#Loom Rave Review
11 messages in this thread
_Loom_, by Brian Moriarty, published by Lucasfilm, is a wonderful,
wonderful family entertainment. My eight- and six-year-old children and I
started at 7:00 tonight and enjoyed ourselves for the next three hours
(tomorrow's a school holiday). The first half hour we listened to the
dramatic narrative (as instructed), and then began role-playing Bobbin.
Bobbin's a 17-year-old youth-of-mysterious-origins-with-a-mission, so I
don't expect anything surprising in the way of plot twists. The world-view
(a country ruled by jealous, competing craft guilds) is a bit old for the
kids and a bit young for me, but it makes it easier for Moriarty to develop
distinctive secondary characters. Bobbin blunders along, accomplishing his
mission despite himself, in the way of a Grimm "dumblingsmarchen" (How Hans
the Clod Fell Down the Stairs and Went On to Become a King). Bobbin works
magic by playing four-note tunes. We're playing in "expert" mode so we
must learn the tunes by sounding them out, so see, it's not just fun, it's
ear training.
Yes, there's a dragon, and yes, Bobbin defeats the dragon by wit rather
than blamblam.
I hope there's another twelve hours in there!
THol() { cout << "Sir, I exist." ;}
Loom is indeed a wonderful game. Alas, it's main drawback is that it's too
short. (By your words, I'd say you're halfway done…) I finished it in
the standard mode in about 5 hours, including playing the tape. I ran
through it again in expert mode the next day in about 3 hours.
However, I'm extremely experienced in adventure games and the like. For
the novice, Loom is superb and then some, and should provide quite a fun
time experimenting. And while I don't have any direct experience with
kids, I know a couple of people who are slowly playing the game with
*their* kids, who absolutely love it. And as Thomas said, it's mostly
non-violent. (Expert mode *does* contain a very short bit of violence,
which you might want to preview before encountering it with the younger
kids, though, IMHO…)
One final comment… If you're tone deaf, you might want to skip this.
The endgame in particular could cause you problems…
–>Steve Bennett
I bought Loom a week or so ago, and I finished it in about 4-5 hours too. I
was pretty disappointed with the game length, but what's there in the game
was really great! I still haven't gone back and finished the expert mode
yet.
I can't wait for CD-ROM games that come on fully loaded CD disks! 🙂
Steve
I've just replayed Loom again (now I've played it in all three modes) and
it's still enjoyable, although I am a bit annoyed at how much of an IBM
port it is… They don't seem to take advantage of any Amiga features in
the game, and this results in slower animation than we're used to having,
as well as the annoying breaks in the music as a scene changes.
If it had been designed solely for the Amiga in the first place, it could
have been a MUCH smoother presentation, IMHO. Ah well. (And *still*
nobody has added a MIDI driver… Come on guys!)
–>Steve Bennett
I'm about to try Loom running from RAM disk. I'm hoping that smooths over
the nastier breaks-for-disk-load (such as right in the middle of the
climax). It's _still_ a fine game.
THol() { cout << "Sir, I exist." ;}
Alas, RAM disk doesn't help. I played it mostly that way.
–>Steve Bennett
How much text input is there in Loom? Could a seven-year-old play by
himself? How "intuitive" is the game for kids? Thanks. Barry C.
The only text input in the game when you want to save a game and type the
name.
I think a seven-year-old could handle the game. There are a few violent
scenes, though.
Just so you know, the game has a form of copy protection. You have to use
a red filter to look in a "book of patterns" and then click on some musical
notes before you can start the game.
Steve
Thanks for tips on Looms, guys. Seems like the perfect father-son game to
me. Right now we're wading through Conquests of Camelot, one of the Sierra
title. It is great stuff, with outstanding graphics, a nice soundtrack and
many fantasy-filled, humorous moments. It comes highly reccomended, at
least, we like it a lot. Looks like wwe will be adding Loom to the list
once we finish Camelot and then turn to Hero's Quest and then take care of
Lucasfilm's Indiana Jones. Hmmm, could be Christmas before we get to Looms.
There is no text input in Loom. A seven-year-old would not be able to play
by himself unless he was good at record-keeping, though. When you learn
something, you need to write it down, and then be able to look it up when
you need it later.
THol() { cout << "Sir, I exist." ;}
Thanks, Tom, for Looms info. I'm going to add this one to our father-son
Christmas list.