Developer getting cold feet

[SPX]

It was a bit inaccurate to name this post "Developer getting cold feet". The developer is actually still quite enthusiastic about the project. It seems their financial partners were the ones who pulled back for a while. Since I first started this thread, the remake has been chugging along, although perhaps not at full steam ahead. I've seen the working design document, an early demo and some stills of the new Stauf mansion, and it looks like if they stick to their plan, this won't just be a re-release, but will be a much improved remake. "New and improved", "bigger and better" as they say in the ad biz.

And yes, the plan is that it will be developed for all the major platforms. We shall see.

Excellent news!  I'm happy to hear it.  I actually never played T7G when I was a kid, so I didn't have the pleasure of experiencing it when it was state-of-the-art.  I played it for the first time in high school (around '98 or so) and recently dug it up again, both to experience the game again and, I think, to also sort of relive an earlier time in my life.  I would definitely love to play a remake and, hopefully one day, a sequel.  I've made some small contributions to the script for The 13th Doll and that project is moving along.  We hope to make a great game, but I'm sure all of us also hope to one day have something official to play.

Good luck and keep us informed!

Oh, and one other thing:  As for the puzzles, something needs to be done about the microscope puzzle.  I never could get past it.  I'm not the best when it comes to puzzle solving, but I felt that that one was unclear and confusing and, in fact, I never really did understand it.  I eventually got so frustrated and confused that I just put the game away.

P.S.  You said:  . . . and it looks like if they stick to their plan, this won't just be a re-release, but will be a much improved remake. "New and improved", "bigger and better" as they say in the ad biz.

I assume that means that everything is going to be re-done from scratch, including all the video reworked with new actors.  Is that right?

[donroberto]

There will be puzzles upon puzzles. There will be a bit more "integration" of puzzles into the environment (although to me, that term has always been vague and subjective).

I have not seen a complete list of puzzles, so I can't say whether the microscope puzzle will make a reappearance. I would tend to doubt it since 1., it is an AI game and 2., it had received a fair amount of unhappiness from the many people who could not beat it.

And you know, you don't have to solve or beat every puzzle in t7g to advance through the game.

The rumor is that there will be no use of video and thus, no actors.

[donroberto]

We were visited by Mr. Sanger a few months ago.  That was pretty awesome... will he be scoring the music for the remake?
...
Any possible chance on getting me a list of all the famous paintings throughout the house?   

I've encouraged the developers to engage some of the key players responsible for the original, including The Fat Man.

And no chance at getting that list of paintings from here. If I had it, I'd be glad to share it.

Thanks for visiting here and for your kind comments.

[ProfessorPlum]

The rumor is that there will be no use of video and thus, no actors.

Very sad. I'm no longer interested in the remake, at least if that's the form it ends up taking. As admirable as the attempts at bringing real-time 3D characters to life have been, I simply find it impossible to empathize with what in my mind is nothing more than a mix of texture images mapped over polygons. Case in point: the Myst series. I tried Uru and Myst V: End of Ages some weeks ago to see what I had missed - I played all of them up to Myst 3: Exile near the time of their original release - and I was simply bored out of my skull, and not for any lack of technical or creative skill in making the environments. Even using motion captured performances and, in the case of Myst V, having live actor faces overlaid on the models, they remained just that; models, mannequins. Creatures such as Gollum and King Kong are one thing  - I am keen to see James Cameron's Avatar - but for humans it just doesn't jive and I think it hubris on the CG designers' part to think that a digital approximation can provide even half the depth that a flesh and blood performer can. It's important to note that such a change similarly brought the Gabriel Knight series to crashing halt. Many years ago I could understand that game companies found FMV prohibitively expensive - Wing Commander IV didn't necessarily need to be shot on 35mm IMHO - but today with the inexpensive nature of HD cameras, even at the prosumer level, and radical advancements in chroma key technology, I believe it outrageous that so many in the business still believe CG human characters is the way to go. More recent titles such as GTA IV have not dissuaded me of this opinion and I do have a system that can max out its quality settings. It would pain me to see a remake of The 7th Guest be made that has all the gravitas of an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I'd rather play The Collector without the Stauf Mansion than The 7th Guest without real people.


Take a look at the screen shots at the following link:
http://justadventure.com/Upcoming_Releases/CSI_DeadlyIntent/DeadlyIntent.shtm
Can you make a satisfying emotional connection with that?

[nsullivan]

I think the remake could work without the use of video. We have to think about practicalities after all - I imagine there might be complaints from T7G veterans if different actors were used from the original, for example, whereas using graphics allows a much freer reign. Plus there may well be benefits in terms of costings, and avoiding the inconveniences of arranging shoots. For the time and money involved, let us remember, no-one is going to make this thing if they don't think they'll make money out of it.

Anyway, it's the way most games have gone. I would say very few these days use videos, and it seems pointless to go against the grain for.... what particular overriding reason?

Just my two cents. I don't think we should make ultimate judgements about a remake until we can see some of it.

[SPX]

And you know, you don't have to solve or beat every puzzle in t7g to advance through the game.

I assume you're referring to using the book in the library?

The rumor is that there will be no use of video and thus, no actors.

Huh?  Wha--???  Then it's not even the same game!  The FMV was such a big part of what made The 7th Guest what it was!

[SPX]

Very sad. I'm no longer interested in the remake, at least if that's the form it ends up taking. As admirable as the attempts at bringing real-time 3D characters to life have been, I simply find it impossible to empathize with what in my mind is nothing more than a mix of texture images mapped over polygons. Case in point: the Myst series. I tried Uru and Myst V: End of Ages some weeks ago to see what I had missed - I played all of them up to Myst 3: Exile near the time of their original release - and I was simply bored out of my skull, and not for any lack of technical or creative skill in making the environments. Even using motion captured performances and, in the case of Myst V, having live actor faces overlaid on the models, they remained just that; models, mannequins. Creatures such as Gollum and King Kong are one thing  - I am keen to see James Cameron's Avatar - but for humans it just doesn't jive and I think it hubris on the CG designers' part to think that a digital approximation can provide even half the depth that a flesh and blood performer can. It's important to note that such a change similarly brought the Gabriel Knight series to crashing halt. Many years ago I could understand that game companies found FMV prohibitively expensive - Wing Commander IV didn't necessarily need to be shot on 35mm IMHO - but today with the inexpensive nature of HD cameras, even at the prosumer level, and radical advancements in chroma key technology, I believe it outrageous that so many in the business still believe CG human characters is the way to go. More recent titles such as GTA IV have not dissuaded me of this opinion and I do have a system that can max out its quality settings. It would pain me to see a remake of The 7th Guest be made that has all the gravitas of an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I'd rather play The Collector without the Stauf Mansion than The 7th Guest without real people.


Take a look at the screen shots at the following link:
http://justadventure.com/Upcoming_Releases/CSI_DeadlyIntent/DeadlyIntent.shtm
Can you make a satisfying emotional connection with that?

Very well said.  In fact, I don't think I could've said it better myself. 

I personally think that in some cases CG video works.  For instance, how about Metal Gear?  Not sure I'd want to see a live action Solid Snake running around and killing terrorists.  But for T7G, my thoughts echo yours completely.  The FMV was such a huge part of what gave the original game its charm and I have little doubt that the same sense of . . . intimacy? . . . could not be achieved using computer generated characters. 

Kind of reminds me of the Resident Evil series.  The FMV intro at the beginning of the first game was laughably bad, but I was nevertheless very disappointed when I learned that they went with entirely CG cut scenes in the sequel.

[SPX]

Anyway, it's the way most games have gone. I would say very few these days use videos, and it seems pointless to go against the grain for.... what particular overriding reason?

Nostalgia.

In my opinion, a game like T7G is a throwback to an earlier time of computing.  A lot of the people who play a remake will be new to the series, but a lot will also be people who played it when they were younger and want to experience it one more time.  In my opinion, using live actors will satisfy both groups:  The younger generation will get something different, because pretty much ALL games now use rendered characters, and the older generation will get to remember the way things used to be done.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I've done a bit of work on The 13th Doll, a fan sequel to T7G.  (You can check it out here if you're unfamiliar with it:  http://www.t7g3.com.)  We fully intend to use live actors for our cut scenes because that is simply a trademark characteristic of the series.

[donroberto]

When the world began to go the route of 3D for everything, including people, I was very much opposed. We had a project in the works called Dog Eat Dog and there was a big push within the company to use 3D characters. I spent many an hour arguing against, mainly based on the fact that 3D people were too stilted, mechanical and unbelievable. I argued that the technology was nowhere near advanced enough to truly replace real people (if you consider actors real people). But those in favor either didn't see the difference, or were ideologically, willfully blind.

Even today, although it's come very far, even in the best cases it's still not quite convincing. It still works best for cartoony characters.

I recall a program that came out for 3DO years and years ago called CPU Bach. It allowed you to set parameters to auto-generate Bach-like music. My computer geek/game developer friends raved about it and claimed the music was every bit as good a something written by Bach himself. I thought these people must have been entirely tone deaf or non-humans from another planet, or simply extremely biased.

7th Guest allows for the use of video over 3D, since all scenes are basically "cut scenes". After all, ghosts haunt by re-enacting parts of their lives over and over again into eternity.

However, since the plan for the remake is to use realtime rendering, perhaps the ghostly re-enactments will be able to be viewed from different angles, in which case 3D actors would fit the bill.

[Pedrith]

Regarding 3d...I understand that people would be really upset if they went the way of real time 3d characters over live action.  I won't lie and say that I'm totally for it because I've played a number of games that did it badly (Final Fantasy 12 in my humble opinion was terrible, as was Parasite Eve 1 & 2). The pre-rendered stuff was great.

As for having no connection with 3d characters, I feel that is not necessarily true.   I have also just finished 100 plus hours of playing through all three Xenosaga games back to back, and well I connected with a number of characters and their fates which in some cases brought me to tears.  Much of Xenosaga's strengths came from the story, the voice acting and the music.  The graphics were secondary.  In my mind they have always been secondary, but then I started with the original Super Mario Brothers for the original Nintendo.  I grew up with games like Dragon Warrior and Zelda and was able to create vivid images with my imagination far better than what was on the screen.

If they decide to go with real time 3d characters, so long as they are the quality of Xenosaga I coupled with what really matters (story, voice acting and music) then I will be happy.  I'll be even happier if I can play it on my intel mac.

Also if they can't get back some of the same actors for voices, I highly recommend Crispen Freeman (Albedo in Xenosaga),  Lex Lang (Xenosaga, Rurouni Kenshin) and Richard Epcar (Xenosaga).

Sincerely,

David Lein

[ScottT]

As for having no connection with 3d characters, I feel that is not necessarily true.   I have also just finished 100 plus hours of playing through all three Xenosaga games back to back, and well I connected with a number of characters and their fates which in some cases brought me to tears. 

I wasn't going to say anything before, but I do have to agree with David.  I've just played through Dreamfall, in which I gained quite an attachment for the lead character, and I was left rather stunned when I reached the ending.  The Longest Journey (the game that fits before Dreamfall) and it's '99 graphics did a great job connecting with me as well, however I would say it very much depends on the story.  Alas, it must be mentioned that T7G's story isn't quite so strong in comparison (for what it's worth, I didn't connect to any of the live-action actors either).

Overall, choosing live-action vs real-time 3D is only a minor issue for me - I'm holding judgement 'till I actually see something

[Kiwi]

I can see why you couldn't connect to any of the actors. They were very dislikeable characters and since this was a video game in 1993 from a small company you couldn't really think that they'd be award-winning quality, did you??

Anyways, I would love to see the remakes and a third installment happen. I would compare this to the Banjo-Kazooie series. We waited many years for a third installment and when we got it we also got a great remake of the first game in the series, and we got Banjo-Tooie later on remade. That to me seems like a great format!

[ScottT]

I can see why you couldn't connect to any of the actors. They were very dislikeable characters and since this was a video game in 1993 from a small company you couldn't really think that they'd be award-winning quality, did you??

I'm assuming you're replying to me.  I never said anything explicitly about not connecting because due to lack of quality - just implying that just because live-action footage is used doesn't mean there will be a connection to the audience/gamer, or that just because real-time 3d is favoured there can't be a connection.

T7G was a good game, but perhaps because the game-play itself was slightly disjointed from the story or because I was young at the time, I never gained any particular connection towards the characters.

[nemo88]

I’m not horribly thrilled about the idea of using CG characters, mostly because I have a personal preference for live-action, yet I have seen CG characters implemented well in games, such as in Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 3, Haunting Ground, and Tomb Raider: Underworld. (Although it should be said that Crystal Dynamics did use motion-capture.) I’m not too worried about a realtime like environment, however, because that’s definitely do-able but I hope the developing retain a similar navigation system to the original. In Myst V: End of Ages they used a realtime like environment and allowed the player to choose between a free-roaming experience and predetermined spots. I liked the fluid animation from place to place and I think it was used quite affectively.

Ultimately, what any game developer (or artist) must ask him(or her)self is this: is this technique affective? Sure, some artists have produced great CG character … but can we?

[tortoise]

As long as they keep Stauf's voice mocking us as we mess up the puzzles it'll be grand.  Also there has to be a maze for Stauf to say menacingly "you shouldn't have come down here!".