Loom (video game)

Loom

Cover art by Mark Ferrari
Developer(s)
Publisher(s)
Designer(s) Brian Moriarty
Artist(s)
Composer(s)
Engine SCUMM
Platform(s) DOS, Mac OS, Amiga, Atari ST, FM Towns, TurboGrafx-CD, Windows
Release date(s)
Genre(s) Graphic adventure
Mode(s) Single player

Loom is a 1990 fantasy-themed graphic adventure game by Lucasfilm Games.[1] The project was led by Brian Moriarty, a former Infocom employee and author of classic text adventures Wishbringer (1985), Trinity (1986), and Beyond Zork (1987). It was the fourth game to use the SCUMM adventure game engine, and the first of those to avoid the verb–object interface introduced in Maniac Mansion.

Gameplay

A departure from other Lucasfilm adventure games in many senses, Loom is based on a serious and complex fantasy story. With its experimental interface, it eschewed the traditional paradigm of graphical adventures, where puzzles usually involve interactions between the game character, the environment, and items the character has in their possession.

Loom's gameplay centers instead around magical four-note tunes known as "drafts" that the protagonist, Bobbin Threadbare, can play on his distaff. Each draft is a spell that has an effect of a certain type, such as "Opening" or "Night Vision." Some drafts can be reversed by playing their notes backwards, so the "Dye" draft played backwards becomes "Bleach," while others, such as the "Terror" draft, are palindromes (e.g. C–E–E–C) and so cannot be reversed in this manner.

An early scene from the game showing the distaff in the lower left and a selected object (the Great Loom) in the lower right.

Bobbin can learn drafts by observing an object that possesses the qualities of the desired draft; for example, by examining a blade while it is being sharpened, Bobbin can learn the "Sharpening" draft. When the game begins, Bobbin is only able to play drafts using the notes C, D and E, limiting his ability to reproduce more powerful drafts. As the game progresses and additional notes become available, so his ability to play new drafts increases.

The game can be played at three difficulty levels, each differing in how clearly the notes being played are labeled. For example, the "Standard" level indicates the notes on a scale below the distaff, while the "Expert" level shows no notes and must be played by ear. In the original release, expert players are rewarded with a cutscene that does not appear for the other two difficulties. The later CD-ROM release, however, shows an abridged version of this scene to all players.

Story

Prologue

It was long after the passing of the second shadow, when dragons ruled the twilight sky, and the stars were bright and numerous...
— Clothos, Loom: The Audio Drama

The events of the game are preceded by a 30-minute audio drama. It is established that the Age of the Great Guilds arose when humans once again tried to establish dominion over nature. The world of "Loom" is not defined in relation to ours, but many hold that it happens on Earth in a greatly distant future, since the game takes place in the year 8021.

People banded together to form city-states of a common trade "devoted to the absolute control of knowledge, held together by stern traditions of pride, and of fear." The humble guild of Weavers established themselves as masters of woven fabric, though they eventually transcended the limits of cloth and began to weave "subtle patterns of influence into the very fabric of reality." They were persecuted for these acts of "witchcraft," and purchased an island far off the mainland coast, which they called Loom, after the great loom that was the symbol of their guild.

Lady Cygna Threadbare is introduced as a bereaved mother who begs the Elders of the Guild of Weavers to use the power of the Loom to end the suffering of the Weavers. Their numbers are failing and their seed is barren. The Elders Atropos, Clothos, and Lachesis, who are named after Greek mythology's three Fates, reprimand Cygna, telling her that it is not their place to play gods.

Cygna, despite their warnings, secretly assumes control of the Loom and plants one gray thread. She inadvertently draws an (unforeseen) infant out of the Loom, incurring the wrath of the Elders. She surrenders the child to Dame Hetchel, the old serving woman, and accepts her fate. The Elders cast the "Transcendence" draft on her, transforming her into a swan and banishing her from the pattern (the name Cygna is the feminine form of swan in Latin). Hetchel names the child Bobbin, and cares for him as her own.

Bobbin grows up ostracized from the rest of the Guild. The Elders note that the presence of his gray thread has thrown the pattern into chaos, and the Loom foresees the very unraveling of the pattern. For these reasons, the Elders ban him from learning the ways of the Guild until a decision can be made on Bobbin's seventeenth birthday ("until his coming of age seventeen years hence," as it is described in the game's audio drama). Hetchel, however, defies the Elders and secretly teaches him a few basics of weaving. This is where the game begins.

Plot

On his birthday, Bobbin is summoned by the Elders in order to determine his fate. He arrives at the Sanctuary in time to witness the Elders punish Hetchel with the "Transcendence" draft for educating Bobbin, but Hetchel reverts to a swan's egg, which puzzles and frightens the Elders. As they contemplate this turn of events a swan comes down from the sky and crashes through a window in the Sanctuary. She casts the "Transcendence" draft on the Elders, as well as the rest of the villagers, transforming all the Weavers except Bobbin into swans who leave through a rift in the sky. Bobbin, who is left all alone, finds Elder Atropos' distaff, and uses it to free Hetchel from her egg.

Hetchel, who is now a cygnet, tells Bobbin that the swan who visits him every year on his birthday came to save the Weavers from the Third Shadow that is about to cover the world. Bobbin then moves on to find the flock. On his way, he meets other guilds and has several adventures. Eventually, he encounters a Cleric, Bishop Mandible, who is after the Scrying Sphere of the Glassmakers, the swords of the Blacksmiths, and the products of the Shepherds. Mandible claims the Weaver's distaff to rule the world with an army of the undead, thus fulfilling the prophecies. By playing the draft of "Opening" on a nearby graveyard, he tears the fabric of the universe apart and allows an entity called "Chaos" to enter. Chaos kills Mandible and summons an army of undead to destroy the earth. Bobbin reclaims the distaff from the dead Bishop and heals many of the tears in the pattern, along the way helping many of his previous acquaintances, who were hurt or killed by Chaos's army. Finally, he battles Chaos, who is striving to take control of the great Loom on his native island. The battle ends as Chaos kills his stepmother using the draft of "Unmaking." It is hinted, however, that it is still possible to save Hetchel, as "one feather still remained intact."

Bobbin then destroys the great Loom using the same draft. He is joined by his mother and the other Weavers and is told that one half of the world will be ruled by Chaos while the Weavers will stay in the other half, and that with time, they may gain enough power to challenge Chaos again. Bobbin casts "Transcendence" upon himself, and with the aid of his mother and the other villagers in their swan forms, he flies away, carrying the ripple across the world. His friends watch the flock of the swans fly away; it remains unclear whether Bobbin has left them in Chaos' realm or has saved them.

Development

Music

The in-game music consists of excerpts from the Swan Lake ballet by Tchaikovsky, arranged for MIDI by George "The Fat Man" Sanger.[2] While supporting basic PC speaker sound and AdLib, the EGA version originally lacked built-in Roland MT-32 support. A form included in the package could be mailed to Lucasfilm Games as an order for an extra game disk providing MT-32 support which was later also released as a downloadable patch. This disk also came with an additional overture which was played prior to the opening cutscene.

Package contents

The original package offered an audio tape with a 30-minute audio drama that explained the nature and history of the world of Loom, and the circumstances of Bobbin's birth. The game is a direct continuation of the story. The drama was enriched by original music composed by Jerry Gerber. It was the first commercial cassette to employ Dolby-S noise reduction. Side A of the tape was encoded for standard Dolby-B playback; side B had the identical program encoded for Dolby-S.

The package also offered an illustrated notebook, The Book of Patterns, supposedly belonging to apprentice weavers in the game world. Its purpose was to optionally note there the drafts that could be learned, as well as describing some that were not seen in the game, with interesting tales related to each draft. Each description also included a staff and four spaces in which to record the four respective notes of the draft. The book contained a warning saying that wise spellweavers write in pencil; this is because many of the spells in the game have randomized threads (musical notes). In the original disk versions, it also acted as a form of copy protection; the game would ask players for the notes of a particular draft in the book at start-up. If the player doesn't enter the correct notes, the game would exit back to the operating system (in the PC version, it would enter demo mode).

Orson Scott Card

A common misconception about Loom is that author Orson Scott Card contributed to its original development, based on his name appearing in the credits. Card mentions in a review for Loom that this is untrue, and that Moriarty included his name in the credits due to some very minor feedback he had provided prior to the game's release.[3] Card's association with Lucasfilm continued, however, leading to more significant contributions to The Secret of Monkey Island, Loom's 1992 "talkie" release,[4] and The Dig (1995).[5]

Release history

Loom was originally published for DOS on floppy disk with 16-color EGA graphics in May 1990.[6][4] This version was soon after released on the Amiga, the Atari ST, and Macintosh.

FM Towns

Loom was redeveloped for the Japanese FM Towns computer and released on CD-ROM in 1991 with enhanced 256-color VGA graphics and a new digital soundtrack. The dialogue and story elements remained largely unchanged from the original version, though at least one scene was partially censored of blood,[7] and some elements of the visual design were lost.[4] A similar version was released for the TurboGrafx-CD in 1992, but featured a mix of visuals from the 16- and 256-color versions, adapted to that system's color palette.

Talkie

Bobbin standing before the Great Loom in the 1992 CD release.

The final version of Loom was released for DOS on CD in 1992. It featured an entirely re-recorded digital soundtrack, a separate CD for the audio drama, and fully voiced dialogue, with many of the actors reprising their roles from the audio drama. However, due to the technical constraints on how much uncompressed audio could fit on a CD, much of the original dialogue had to be revised or abridged. Orson Scott Card assisted with the dialogue revision.[5]

The graphics were a continuation of those used in the FM Towns version but with some minor enhancements and additional censorship.[8] Some features were also cut from the FM Towns version, such as multiple solutions to puzzles, many conversation close-ups, and parts of cutscenes.[8] Brian Moriarty has stated that he believes the FM Towns version to be the best 256-color version of Loom.[9]

Availability

Due to a licensing agreement with (now defunct) Mindscape, the DOS CD-ROM version became commercially unavailable, and until 2006, the DOS floppy-disk version was the only one purchasable from LucasArts. All of these versions of Loom can now be played on a variety of different platforms using the ScummVM virtual machine.

The PC CD-ROM version of Loom was released through the Steam digital distribution platform for Windows on July 8, 2009,[10] with Mac support following on May 12, 2010.[11]

Reception

Orson Scott Card praised Loom, writing in Compute! that it was "like nothing you've ever seen (or done) before ... a work of storytelling art," and cited the game's flexibility in adapting to playstyles, whether using action or puzzles.[12] Dragon gave the game 5 out of 5 stars.[13] Computer Gaming World gave it a Special Award for Artistic Achievement as part of the magazine's Game of the Year Awards, stating that Loom's colors, "mesmerizing special effects," soundtrack, and user interface combined to make it "a work of art."[14]

Scorpia of Computer Gaming World approved of the game's graphics and gameplay, but said that "as an adventure game, it is just too lightweight." She stated that the game was impossible to fail, with very easy puzzles, but that the linear gameplay resulted in no freedom of movement. While praising the story, Scorpia wished that Lucasfilm would have given it an "epic treatment" instead of Loom's simplicity.[15] Game Rankings gives Loom a combined rating of 75% based on six professional reviews.[16] The most often repeated criticism of Loom is its relatively short length.

Legacy

Sequels

Originally, Loom was to be the first game of a trilogy. Aside from the "cliffhanger" ending, the game contained several other hints pointing toward a sequel — for example, one of the "scrying spheres" the player can find shows a scene of a volcanic eruption, which does not occur in the game, but can be caused by Temblor, one of the several unused spells listed in The Book of Patterns. The two sequels planned were titled Forge and The Fold, starring Bobbin's friends Rusty Nailbender and Fleece Firmflanks. These sequels would wrap up open plot-threads and bring closure to the open ending of the original game, with Chaos eventually being defeated. However, Loom's original development team were now all working on other projects, and as Lucasfilm Games was a small company at that time, no one else could be found to do it; and so, they were cancelled. In a letter to the abandoned fan-made Loom sequel Chaos, Brian Moriarty detailed the following regarding his intended sequels:[17]

Loom was conceived as the first game of a fantasy trilogy. The second game, Forge, would follow the adventures of Rusty Nailbender as he tried to regain control of the Forge, which was hijacked by Chaos in the first game. Bobbin was going to appear every now and then (as a swan) to offer help and advice, kind of like Obi-Wan Kenobi in Empire and Jedi. At the end of Forge, Rusty drives Chaos out of the Forge, but not before the gentle land of the Shepherds is conquered and nearly destroyed in a terrible battle. (The floating Forge ends up falling directly onto the Shepherds' pastures.)

The third game, The Fold, followed the adventures of Fleece Firmflanks, who teams up with Rusty to resist the evil forces that are camping in the Shepherds' territory. Bobbin again offers occasional help and advice. At the climax of the game, Bobbin, Bobbin's mother and Hetchel return to Earth along with the entire Guild of Weavers, and all of the other Guilds join for a final challenge to Chaos. Working together for the first time, their combined magic banishes Chaos back into the Void, and the healing of the world can begin. Rusty and Fleece get married, and Bobbin becomes the head of the Guild of Weavers.

Contrary to popular belief, the Loom sequels were not abandoned because Loom didn't sell well. Loom has sold more than half a million copies in various formats since it was published in 1990. The reason the sequels weren't made is because I decided I wanted to work on other things, and nobody else wanted to do them, either.

Moriarty gave another, somewhat different account of potential sequels in a 2006 interview:[5]

Loom wasn't actually written with a trilogy in mind. But after it was finished, there was vague interest in continuing the story. In discussing this possibility, I imagined two sequels.

The first was tentatively called Forge. It tells the story of Bobbin's friend Rusty Nailbender, whose home city (the Forge of the Blacksmiths) was enslaved by Chaos near the end of Loom. Rusty becomes the leader of an underground movement to overthrow Chaos, together with Fleece Firmflanks of the Shepherds and new characters from the other Guilds. Bobbin appears every now and then as a ghostly swan dispensing mystical advice, an obvious nod to Obi-Wan Kenobi of Star Wars. The story climaxes in a terrible battle that nearly destroys the world.

The third game, The Fold, is about Fleece Firmflanks and her attempt to unite the shattered Guilds in a final, desperate effort to banish Chaos. Near the end of the game, when the cause appears hopeless, Bobbin and the Weavers swoop in like the proverbial cavalry to save the day. The Loom of the Weavers is remade, reality is healed, and peace is restored to the Guilds.

But this was all just talk. I was busy with other projects, and nobody else felt strongly enough about the games to make a commitment. So Forge and The Fold never got made.

Appearance in other media

"Cobb" seen advertising Loom in The Secret of Monkey Island (1990).

As was typical for LucasArts, several other games referenced the Loom characters and storyline. A likeness of Bishop Mandible's assistant Cob can be found inside the Scumm Bar in The Secret of Monkey Island (1990), dressed as a pirate with a badge on his shirt that says "Ask me about Loom," and will happily divulge marketing information when so asked.[18][4]

Monkey Island's protagonist, Guybrush Threepwood, can say "I'm Bobbin. Are you my mother?" on a number of occasions throughout the series, and in the The Curse of Monkey Island (1997) can quip about Bobbin's relative obscurity.[18][19] Monkey Island, Monkey Island 2 (1991), and Day of the Tentacle (1993) all include a credit for their respective seagulls as "Seagull appears courtesy of LOOM™".[18][20][21]

In the 256-color remake of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure, a landscape painting in the vault of Brunwald Castle features a scene from Loom. The NES version of Maniac Mansion, released in September 1990, features a broken record titled The Soundtrack of Loom.[22]

Space Quest IV, a game released the following year by Sierra On-Line, makes light of Loom's criticisms by featuring a description of a video game named "BOOM" in the game's Radio Shock store: "The latest bomb from master storyteller Morrie Brianarty, BOOM is a post-holocaust adventure set in post-holocaust America after the holocaust. Neutron bombs have eradicated all life, leaving only YOU to wander through the wreckage. No other characters, no conflict, no puzzles, no chance of dying, and no interface make this the easiest-to-finish game yet! Just boot it up and watch it explode!"[23][4]

References

  1. ↑ "LucasArts Entertainment Company | 20th Anniversary". 2006-06-23. Archived from the original on 2006-06-23. Retrieved 2011-11-26.
  2. ↑ "Custom Sound Design: Testimonials by Game Industry leaders". The Fat Man. Retrieved 2015-05-01.
  3. ↑ Card, Orson Scott (December 1990), "Books to Look For", The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, retrieved 2015-05-01
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Brian Moriarty (2015-03-06), Classic Game Postmortem: Loom, San Francisco: Game Developers Conference, retrieved 2015-05-01
  5. 1 2 3 "Brian Moriarty – Interview". Adventure Classic Gaming. 2006-09-15. Retrieved 2011-11-26.
  6. ↑ Presley, Paul (May 1990). "Loom". The One (20). United Kingdom. pp. 33–35. Retrieved 2015-09-21.
  7. ↑ "Loom (Comparison: FM-Towns Version - Original PC EGA Version)". Movie-Censorship.com. November 2011. Retrieved 2015-05-01.
  8. 1 2 "Loom (Comparison: International PC CD Version - Japanese FM Towns Version)". Movie-Censorship.com. November 2011. Retrieved 2015-05-01.
  9. ↑ Brian Moriarty [ProfBMoriarty] (2015-03-20). "@aventuraycia @ProfBMoriarty Best 256-color edition, but graphics are inconsistent (5 different conversion artists), and a bit censored." (Tweet). Retrieved 2015-05-01 – via Twitter.
  10. ↑ "LucasArts Continues Initiative to Revive Classic Gaming Titles" (PDF). LucasArts.com. 2009-07-06. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-07-10. Retrieved 2011-11-26.
  11. ↑ Schramm, Mike (2010-05-12). "Steam for Mac now live, Portal free, Lucasarts adventures included". Engadget. Retrieved 2015-05-03.
  12. ↑ Card, Orson Scott (October 1989). "Gameplay". Compute!. p. 104. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
  13. ↑ Lesser, Hartley; Lesser, Patricia; Lesser, Kirk (July 1990). "The Role of Computers". Dragon (159): 47–53.
  14. ↑ "CGW's Game of the Year Awards". Computer Gaming World. September 1990. pp. 70, 74. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  15. ↑ Scorpia (July–August 1990). "Scorpion's View: "Conquests of Camelot" and "Loom"". Computer Gaming World. pp. 48, 50–51, 63. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  16. ↑ "Loom for PC". GameRankings. Retrieved 2011-11-26.
  17. ↑ http://mage.berlios.de/board/viewtopic.php?p=26#26
  18. 1 2 3 Lucasfilm Games (1990). The Secret of Monkey Island.
  19. ↑ LucasArts (1997). The Curse of Monkey Island.
  20. ↑ LucasArts (1991). Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge.
  21. ↑ LucasArts (1993). Day of the Tentacle.
  22. ↑ Wild, Kim (January 3, 2008). "The Making of Loom". Retro Gamer. Bournemouth: Imagine Publishing (46): 88. ISSN 1742-3155. OCLC 489477015.
  23. ↑ Sierra On-Line (1991). Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers.
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