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Sir Graham Journal Entry 2: "Ive got the magic chest! It hasnt been easy though, having to pass an angry troll, solve a near-impossible riddle, scare off a wicked witch, climb a magic beanstalk, and defeat an enormous giant! I fear that getting my hands on the next two treasures will be no easier, but after coming so far, theres no turning back now!"


The first half of my Daventry exploration had been fairly uneventful. Apart from rediscovering the location of the magic mirror, I’d only managed to collect a few unimportant trinkets. The second half was where things really got moving, mostly because I had the items I needed when I reached the more critical points. My first post covered exactly half of the Daventry gameworld, ending when I came upon the goat pen without the carrot I needed to entice the goat to follow me. From there I continued my zigzag approach to the west, passing harmlessly through a screen containing a waterfall and then another with a stone bridge. This brought me to another bridge leading to the west, but my attempts to cross it were interrupted by a large, ugly troll. “Well, what’ve we got here? You think yer gonna cross my bridge do you? Not for FREE, you ain’t. Dat’s right. Gimme somethin’ valuable and maybe, JUST maybe, I’ll letcha cross dis bridge. If I feel like it. Which I ain’t sure I do.” I probably could have given him one of the gold items in my inventory at this point, but I recalled from the original that trolls are particularly frightened of goats. I decided to save my trinkets and to come back with a horny companion later on. I travelled south through three more screens where there was nothing to do (a river, a lake and the left side of the goat pen), before once again moving on to the west.


So that’s five columns of Daventry down, three to go. The sixth one started with an uneventful lake, but on the second screen I came across another guarded bridge. The same troll came running up and blocked my way across. This halted my progress to the south, so I decided to head north to cover the rest of this column. The first new screen I arrived on at first seemed vacant, but after just a few steps a floating woman sparkled into view and had the following to say: “Gentle Sir Graham, I am your fairy godmother. Your quest is indeed noble. What little aid I can offer you is this protective magic spell, effective but a little while. I shall be watching over you, Sir Graham.” Waving her wand in my direction, she cast the spell on me, resulting in me being surrounded by little twirling lights. I knew that the spell wouldn’t last for long, so I took the most direct path I could back to the Gingerbread House. I’m not certain whether there are other uses for the Fairy Godmother’s spell, but I distinctly recalled using it to evade the witch. As soon as I entered the house, the witch disappeared in a flash of light: “Be thankful that you have a protective spell or the witch may have stuck around to try and catch you!” I was now able to explore her home, starting with the cupboard on the wall. (2 points) Within I discovered a piece of Swiss cheese, which I picked up (2 points).


There was a note on the table in the second room, so I wandered in and picked that up too (1 point). It read: “Sometimes it is wise to think backwards.” (2 points) I knew exactly what puzzle this was referring to of course, but I remember a time long ago when I didn’t (we’ll come back to this soon enough). Having searched the witch’s home, I made my way back to the screen where my Fairy Godmother had worked her magic, then headed off north. The next location contained a “fragrant patch of clover growing in this lush meadow”. I wandered over and typed “pick up clover”, watching as Graham bent down and picked up a lucky four leaf version. (2 points) Continuing north, I ran into yet another bridge that was guarded by the troll! This was the third bridge that I’d been unable to pass, and this one forced me to leave this column incomplete and move on to the west. Thankfully, the next screen I visited was the garden, where I was able to pick up a nice plump, orange carrot (2 points). At this point I could have made my way back to the goat pen, but I decided to finish mapping things out before I did so. However, the next three screens contained little of interest, with the last of them having some “treacherous whitewater rapids” running across it that blocked my way to the north. I made my way back down to the garden and then exited the screen to the west, entering what would turn out to be the final column of screens to explore in Daventry.


The western half of the garden offered up nothing, but on the next screen to the north I found a little elf running around. I talked to him, and my friendliness impressed him so much that he handed over a small ring. “I’ve had my eye on ye, Sir Graham. Methinks you might enjoy this little trinket. For just a wee bit o’ time, it has the power to make ye invisible. May it give ye as much entertainment as ye has given me this day!” After this act of generosity, the elf literally vanished into thin air, leaving me to ponder what the ring of invisibility might be for. Either I was really struggling to remember my play through of the original or I never found a use for it. I wondered whether it might be an alternate way of getting past the witch in the Gingerbread House, but for now I set out to complete the last few screens of mapping. On the next screen to the north I found a small yellow and red item on the ground. I wasn’t quite sure what it was, so I right clicked on it. “There appears to be some sort of bowl on the ground.” Oh of course, it’s the bowl! I must say it didn’t really look like one, and I remember the original one being much larger. I picked it up (3 points), recalling that the bowl had writing on the inside. It was at this point that I realised I’d not yet checked out the game’s inventory!


The inventory at first appeared to be just a list of items, but I soon realised I could either scroll up and down it using the arrow keys or simply click on an item with the mouse. Selecting an item brought up a small picture of it along with a brief description. When I came to the bowl it said “Inscribed on the inside of this empty ceramic bowl is the word Fill.” (1 point) Since there were only two screens left to check out, I rushed to the north to finish my initial exploration. The first one had a cliff, yet there was nothing to interact with. Tthe second one really tweaked my memory though. I found myself standing on the left bank of a river. I could see the castle to the north, but my passage in that direction was blocked. Across the river I could see a single white mushroom. I wasn’t able to get to it, but I knew I would need to later on. I wasn’t at all certain how I would get over there, but something told me it involved a bird (or was that in King’s Quest II or III?). Alright! After an hour of play, I’d finally mapped out all 48 screens of Daventry with the exception of two screens. The first one would only be accessed when I could get past the bridge troll, while the second one was behind the mushroom across the river. All I had to do now was decide what puzzle I would attack first!


I made up my mind to go back to the goat pen with my carrot. I opened the gate and offered the vegetable to the goat, which eagerly followed me away from his enclosure (5 points). I made my way to one of the bridges that the troll had been guarding. As soon as the troll wandered onto the bridge, I received the following message. “It is a well known fact that goats hate trolls intensely. You move aside and let the goat take care of this wretched, nasty troll.” It was actually pretty funny to watch the little animal charge the ugly beast, knocking him from the bridge into the raging river. (4 points) Its job done, the goat left me to go back to its pen. I now had the opportunity to cross over the bridge for the first time, and to see what unvisited screen was waiting for me on the other side. Having played the original, I already knew that I’d find Rumpelstiltskin there, but this time he was actually sitting down turning straw into gold. At least in the remake a player has a chance of figuring out who he is (in the original he was just an old man with a walking stick, with no spinning wheel to hint at his identity). “Welcome, Sir Graham. I have been expecting you. I have something that will be of great use to you. But first, Sir Graham, you must answer this riddle. I’ll give you three guesses. What is my name?”


For those readers that have never played the original, it’s difficult to portray just how difficult this puzzle was. Not only was the player expected to figure out that the old man was Rumpelstiltskin (based on nothing more than the fact the character in the Brothers Grimm story asks a similar question), but they then had to type it backwards to solve the puzzle (which they were supposed to figure out based on the note in the witch’s house). I believe the remake will accept the name in either direction, but I typed “nikstlitslepmur” anyway, thinking that might give me more points. “That’s right! Outstanding! I didn’t think you were THAT clever. As a reward for your sharp intellect, here are some beans. They’re no ordinary beans, but it’s up to you to find out why.” (9 points) After handing over the beans, Rumpelstiltskin entered his home in the tree and was gone. I tried following him inside, but I was told that I couldn’t as I wasn’t invited. It was great that I now had the beans, and I knew exactly what would happen when I planted them, but I wasn’t entirely sure where I was actually supposed to do that. Looking at my map I figured the screen with the wildflowers was the most likely spot, since I’d not achieved anything else there, and the ground was obviously fertile. I headed straight for it, typing “plant beans” as soon as I arrived. (2 points) A beanstalk burst out of the ground and rapidly grew off into the sky!


I distinctly recalled struggling to climb up the beanstalk in the original, continually falling to my death. I figured the team behind the remake might have made some attempt to make it a bit easier this time around, but that thought was quickly put to rest. I fell over and over again, despite Sir Graham appearing to be well within the stalks outer edge at all times. In the end I was forced to save regularly until I finally reached the summit (a couple of readers have suggested using the mouse makes these movement tests much easier in the remake, but I read that after this session was complete). (2 points) Anyone that has read Jack and the Beanstalk would know what I found at the top. “You are in the Land of the Clouds. It is rumored that a giant lives up here.” I walked through the strange land until I set eyes on the bearded giant. “The enormous giant has been carrying that heavy chest for longer than he can remember.” I knew that a single pebble would be all it would take to bring him down (David and Goliath style), but I also knew that I still needed the sling to have any hope. I left the giant and walked east until I found a tree with a hole in the bottom of it. Inside I found the sling (2 points), and returning to the giant I typed “use sling on giant” and watched as Sir Graham sent a pebble straight into his head. (3 points) The giant fell over dead, leaving me to pilfer the magic chest!  (8 points) The first treasure was mine! Two more to go and Im done...


Session Time: 0 hours 45 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: Ive written a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, Ive not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

It has been almost two years since I started The Adventure Gamer. I had no idea at the time that it would attract a small community (I hoped it would of course), but figured it would be an enjoyable journey regardless of its “success”. One of the things that got me particularly excited at the time was that playing through the list would result in me experiencing classic adventure games that I simply missed when they first came out. For whatever reason, I’d never played any of the Gabriel Knight, Broken Sword, Tex Murphy or Myst games, which was something I was very keen to remedy (still am). There was another game I was just as excited about though. It was one that I’d first read about at the impressionable age of 13, and had been fascinated by ever since. That game of course was Loom! The reason I didn’t get to play it in the early nineties had more to do with distribution than choice. As much as I feel ashamed of it today, the vast majority of games I played at that time of my life came from a small pirating community at my school, and Loom managed to avoid the otherwise comprehensive library of floppies that resulted. Now that I’m finally going to play it, I do wonder whether the built up expectations can possibly be met. I guess we’ll know soon enough.


Loom was the fourth game created by Lucasfilm Games that made use of the SCUMM engine (the previous three were Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken and Indiana Jones). It was released in January 1990, and was the first game to follow Lucasfilm’s “Game Design Philosophy”. The philosophy stated that the player should never be killed or forced to restart a game, and was applied to all future adventure games that the company created. The lead designer on Loom was Brian Moriarty, who was already well known in the industry for having authored three of the original Infocom interactive fiction games (Wishbringer, Trinity and Beyond Zork). There were various influences that led to Loom’s creation, not least of all the word itself. To Moriarty, the word “loom suggested weaving, but also looming in the sense of towering over something, evoking mountains, power and menace”. It also shared the sound of other words “that bring to mind feelings of darkness and secrecy, such as gloom, womb and tomb”. From this starting point Moriarty created the Weavers, an ancient craft guild that secretly manage the fabric of reality, and the story unfolded from there. Many sites reference author Orson Scott Card (the Ender’s Game series) as having helped Moriarty write the story, but this is not true. Card’s involvement would only really have an impact a couple of years later, when he helped Sara Reeder revise the dialogue for the CD-ROM release (space limitations meant it wasn’t possible to keep all the original dialogue now that voice actors were involved).



As a general rule I try not to read anything regarding the plot of a game prior to playing the game, but I have no hesitation in checking out everything that was originally included in box. In the case of Loom, the packaging contained a treasure trove of valuable bits and pieces. There was a manual of course, and a typical quick reference card, but there was also a document called the Book of Patterns (more on this later) and an audio cassette containing a thirty minute prologue to the game. This prologue gave the player some background to the events they would soon take part in, including the history of the weavers and the circumstances surrounding Bobbin’s birth (Bobbin is the protagonist). This recording was directed by John Reiger and included original music composed by Jerry Gerber (you can find out more on him here). Each of the characters involved were portrayed by voice actors, with many of them doing the voices for the same characters in the CD version a couple of years later. I listened to the prologue today on YouTube, and was really impressed. Not only is the acting for the most part adequate, the whole production is strong and the story itself really enthralling. I highly recommend giving it a listen if you intend to play the game (or have played it previously without knowing the full backstory). There’s a purely audio version here and one that includes images straight from the game here.



I’ll summarise the prologue for those of you that don’t have a spare thirty minutes. It’s not clear whether the story of Loom is based on Earth, but the year 8021 may suggest it is set in the distant future. The world has become completely industrialised, with humans dominating nature and valuing skilled labour above all else. The common trades formed professional societies to protect their knowledge and to increase their power. Thus began the Age of the Great Guilds. The Guild of Weavers cared nothing for the politics and wars created by the greed of the larger guilds, and instead wished only to peacefully weave their fabrics in solitude. Weavers were not allowed to marry outsiders, so their numbers were controlled, and they soon became so skilled at creating fabrics that the rest of the world could no longer ignore them. Certain weaves could heal the wearer of the fabric, or even protect them from harm. They learnt to weave subtle patterns of influence into the very fabric of reality, eventually discarding flax and dies to instead weave with light and with music. The weavers were persecuted for what others considered to be witchcraft, and were forced to relocate to an island which they called Loom. Unfortunately, while they remained safe in their new homeland, they began to have trouble reproducing. A female weaver named Lady Cygna Threadbare decided something must be done.


Cygna had lost yet another child (either prior to or just post-birth), and approached the Guild Elders (who are named Atropos, Clothos and Lachesis after Greek mythology’s three Fates) to request they use the power of the Loom to change their fate. The Elders refused, stating that their purpose is the fulfillment of the pattern, and not to play God. They sent her away, threatening that if she were to make such demands in future or attempt to take things into her own hands, she would suffer the ultimate penalty. Cygna defied them, and returned to the Loom when the Elders were absent. She placed one gray thread in the Loom and began to weave, creating a child in the process. The Elders returned and caught her, and she was forced to surrender the child to a serving woman named Dame Hetchel. The Elders cast the “Transcendence” draft on Cygna, turning her into a swan and banished her from the pattern altogether. Hetchel named the child Bobbin and raised him as her own. Bobbin is now seventeen years old, and the Elders fear him as his existence throws the pattern into chaos. He is forbidden to learn the ways of the Guild, yet unbeknownst to them, Hetchel has taught Bobbin how to weave basic drafts. The prologue ends with Bobbin climbing the mountain he ascends every year on his birthday to watch the beautiful swan that passes by annually. He is unaware that the swan is the very woman that created him.


Other games on the list so far have had back-stories (Chamber of the Sci-Mutant Priestess for one), but nothing as complex or comprehensive as this one. It has me chomping at the bit to join Bobbin on Loom, and to learn to weave as he does. I haven’t even started to play, but I already feel saddened to learn that Loom was intended to be the first game of a trilogy that never eventuated. The other two games were to be titled Forge and The Fold, and while I’ve chosen not to read their intended plots for fear of spoilers, it does seem they were pretty well formed in Moriarty’s mind from the outset. They were abandoned for the simple reason that Moriarty decided to move onto other projects, and no-one else at LucasFilm felt strongly enough about them to take up the reigns. All of the above information might make it sound like Loom was a one man show, when nothing could be further from the truth. After Moriarty had come up with the basic idea, he approached Gary Winnick (Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken) and Mark Ferrari (Zak McKracken), and the three of them came up with the look and feel of the characters and the environment. Moriarty has stated that they were very influenced by Eyvand Earle’s work on Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty when designing Loom. Ferrari would go on to illustrate the majority of the game’s visuals while Winnick would be responsible for the animation alongside Steve Purcell (Indiana Jones) and Ken Macklin (first timer).

As important as the unique visual element of Loom is, the music is just as vital. In fact, the game foregoes traditional inventory based puzzles, instead requiring the player to learn the sound based drafts that can influence the pattern around them. Moriarty was a huge fan of the music that accompanies Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake, and thought its majestic and melancholic atmosphere would be perfect for his game. Tchaikovsky also composed The Nutcracker (the main theme of Tetris) and, probably not coincidentally, Sleeping Beauty. Moriarty asked George Allister Sanger and Gary Hammond to transcribe selected movements of Swan Lake note by note from Tchaikovsky’s score, and then had David Hayes and David Warhol (both of whom had created the music for all three previous SCUMM games), along with Eric Hammond and Sanger, produce the games arrangements. Additional programming was handled by Kalani Streicher who had also played a role in programming Indiana Jones. Once it was finished, Loom was published for DOS on floppy disk with EGA graphics. It was later ported to Amiga, Atari ST, Macintosh and TurboGrafx-16, and then eventually re-released on CD-ROM for the FM Towns computer in 1991 with VGA graphics and a new digital soundtrack. Finally, the aforementioned CD-ROM for DOS version was released in 1992, with 256 colour VGA graphics similar to the FM-Towns version the year prior. The main difference for this version was an entirely re-recorded musical soundtrack and full voice over, making Loom the first “talkie” SCUMM game.

As discussed during the 1990 Year Ahead post, it wouldn’t be fair for me to play the 1992 version of the game, as tempting as that may be. I’ll be playing the original EGA version, and will be doing so using SCUMMVM unless someone gives me a good reason why I shouldn’t (Laukku?). Whether or not I play the VGA version when we reach 1992 is a discussion for another time. The only remaining decision is which difficulty level I should select when starting the game, as I will have the option of Standard, Practice and Expert. Each mode is described in the manual as such: “In Standard mode, a distinct segment of the distaff will glow whenever you hear or spin a musical thread. A musical staff beneath the distaff helps you to identify the threads you hear.” “In Practice mode, a small box appears beneath the musical staff whenever a thread is heard or spun. This box records up to four notes and displays their corresponding letters for your convenience. If you click on the box, the notes displayed will be spun sequentially, exactly as if you had spun them on the distaff yourself.” “In Expert mode, the distaff does not glow in response to the musical threads. Also there is no musical staff to help you identify the threads you hear. You literally have to play the game by ear!”


Expert mode scares me! I love music and spent years reviewing it before starting this blog, but I couldn’t differentiate an E from a B, and would certainly struggle to remember numerous different “drafts” over the course of the game. I think Im going to start in Standard mode and see how I go, despite there being a graphic sequence that only appears for gamers that play in Expert mode. I’ve downloaded copies of the manual and the reference card, and also have the Book or Patterns. This is a notebook of sorts that describes the history and purpose of many known drafts, and has spaces for the player to note down the drafts that they learn during the game (they are different each time you play the game so need to be learnt afresh with each play through). So, I think I’m ready to go! I know a lot of readers would have already played the game before, but from what I know it’s not particularly lengthy, so perhaps they’ll choose to give it another run through? My next post will not be a gameplay post, as I will be trying out an idea I’ve had for a while. Let’s just say that something arrived in my inbox at precisely the right time, and while I don’t believe in fate, it’s an opportunity I can’t let pass me by. For now though, I’m off to Loom. Wish me luck!


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Jvgu abg n pner sbe crbcyrf urnygu
V jvyy svtug sbe serrqbzf fnxr
Ohg svefg V arrq gb serr zlfrys

Jung vf zl anzr sbe 20 PNCf?