Laura Bow and the Mechanical Codex

[notbobsmith]

The art and the video look amazing. I can't wait to play this!

I also really like the art style. It's a nice compromise between "realistic" and "cartoony". And the character movements and facial expressions look really fluid.

I like the Oakhurst snow-globe.

And the music that went with it.

Laura's voice appears to be less ... I'unno, "Southern"-sounding (?) than it was in LB2. I guess after all the years in New York, she lost the "twang".

It does sound a little less... forward. But it is fine. I don't think either actress was a native southerner.

Other things of note:

0:24 One of those Prohibition era liquor stores I guess. Actually, The Dagger of Amon Ra wasn't consistent about this either.

Also, I'm not really sure about the history of the popularity of pizza in the U.S. New York certainly had a large Italian population, but I thought pizza didn't become widely popular until G.I.'s from WWII in Europe returned home. Otherwise it would be confined to largely Italian neighborhoods.

6:14 Were radio's really called "the wireless"?

10:24 Old phones needing a battery.

I'm not doubting the accuracy of the last two. It's just interesting if they did their research. It's difficult trying to avoid anachronisms in stories like this (see Prohibition above).

[DeadPoolX]

I also really like the art style. It's a nice compromise between "realistic" and "cartoony". And the character movements and facial expressions look really fluid.

Plus, a more cartoony art style means people won't mind the graphics if they're not cutting edge and it'll age better.

6:14 Were radio's really called "the wireless"?

10:24 Old phones needing a battery.

Yes to both.

There were radios in the 1920s and 1930s that were referred to as "wireless." I also remember hearing them say this in Downton Abbey, which takes place in the 1920s during the last season or two.

Phones originally needed a battery and in fact originally housed a "wet battery," which used to leak and cause an awful mess. Eventually they switched to a "dry battery" and apparently at some point an internal battery was no longer necessary.

[Tawmis]

Also, I'm not really sure about the history of the popularity of pizza in the U.S. New York certainly had a large Italian population, but I thought pizza didn't become widely popular until G.I.'s from WWII in Europe returned home. Otherwise it would be confined to largely Italian neighborhoods.
6:14 Were radio's really called "the wireless"?
10:24 Old phones needing a battery.

You're right about the pizza -

In 1945, few Americans had heard of pizza. But a decade later, newspaper articles were touting it as a new food trend sweeping the nation. Media accounts attributed pizza's growing popularity in the United States to soldiers who had tried it in Italy during World War II.

And as DPX said - they were called "a wireless" -
http://haveringhavers.blogspot.com/2007 ... eless.html

I wasn't aware of phones needing batteries back then, however, but it makes sense.

[Rath Darkblade]

About pizza - yes, but (from wiki, Pizza in the United States):

Pizza arrived in the United States in the early 20th century along with waves of Italian immigrants who settled primarily in the large cities of the Northeast. It got a boost both in popularity and regional spread after soldiers stationed in Italy returned from World War II.

And, a little further:

The first pizzeria in the U.S., Lombardi's, opened in New York City's Little Italy in 1905, producing a Neapolitan-style pie.

So, although I'm not a US native, I wouldn't be surprised if -- by the early 1930s, when this game is set -- there were pizza restaurants elsewhere in New York.

Just as an aside, re the liquor store? I'm not sure exactly when this game is set, but if it's after 5 December 1933, then it's no longer the Prohibition era. That's when FDR's administration repealed the Nineteenth Amendment.

[notbobsmith]

About pizza - yes, but (from wiki, Pizza in the United States):

Pizza arrived in the United States in the early 20th century along with waves of Italian immigrants who settled primarily in the large cities of the Northeast. It got a boost both in popularity and regional spread after soldiers stationed in Italy returned from World War II.

And, a little further:

The first pizzeria in the U.S., Lombardi's, opened in New York City's Little Italy in 1905, producing a Neapolitan-style pie.

So, although I'm not a US native, I wouldn't be surprised if -- by the early 1930s, when this game is set -- there were pizza restaurants elsewhere in New York.

Oh, I'm sure pizza places could be found in New York at the time. Just not one on every corner like now.

Just as an aside, re the liquor store? I'm not sure exactly when this game is set, but if it's after 5 December 1933, then it's no longer the Prohibition era. That's when FDR's administration repealed the Nineteenth Amendment.

0:06 The game takes place in 1928.

[Tawmis]

Just as an aside, re the liquor store? I'm not sure exactly when this game is set, but if it's after 5 December 1933, then it's no longer the Prohibition era. That's when FDR's administration repealed the Nineteenth Amendment.

0:06 The game takes place in 1928.

Beat meh to it. Roaring 20's.
Just before the end of the Roaring 20's (1920 – 1929), which makes sense if this is years after LB2, I'd assume (time line wise).

[Rath Darkblade]

Ah, fair enough. And no, I'm not saying that in the 1920s there would be pizza places on every corner of New York. (Obviously it wasn't as popular as it is now). But hey, there's just one pizza place that we see, so I think we can cut the game makers some slack.

As for the liquor store ... that's a little more problematic. By 1928 Coolidge was in the White House, and I don't think he was as anti-alcohol as Hoover was. Heck, in the wake of the Teapot Dome Scandal, I don't think Hoover was very popular anyway. If I recall my reading, Hoover's Administration was the most corrupt since U. S. Grant's, but Grant had two saving graces:

a) he was a war hero; and
b) he was not corrupt himself, just too naive to know when someone else was corrupt or not.

Anyway, to get back to the game: there were definitely stores selling illegal alcohol (also known as 'hooch' and other names). Most of them had an innocent 'front', like a bookstore, a pet shop, a pharmacy etc. They certainly didn't advertise themselves as liquor stores.

I might be wrong about all this, of course. Please feel free to correct me.

[DeadPoolX]

... but Grant had two saving graces:

a) he was a war hero; and
b) he was not corrupt himself, just too naive to know when someone else was corrupt or not.

But he did do some very questionable things as a Major General in the US Army, specifically when he issued General Order Number 11 in 1862.

[Rath Darkblade]

True. I'm not saying that Grant was a saint, or that he never did anything wrong. The 1860s were a very different time to today, obviously.

As for calling him "a war hero", I'm just saying that most people viewed him as such at the end of the ACW. Compared to other generals like McClellan and Burnside, Grant was an effective general, even if his post-battle tactics at times were dubious.

He did do some good things as president, too. He tried to quash the Ku Klux Klan (e.g. suspending habeas corpus in South Carolina and ordering mass arrests), and he supported the Civil Rights Act of 1875 (which helped American blacks). It produced produced only short-lived gains for African-Americans, but Grant's intentions were laudable and brave. He also worked for the good of American Indians; the reservation system wasn't perfect, of course, but it was a last-ditch effort to protect them from extinction.

Compared to the failure of Reconstruction under Johnson, I'd say President Grant was an improvement. What do you think?

[Tawmis]

Busy busy!

Hey all you Laura Bow fans out there! Welcome back to another monthly newsletter. Sorry again for being a bit late this month... we've been busy, busy working on some great new things - and we're excited to show you what we've been up to, and just to chat with you more about the game!

So let's get into it...
Time Won't Give Me Time

You might be asking yourself... "Hey, it feels like these people have been working on this for quite a long time. Where are things currently at?". Well, as I'm sure many of you are painfully aware, making a high quality game is a long and involved process - especially when doing it with a minimal budget (which is our situation).

The entire development timeline for something like this is -years- in the making! We aren't attempting to quickly push out some average quality game in the hopes of a quick buck or two - and this isn't just a hobby for us. We are maintaining a tight and small team of talented people, over a longer period of time, so that we can keep the reins close and steer things in a solid direction.

We are closing in on our first year of full production mode on the game... and our original goal was to have the Prologue chapter 100% complete by the end of that year. There is still a good amount of work to be done in order to accomplish that - but the timeline does still feel possible! Right now, we are mostly just behind on audio and the script... with gameplay and animation looking a bit snug as well. At this point, we probably won't hit that year goal exactly - but it's hopefully going to be pretty close!

After we get that first chapter done, nearly all of the game systems will be final - which means the remaining four chapters will be almost entirely focused on generating content and getting it tied into the game. We expect those should take less time overall - and our artists are already well underway creating characters and a couple of environments for those upcoming chapters.

Anyway, one of the major pieces that we're still working on for the Prologue chapter is the introduction cinematic of the game! Now, you might say, "Uh, didn't you just show us a video of the introduction in last month's newsletter??" And... why, yes... yes we did! However, what we might not have said, is that this wasn't the entire introduction! There's a whole important section missing at the start, where we set up the mystery of the story. And since this is the very first thing that our players are going to see, we are spending a bit of extra time and effort there to make sure that it's high quality.

With that, here's a little sneak peak from it... and one of our new favorite promo shots from the game!



Until Next Time!

That first section went on a bit longer than we thought it would, so we'll just stop here and save some things for next month's newsletter. In that one, we'll discuss a bit about the story and setting of the game, and how we got to where we are with that!

As always, thanks for reading. If you have any feedback, or just want to cheer us on as we continue with the development of the game… give us a shout! We’d love to hear from you.

[Tawmis]

Another Month Down!

Welcome back to another edition of our monthly newsletter... where we talk about the progress we have been making on our upcoming sequel to the classic Laura Bow game franchise, from Sierra Online! And might I say, isn't it quite impressive that we've kept this newsletter going, without fail, every single month (minus our end-of-year-break), for the entire project so far? I honestly can't think of any other on-going development where that has been the case. Even if sometimes it's just a quick little blurb to let you know that we're still here and kicking along... I think it means it a lot. And we'd like to give ourselves a little pat on the back for that: "Nice work, team... nice work."

Anyway, we've got some juicy stuff to cover this time around, so let's just jump right into it, shall we?
Introductions Necessary

This past month we managed to get some really important things done! One of those being the completed introduction cinematic to the game. We gave you a little sneak peak image last month... and now we have a final pass on it - and we think it's really great, if we do say so ourselves!

Unfortunately, we actually aren't planning to reveal it to you this time. There are some things that we'd prefer to save - for you to experience when playing the game itself - and this feels like one of those moments. After all, this first part of the introduction sets up the mystery of the game! We can't just spoil that!

Anyway, it's killing us (pun intended) that we can't show it to you yet. We spent a lot of time on it... more than we intended... because it's the very first thing that our players will see, and we wanted to make sure that it's a high quality first impression of the game. We're very proud of it, and we'd love to show it off - but it's just going to have to wait. We did run it by a few trusted associates, however, and the feedback was fantastic. So hopefully all of you will feel the same, when you get the chance to see it!

With that, here is one last little teaser image... because I just couldn't resist!

Round Peg, Square Hole

One thing we've never really talked much about is the how this game relates to the previous two... and the thoughts that went through our minds when we decided to do all of this in the first place.

There was a bit of a conflict when it came to "what should we make"? It was a bit of a toss up really. Partly, we thought that directly remaking the old games in a modern style, for a new generation of gamers out there, would be a fun thing to do. We'd love for them to experience some of the same things that us classic gamers did back in the day, with a more up-to-date presentation. And partly, we wanted to build a brand new adventure, which is fully unique to the series.

Ultimately, we opted to do a bit of a hybrid of these two. We are making a brand new story, which ties in shortly after the events of Dagger of Amon Ra... but we chose to try to recreate the "feel" of BOTH of the previous games, within this brand new adventure. We purposefully want it to be nostalgic and fresh all at the same time. With that in mind, the first section of the game is intended to mimic certain aspects of Dagger of Amon Ra, and the main story of the game is meant to have a few similarities to The Colonel's Bequest. And, of course, we have some new mechanics and gameplay elements that weren't really possible back then - or are just better suited to today's devices. So if you do see updates from us in the future, and you think to yourself: "that has a little bit of a DoAR or CB vibe"... then that's exactly what we were going for! And we hope that you're on board with that too.

If this game turns out to do well enough financially, we'd love to do another sequel which takes Laura to many more unique and adventurous locations - solving mysteries around the globe! Fingers crossed that we will get to do more in the future!

[Rath Darkblade]

Nice work, Ninezyme. The house looks a little ... squashed?... but maybe that's just the limitations of the jpeg? I'm not sure. Everything else, though - the car, the characters, the trees - are very nice.

The teaser image with the rain falling in a forest is well done.

I'm not sure what to make of the "hybrid" approach. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[Tawmis]

Year Anniversary!

Hey all you Laura Bow fans! We are back for another one of our regular monthly updates about the progress on our game. However, before we get into that... there are some congratulations in order! Today... yes... today exactly, is the one year anniversary of our team kicking into full production mode on this project! So, a big pat on the backs to the team! They've been doing some truly impressive work over the past 12 months.
Progress Report

It's amazing how quickly the time has flown by! We always knew this would be a multi-year endeavor... however that first one really went by fast! Our original goal was to have a 100% completed Prologue chapter right now - however we aren't quite there just yet. This would be the most lengthy chapter to build, because essentially it would mean (to get to 100%) having our core development pipeline fully nailed down, all of the game systems (ie. code and tools) completed, all the art for that chapter, the sound and music, voice acting, the animation and cinematics, etc etc. And then the remaining chapters would be more focused on just content generation - building on top of what we have already made for the Prologue.

Anyway, this plan still seems to be working well overall - but due to various reasons we are running behind. Some of that was out of our control, and other parts are just things taking longer than anticipated - or we might have spent extra time in places which we thought deserved more attention. Regardless, I'd guess we are probably about 2 months away from our original goal. So 14 months instead of the originally estimated 12.

All-in-all, that's actually pretty good as far as game development goes. Granted, we are running on a super tight budget here, so even 2 months might be difficult to squeeze in... but we've got to just make a go of it and see what happens - hopefully it will all work out. Anyway, the parts that we are still working on are mostly in the areas of cinematics and audio - although there is still a fair amount of gameplay that needs to be tied together as well. The art is probably about 98% done... and the code systems are probably 95% done (maybe more).

The key takeaway is that we need to get this done by the end of the year. We are intending to have a check-in with Activision sometime in January... and having that completed and playable Prologue chapter will be an important piece to that meeting going well. So, fingers crossed!
Blah, Blah, Blah

Yeah, yeah... we know... we talk a lot! And all you really wanted is to see some pretty new pictures or something, amiright? That's ok - we can't blame you... we like art too. So we've got ya covered!

Feast your eyes on some of the lovely things that the art team has been working on lately. We've got a 2D concept piece, some 3D environment art, a new 3D character, and a frame from a new animation for our beloved Sam!

Enjoy! (tm)

[Rath Darkblade]

"Blah, blah, blah..." Actually, I find the "talky" bits very interesting. Just a reminder: although Ninezyme will be checking in with Activision, they're much more supported by Microsoft, IIRC. Or am I wrong?

The pictures are gorgeous, as usual. The details in the "room" picture (#1) seem a little ... lacking? (e.g. the handles on the door, the picture-frame on the right - unless that's a mirror? - or the picture-frame on the left). I guess they'll be filled out.

The trap-door is lovely. I wonder who that lady is? And, of course, I just love Sam (especially the curls on his moustache)! But best of all, I love the can labels. Just a couple questions:

1. Is that "Sunny Cow Evaporated Milk" or "Runny Cow"? Or maybe "Funny Cow"? *curious*
2. I love the spaghetti label. "Flavoured with cheese"!
3. "Boss Tomato Condensed Tomato Soup - with Basil and Oregano"! That's REALLY fancy for canned soup. But I'm sure that's a joke, right?
4. Is that "Bestaholic Coffee"? I can't make it out. Does anyone know? Curious minds are curious.

Thanks for this, Tawm.

[Tawmis]

The details in the "room" picture (#1) seem a little ... lacking? (e.g. the handles on the door, the picture-frame on the right - unless that's a mirror? - or the picture-frame on the left). I guess they'll be filled out.
1. Is that "Sunny Cow Evaporated Milk" or "Runny Cow"? Or maybe "Funny Cow"? *curious*
4. Is that "Bestaholic Coffee"? I can't make it out. Does anyone know? Curious minds are curious.

The picture of the room, looks like a painting. Doesn't look like it's "CGI'ed" for a computer game. So I am not sure on that.
Definitely "Sunny Cow" - if you click the image - it will get bigger, and you can see the edges of a "S"
And pretty sure it's "Bestaholic" which I believe is a reference to folks who enjoy "Irish Coffee."