Simon The Sorcerer 4

Freddo · Post by **Freddo** » Mon Nov 28, 2005 6:08 pm

Seems like the 4th game is on it's way. I wonder how it will be. From what I've been reading, SoS3 wasn't any good at all.

http://adventure.rpgdot.com/#44085

JamesWoodcock · Post by **JamesWoodcock** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 11:00 am

Excellent, and it states:

"Yes, we bought the right to develop StS4 and to release it worldwide. We also have options to develop more sequels for PC and consoles.

The game will be completly in 3D, but without any action parts. StS4 will be a classical adventure like Simon 1+2 or Monkey Island. Mike Woodroffe will give input regarding the story and will be informed about the whole development process. The release of StS4 will be in Q3 06.

More details including some graphics will follow soon."

Thank god they are ignoring Simon 3.[/i]

JiFish · Post by **JiFish** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 1:42 pm

Wooooooo!

joachimeberhard · Post by **joachimeberhard** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 2:04 pm

Sad to say this, but if it's not 2D, it's most likely not going to be supported by ScummVM.

And if it's not supported by ScummVM, I'm most probably not going to buy it.

*Hint to Game-Developers*!!!!

JamesWoodcock · Post by **JamesWoodcock** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 1:03 pm

Hardly matters for a new game that is likely to support Windows XP and maybe MAC.

Anyway I would sooner have a console version

cappuchok · Post by **cappuchok** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 3:43 pm

glidem wrote:Hardly matters for a new game that is likely to support Windows XP and maybe MAC.

Anyway I would sooner have a console version

The purpose of ScummVM, it seems to me, isn't primarily to make the games playable natively on Win32 (which this will surely be from the start), but to make them natively playable under Linux and various *nix flavours as well as on handhelds. So in that respect StS4 would be very much in the scope of ScummVM or at least in the scope of Residual. I for one will be more likely to buy a game if it will run natively on Linux, and even more so if it will support future platforms with the same disc by downloading new engines. I think that goes for a lot of the forum regulars as well.

John the adventurer · Post by **John the adventurer** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 6:58 pm

Nice news, I hope those guys develop a good adventure, but I'm afraid because of this:

The game is already in development with a target release in late 2006 (Q3). It will be a 3D adventure with P&C controls. The story continues where Simon 3D left of. Mike Woodroffe will do consulting on Simon 4."

Continuing from Simon the Sorcerer 3D?

I use LinuxPPC, so I can't use it (because if they release it, it will be Linux X86 only). Graphic adventure developers must know there are a important market in users of non-mainstream operating systems. Same occour with Sam & Max and Bone

dark_inchworm · Post by **dark_inchworm** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 11:24 pm

John the adventurer wrote:I use LinuxPPC, so I can't use it (because if they release it, it will be Linux X86 only). Graphic adventure developers must know there are a important market in users of non-mainstream operating systems. Same occour with Sam & Max and Bone

But the main concern here is whether or not the games would be profitable in the non-mainstream OS market. They almost certainly would not be, considering adventure games in this day and age aren't very popular to begin with, and neither are non-Windows OSes.

joachimeberhard · Post by **joachimeberhard** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 11:47 pm

dark_inchworm wrote:
John the adventurer wrote:I use LinuxPPC, so I can't use it (because if they release it, it will be Linux X86 only). Graphic adventure developers must know there are a important market in users of non-mainstream operating systems. Same occour with Sam & Max and Bone
But the main concern here is whether or not the games would be profitable in the non-mainstream OS market. They almost certainly would not be, considering adventure games in this day and age aren't very popular to begin with, and neither are non-Windows OSes.

Yep, this is an observation I have also made.

When I used to study, there were many efforts made on forcing users to use Linux.

It went as far as openly insulting Windows users as stupid and even telling students that selling software is morally wrong.

They tried to force students for about two years, now they abandoned it because the students made a boycot, and the teachers had to change/leave the institute.

After all, I don't see any rising popularity for Linux despite those users who always were sympathetic....

cappuchok · Post by **cappuchok** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 1:15 pm

dark_inchworm wrote:
John the adventurer wrote:I use LinuxPPC, so I can't use it (because if they release it, it will be Linux X86 only). Graphic adventure developers must know there are a important market in users of non-mainstream operating systems. Same occour with Sam & Max and Bone
But the main concern here is whether or not the games would be profitable in the non-mainstream OS market. They almost certainly would not be, considering adventure games in this day and age aren't very popular to begin with, and neither are non-Windows OSes.

Oddly enough, I think that in relative terms, a good adventure game will be infinitely more profitable on a non-Wintel OS compared to the Win32 platform, because most of the fans of the old generation of adventure games have long since moved to these new platforms such as Linux, OS X and so on. Which is also why selling adventure games is hard to do today - the actual user base is on another operating system than what the publishers think and therefore force the developers to develop for. The developers know but are unable to convince their publishers.
So if the publisher chooses Win32 as the only platform (or, oh the horror, one of the consoles), the developers should at least make sure that a dedicated team of fans get closed access to the source code to port it to the platforms where most of the real user base exists. This will allow the game to sell anyway, since the data can then be used with any port of the users' choice, and the publisher gets their money. However, to make the publishers realize that they need to put more focus on alternative platforms, each buyer who uses these ports should tell the publisher that the game they bought will not be used with the included engine. Likewise, for each user requiring a non-existant port, they should tell the publisher in no uncertain terms that their lack of focus on the real user base just cost them a sale. </rant>

joachimeberhard · Post by **joachimeberhard** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 1:28 pm

Some statistics from ScummVM would be nice, how often which port has been downloaded.

Then we would at least have some comparisson for Adventure games popularity on the various platforms......

The people I know all use the Windows port of ScummVM so I can't tell whether your assumption of Linux being the Number1 Adventure platform is true....

Post by **sev** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 2:08 pm

joachimeberhard wrote:Some statistics from ScummVM would be nice, how often which port has been downloaded.

That's practically impossible to tell. Of course, you may go to sf.net download page and see some figures. But. *nix and Linux applications often either build from the source, or have their own distribution channels of precompiled applications to ensure data accessibility. I.e. there are apt-get, port builds, RPM repositories etc. Very ofthen these are distributed nets, i.e. you have 100+ FTP mirrors and that number is growing.

And what about handhelds? I suspect that our PSP userbase is _really_ huge. But there are again, tons of PSP-related sites with downloadable ScummVM.

Eugene

joachimeberhard · Post by **joachimeberhard** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 3:42 pm

Yes, there are many platforms a developer might choose to develop for.

However, when you develop for multiple platforms, you also have to support them, test them etc. and this results in great costs.

And as I said, there are really many platforms, especially for *nix derivats.

Another example:

While many users of the WindowsCE platform may download ScummVM to play old-school Adventure games there, it doesn't necessarily mean they're going to buy a new Adventure game for WindowsCE also....

This may be true for the PSP and other platforms as well.

In fact, I don't know too much software for Linux available at the Retail stores as well. This might be interconnected with Linux users preferring Open Source software over commercial products.

Anyway, I'm no specialist in the market weight of commercial products for Open Source software, so I'm just assuming things, anyway, some insight mighty be nice...

cappuchok · Post by **cappuchok** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 6:15 pm

joachimeberhard wrote:Yes, there are many platforms a developer might choose to develop for.

However, when you develop for multiple platforms, you also have to support them, test them etc. and this results in great costs.

That's not always the case, especially if the developers focus on one platform, the binaries for which are officially supported by the developer and which are delivered on the retail discs. Other platforms can be developed for and supported by a community project, like ScummVM, if need be even under a non-disclosure agreement.

joachimeberhard wrote:While many users of the WindowsCE platform may download ScummVM to play old-school Adventure games there, it doesn't necessarily mean they're going to buy a new Adventure game for WindowsCE also....

This may be true for the PSP and other platforms as well.

But they might (quite likely, in fact) buy a new Win32 adventure game if there was a downloadable WinCE/PSP/whatever engine for it (like ScummVM).

joachimeberhard wrote:In fact, I don't know too much software for Linux available at the Retail stores as well. This might be interconnected with Linux users preferring Open Source software over commercial products.

The Linux binaries could still be Open Source or at the very least freeware, requiring the user only to buy the Windows/PSx/Xbox/whatever disc to get the actual data files. "Officially" unsupported engines should of course not be distributed on the retail discs, but a note should be put on the packaging saying: you can play this on other platforms by downloading an appropriate engine from <insert community project site here>.

At least that should make sure that no potential buyer gets left out because his platform of choice isn't supported.

And as for counting ScummVM users on various platforms, isn't it possible to make ScummVM send a data packet containing the current platform to a central server (of course, only after asking the user if it's OK). The server could sort this into some statistical page showing the userbase, and if each user only accepts sending the package once (i.e. not if reinstalling), a fairly good measurement might be possible.

joachimeberhard · Post by **joachimeberhard** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 6:50 pm

Well, but the quality of those community projects might influence the image of the company as well.

If you write something like www.getyourenginehere.com on a package as a company, that has to be reliable.

As a company, you can't guarantee that this community project will do a good job or even if it will exist for the next few years.

Also, when you develop a game engine and want it to be platform-independent, you have to design it from the beginning in that direction.
This takes a lot of work, and also you often can't use commercial game development tools then, because they're closed source or simply don't cope with multi-platform-architectures.

A next reason why this can be difficult is publishing rights.
E.g.: When a publisher releases a PS2 version, I doubt that he is allowed to make that game playable on any other platform easily...

For the "Which OS is ScummVM used on?" question:

First of all, users might use different ports all alike.

Second, when collecting data you have to comply to certain regulations, that doesn't make it easy for the ScummVM team.

Third, I thought about a poll in the forum, but I don't want to do this unless I'm sure I don't risk a flame war with this.
But the ScummVM community really seems to be an open-hearted community, without (OS, browser ect.) flame wars that makes the internet unusuable these days...

Anyway, I'm always open to be convinced of the opposite