edit: removed part of the post, misread something.

Chinatown Detective Agency requires you to look up things on the internet (therefore it pays off to change the exclusive fullscreen mode to non exclusive/borderless window), a game that would have you call support in real life as part of the story would be nice, but also impossible to sell on a international market and have it running for more than a couple of years.

I think that was practically ALL Sierra games. Hint lines were an income source back then and they probably made good money by just having those quite "hard" (i.e. obscure, unfair) puzzles. :-)

The greatest interaction with real life that I have seen so far, was in Batman Arkham Assylum (warning, SPOILER).
At some point the old bat has to go against scarecrow and they brake the 4th wall here. What is it, that a player fears the most? Yep, the game simulates a hardware failure, corrupted memory on the graphics card.
The first version of BAA was more convincing than the later one. Now you see a couple of colored lines for a few seconds but in the original version it was error logs and memory adresses. They got me with that joke - badly. Having experienced something like that in the past already, I quickly turned off my PC, gave it a coupe of tries with always the same outcome. And then I went out and bought my new graphics card about half a year sooner as planned.
You can immagine my surprise when the game then would still show that message ... but then I didn't turn my PC off.

So ... GOG's Halloween releases were two visual novels ... ?

That's very suitable.

It's a trick for those who don't consider visual novels as games, but a real treat for those like the genre.

Of course they're games and I'm happy for those who enjoy this kind of game.

I was of course hoping for something a little different though. ;)

It's the 25th anniversary of Curse of Monkey Island's release after all.

It is short. But you can't really expect a full length game, considering that it costs only 1,99€. Duke Grabowski is about as long as The Three Trials of the original Monkey Island. I would like to see future episodes of Duke Grabowski and Vampyre Story 2, but both seem highly unlikely.

Not looking good for us, Ron Gilbert prefers Steam:

rougelite

pink ?

I payed a little more than that (20$) when I backed it on Kickstarter.

The original plans were presented very differently. I was very disappointed by the result.
The game is short and not very good at the same time.

They also promised that they wanted to go to GOG version, just thought I could mention that.
What I got was Google Drive download link instead.


They also didn't finish A Vampire Story Year One, which I was originally interested in.
I think these guys are just chaotic or artists who keep losing interest in what they do.
Giving AVS an open ending, no sequel, no prequel, a rushed pirate adventure ... My opinion of them dropped over the years.

From the AVS kickstarter newsletter, advertising Grabowsky:
" I just wanted to let you know while I am waiting to work on A Vampyre Story: Year One (which is on hold for a good reason that I can't go in to) Jeremiah Grant, Gene Moscy and I started developing an internal test game in Unity using the Adventure Creator Toolkit. We were having fun with it and thought we'd do an homage and spoof of The Secret of Monkey Island but with a twist, the main character was going to be a big, dim, angry man who turns out to be a man of honor. We called the game Duke Grabowski: Mighty Swashbuckler! Originally we planed on doing one or two rooms to test it out, but my imagination came up with a much bigger plot and story than I had intended- the character and setting just seemed ripe for a more grand adventure. I just couldn't help it. So we deiced to form a new company to make this 'tech demo' it into a polished short game - about 10-12 locations and about one fourth the size of A Vampyre Story. Jeremiah is going to program it and do the rigging, I am going to Project Lead and Art Direct it and Gene is going help design, produce and write for it, as well as many other tasks (Gene has a lot of talents). And we would do it all for free. "

I wasn't saying it wasn't priced appropriately for its length, I was saying it's unfinished and GOG is unlikely to want to sell an unfinished game that is unlikely to be finished.

What would the benefits of either buyer, or developer, to get Monkey Island on GOG be? And what, on Steam? Does GOG of today offer something more, or something different, a better deal of sorts, like in the old days?

Pro GOG:
1. Offline installers, legal way to install and play the game without launcher
2. Complete my collection of Monkey Island and other LucasArts games on GOG
3. Valve won't get money
4. Us happy old timers

2 is the most solid argument. 4 can work, too.

1 isn't, because GOG has changed a lot, to the point that 100% DRM-Free and at all costs, is no longer its main selling point, or even, priority. Question still stands: What are the benefits in buying that game, through the GOG of today? And what are the benefits for the developers to sell their game, through the GOG store?

and 3, wouldn't affect gamers in any way, so it's pretty much neutral.

Of course he "prefers" Steam in a sense, that has been obvious since September. Sure, he could have asked for favorite games without dropping the monopoly's name, but here I sense the mathematical brain at work. Steam has all the PC games, GOG doesn't, he asks for games that are "Zelda-ish", hence more prone to be console exclusive so he says "also on Steam".

On the whole, I really don't get the impression that Gilbert has a lot to do with the GOG release debacle. And I even increasingly don't think that it's the publisher. The games that Devolver is set to release in the future mostly have a GOG catalog entry (McPixel 3, The Plucky Squire, Skate Story, Terra Nil, Anger Foot)

Catalog entries for Gunbrella, Wizard with a Gun or Stick it to the Stickman are missing though, and that's worrying.


Choice good. Diversification of distribution channels good. Monopoly bad, especially for developers.