Laura Bow and the Mechanical Codex

[Rath Darkblade]

I've enlarged the image, but it doesn't reveal much.

"Runny Cow" would make more sense, because ... you know ... milk is runny.

"Bestaholic" doesn't seem to make sense. What does it have to do with "Irish Coffee"? I'm confused.

[Tawmis]

"Runny Cow" would make more sense, because ... you know ... milk is runny.

Except it says "Evaporated Milk" below it, so "Sunny" would make more sense.

"Bestaholic" doesn't seem to make sense. What does it have to do with "Irish Coffee"? I'm confused.

Best-Alcoholic.

As in the "best alcoholic" drink is Irish Coffee.

[Rath Darkblade]

Ah, OK. I don't drink alcohol (much) or coffee, so I wouldn't know. Thanks.

The next step was to google Irish coffee. Google defines it as "a caffeinated alcoholic drink consisting of Irish whiskey, hot coffee, and sugar, stirred, and topped with cream (sometimes cream liqueur). The coffee is drunk through the cream."

So if you haven't had Irish Coffee before ... now you know.

[Tawmis]

Ah, OK. I don't drink alcohol (much) or coffee, so I wouldn't know. Thanks.
The next step was to google Irish coffee. Google defines it as "a caffeinated alcoholic drink consisting of Irish whiskey, hot coffee, and sugar, stirred, and topped with cream (sometimes cream liqueur). The coffee is drunk through the cream."
So if you haven't had Irish Coffee before ... now you know.

I've never drank coffee ever; but a lot of my friends do, and that's where I know Irish Coffee from.

(And I've been dry - non drinking - now for several years, myself - hooray!)

[Rath Darkblade]

Hmm -- I'm not completely dry, myself, but I know (having had two or three hangovers) that I didn't want to experience them again, what my limit is, and what I prefer.

I prefer sweet liqueurs - crème de menthe on ice for preference - but since they're usually very alcoholic, I limit myself to one. Either that, or one shot of Smirnoff, with ice. (Yes, I'm boring - but I still have to drive home afterwards!)

[Tawmis]

Hello again everyone! We hope you had a wonderful Halloween celebration this year... which also makes us wonder - did anyone out there put together a snazzy 1920s Laura Bow themed costume?? Or perhaps something else from another classic Sierra Online title? If you did, send us some photos, we'd love to see what you came up with!


People, Places, Pitches... Oh My!

Nothing super specific to chat about this month. The artists have been plugging away at a couple of new environments, and new animations. One big milestone that we did hit is with the character art! We now have all of the characters completed for the first two chapters of the game. That's nice goal to have wrapped up, because by the end of the Prologue and Act 1, the player will have met most of the characters in the game. Act 2 and 3 will only have a few more character pieces to work on, and then the Epilogue will have a couple of additional ones. We're getting fairly close to being done with all of them! So, for the time being, our character artist has paused to help out the environment artists for a while - because there's a lot more work to do there, at the moment.

Another area which we've focused a lot on recently is the audio. The team has been generating a lot of great new sound effects and music for the game... and we've been working on getting this integrated. Hopefully we will be able to upload some new videos in the near future to show off some of the new work there - because our previous videos have been notably light on audio.

Speaking of uploading things... we have also finally created ourselves a YouTube channel where we plan to post the latest trailers, gameplay, and development videos. There isn't anything there just yet, but if you want to be ahead of the game (see what I did there?) and keep up with the latest of everything, you can go ahead and subscribe to see anything that we post in the future. And thanks in advance for the support!

Here's the link to get you there!
www.youtube.com/@ninezyme

[Rath Darkblade]

Eep, I missed this!

Yes, it's pretty obvious that they've been focusing on video. I think we've seen the video before - here: http://www.sierrahelp.com/forums/viewto ... &start=105 - just without the jazzy music.

I still stand by what I said before: the video and the art are amazing. I also love the music - very fitting. Not sure how or if it fits the Prohibition era (and yes, I know music changed a lot from 1919 to 1933).

The fonts are also very appropriate - very Art Deco. I love it!

Hopefully Nine Zyme might show us something more soon. (No spoilers!)

[Tawmis]

Calling All Laura Bow Fans!

Welcome back for another release of our monthly newsletter... This is our special end-of-year issue! Ok, there's really nothing all that special about it, except that it's the last one of the year. But hey, that counts, right? ... ... Right??

In case you don't know how this goes - every year the entire team takes a couple of shared weeks off to rest, do some hobbies, hang out with friends and family, and generally just recharge the batteries for the next year. This also means skipping one of our regular monthly newsletters. So don't expect to hear from us again until February of 2023!

Wow, we can't believe it's nearly 2023 already!

How'd We Do in 2022?

Well, as is typical in the game industry, we always have plans to make it to a certain point at a certain time... and rarely does it ever work out that way. For instance, we had hoped to have the first chapter (Prologue) entirely done by now, however we are still working away on it - hooking up the last few gameplay pieces, and implementing the last few cinematic moments. Most of the delay is just unexpected work that popped up throughout the course of development - either because something wasn't working out as we thought, and needed to change direction - or because we didn't have the resources we needed at the time, and just had to wait until we did.

Regardless, these things happen... and we're still plugging away and getting closer and closer to our goal!

We are confident that the next time you hear from us (in February), we will have the Prologue Chapter completed, and will be firmly working on gameplay for the other chapters. There might also be some additional news by then regarding the business side of the project... if everything goes as planned.

Anyway, even though the Prologue isn't quite done yet, the artists have been hard at work on the other sections of the game, and are making some solid progress. The later chapters are more closely related to each other, so we are really putting in effort to streamline the development of those - and, so far, that plan is going pretty well, we think. There is still a ton to do, of course, but it actually does feel achievable in the time we had planned.

Next year, we might attempt to bring on another developer to help with the gameplay and level design side of the equation, which is where the main bottleneck is, at the moment.

Got You Too-bah?

Remember loooong looong ago... like, last month? We told you about our new YouTube channel. Well, we have since posted a video of the game which contains a section of the introduction cinematic, and a bit of the early gameplay moments. If you missed it, go check it out, give it a thumbs up, and leave us a comment about what you think.

Here's the link again, in case you need it... but clearly you wouldn't, because you entirely read the last newsletter, and already clicked on it, and followed our channel. Right? Nice work! We knew we could count on you.

www.youtube.com/@ninezyme


See You Next Year!

Anyway, we hope you all have a happy and healthy end to 2022! Please keep in touch and share how. your year turned out. We're love to hear from you! We'll reach out when we are back and recharged for another round of point-n-click game development!

[Rath Darkblade]

Ahh, they got me. I was looking at the picture of Laura on the phone, and wondering: "How can she make a call when the receiver's not connected to the phone?" *blink, blink*

Then I clicked on the picture, and there was the cable. I guess I couldn't see it before, because it's such a similar shade to the wall. Ahh, I've been gotten!

Everything else looks good ... but I wonder who the person in the blue can be. It's certainly not Laura. The material of that blue jacket looks very much like plastic -- I wonder why? *shrug*

Thanks, Tawm!

[Tawmis]

Well, well, well... lookie here. It's a whole new year, and we're still actively plugging away on our upcoming classic (yet modern) adventure game! Nearly forgot all about this whole newsletter thingy as well, if I'm being totally honest, haha. Oops!

Anyway, we're kinda "in the zone" at the moment, so we won't dally. We'll just keep this short with a couple of screenshots we put together over the past month or two.

Oh yeah, and Happy New Year! We hope that you all had a wonderful end to 2022 and that this year is turning out great so far. Please reach out and let us know what's going on in your lives, or if you've played some good games recently that we should check out.

That's all for now... see you next time! Buh-bye!

[Rath Darkblade]

Nothing much to say that I haven't said already. I still like the look of this game.

I forget the newspaper owner's name? *blush* But the curls on the end of his moustache suit him. One minor nitpick: at first glance, the fingers on his right hand - the one holding the tea-cup - seem a little chunky. (? Is that how to say that the fingers look big, compared to his left hand?)

I also like the skull pen-holder. I wonder who the cameraman is.

[DeadPoolX]

One minor nitpick: at first glance, the fingers on his right hand - the one holding the tea-cup - seem a little chunky. (? Is that how to say that the fingers look big, compared to his left hand?)

Some of that looks like it's due to camera positioning, where the focal point is closer to the fingers on his right hand. But it's also possible the fingers on that hand are "chunkier" in the 3D model itself.

In all fairness, we're not perfectly symmetrical. Our fingers, hands, arms, legs, feet, toes, and faces (especially eyes, nose, and ears) are usually slightly different. As an example, a common complaint made by women is that one breast (usually the left one) is larger than the other.

I doubt any of this was taken into account by the developer, but it's still a physiological fact nonetheless.

[Collector]

Well, well, well... lookie here. It's a whole new year, and we're still actively plugging away on our upcoming classic (yet modern) adventure game! Nearly forgot all about this whole newsletter thingy as well, if I'm being totally honest, haha. Oops!

Anyway, we're kinda "in the zone" at the moment, so we won't dally. We'll just keep this short with a couple of screenshots we put together over the past month or two.

Oh yeah, and Happy New Year! We hope that you all had a wonderful end to 2022 and that this year is turning out great so far. Please reach out and let us know what's going on in your lives, or if you've played some good games recently that we should check out.

That's all for now... see you next time! Buh-bye!

Not putting this in quotes make it look like you are involved with the project.

[Tawmis]

Well, well, well... lookie here. It's a whole new year, and we're still actively plugging away on our upcoming classic (yet modern) adventure game! Nearly forgot all about this whole newsletter thingy as well, if I'm being totally honest, haha. Oops!

Anyway, we're kinda "in the zone" at the moment, so we won't dally. We'll just keep this short with a couple of screenshots we put together over the past month or two.

Oh yeah, and Happy New Year! We hope that you all had a wonderful end to 2022 and that this year is turning out great so far. Please reach out and let us know what's going on in your lives, or if you've played some good games recently that we should check out.

That's all for now... see you next time! Buh-bye!

Not putting this in quotes make it look like you are involved with the project.

Caught!

I kid, I was just being lazy!

Fixed.

[Tawmis]

March-ing Right Along!

Oh hello again all of you Laura Bow fans out there!

It's already March, and we're still actively developing away on our upcoming game. The time keeps on going, going, going... into the future - and at a quick pace, it seems. But we have made a lot of great progress lately and moving closer and closer to all of our various goal(s) as a team and company. Thanks again for being part of the journey!
That Nostalgia Factor

As we've mentioned before, one of our primary goals with this game is to trigger that nostalgia factor for the fans of classic adventure games. So, with that in mind... we'd like to ask you a question. Yes, YOU!

Do you recall this image from days past??

Well, we took some inspiration from it to add a very nostalgic moment into our game! Here is an updated version which we made, rendered in-engine (with logos overlaid on top). Some things have been manually placed for dramatic effect - to make it a promotional image - but you get the idea.

We hope you enjoy it, and get that feeling that we're aiming for. Let us know what you think - we'd love to hear from you.