the Sharkees would be canon...*shrugs*
Those things wouldn't have been made canon, nor would they have been included if the AGDI remakes had been officially sanctioned ones. You can read my comments about that in this thread.
Rosella's wedding at the Green Isles rather than Prince Edger's kingdom with only the citizens from the green isles (aside from Edger's parents) in attendance
First I have to ask, why Etheria is any better?
It could just as easily occurred in Daventry, Rosella's own kingdom (the KQCompanion implied it was actually moving in that direction)!
Keep in mind in Roberta's design format she never returned to any previous land visited for the new adventures with the exception of Daventry itself! Even then Daventry wasn't the focus of the entire game (other than perhaps saving Daventry, after traveling to another land/s)!
So based on that criteria, the odds of returning to Eldritch and Etheria was very low!
Infact, one of the earliest design ideas for KQ8 would have had the PC find both Rosella and Alexander and the rest of the royal family in the castle turned to stone suggesting either he was visiting from Green Isles or it was a prequel (Roberta clarified around the same tine that Alex was already a king at that point).
Interesting in Roberta's own ideas for KQ9 Rosella wouldn't even get married in in the game (at least not in the beginning). She had an idea for a romance love triangle story between Rosella competing for the affections of Connor and Edgar both. I assume Edgar would have won (unless they took the QFG route and it was decided based on the player's actions). I wonder who the player character/s would have been. Would have been interesting to see how she would have taken it.
But who knows what Telltale will do? Will they stick to the classic format (explore new lands to save Daventry), or break from that and have us return to a previous kingdom? Or will they have their own new formula?
Anyway, I think TT will do well in the storyline dept.
My only hope is that the team has genuine vision and passion for the series.
Telltale seems efficient at cranking out content, and they've grabbed numerous licenses over the past few years. However, with this strategy, there's always a risk of doing a game just because the license is both popular and available, and not because the staff are eager fans with a vision.
And I don't believe that we will see QTE in King's Quest. Fahrenheit (which I bought recently) seems to overuse it and probably Jurassic Park does the same (I haven't played it so I have to trust to your word), but both games seem to represent bit different genre than KQ and are action-adventures or adventure games with action sequences or something like that. I believe that TTG's KQ will be pure adventure and it won't have Jurassic Park's QTE's or MoE's fighting.
The target audiences are important here. BttF and Jurassic Park are huge movie licenses, so they probably wanted to appeal to fans who don't play adventure games (adventure games = niche market; Jurassic Park/BttF = properties with the potential to draw in millions of people). Especially with JP, they aimed for the lowest common denominator by making a very movie-like game with limited interactivity.
King's Quest is different in that the name is only relevant to adventure gamers. Deviating too far from the old formula would be a big risk with limited chances of attracting the casual gaming crowd. Simultaneously, I don't think Telltale is set up to hit it big with hardcore action gamers.
I honestly just don't think Telltale has what it takes to make a truly great adventure game. Period. They've never reached the same level as the adventure games of the late 80s/early 90s. Never. Not once.
I honestly just don't think Telltale has what it takes to make a truly great adventure game. Period. They've never reached the same level as the adventure games of the late 80s/early 90s. Never. Not once.
What's funny though is I think they were totally starting off in the right direction with the TOMI stuff.
I'm interested to see where King's Quest goes with them, and Walking Dead. I wonder if they'll have anything to show for either franchise at GDC or E3 this year.
What's funny though is I think they were totally starting off in the right direction with the TOMI stuff.
I'll certainly agree that ToMI was the closest they've come. But even that doesn't hold a candle to the original Monkey Island, or the masterpieces that are Monkey Island 2 and Curse of Monkey Island. Or Fate of Atlantis, or any of the Lucasarts golden age adventures. Not to even mention the Sierra adventures.
The market hasn't shown much interest in a game as good or in the vein of the adventures from the 80's/90's. Machinairum is a gorgeous game with an interesting world to explore, and it is routinely sold for $5 or given away free (or whatever donation someone wants to make) in those humble bumble packs.
The Whispered World is absolutely gorgeous hand drawn graphics over a fairly large storyline (although I really dislikes the leads voice), and in just months after it's release I see stacked copies down at half priced books for $4.99.
I have actually decided to stop buying Tell tale games when they first come out for this reason. I have bought every season of every game they have except for Bone and then paid extra for the 'tangibles'. With the Sam N Max games and ToMI I thought the tangibles were interesting and somewhat worth the money, even though within a year they were giving the full season away for less than ten bucks. With Back to the Future the tangibles were total shit (yay for printed sheets of paper....) and the game is already free for PS+ users on playstation and was part of the holiday sale for under $10. Just a few months ago I paid around $40 for the same game with some printed sheets of paper that they pass off as extras.
Anyways, my point is that adventure games sadly just don't seem to make money any more.... and the game market in general devalues so fast that I am not sure how much profit is left to be made after the initial launch sales.
So instead we just get Myst repeteadly ported to every thing in the world that has a screen on it. By next year the ordering menu's at fast food restaurants will have a 'Myst' option.
The market hasn't shown much interest in a game as good or in the vein of the adventures from the 80's/90's. Machinairum is a gorgeous game with an interesting world to explore, and it is routinely sold for $5 or given away free (or whatever donation someone wants to make) in those humble bumble packs.
I paid 20 bucks for it, in fall 2009 I think?, before it was in the bundle. Worth every cent. It certainly made enough money for the developers to continue working on games... Was "humble bumble" an editorial comment?
What's funny though is I think they were totally starting off in the right direction with the TOMI stuff.
I thought they started off in the right direction with the first season of Sam & Max, with some allowances made for the studio's relative youth and the episodic model, and I rate the second season as slightly better than Tales. I believe Telltale deserves credit for their creativity in puzzle design through at least the The Devil's Playhouse. But somewhere in there, it's like they stopped even trying to devise "adventurous" gameplay in favor of content delivery.
Machinarium is BORING. As boring as any of those Adventure Company "adventures". Not near as interesting as the 90s classics. No dialogue, just puzzles and grey art (nice looking as it is). Machinarium is definitely more on the puzzle game-side of the adventure genre. I don't think it's fair to have it be the poster child for how well classic adventure games can do in today's gaming market.
Machinarium is BORING. As boring as any of those Adventure Company "adventures". Not near as interesting as the 90s classics. No dialogue, just puzzles and grey art (nice looking as it is). Machinarium is definitely more on the puzzle game-side of the adventure genre. I don't think it's fair to have it be the poster child for how well classic adventure games can do in today's gaming market.
I agree with this. Machinarium doesn't really qualify as being the same type of adventure game as the old Sierra lineup. It's decent fun though.
One problem with the proper style of adventure games these days is that they aren't marketed very well at all. Whispered World is pretty good yes, but I'd never heard of it until I saw another forumite mention it. Gray Matter is an excellent adventure game, but it suffered horribly because for some ridiculous reason it was released in Germany long before it was released in the United States even though it included the full English track the entire time. It still did pretty well.
Even AGDI's Al Emmo could have done much better if it had solid marketing. The tough thing with big marketing is that it gets expensive fairly quickly. You can easily spend as much on marketing as you do on your entire production budget.
I mean if crappy games (see: Amy) can get great marketing coverage, then good games should be able to pull off the same level of coverage too.
I think Machinarium is incredibly atmospheric, but then again I absolutely loved the Gobliiins series for the same reason. They both had great soundtracks, one had incredibly detailed organic art and one had vibrant colorful (sometimes psychadelic) art. They both used gibberish, so it was left to the player to figure out what people wanted based on universal pantomimes. I think that made the game fairly universal.
I'm not saying it's everyone's cup of tea, but it is a solid well put together game with great production values. But yes, they are a bit more puzzle than adventure.
Whispered World is a game I followed for years, waiting and waiting for a U.S. release. It may not have had huge marketing, but again - you have to have a market to market to in the first place. A simple example is the number of us on this forum.
King's Quest was a huge franchise. And how many of us are here actively posting? 10? One of the biggest adventure franchises gets an official game announced and there are 10 of us here talking about it. Sure, business will pick up as release details come out and more people become aware, but even if you look at the number of active people at Adventure Gamers, or ScummVM, or any adventure gaming site... there aren't that many and most of us have seen eachother on these sites... same people, over and over.
So lets say Whispered World does a marketing blitz, which costs money and cuts into game profits. Now they have to sell X amount MORE just to cover the marketing before they even see a profit from the marketing. The more you advertise, the more you have to sell to break even.
That's just too big a gamble on what is currently an unproven genre. If the adventure game community was truly thriving, adventure game prices wouldn't be getting slashed just months after release.
A generic repetitive call of duty game from 4 years ago will still sell for more than a brand new tell tale game, and the reason why is people are still paying that price for it.
Oh - and us adventure gamers are also generally picky asses. Just look at the threads around here, and you will see repeated tearing apart of others fan-based work they released for free. I'm not saying that all of it was great stuff and doesn't deserve the criticism, I'm just saying it's a hornet's nest to release something into a franchise like King's Quest when anyone who is familiar with the franchise has very specific expectations. This is why reboots were invented...heh.
So you have a small market full of very critical people who are quick to tear down anything they don't like.... not sure I'd spend money trying to crack that market open either.
Really, the best untapped market that I can see is my Mother and those of her type. She loves these kind of games but has no idea they exist unless I go buy and install them for her.
I have a fairly large adventure game project I built for a certain website, and one of the primary reasons I did it was so she could enjoy all the adventure games I grew up playing without having to understand how to install them, set them up, etc etc etc.
Steam is the closest thing to that on a commercial level, but it only addresses specific new games and a few legacy games. Just looks at what passes for "adventure" on steam and you'll see just how small our genre's fan group really is.
Long story short - we aren't an important demographic and companies aren't going to spend money advertising to us when word of mouth is free and much more prevalent since we all frequent the same forums anyways.
I think the market is definitely there, it's just waiting for the right stuff to come around again. I think people are initially hesitant to buy "adventure" games because there have been some really crappy ones come out in the last decade. Heavy Rain did remarkably well, Gray Matter did quite well especially in Germany where it was first released, the Broken Sword series has seen a pretty solid revival lately, The Longest Journey and Dreamfall both had solid runs. We just raised almost $35,000 to fund the production of our first commercial title. So yeah I do believe the market is there, and while it isn't the same level of market as for things like the next Modern Warfare or Elder Scrolls game, it's still enough to keep studios very busy.
I am not saying there is no market. I am saying the market isn't big enough to market too. ie: they aren't gonna spend cash advertising to such a niche group.
Though most of the people who have the highest purchase rate of portable computing devices like iPads and Androids are those who fall into the age group that "grew up" on the old Sierra franchises. I think we'll see a growing surge of interest in point-and-click style adventure games on those devices over the next few years. They're ideal for that type of interaction.
Indeed. However, I've been wondering lately if they're ideal for the style of full-length classic adventures. I mean really, they're portable devices. People have a lot less patience and a much shorter attention span for gaming and applications on portable devices. Sure there's the DS, but most of the big sellers are all small short games. Angry Birds, for instance. There's no grand story there. It's basically an arcade game. Will people actually pay attention to a full-length plot and storyline with full-blown puzzles on a handheld device?
Indeed. However, I've been wondering lately if they're ideal for the style of full-length classic adventures. I mean really, they're portable devices. People have a lot less patience and a much shorter attention span for gaming and applications on portable devices. Sure there's the DS, but most of the big sellers are all small short games. Angry Birds, for instance. There's no grand story there. It's basically an arcade game. Will people actually pay attention to a full-length plot and storyline with full-blown puzzles on a handheld device?
That's where I think the episodic model falls nicely into place. You don't have to feel like you're sitting down to an entire game all at once. It's already meant to be played in smaller pieces and the convenience of picking up your iPad to just play for a few minutes and then save and set it back down is a benefit I believe.
Elves having interest in treasures, so that is not out of the ordinary in fantasy/fairy tales.
Although figuring out that the glinting 'eyes' are elves, is somewhat obtuse...
When I was younger, I always thought the glinting eyes were some sort of creepy creature to beware of, or just simply something weird and unexplained watching Graham (me) in the eerie forest.
Yes that is a problem. One way that could have improved the puzzle perhaps is perhaps having seen the elf jump into the bushes as you enter the screen, to avoid you. That could have pointed out that you somehow needed catch him somehow.
I don't think they even offered any other clues via using eye or talk icon on the eyes. ...or elsewhere in the screen.
But don't you start to realize, after exploring the other forest screens and not finding much, that those eyes in the bushes probably represent your best opportunity to get out of the forest? Regardless of what kind of creature goes with the eyes? Once you start thinking of ways to tempt it out of the bushes, all you have to do is "show" him the emeralds, ie. use emeralds on eyes (it's not like you have a hundred items in your inventory at that point). Then from there you start getting more information about what you need to do. Personally I don't think that puzzle needs any improvement.
I wonder how many Sierra fans found that puzzle any more difficult than any other. For some reason it has become a lightning rod (second only to the GK mustache puzzle) for Sierra haters, who have perpetuated the false idea that you have to have the emerald-and-honey plan fully formed in order to solve it. But that's just not true, as you know.
I agree--this puzzle is about exploration--first in finding the puzzle itself, then in feeling your way through it. And even then, it's a logical solution that makes sense within the whimsical world of fairy tales and KQ. I never understood the animosity towards it.
The cheese machine is a little weirder, but as you pointed out, it's one of the only items you have left in your inventory by that point--it's not THAT hard.
What is hard about it is being able to dead end without obtaining the cheese-- which is located in a dark, hidden and obscure location--then being put in a situation where it is not obvious that you ever needed it.
It's not apparent while at the machine that you specifically needed the cheese, nor it is apparent at the cheese's location that it is even there at all.
It's been a while since I've played it, but I recall being in the cell long enough to click on pretty much EVERYTHING, with time to spare. It's possible to dead end there, but I never did. You learn early in KQ games to look in every visible hole (and even some invisible ones.) To a veteran King's Quester, something as conspicuous as a mouse hole may as well have a big red siren going off above it. I remember being immediately drawn to it.
There's a purpose to pretty much every screen in King's Quest. Especially one that you get stuck in for a while. It's gotta be there for some reason. It's not just a small detour.
About the cheese, first thing first, is that the game has a rather obvious and conspicuous animation of a rat/mouse heading into its hole to draw your attention to that part of the screen...
Between that and fact that if you don't do anything, it takes a few minutes for Cassima to show up, you have plenty of time to look at that hole...
Looking at the whole brings up a rather obvious close up of the cheese!
Now figuring out you have to use the 'hook' (which you hopefully picked up, as it was an obvious flashing object on the Harpy's island) to get the cheese or the obviously flashing necklace in the nest (to give to Cassima and escape the dungeon) depends on individual mental abilities...
That being said its its nearly impossible to not get thrown in the dungeon, since the beast almost always shows up in the downstairs rooms, and travels faster than you do... The main way I know that one could possible avoid the dungeon, is if they luck out and encounter the cat instead (but that will get you killed)... Or use the peas on the beast the first time, and then encounter the cat (bag it up).
But the encounter rate is so high for the beast (at least until you hit it with peas), that the dungeon is neither 'out of the way', 'hidden', nor an 'obscure location'...
About the cheese, first thing first, is that the game has a rather obvious and conspicuous animation of a rat/mouse heading into its hole to draw your attention to that part of the screen...
Which is a perfect example of how a simple adventure puzzle should be. In fact, many adventures have done this. The only difference with KQ5 was it had the balls to make it a dead end penalty if you don't get it.
About the cheese, first thing first, is that the game has a rather obvious and conspicuous animation of a rat/mouse heading into its hole to draw your attention to that part of the screen...
Between that and fact that if you don't do anything, it takes a few minutes for Cassima to show up, you have plenty of time to look at that hole...
That's a great point that I totally forgot about. The rat animation. It's pretty hard NOT to feel inclined to look in the mouse hole after you watch the rat run into it.
In those older games, the developers didn't go out of there way to make extra animations (on relatively static screens) for nothing... With exception of maybe random birds and wildlife, in general the animation was there to draw your attention to things...
Which is a perfect example of how a simple adventure puzzle should be. In fact, many adventures have done this. The only difference with KQ5 was it had the balls to make it a dead end penalty if you don't get it.
I still fail to see how ending your ability to complete the game because of a simple oversight improves the gameplay experience at all. The only thing that should impede you from completing the game is your inability to determine the solution, not some arbitrary item you never knew existed or that you're even missing it.
Comments
Just kidding. That is funny, though. With a name like Thom, I assumed you were a dude. My bad. You are very well spoken on the subject of these games we all like, and it's nice to hear a rational voice amongst the mess!
Bt
Nope.
Touche.
I was just kidding, btw.
I stopped playing Tsl after beating the first episode? I can't remember if I beat the actual episode or the demo before that since the episode was so short. If the episode ends after visiting the Isles of Mist to receive some vision, then yeah, I have beaten it.
No offense for the ppl who like TSL, but the storyline have gotten really convoluted and silly; having Rosella's wedding at the Green Isles rather than Prince Edger's kingdom with only the citizens from the green isles (aside from Edger's parents) in attendance. I recall it was the twin's birthday in the demo, but regardless, I think they should have used something else that made more sense than Rosella's wedding. How about officially opening the isles to the public again or a royal birth announcement?
Anyway, I think TT will do well in the storyline dept. I am glad that the official license didn't fall into the hands of AGDI. If they have received the license, characters like "The Father" and the Sharkees would be canon...*shrugs*
Those things wouldn't have been made canon, nor would they have been included if the AGDI remakes had been officially sanctioned ones. You can read my comments about that in this thread.
First I have to ask, why Etheria is any better?
It could just as easily occurred in Daventry, Rosella's own kingdom (the KQCompanion implied it was actually moving in that direction)!
Keep in mind in Roberta's design format she never returned to any previous land visited for the new adventures with the exception of Daventry itself! Even then Daventry wasn't the focus of the entire game (other than perhaps saving Daventry, after traveling to another land/s)!
So based on that criteria, the odds of returning to Eldritch and Etheria was very low!
Infact, one of the earliest design ideas for KQ8 would have had the PC find both Rosella and Alexander and the rest of the royal family in the castle turned to stone suggesting either he was visiting from Green Isles or it was a prequel (Roberta clarified around the same tine that Alex was already a king at that point).
Interesting in Roberta's own ideas for KQ9 Rosella wouldn't even get married in in the game (at least not in the beginning). She had an idea for a romance love triangle story between Rosella competing for the affections of Connor and Edgar both. I assume Edgar would have won (unless they took the QFG route and it was decided based on the player's actions). I wonder who the player character/s would have been. Would have been interesting to see how she would have taken it.
But who knows what Telltale will do? Will they stick to the classic format (explore new lands to save Daventry), or break from that and have us return to a previous kingdom? Or will they have their own new formula?
My only hope is that the team has genuine vision and passion for the series.
Telltale seems efficient at cranking out content, and they've grabbed numerous licenses over the past few years. However, with this strategy, there's always a risk of doing a game just because the license is both popular and available, and not because the staff are eager fans with a vision.
The target audiences are important here. BttF and Jurassic Park are huge movie licenses, so they probably wanted to appeal to fans who don't play adventure games (adventure games = niche market; Jurassic Park/BttF = properties with the potential to draw in millions of people). Especially with JP, they aimed for the lowest common denominator by making a very movie-like game with limited interactivity.
King's Quest is different in that the name is only relevant to adventure gamers. Deviating too far from the old formula would be a big risk with limited chances of attracting the casual gaming crowd. Simultaneously, I don't think Telltale is set up to hit it big with hardcore action gamers.
What's funny though is I think they were totally starting off in the right direction with the TOMI stuff.
I'm interested to see where King's Quest goes with them, and Walking Dead. I wonder if they'll have anything to show for either franchise at GDC or E3 this year.
I'll certainly agree that ToMI was the closest they've come. But even that doesn't hold a candle to the original Monkey Island, or the masterpieces that are Monkey Island 2 and Curse of Monkey Island. Or Fate of Atlantis, or any of the Lucasarts golden age adventures. Not to even mention the Sierra adventures.
The Whispered World is absolutely gorgeous hand drawn graphics over a fairly large storyline (although I really dislikes the leads voice), and in just months after it's release I see stacked copies down at half priced books for $4.99.
I have actually decided to stop buying Tell tale games when they first come out for this reason. I have bought every season of every game they have except for Bone and then paid extra for the 'tangibles'. With the Sam N Max games and ToMI I thought the tangibles were interesting and somewhat worth the money, even though within a year they were giving the full season away for less than ten bucks. With Back to the Future the tangibles were total shit (yay for printed sheets of paper....) and the game is already free for PS+ users on playstation and was part of the holiday sale for under $10. Just a few months ago I paid around $40 for the same game with some printed sheets of paper that they pass off as extras.
Anyways, my point is that adventure games sadly just don't seem to make money any more.... and the game market in general devalues so fast that I am not sure how much profit is left to be made after the initial launch sales.
So instead we just get Myst repeteadly ported to every thing in the world that has a screen on it. By next year the ordering menu's at fast food restaurants will have a 'Myst' option.
I paid 20 bucks for it, in fall 2009 I think?, before it was in the bundle. Worth every cent. It certainly made enough money for the developers to continue working on games... Was "humble bumble" an editorial comment?
I thought they started off in the right direction with the first season of Sam & Max, with some allowances made for the studio's relative youth and the episodic model, and I rate the second season as slightly better than Tales. I believe Telltale deserves credit for their creativity in puzzle design through at least the The Devil's Playhouse. But somewhere in there, it's like they stopped even trying to devise "adventurous" gameplay in favor of content delivery.
I agree with this. Machinarium doesn't really qualify as being the same type of adventure game as the old Sierra lineup. It's decent fun though.
One problem with the proper style of adventure games these days is that they aren't marketed very well at all. Whispered World is pretty good yes, but I'd never heard of it until I saw another forumite mention it. Gray Matter is an excellent adventure game, but it suffered horribly because for some ridiculous reason it was released in Germany long before it was released in the United States even though it included the full English track the entire time. It still did pretty well.
Even AGDI's Al Emmo could have done much better if it had solid marketing. The tough thing with big marketing is that it gets expensive fairly quickly. You can easily spend as much on marketing as you do on your entire production budget.
I mean if crappy games (see: Amy) can get great marketing coverage, then good games should be able to pull off the same level of coverage too.
I'm not saying it's everyone's cup of tea, but it is a solid well put together game with great production values. But yes, they are a bit more puzzle than adventure.
Whispered World is a game I followed for years, waiting and waiting for a U.S. release. It may not have had huge marketing, but again - you have to have a market to market to in the first place. A simple example is the number of us on this forum.
King's Quest was a huge franchise. And how many of us are here actively posting? 10? One of the biggest adventure franchises gets an official game announced and there are 10 of us here talking about it. Sure, business will pick up as release details come out and more people become aware, but even if you look at the number of active people at Adventure Gamers, or ScummVM, or any adventure gaming site... there aren't that many and most of us have seen eachother on these sites... same people, over and over.
So lets say Whispered World does a marketing blitz, which costs money and cuts into game profits. Now they have to sell X amount MORE just to cover the marketing before they even see a profit from the marketing. The more you advertise, the more you have to sell to break even.
That's just too big a gamble on what is currently an unproven genre. If the adventure game community was truly thriving, adventure game prices wouldn't be getting slashed just months after release.
A generic repetitive call of duty game from 4 years ago will still sell for more than a brand new tell tale game, and the reason why is people are still paying that price for it.
Oh - and us adventure gamers are also generally picky asses. Just look at the threads around here, and you will see repeated tearing apart of others fan-based work they released for free. I'm not saying that all of it was great stuff and doesn't deserve the criticism, I'm just saying it's a hornet's nest to release something into a franchise like King's Quest when anyone who is familiar with the franchise has very specific expectations. This is why reboots were invented...heh.
So you have a small market full of very critical people who are quick to tear down anything they don't like.... not sure I'd spend money trying to crack that market open either.
Really, the best untapped market that I can see is my Mother and those of her type. She loves these kind of games but has no idea they exist unless I go buy and install them for her.
I have a fairly large adventure game project I built for a certain website, and one of the primary reasons I did it was so she could enjoy all the adventure games I grew up playing without having to understand how to install them, set them up, etc etc etc.
Steam is the closest thing to that on a commercial level, but it only addresses specific new games and a few legacy games. Just looks at what passes for "adventure" on steam and you'll see just how small our genre's fan group really is.
Long story short - we aren't an important demographic and companies aren't going to spend money advertising to us when word of mouth is free and much more prevalent since we all frequent the same forums anyways.
The honey as a trap idea is probably is inspired by the idiom, easier to 'catch flies with honey'....
Sticky/tar like substances as traps/sticky situation, also may remind of the "Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby' story...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_baby
Elves having interest in treasures, so that is not out of the ordinary in fantasy/fairy tales.
Although figuring out that the glinting 'eyes' are elves, is somewhat obtuse...
That's where I think the episodic model falls nicely into place. You don't have to feel like you're sitting down to an entire game all at once. It's already meant to be played in smaller pieces and the convenience of picking up your iPad to just play for a few minutes and then save and set it back down is a benefit I believe.
When I was younger, I always thought the glinting eyes were some sort of creepy creature to beware of, or just simply something weird and unexplained watching Graham (me) in the eerie forest.
I don't think they even offered any other clues via using eye or talk icon on the eyes. ...or elsewhere in the screen.
I think I figured out the cheese machine the same way, one of the last items that hadn't been used up to that point.
The cheese machine is a little weirder, but as you pointed out, it's one of the only items you have left in your inventory by that point--it's not THAT hard.
It's not apparent while at the machine that you specifically needed the cheese, nor it is apparent at the cheese's location that it is even there at all.
Between that and fact that if you don't do anything, it takes a few minutes for Cassima to show up, you have plenty of time to look at that hole...
Looking at the whole brings up a rather obvious close up of the cheese!
Now figuring out you have to use the 'hook' (which you hopefully picked up, as it was an obvious flashing object on the Harpy's island) to get the cheese or the obviously flashing necklace in the nest (to give to Cassima and escape the dungeon) depends on individual mental abilities...
That being said its its nearly impossible to not get thrown in the dungeon, since the beast almost always shows up in the downstairs rooms, and travels faster than you do... The main way I know that one could possible avoid the dungeon, is if they luck out and encounter the cat instead (but that will get you killed)... Or use the peas on the beast the first time, and then encounter the cat (bag it up).
But the encounter rate is so high for the beast (at least until you hit it with peas), that the dungeon is neither 'out of the way', 'hidden', nor an 'obscure location'...
Which is a perfect example of how a simple adventure puzzle should be. In fact, many adventures have done this. The only difference with KQ5 was it had the balls to make it a dead end penalty if you don't get it.
That's a great point that I totally forgot about. The rat animation. It's pretty hard NOT to feel inclined to look in the mouse hole after you watch the rat run into it.
I still fail to see how ending your ability to complete the game because of a simple oversight improves the gameplay experience at all. The only thing that should impede you from completing the game is your inability to determine the solution, not some arbitrary item you never knew existed or that you're even missing it.