Croyzers: errrr..... ok......
just wanted to say thanks for the developers, no need to take a dump on them.
have you rasied any of your issues with them?
groze: You're right. I haven't been the nicest person when it comes to issues with Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy, and I'm being a complete douche canoe towards the dev -- especially since, to my knowledge, this is basically a one-man team doing all the work on the game.
It's just that I honestly love this game, it was one of my favourite titles on the Gamecube, which I stopped being able to play when my console died. When it came to PC, I got absurdly happy to finally be able to play it again, just to be let down by the state this port was in.
I understand a remake has to feature some graphical improvements, but bear in mind this is a 128MB console generation title. Graphical improvements are welcomed, but keep the game from getting so bloated that it won't run on modest (or downright crappy) hardware. With each update the textures keep getting increased, which, while making the game look better, also increases the minimum system requirements, to the point that by now you actually need a pretty decent rig to run it smoothly. Why not give the option to downscale graphics, so those of us with worse machines can enjoy the game, too?
The dev is surrounded by fans of the game who are a bunch of speedrunners and tech nerds, so he's making the game for them, not for those of us who love the game but are not tech savvy in the least, and who enjoy the game for what it was, for the art, the lore, the gameplay, and not the technical aspects of it, the speedrunning, the ability to mod it. I honestly think this game is not worth my time anymore, as sad as that is, because it will keep "improving" graphically and technically, and eventually I'll stop being able to even run it.
Then there's the keyboard & mouse issue. Again, the dev considers himself a "purist", so I guess he wasn't expecting this backlash: the game was made for gamepad, so purists will want to play it with a gamepad, as well. But a lot of people are angry at the absolutely appalling keyboard and mouse support, and, in my opinion, rightly so. If games like Psychonauts (which was also made with controller in mind) have awesome keyboard and mouse support, we expect Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy to have something at least similar. Which it doesn't, despite a step in the right way by including full mouse support on the blowdart first-person camera mode. I'm not a dev, I don't even understand coding and programming, and apparently implementing all this is extremely hard, according to the dev, but it was a heavy blow to the game when it was released, and something that's not easily overlooked even after almost a year.
I apologize both to you and the dev, I praise his work, I applaud his continued support and the fact he hasn't neglected GOG customers. But I think he should stop only hanging around the modders and the speedrunners and the tech nerds and realize there are other kinds of fans of his game out here, and that he's developing and updating the game for us, too.
Oh man, has it really been over a month since I posted this? I just wanted to say awesome response groze, and really appreciate the time it's taken you to write (type) it out.
I can tell you really love this game and wanted to come back with a response as brill as you. Unforutnately, I can't so you'll have to make do with my random muzings.
100% agree about the keyboard controls, rebindable keys would really help this game. There's not even a mouse sensitvity option :( I'm primarly mouse/kb kind of person, but couldn't get the keys worked out in this game, and instead just used the joypad. The shame. Since reading your post, I was determing to use the keyboard and have found the necassery keys were (tab,q,e,f). It's a real shame that even the screen icons are tied to the joypad buttons.
However, this brings me on to the next bit - the graphics. I'm sorry, but this game is simply stunning to look at. It runs on my ultrawide 3440x1440 at 100hz, which is very suprising. I think we have a combination of a talented coder, and the original source code being of high quality. I look at the some of the scene's and it takes my breath away. I know you talk about running it on a laptop because the game is so old, I think you are missing that on modern hardware, it really improves the look of it.
I'm really not interested in speed-running, for me, these types of games are there to be explored and to find out the various bits and pieces.
I've not fallen in love with the game to the same level you have (yet) but I'm going to be playing a lot more of it - who knows I may even complete it - mainly down to your love of the game, even if it based on the gamecube version
Cheers mate
Croyzers
