In thinkin of the sequel, i thought it might be helpful to look back and decide what was it about loom that so thoroughly captivated us?  is there some particular feature that stayed with you? did you have a favorite part to the story that was just awesome? was it that amazingly catchy 8-bit swan lake theme song? maybe talking about why the first game was so awesome can shed some light on what we definately need to hit on again.

i'll go first:  everything. but that's too easy an answer.  the theme song to this day is one of the most lasting images of the entire game for me. a perfect haunting melody that seemed to speak to everyone.  when you hear the theme song for forge, i truely hope it envokes the same sort of emotion, definately score will be a huge part of the Loom trilogy.  i'd also say simplicity of interface.  in a time where complex item interactions (i.e. rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle plus like everything) seemed to be the answer to every problem, loom spoke volumes with its simple elegance.  the user had only a cursor, and a distaff of very few notes, no complex interactions, no ridiculous puzzles that had illogical solutions, every spell served a simple purpose, and all the puzzles were very straight forward.  i think loom was the first game from lucasarts to truely reach a universal audience (hell, my mom beat the game for christ sakes... MY MOM!)  The game was quite linear too, despite a very open world, all interactions were essentially predetermined and you didn't have to think your way through every conversaion, you would just sit back and drink in the story like a movie.  Not to mention, the game was BEAUTIFUL. i mean really, the color choice, the environments, the "rifts in space," the shores of wonder, i mean really, was there any scene that was not a feast for the eyes?  all the graphic had a very signature look to it as well, when you were in each part of the world, the color scheme was completely tied into the personality of the guild.  the clothes looked like the building and were colored as such,  the caves were dark and mysterious, loom island had a run down sort of aged look, the loom itself was gorgeous and the blacksmithery was terrifying. if forge is to feel like loom, every distinct guild area, must have a color scheme and environmental styyle to match. from what i can see of the tech demo, you're right on with the simplistic interface. one of my favorite parts of the game was going back to the previous areas through the rifts and seeing what damage had occured and fixing it, as well as the part with the scrying spheres.  i would be extremely happy to see scrying spheres make a comeback or to see what new treasures the other guilds have.  also everyone talked very respectfully and oldenstyle, but still in english,  no slang all proper english.  it really made the dialog feel right in place.

conclaive of guilds... waaaay dope idea

the consensus should be something like "run away, give up"
and rusty does a little braveheart speech or something.

or perhaps, the guilds will not give him help,
so he challenges chaos on his own, takes down the anvil, however does not defeat chaos, either way he inspires the guilds to take action after.

i agree that voice adds a level of professionalism, and have definately become the standard today, i do alot of studio work, and if it ever comes to it i'd more than happy offer my services as an audio engineer, but as duke said. that's entirely last step.  hell they added speech to loom after like 3 years

it's dope. keep it.

i'm down, keep me in the loop

pwblaine@gmail.com

i know you touched on Brittle vs Strong, perhaps Flexible vs Hard?

Heat vs Cold, for sure

Alchemy may have a place too, in the olden days, it was assumed you could turn any metal into gold by mixing it.

and perhaps for a good ol' loom throw back, Sharp vs Dull?

And as any good metalworker today can do, Lock vs Unlock, maybe? that's kind of bordering on magic thogh, and may be uncessary if you can just make a door brittle then break it down.

oooh... maybe, a schematic to change the state of a metal, you know Liquid vs Solid.

OOH ELECTRICAL, Conductive vs Inert

scrying spheres need to make a comeback.

teleporting? i like it, i mean how else is dude gonna get on a flying ship?
last time i check blacksmiths aren't too good at flying.

random idea: lechuck type battle with chaos at the end (every 30 seconds you automatically must dodge or something, which moves you to a different area. i know it's played out, but come on, who doesn't love a good lucasarts reference?)

even better idea: when rusty confronts chaos (since he's not actually defeated in Forge, we still need another game), chaos calls out some steampunk-type monster from the heat of the forge (hey it is a smithery) which rusty must defeat, hell he could even have the monster run into the forge and spill the contents everywhere, thus causing the forge to cool, thus causing the anvil to fall from the sky.

oh and that scrying sphere with the volcano that never happened. lets make that happen.

Patrick here, Loom fanactic since... well let's go with forever.
I've always been light into game developing,
often writing fan faction of the old lucasarts adventures
and back in the days before MX and actionscript
I would use flash, coupled with screenshots of the old lucasarts games
to extract the sprites and make my own lucas arts scenes.
Currently, I'm using Lassie to breathe life into my own comic collection called "king pollo diablo"
it's pretty much a mix of grim fandango, monkey island, homestar runner and sam & max.
though i'm not familiar with how to use AGS (never owned a PC)
i'd quite familiar with almost all aspects of game and story design
anything i can do, testing, music, voice recording, writing, whatever, i would be more than happy to help.

Duke and Abisso, you guys are my heroes for putting this little team together...
well except for brain moriarty of course

anyways feel free to contact me about whatever, pwblaine@gmail.com

sadly, my skills are incredibly limited, and i have only macs at my current house, but i do have the full cs suite, music studio, and hours and hours of free time.  when i was a kid i spent weeks extracting all the sprites from the old lucasarts games and trying to make animations.  sadly there's still no proper build of the AGS editor for mac, most my experience lies in using lassie adventure studio (mainly because its cross platform, and i already own flash) i definately offer my help as an avid fan, and supporter of everything you are trying to do.  if i can help to make the loom sequels a reality in any way let me know, i'm usually quite adept with plot, dialog, puzzle creation, and storyboarding, just not too great with animation or drawing with a mouse.  well my email should be around, and please send me some of the test graphics or whatnot to try my hand. who knows if i spend enough time i just might get good.  i salute you for all you guys have done so far.  take care, and drop me a line whenever.

Exciting thoughts. Is Chaos a personification of an idea? Who's to say! But a question like that might turn into a debate on creationism.

As for Fleece, I agree that the indication was that the unraveling of the Pattern caused both the Weaver Elders drafts to malfunction, and weakened Fleeces (and the other Shepherds) Songs. But its also exciting to imagine how her powers might be returned, amplified or altered to work in a Chaos infested world, during the story of Fold.

I think you're 100% right with to assume that whatever happened to the guild of Shepards to make their songs lose potency is going on all around the world of Loom.  It seems safe to assume that all persons and guilds of the world possess the ability to do magic, Weavers simply were the most in tune with nature.  Judging from the exposition in the audio drama, it seems like the magic in Loom is derived from being in tune with nature, and instead of trying to control it, submitting to it and respecting it.  The story of loom seems to parallel that of Merlin or the Mystic Yogis, as technology is introduced and man is seperated from nature, the magic simply seems to fade, save a few spells that still serve a purpose, however I'd say that, as technology is introduced that replaces even those spells (healing, stealth, sharpening, etc) the spells themselves will fade, unless they are kept active by use.  To me, it makes the most sense that the potential to do magic, has never truely faded, it simply has been forgotten how to be used.  It seems specialization and factioning of the peoples have played a part in segregating magic powers in the guilds.  It seems clear that for resolution to take place in the world of Loom, the magic needs to be revived in society, and the people must stop forgetting their roots, and fighting over their differences.  Again though, that seems to be a theme that will be addressed in The Fold.  The true question is when exactly did the powers begin to decline?  Was it when Bobbin was pulled from the loom?  Is the unravelling of the pattern mearly a consequence of Cygna's rashness?  Was it her decision to use the magic for something it was not intended for that caused the magic to start fading from the world?  Or has it been degrading as long as the Guilds have been factioning off?

Bobbin definately does not have a father, since he was concieved of the loom. A child of magic and nature.  His father is the loom, thus magic, thus his power potential should be greater than anyone else, which is probably why he learns spells so easily, it seems to me, that if one was a normal human, it would take a little more practice to hone the use of magic.

The current state of the Forge is that it is a floating cloud fueled by a fire as hot as hell.  We all know that in the end, it needs to come crashing down out of the sky, and land in the pasture of the shepards. I can see two ways that this could happen:
1.  The Forge is only flying because it is super light right now and made of clouds, it needs to be made back into stone and heavy so it will fall.
2.  The fire is propelling the Forge, so put out the fire and the forge will fall.

either of these would prolly work to get it out of the sky.

i agree with abisso that the personification of nature is unnecessary, if the potency of magic was to return in some fashion to the people, it would be tantamount to a personification of nature, and should be plenty enough to defeat Chaos.  I'd say that Chaos draws his from the dischord and hatred in the world.  I'd go so far as to say Chaos was not even always personified.  As the order of nature has been fading, the dischord has been getting stronger to the point where magic has all but faded, and chaos has become so prevalent that it has begun to take form and power. essentially chaos has form, because we give form to chaos with our fear and fighting.

The weaver's eyes are definately an interesting concept, why are they so deadly?  A central theme for the weavers seems to be transcensdence.  While all people of the world of Loom seem to possess some latent magic powers, it's clear that the weavers are  the most powerful, and the most in tune with nature.  I'd say the weavers were not always so drastically different from the rest of the population, however as their power grew, their physical forms became more and more frail, until they were almost entirely skeletal.  It also seems that the weavers are the only guild to truely see the full power potential of magic, perhaps because theyve seen so deeply into the Loom, their eyes are now gateways to the other world, hence when cob looks into his eyes, he recieves the full brunt of transcendental power and the physical stress of the the magic tears his soul from his body and pulls him to the other side.  Essentially, the weavers eyes cast a draft of transcendence, and Cob was not ready to transcend, hence it was very very ugly.

DUKE: One of my favorite bits of loom fan-knowledge, was to write it that when the very first Weaver was Transcended, they had finally attained the ultimate transformation and were able to leave the Pattern. All the Weavers on the island gathered together to witness the weaving of the draft. When it was cast they were successful, but some form of cataclysm, consequence or curse (Undetermined), washed over the Weavers on the island, and effectively the Weavers traded a part of their souls for this power.

I like that idea, perhaps it's a combination of the two, witnessing the first transcendence forever tainted their eyes...

DUKE:  When did Bishop Mandible start to become influenced by Chaos? Thats a good one. Hm....Maybe he started seeing visions of him in the crystal balls he had stolen or bought from the glassmakers? Maybe he had started to experiment with making tiny wholes in the fabric of the world, big enough to let Chaos communicate with him without getting loose?

It seems odd that Bishop Mandible knows so damn much without ever meeting a weaver or anything.  He must have seen this moment a long time ago.  The staff in his hand, ultimate power.  Perhaps Chaos has been playing with his mind?  Sending him visions of Mandible opening the rift in his dreams, or maybe he was on a trip to the glassmakers, and accidently saw it in a scrying sphere.  You can imagine the scene that would happen, Bishop Mandible steals away from the glassmakers for a second, the head glassmaker catches him entranced by a vision in the sphere, he warns the Bishop not to put too much stake in dreams, the sphere shows the future, but only a glimpse, not the consequences or full picture.

The cutscene theatre really seems cool, like REALLY cool, i just wish there was some way to work it into the actual story, like scrying spheres that actually let you take control of whoever you're watching, it almost seems like something that would be essential in the Fold, going back in time with the spheres to learn things of great importance, perhaps we can think of some things that the player would need to get from these past times. have them learn a draft, and see where some important item was left.  I think it would be a great way to expand on the scrying spheres of Loom, a bit like the Future Vision goggles of the new sam and max games.