I like this dev team's approach, as outlined in the manual, of not including death scenes and fail states to frustrate the player that are typical of point and click adventure games. Though, I will say, without them, some scenes do lack the sort of tension you'd expect.

I also like the approach to puzzles where the main character creates spells or drafts based on a combination of 4 notes. You unlock higher notes throughout the story to give you gradual access to new drafts. The beginning area of the game introduces the player to a couple starting drafts by revealing them in situations where the context is meant to hint at the use case for the draft. You also get a simple puzzle that hints to to the player that playing the notes of a draft backwards will do the reverse of whatever function that draft did originally. Using these to solve puzzles does feel a bit more fun at times than items, but in some instances they work out to be about the same. I still found myself trial and erroring every draft I knew in a couple places.

The worldbuilding and lore were interesting though many times I felt like I was missing something or wasn't sure if I was supposed to know the significance of a character name when it was spoken with weight by the main character. It would have been nice to have an option to add prompts on areas of the map you could go to to change screens, as in one particular area I was stuck on how to proceed for awhile simply because the area to click to move screens did not at all appear like a place you could move through.

The plot seemed rushed along in the later half of the game, and it's a shame the story ends the way it does here, since we never ended up getting sequels. All in all, I enjoyed the experience though I didn't manage to get fully invested in the world and found the fun of the puzzles to be a bit hit and miss.

Preliminary: Nice I was a bit unsure cuz graphic adventures tend to be sluggish and the music isn't as good as I expected from such a music -focused adventure game, but the tunes are mostly nice and most of all the atmosphere and Look are excellent and dusk-vibes and moody

It's quite fast feeling so far too which is great. A lotttt of walking so far, but at least many beautiful screens

The rainbow animation for this was super cool, ok I will stop taking screenshots for every beautiful thing, just trust the Look is excellent haha

Oooo just did my first tune! Loving this! I've been practicing piano a lot lately and love this idea. Here goes nothing!

Day 1

I only have 20 more mins after a long night of OSRS bossing haha smh, but wanted to get a little more of this in. The dialog cutscenes are a bitttt of a drag/slow things down, but the great Look and interesting adventure gameplay make up for it, even if it wont be as fast and exciting and fun as its contemporary console adventure and action-adventure games.

The click-to-walk mechanic is actually done very well, compared to its contemporary adventure computer games. The pathing is surprisingly well-done around the fires etc, usually that's a big issue in early adventure computer games.

I fell in the water and get this--I didn't arbitrarily die in some dumb way! It was just for fun and a cool animation! Finally an adventure game that's not obsessed with RNG-based deaths, bad movement mechanics based deaths, no stuck-forever situations. Hell yea! I love that!

Day 2

Welp I almmmmost got distracted with OSRS bossing (really trying to enforce Weds and Fris only, we will see how that goes), but a team didn't form in the 3 minutes I gave so I'm back here :-p I'm worried the pacing might end up feeling too slow compared to other 1990 games (namely console games), and that it will be too long. But no matter what this has earned respect for its Look and concepts and execution of computer adventure games. Like every screen has that beautiful Golden Hours color scheme and I love it! eg the background here (I swear I wont screenshot every screen this time)

The ending part healing the Holes/portals is cute and nice, feels like you're returning through your journey I always like that in adventure games and RPGs, but the frequent cutscenes and dialog and slow movement that is inevitable in computer adventure games was definitely taking its toll. Still will be at least a 3 star, I don't regret playing through this neat little game, but it's hard to score higher with how much stronger console games became in this era.

Pretty sweet main bad guy

Lolll at the Roast spell/"draft" and what happens there but uh, this "final fight" is kinda tacky. Just learn a new spell, use it , learn a new spell, use it.

Welp, at the ending, and the ending is beautiful! I love the way the dark space moves across prior screens/the backgrounds I already enjoyed. Hmmm. I also really liked that this game had such a different mindset than its contemporary and prior adventure games: you don't just die randomly and that's the challenge, instead it's memorizing tunes that act as spells and wandering around low-stress. Hmmm, hard to balance the slowness with how much I want to give credence to its novelties for the genre.

Look: 9/10 This really was spectacular for its time. And gets me so excited for 90s DOS games.

Sound: 7.5/10 Way better than most computer adventure games' Sounds, but also not great great.

Play: 8/10 If it weren't for the usual slow movement this would be higher, because it brings about a lot of novelties for the genre, or at least a new mindset. Actually, you know what I will give this an 8 because I really haven't had any other adventure games encourage, gasp, adventuring rather than dying then retrying repeatedly. If only the adventuring were a bit faster heh.

Feel: 8/10 Great, unique, atmospheric Feel to this. Again, a bit slow, but it was worth pushing through for that neat ending sequence.

Attachment: 7.5/10 Like most these early computer graphic adventures, it's too slow for me to be sure I will replay it. But if there were an early graphic adventure I return to, this should be among them!

Overall: 8/10

Completion: 100%

Playtime: ~ 2 hours

(This is the 4th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)

Loom is a point & click adventure game initially released in January 1990 for MS-DOS by LucasArts using the SCUMM engine, with Brian Moriarty as its Designer. There are multiple versions for this game, but the initial release was on a floppy disk and had 16-color EGA graphics with no voice acting, while the version that I played, the "Talkie" version, released in 1992 on CD with 256-color VGA graphics. This version includes voice acting, but some scenes are censored and there are some cuts as far as conversation close-ups and puzzles with multiple solutions go.

There is also a version that came out for the Japanese FM-Towns in 1991 which many fans consider to be the "definitive version", while Brian Moriarty himself considers the initial EGA version to be the "real" edition. If you want to play the game for yourself, I can say the 1992 version compared to the 1990 version will not drastically alter your opinion of the game, so if you value VGA graphics and voice acting, I would go with that.

Anyway, what's this game about?: In Loom, you play Bobbin Threadbare, a 17-year-old who is part of the "Weaver's Guild", a group of people who became masters of woven fabric and over time gained the ability to weave "patterns of influence into the very fabric of reality", meaning they could actually change the color of something, turn invisible and heal, among other things. In this world, many other Guilds that focus on a singular craft exist and the Weavers Guild was persecuted for using "witchcraft", resulting in their escape to an island that became their new home, Loom, called after their guild symbol, a loom (an apparatus for making fabric).

Events unfold and Bobbin Threadbare is born, however in unforeseen circumstances, and the loom's pattern is thrown into chaos as a result. This means that throughout his life, Bobbin is not allowed to learn the Guild's ability to weave, since he is seen as the one who has cursed the guild. He is raised by "Dame Hetchel", an old serving woman, who in secret teaches Bobbin the basics of weaving and when Bobbin turns 17 and the story starts, it is her who gives him his mission.

At the start of the game, the Elders summon Bobbin to the Sanctuary to determine his fate. As he arrives, he sees how the Elders punish Dame Hetchel. They turn her into an egg, only for a swan to crash into the room from a window and turn all the Elders into swans as well. The Elders shout that this is all Bobbin's fault as they fly off to who knows where. This is where the actual gameplay begins. One of the elders dropped his "distaff" (a stick to which wool is wound for spinning), and Dame Hetchel is still in the room as an egg. You pick up the distaff, point it to the egg, and four notes start playing. You repeat this four-note pattern (called a "draft), and the egg starts to hatch ("open"). Out comes Dame Hetchel as a cygnet (young swan) and tells Bobbin about his mission, about how the "Third Shadow" will cover the world and why he has to find the swans.

So to summarize, you play Bobbing Threadbane, something is wrong with the "loom" and the Elders of your guild blame you. You are left on your own when all Elders are turned into swans and leave the island that you live in, so you pick up the distaff and have to use the "Weaving ability/magic" to try and find the flock and try to stop the world to be covered by the Third Shadow.

This is where Loom is very different to pretty much all other graphical adventures of its time. Instead of an interface with a bunch of verbs and an inventory to store items, you are solely equipped with the distaff. The distaff shows up horizontally on the interface and every few inches of it make up one sound, each being higher than the next. For each "draft" (magical ability), you need to figure out the corresponding four-note sound. For opening something, this sound turns out to be "E-C-E-D". Later on for example, you find for trees with holes in them, and each tree you click presents you with one note. Once you get all four, you have a draft. You don't know what the draft is for until you actually successfully tried it on something. This particular one for example was used to "twist sth". As you progress further and further, you unlock more and more notes on your distaff, which you need to do to be able to play some of the more advanced drafts which may use letters (like "A") that you are not skilled enough to play.

But with that, let's move over to my rating system to discuss all aspects of this game individually.

STORYTELLING: Throughout the story in this game, which only takes about 3-4 hours depending on the difficulty you pick (more on that in a bit), you visit many different areas and meet different Guilds like the Blacksmiths Guild or the Shepherds Guild. You visit the Forge, the home of the Blacksmiths, Crystalgard, the headquarters of the Guild of Glassmakers and a cathedral, home of the Guild of Clerics, among many other locations. The world created for this game overall is very unique and to know that this is not just a playground for your main character but rather a world that is actually alive definitely aids the telling of stories concerning both the main quest and of simple side stories. For each Guild you stumble upon, you meet one or multiple characters who tell you what their kind is like, what kind of problems ail them and what goals they pursue. The Glassmakers for example are building a massive Sythe atop the Crystalgard. For what purpose?

The main story that ties all this together is an interesting, yet convoluted one that falls victim to the use of a lot of "this happens so that this can happen" methods of storytelling and especially scenes that should call for urgency just don't and the pacing of it all can fall a bit flat as a result. For example, in the final showdown with Chaos, instead of taking your distaff, with which you are pretty much incompetent, and forcing you to teach him the ways, he just stands there until you do something. Worst of all, the game has been made with a trilogy in mind, and according to Brian Moriarty himself, both himself and others just wanted to do something else after Loom was finished, and they just never got back to it. So expect a cliffhanger ending and change your plans of playing this game if that bothers you. It probably should, but the game is worth experiencing nevertheless I think.

The voice acting in the versions that include it is actually much much better than I would have expected and while the main character's voice actor made him sound a bit whiny throughout, the cast overall did a great job. I played the first chapter without voice first and definitely am glad that I played the voiced version afterwards.

Unlike many other LucasArts adventure games of its time, Loom is more serious and has few humorous elements included (though they are certainly there). As someone who has tried some Monkey Island but didn't finish any of their games prior to Loom, I can say that I prefer the more humorous games and graphical adventures with often odd solutions to puzzles definitely fit the "Comedy" category more.

GAMEPLAY: There is a "Book of Patterns" that comes with your copy of the game, if you indeed do want to buy a copy for $100+ these days. For everyone else, there is the manual online which includes it, and while it's not necessary to be used in my version of the game, the initial release does have a puzzle right at the start that is unsolvable without the manual in hand. Otherwise, the "book" lists a bunch of drafts (spells) and you can use it to write down the notes that the game gives you. Otherwise, it's recommended to write down the notes elsewhere, because the first draft you learn (open) will be needed to solve puzzles in the final third of the game, and writing down is the only option to access it. Almost all drafts are randomized for each playthrough, so you can't look up the notes online either.

Apart from using drafts, there isn't really much gameplay in this game. You walk around, you find items to click on and you either are rewarded with a new draft or you can try to use known drafts on it. Some drafts I didn't really find any use for, so I wonder if they were a) a distraction or b) used for optional puzzles, but the devs found a creative use for most drafts at least twice and sometimes, the game also requires you to think outside the box. How? You learn the draft "twist". But what about when you have to untwist something? In that case, try the draft backwards.

Spelling out a draft can take quite a while, so if you try multiple ones at something to guess the puzzle solution, it can take you a few minutes to go through all of them. This is nothing unusual for games of its time but with no skip animation button it did get boring after a while to wait and see what happens. Being more skilled at these games than me might mean you figure these puzzles out quicker than me though and limit your amount of unsuccessful attempts.

Finally, when you start the game, there are 3 difficulty levels. PRACTICE, which shows you the letters for each note, which note you hear and it also spells out all four letters at the end. STANDARD, which also shows letters and marks the note you hear, but it doesn't spell it out in the end. It's pretty much the same difficulty level though. EXPERT, which neither shows letters nor which part of the distaff the note comes from, meaning you have to figure out which part of the distaff makes which noise at first and then make out those notes from hearing. It's definitely much harder than the other two difficulties but also more than doable.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE: The voice acting is very good. I didn't quite warm up to the voice of the main character, but the rest did a fine job. Especially later on in the game, you could hear the end of the previous dialogue line cutting into the next dialogue line, which got more and more notable right into the finale.

The game's sound design is overall good but has similar issues. When the four notes of a draft play for example, one or more of the note sounds are cut off for a split second almost every time.

The soundtrack has a mystical and classical theme and from what I've read online, it's highly regarded and a big part of the experience for many. It definitely is a big part in enhancing the experience, I agree, but I wasn't quite enamored with it. Sound cutting issues were present here as well and while I understand music was limited to the most important moments due to technical limitations, it didn't help my experience when 90% of the game was played without any music in the background. Overall, it's a solid and fitting soundtrack but the times have raised expectations on what to expect there for sure.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN: Loom received top or near-top grades for its graphics at the time and even today its sophisticated art design and its colorful, varied landscapes stand out over many other games coming out in and around 1990.

ATMOSPHERE: Music, sound and graphics work well in tandem with the game's lore and world building to create an atmospheric adventure, however the rarely used music due to the technical limitations at the time does take away from the atmosphere, especially whenever you are stuck on a particular puzzle and spend minutes without any sound, whether its from the soundtrack or from the musical notes coming out of the distaff.

CONTENT: There isn't that much here outside of the main story, which takes 3-4 hours to beat, but considering the premise of this game, it works in its favor that the game is shorter than comparable graphical adventures.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN: Overall the structure in this game works well, but at times the places you find the necessary drafts from to progress seem pretty random. In addition, the final chapter seems rushed and at least to me, the puzzle solutions seemed unintuitive.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION: The distaff being the key component is certainly unique. I think it's fair to say that it's unlikely that you've played any game quite like Loom. It didn't really stick as a concept, ostensibly, but it shows developers desire to innovate at the time where a more traditional adventure would have been a safer bet. Plus, at worst it makes Loom stand out, since the unique gameplay feature is not something that I would call "bad" at all. The game sold over half a million copies all told from what I've read, so it wasn't a commercial failure either.

REPLAYABILITY: You can replay it once to get a better grasp of the plot and especially to try the game on expert if you played your first playthrough on PRACTICE/STANDARD, but there isn't much replayability beyond that.

PLAYABILITY: The game works fine overall and is completely playable.

OVERALL: You should have probably already played this game if you're a fan of point & click adventures, especially of this day and age. Unlike many other games from this time period, this one does not require you to go through magazine or internet tips on how to solve puzzles in order to complete it. Even the manual says that the devs created this game in a way that they wanted you to complete and fully experience it, so you won't be stuck for too long at any particular puzzle. And that's good, because even if the story is not as mesmerizing today as it might have been in the early 90s, it's still one worth telling and one that a faster pace, by nature of the player being stuck at puzzles far less, does a lot of good.

WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME:

• "Unknown Gamer" from the GamePro Issue 41 (Dec 92): "Loom's magic comes mainly from its highly creative and original use of music"
• "Leslie Mizell" from the Game Player's Issue 12 Vol. 2 Nr. 6 (June 90): "[...] sit back and watch the spellbinding graphics as the story unfolds."

Loom is a pretty simple point-and-click adventure with some neat ideas and presentation. It's immediately apparent that the game has really nice artistic style and music. Different versions of the game either do or don't have voice acting—I couldn't get the original version working on my PC, so I played the one with voice acting that I believe has a few other differences from the original, and it was totally fine.

The only action the player can take in this game besides talking or examining is to cast various spells by playing 4-note musical melodies. So no giant inventory (nice). Many spells' melodies can be played in reverse to have the opposite effect. This mechanic works pretty well for setting up interesting interactions, particularly when basic commands like open/close can be used in a variety of ways. The obvious point of comparison is some of the 3D Zelda games that use a similar music mechanic, but here it's more of a focus and a bit more open-ended.

As neat of an idea as it is, I do think that as THE mechanic of the game, the spell system could use a bit more fleshing out. Several spells have just one specific case where you need them, for example. I think it would have been more interesting to have more spells like the basic "open"/"close" that are usable in a variety of situations. There are some cool spots where you can use spells when they aren't strictly required to see something cool or get extra dialogue. The game just kinda feels a bit too simplistic at the end of the day.

The story is another area that is interesting, surprisingly dark even, but a bit underdeveloped. One problem is that you need information from a separate half-hour audio drama before playing to really understand what's going on. Another is that a lot of the later story beats don't really hit like they should, since you weren't given any time to get to know and care about any of the characters. The tone is also oddly inconsistent, maybe trying a bit hard to be funny sometimes in a story that doesn't feel all that "fun". It all just feels a bit rushed and bare, unfortunate since the foundation is pretty good.

While I think this game is lacking in a few areas, it does a lot right. Definitely not a frustrating game, cool style, creative mechanics, etc. Not going to blow your mind, but it should definitely be played by those looking to dig a bit deeper into this genre.