Britton Mathews, our website guru, updated the Replay Games site (www.replaygamesinc.com) and the forums (http://forums.replaygamesinc.com/) over the weekend, and we’ve moved over to a new server. If you have any problems at all accessing or using the site or forums, let us know so we can address it quickly – but, so far, it’s been a very smooth transition.

Britton will also be sending out the surveys starting this week, so if you’ve got Leisure Suit Larry swag that’s supposed to be coming your way, you should get your survey soon. Kickstarter’s software only allows us to send these out *once*, so if you send yours in and it’s incomplete, or you want to change some information, contact us through Replay’s Customer Service and we’ll make sure it gets changed.

The artists at N-Fusion, Al, and I have spent a good amount of time this past week on the Larry model sheet. It’s now pinned down and we’ll probably release this model sheet very soon (possibly before my next update). Al and I are both totally happy with the version we ended up with: it gives Larry a tiny bit of a younger look (so that we can age him gradually throughout the games that follow), the right attitude, a properly tailored leisure suit, and a nose that pays subtle tribute to male genitalia. Or is that my imagination?

Oh, and N-Fusion is preparing a video update. They’re hoping to have it ready this week.
I’ve been asked if we’ll be releasing model sheets for all the characters, and the answer is an “almost yes.” My current thought is: we’ll release them, but not all at once, and maybe we should avoid releasing the Jasmine model sheet so that she’s a total surprise. I’m really reluctant to take all the mystery out of her prior to the game’s release, since she’s the only real new major character in the game.

Al has decided, at least for the time being, not to have his actual band playing in the game. He’s currently talking to a variety of composers/arrangers, and we hope to have a firm decision on this individual within the next couple of weeks.

For my part, I’m currently working on the Age Verification questions. Trying to make them funny and not TOO tough. Those of you who are under 17 right now, or who are too old to remember trivia and current events from the very early 2000’s, had better bone up on your pop culture. (Rim shot!)

Yours in Larry Laffer,
Josh

I’m interrupting my biweekly update schedule to deliver some news that many of you have been anxiously awaiting: the arrival of N-Fusion staff on the Replay Forum!

Dennis Flath, the Technical Art Director on our project, has posted some bio information on himself and the rest of the team, given us some sample artwork, has dropped some other tidbits, and has committed to checking the Replay forums daily to answer quick questions (more comprehensive answers will have to wait for his bigger updates). Dennis already answered at least one or two interesting questions in the “Questions for N-Fusion” thread, in addition to the big info drop in the “Staff Introductions” thread.

This Wednesday, he’s aiming to post another art update. And we’re kicking around the idea of video updates, since Dennis has an HD camera and is handy with editing software. Yea or nay?

Please drop by and read his first major post here: http://forums.replaygamesinc.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=405&p=3442#p3442

Talk to you in a few days.

On LSL, N-Fusion is undertaking several tasks at once. Programmatically, the game is being constructed from start to finish immediately, using sketches, placeholder animation, placeholder text, placeholder music, and even placeholder voices. This way, each finished asset can be dropped right into the game as it’s completed, and we can immediately see how it fits and identify any issues or revisions needed to make sure the completed asset works as needed.
Simultaneously, the artists are developing model sheets for every character in the game. Al and I will go over the rough models before they’re brought to a finished state (as we will with the backgrounds and animations). Once the model sheets are complete, we plan to share some of them with you in future updates. Al and I are also spending a lot of time talking about the game’s music. This is one area that’s extremely near and dear to Al’s heart, what with his musical background, and I remember well on Freddy Pharkas how tightly Al holds those reins. I believe – but don’t swear me to it – that Al’s own band will be recording at least some of the in-game music.

I’ve always felt that, as the original Sierra LSL series progressed, the music got jazzier and jazzier, to the point where the melody line – the most infuriatingly catchy melody in the business – was getting a little too lost. Moreover, LSL1 specifically takes place in a Vegas-like atmosphere. So my suggestion to Al was that, since neither the original LSL1 nor the LSL1-VGA remake has had a Vegas soundtrack, that that’s what we should strive for here: a brassy, big-band sound such as you might hear accompanying The Rat Pack. Al agreed that this was a new and appropriate direction for the music, so I’m tremendously excited by this. We’re currently reviewing various arrangers.

One last bit of great news, which I freely admit is purely victory-by-association for all of us with a stake in LSL: N-Fusion has been declared a Finalist in the Unity 2012 Awards for their most recently-released game, Air Mail! Better still, they’re not just Finalists in one category…they’re Finalists in three categories:

Best Visual Experience
Best Gameplay
Golden Cube Award (given to the Grand Prix Winner)

The Finalists are individually selected by Unity “to honor the best content being created with Unity.” The awards will be presented on Thursday, August 23rd. (Air Mail, not incidentally, was the iPad Editor’s Choice in the App Store when it was first released in late May.)

The complete list of Finalists: http://unity3d.com/awards/2012/finalists

To bring it a little closer to us: since N-Fusion will also be developing LSL in Unity, I think this bodes extraordinarily well for our project.
So I’ve got my fingers crossed for them, and I know Larry, wherever he is, is pulling for them as well. But then again, Larry pulls for everybody.

Al and I have finished the redesign of the game. This includes the new locations and the new female character (her name, it can now be told, is Jasmine, and that name is not merely incidental). But we’ve also redesigned many of the other puzzles. In some cases, Al identified puzzle sequences that he had always felt could use improvement; in other cases, we agreed together that there would be ways to handle a given puzzle sequence either more logically, more entertainingly, or both. We were careful not to stray too far from the source material because we still want the game to feel like the game you’ve played before. But we also didn’t want original players to be able to blow through the game effortlessly.

Another thing we’ve done is worked in a couple parodies of popular games. It’s always been one of Al’s trademarks to include in his games sly tips-of-the-hat to other games. For instance, the Larry games have always included references to other Sierra game series (a problem for us now, given the rights issues), and those of you who remember our last co-design, Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist, will recall the parody of Lemmings as envisioned with snails. We’ve done the same with the LSL1 redesign, but even though the game takes place in the ‘80s, we’ve updated the games we’re parodying for modern audiences. (Don’t worry, there are no arcade sequences in our LSL1 redesign. The original LSL1 didn’t have them, and neither will this remake.)

For my part, I’ve been spending copious amounts of time writing in-game messages related to the inventory items in the game. That’s something I can do independent of artwork. So I have my immense spreadsheet of inventory items (there are far more items in the remake than in the original) and have been doing what I love to do most of all: rewarding exploration. There’s an interesting article related to this on the Adventure Gamers website; read it at http://www.adventuregamers.com/articles/view/21824.

On the topic of artwork, I’ve asked the artists at N-Fusion to plan now to create what I refer to as “Skirvins.” Bil Skirvin was one of the artists on many of the Larry games (and Art Director on the LSL1-VGA remake), and he occasionally worked into the backgrounds shapes that are, perhaps, best described as “subtly lewd.” I want the new Larry to maintain this tradition and, if possible, improve on it; gamers these days are very used to finding hidden objects, so I think that kind of exploration also deserves reward, even if it’s as passive part of your gaming experience (no, you won’t be able to click on them and get twinkly particle effects and a note in your mystery-keeper’s journal).

By the time another two weeks rolls around, I think I’ll have a lot more to talk about and show you. For now, N-Fusion is simply getting their minds wrapped around our perverse little project here, and I do plan to ask them to start joining in on the conversations on the Replay Games forum as well.