7th Guest 3

[Humanity has risen!]

http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/6/4072420/the-7th-guest-3-in-development-for-ios-android-pc-and-mac

The 7th Guest: 3, an upcoming sequel to Trilobyte's classic adventure-puzzle franchise, is in development for iOS, Android, Mac OS and Windows PCs, studio co-founder Charlie McHenry told Polygon today.

The game will feature the creepy atmosphere and clever puzzles of its predecessors, The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour, all of which will be rendered in real-time 3D. The Stauf mansion which served as the staging grounds for the franchise thus far makes its return in The 7th Guest: 3, now set up as "something of a historical museum" honoring the series' antagonist.

The development team on The 7th Guest: 3 includes "some of the original team members from the 90's," as well as some new hires brought on to aid in puzzle design, McHenry explained. The team is hoping to finish the title in 12 to 18 months, and is "discussing collaborations with some funding partners" to aid in development. He added that the team is also planning on launching a Kickstarter campaign next month, which may or may not go through depending on their success in finding funders through other channels.

 

[DalekFlay]

Meeehhhhh.

 

[Redlands]

What? No Tender Loving Care 2?

 

[Whisky]

I never actually played the original 7th Guest (And I sure didn't know there was a sequel!). Would you guys still say its worth a shot?

 

[Stabwound]

Least needed sequel of the year award...

As far as The 7th Guest, it was cool in 1995 but I doubt it's aged well. I doubt I'd want to play it again.

 

[FrancoTAU]

If you missed the FMV craze of the mid 90s, I can't recommend playing 7th Guest. I think wearing nostalgia tinged glasses is the only way you'd think it was good.

 

[Keshik]

Can't have been worse than Police Quest : SWAT

 

[AngryKobold]

I wonder if it's gonna be related to Collector in any way. After all, they almost finished it... that decade ago. No clue in linked article, except the "something of a historical museum".

Well, maybe that kind of information is irrelevant in short news. Maybe author is a moron or ignorant. Or maybe Trilobyte and their games simply don't deserve to be known. My bet is on the last one.

Anyway: good luck to them in making "creepy atmosphere" in a game for cellphone.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Most all cellphone games are creepy due to the disturbing cartoon characters and the unusable control schemes, and the realization it might be the future of gaming. This sequel will look tame in comparison.

 

[taxalot]

The original first two games were the expert of nonsensical puzzles with clues that made even less sense. I am not in that much of a hurry to see this sequel happens. Although to adapt it to today's crowds, I expect puzzles to be like : 1 + ??? = 3

I also think they are going to tone down the horror of the first two games. Granted, that horror was also nonsensical.

At least, they had the Fat Man for the music and songs. Do we know if he's part of this one ?

 

[Redlands]

I never actually played the original 7th Guest (And I sure didn't know there was a sequel!). Would you guys still say its worth a shot?

I've just finished it for the first time.

No.

No.

Dear god, no.

This is the worst game I have ever played. Worse than Phantasmagoria 2. Worse than some really obscure German "arthouse" adventure game. Worse than a 2-3 screen gross-out AGS game that I've played.

Pros

• The first of only two compliments I can give this game is that the basics of the storyline could have made a really creepy, atmospheric adventure game... if it had been done well.
• The second compliment is that the house is full of a lot of visual details which would have been impressive at the time of its release.

Cons

• The game is fucking unbearably slow for a variety of reasons. The first is that moving and turning is shown incredibly slowly; there may be a way of speeding it up, but I don't care enough about it to find out, especially now I never have to play it again. The second is that there are cutscenes that I'm pretty sure are unskippable. The third is that at some points you will examine something and be transported somewhere else without warning... and then you will have to navigate back to where you came from. The fourth is that a lot of the puzzles are complex, and you can't save progress on them. The fifth is that, if you make the mistake of checking the map in the upper corridor, it will place you back not where you left, but at the top of the stairs.
• The puzzle design is horrendous. The animations make them all horrendously slow, and if you make a mistake then you'll have to restart and deal with the slow animations all over again. You can't leave a puzzle half-done and leave; I tried, and it restarted. This isn't so much of a problem, if the interface wasn't so terrible at times and if the puzzles had been simpler. For at least one puzzle (the piano puzzle), the area that triggers the "exit puzzle" cursor is very close/overlapping to one of the notes you need to press to complete the puzzle. In addition, many of the puzzles are incredibly long and involve a large number of steps and thought required. There is a maze that doesn't let you turn around and go backwards. The puzzle before this will reset itself every time you go past it, and didn't register as complete for me on the map. Several of the puzzles are either essentially copies, or have two similar parts to them. The Knight puzzle was terrible as the contrast between the white tiles and the white knights was so small that I had difficulty telling which were empty and which had knights on them. One puzzle is randomly set and so can be impossible to solve. There is one of those memory puzzle that requires you to remember 18 steps: remembering them isn't hard, but it gets tedious (especially if you accidentally click away, which is easy to do after about half-way through). This doesn't even go into the Microscope "puzzle": it's actually a game, which was incredibly tough (apparently it's worse on modern computers because of the way it was programmed, due to calculating optimal moves more turns ahead); I didn't mind this one so much, but it was tedious as the others. And let's not forget, you're constantly interrupted by unskippable audio clips of your character making observations/the antagonist taunting you that constantly repeat on the incredibly long, tedious puzzles. This is the only game where I've immediately turned to a walkthrough after the first puzzle: I just couldn't bear wasting time having to redo slow, lengthy puzzles from the beginning if I made a small, unfixable mistake, hearing the same taunt over and over even though I was using a damned walkthrough.
• The story is a mess: I don't mind piecing it together myself, but with the audio balancing issues and the poor FMV quality, and the fact that it seems so much of it was missing that I basically gave up on following it, just like I gave up on solving quite a few of the puzzles myself. Anything interesting or neat is drowned in the shoddy, horrible execution.

No matter what you look for in adventure games - exploration, puzzles, stories and characters - the game just completely fails. I've probably played over 200 games, about half those adventure or puzzle games, and this is the worst game I've ever played.

 

[groke]

'Oooooh, baaaaaaad move.'

Fuck the haters, I thought 11th Hour was a lot of fun. ( I never managed to get The 7th Guest working when it was released)

Also:

 

[taxalot]

Henry Stauf was fun and the atmosphere was surreal. I remember enjoying the novel much more than the actual game though.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

As far as The 7th Guest, it was cool in 1994 but I doubt it's aged well. I doubt I'd want to play it again.

Fixed.

And it wasn't as cool as you'd think. It was sub-par game surfing on the FMV-craze. Other gamed did the same thing, but better. The horror themes of the 7th Guest have secured its cult status.

 

[Infinitron]

The Kickstarter is on: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1559170459/the-7th-guest-3-the-collector

Imagine The 7th Guest and 11th Hour gloriously outfitted with the latest in game tech capabilities. While the gameplay of T7G3 will fairly closely follow that of The 7th Guest and 11th Hour, Trilobyte will thoroughly leverage touch-screen, mobile technology, and modern standards in video-game presentation to bring you the 7th Guest of your fondest dreams (and nightmares)!

Visualize the Stauf mansion rendered in beautiful high-definition, extensively renovated and furnished with hundreds of interesting new items. The house's remodeler's have not stinted on redecoration, to say the least. The revamped edifice is something of an historical museum. Grand, quite grand.

The mansion itself is one large mechanical device, a sequential discovery puzzle. Players will alter its entire configuration by solving puzzles and riddles and tracking down hints and clues. The goal of the game is to configure the mansion in such a way that escape from its confines becomes possible. In a fiendishly Staufian twist on familiar gameplay, rather than working your way into a box within a box, you must work your way out.

The 7G3 house behaves like a slippery supernatural creature, not a reliable container of wood and stone. It defies the laws of spatial relations, of geography; it expands and contracts, reconfigures and reconfigures. Certain rooms are accessible only if the house is configured just so; certain passageways can be found only within certain house configurations….and only ONE configuration of the house will allow the escape essential to win.

Logic puzzles, you inquire? Why, of course! Many of them are taken to the next level with real time rendering and real world physical properties. You’ll need to exercise your sharpest wits not simply to solve individual puzzles, but to strategically plan your path through the house and determine what to do and when to act once you arrive at your destination.

Our fans will not be disappointed! We have listened to you, and are committed to staying true to the spirit of the original 7th Guest.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

Stretch Goal #4: $1,000,000+: Will create an expandable game that allows inexpensive in-app purchases of additional rooms and puzzles.

7th Guest was a game that was good for a new CD era, to show technological advance in the medium. Gameplay wasn't so important. After silly 11th Hour I wouldn't waste my money on a sequel.

 

[Keshik]

Yeah, that stretch goal is a REAL incentive to pitch in. Feh.

 

[Infinitron]

Ouch, John Walker tore this Kickstarter a new asshole: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/10/31/the-scariest-news-of-all-the-7th-guest-3-announced/

 

[Name]

7th Guest Kickstarter

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1559170459/the-7th-guest-3-the-collector?ref=category

 

[Infinitron]

7th Guest Kickstarter

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1559170459/the-7th-guest-3-the-collector?ref=category

Scroll up

 

[Boleskine]

I don't think this one will reach its goal. It doesn't look like they're really improving the gameplay of The 7th Guest (isolated "logic" puzzles), and that's something people criticized in the past.

 

[Boleskine]

The first update video is pretty unenthusiastic.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1559170459/the-7th-guest-3-the-collector/posts/647200

 

[m_s0]

Goddamn. This guy looks more dejected than Taylor after shit publicly hit the fan with Wildman. Yeah, I'm betting he knows this is probably going to crash and burn.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Ouch, John Walker tore this Kickstarter a new asshole: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/10/31/the-scariest-news-of-all-the-7th-guest-3-announced/

You think you remember liking them? You’re forgetting what an idiot you were when you were 20 years younger.

This is actually a very good description, at least for me. I remember I've always had good memories of it, back from when I played it for the first time when I was a kid. And then I tried it again some 2-3 years ago...

Quoth the raven, nevermore.

 

[Redlands]

Ouch, John Walker tore this Kickstarter a new asshole: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/10/31/the-scariest-news-of-all-the-7th-guest-3-announced/

As much as I dislike the 7th Guest series, caring about John Walker's opinion on most things adventure-related is roughly as sensible as sticking your arm into the anus of an enraged, diarrhetic rhinoceros.