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My kids & I spent the weekend, thanks to VirtualPC, catching up on old games. I went back to a game I loved as a kid "The Dig" and was astonished to see, there in the credits: Dialogue by Orson Scott Card.
I did not realize he had any part of it until it was all done Posts: 202 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Neither did anyone else. I snuck into the LucasArts facility in San Rafael, CA, and inserted my own dialogue. But they decided to keep it anyway.
I actually wrote a HUGE amount of dialogue that you got if you made silly or repetitive choices - like a verbal easter egg. I had them singing "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" and doing a parody version of Wizard of Oz for a while. I thought it was very funny (but then I would, wouldn't I).
Well, ok, not VERY funny, but funny enough. It was deleted because MGM had the rights to Wiz of Oz; I thought it was within the fair-use satire area of copyright law, but they didn't want to invoke that because LucasFilm doesn't like people using THEIR dialogue that way <grin>. Anyway, it wasn't used. Here's some of it:
! Dialogue 1:
LOW Somehow I think we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto. ROBBINS (singing) Follow the yellow brick road. ! Dialogue 2:
LOW Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. ROBBINS If I click my heels together do you think I can get us back? LOW Remember to say "There's no place like home." ROBBINS Aw, shucks, Captain, it won't work. No ruby slippers. ! Dialogue 3 and all after:
LOW and ROBBINS (chanting softly together, then laughing) Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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He did the insults for Monkey Island (for which he enlisted his eleven-year-old son's help, further cementing him in his course to eventually become a game designer), and he invented a system of slang for a game that never really went anywhere. He ended up reusing a lot of that same slang in the Shadow books.
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Orson Scott Card: ! Dialogue 1:
LOW Somehow I think we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto. ROBBINS (singing) Follow the yellow brick road. ! Dialogue 2:
LOW Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. ROBBINS If I click my heels together do you think I can get us back? LOW Remember to say "There's no place like home." ROBBINS Aw, shucks, Captain, it won't work. No ruby slippers. ! Dialogue 3 and all after:
LOW and ROBBINS (chanting softly together, then laughing) Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
Did you pull that off of an old text file or something? For some reason, I find the idea that you have an old text file of unused dialogue for a classic LucasArts SCUMM game floating around on your harddrive fascinating.
It probably helps that The Dig is one of my favourite Adventure games ever.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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I have EVERYTHING floating on my hard drive - everything since I started writing on computers.
When I first started, nothing felt real unless I printed it out.
Now nothing feels real unless I have it in digital form - in about ten different places.
Literally. Two computers in my office, four locations elsewhere in the house, five thumb drives and other USB or Firewire hard drives or flash cards. Every draft of every novel, screenplay, etc. Am I obsessive? No. Just vain. I keep thinking someday some poor shmuck of a grad student is going to get his or her dissertation by messing around with all the versions of my work ...
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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Next thing you know, someone will have a "which-way" book made of rejected lines of thought
Hopefully you're backing up to something other then a hard drive at some point; DVD or CD or something Posts: 202 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I never finished dig. There were four crystals or something you had to get working, and I only ever got 3 of them. I wonder if I still have it.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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OSC: Whenever you open those files to a prospective student, I will be in line to take up the task.
Posts: 57 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I remember a bunch of random easter eggs in that game - I always played through all those adventure games when I first started out - Full throttle, monkey island, dig, even some obscure ones like Taurens Passage.
Posts: 129 | Registered: Feb 2004
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I loved that game, at least for the dialogue. Heh, I was never a fan of Adventure type games of that genre, but the characters and their dialogue was great. The interaction between the three characters was great...
But hey, it was probably one of the strangest rated games ever. It was rated "Kids to Adults" which is pretty much the equivalant of an "Everyone" rating today. The game had some expletives in it (not many). But a guy also gets his hand sawed off by an alien jawbone, and walks around for the rest of the game with a bloody stump for a hand. Wow.
Posts: 290 | Registered: Sep 2002
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I don't know if it's at any of the abandonware websites yet. May take it a few more years. You can always check at Abandonia.Com for now in case it shows up.
Posts: 202 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Orson Scott Card: ...Every draft of every novel, screenplay, etc. Am I obsessive? No. Just vain. I keep thinking someday some poor shmuck of a grad student is going to get his or her dissertation by messing around with all the versions of my work ...
That reminds me, stashed somewhere around my parents' house is an old Commodore Amiga computer that I bought from an author named Jack Butler in the early nineties. It has a whopping 20-megabyte external hard drive (about the size of a breadbox and weighing 35 pounds or so) that contains, among other things, drafts of a novel that later got nominated for a Pulitzer. Not my cup of tea, though.
Posts: 326 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by aragorn64: I loved that game, at least for the dialogue.
I liked the game for the scale, music and visuals. Yeah, the game is dated now, but I remember it being really sweet when I first played it.
The dialogue between the characters was pretty good, but I remember a lot of "Yeah, yeah, blah blah blah. Shut up already and let me solve the puzzle!" moments. Still, the writing was above par especially for that time period. It's also what made me pick up Ender's Game (noting that it won a Hugo and Nebula was also a contributing factor).
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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quote: Even if I had one, I wouldn't sell it to you.
Not sure what you mean. I have an original copy, so don't really need another; don't have any idea what this references?
Posts: 202 | Registered: Aug 2005
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