By Alec Meer on April 30th, 2010 at 10:37 am.
Well, the first 20 minutes of it. But right here. Lucasarts have gotten into bed with streaming browser game specialists InstantAction and come up with a clever special edition of the Special Edition of The Secret Of Monkey Island which fits neatly into an RPS post. This doubtless, was their sole intent for it. Expect more games converted to play within RPS posts, starting with Crysis 2 next month.
Making SOMI playable on RPS was, doubtless, InstantAction/Lucasart’s sole intention for it, but by a happy coincidence it also means you can play the game at important social networking sites such as MyBook and Facespace. To buy the whole game ($10), you’ll be taken off-site to InstantAction for sign-up merriment, but then you play the entire thing wherever it may be embedded.
Well, I say playable. The instantaction player crashes Java for me here, but hopefully you’ll have more luck than me. This PC needs an enema.
If you want to embed the game on your own site, looky-here. Seems as though this is the first step in a wholly redesigned Instantaction business model, which means that, for the time being, all their old titles are not longer available. They claim they are coming back, however.
*Sigh* No Opera support… Admittedly i could use IE but, it still annoys me that they support Chrome but not Opera.
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I also resent being told to ‘upgrade’ my browser to Internet Explorer. (Another Opera user here)
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Yeah screw this, Opera support should be fuckin’ obligatory!
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We hear you loud and clear on wanting Opera – I’ll be sure to pass all of your concerns along!
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@Crash, that’s good to hear, thanks a lot.
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But Chrome has higher market share? It’s not that outrageous.
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I feel like web game developers have a responsibility to stop supporting ie, chrome is fine, but i’m using firefox for stability, i only use opera to bypass plugins i don’t like like the d2d downloader and tech support sites which want you to fill in surveys before giving you to tasty morsels inside. Oh, but i adore opera mini.
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No Mac support…. weak.
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well, it says it needs a minimum OS, and only windows will fit that shoe, apparently. (hurr hurr)
If they can’t even make it OS independent, I doubt they will be able to make it hardware independent, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of this technology and reduces it to a potential privacy intrusion/marketing tool (“who’s playing what for how long, what are his/her political views, sexual preferences and how are his/her fb-friends doing at farmville”).
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Or Linux…:(
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We’re working on Mac Support! As a Mac user, I feel your pain!
Ian
- IA Support & Community
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What’s the point of a browser game if I can’t play it from Linux or Mac??? O_o
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Oooh, nice concept indeed. =D **tries**
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Java? Forget it.
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the embedded thingie doesn’t show up with firefox. works under IE, though.
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Shows up ok in my Firefox (though I’m not going to play it at work). Firewall/adblock maybe?
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Yes, adblocking or no-scripting will prevent this from working.
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Good idea, but it is too much fun to join in the no-compatability bashing:
Boo! I also use Opera, and it doesn’t work. So I switch over to Firefox to try it, and it uses Java. The main advantage of which is, that it runs on absolutely everything and in absolutely everything. In Opera for example. Or in Linux, or on Mac.
So there isn’t even a good reason for their not-compatability. I can only imagine the reason is programmer’s ineptness, because if you are really clumsy, you can program Java in such a way that it only works in Windows.
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There’s more going on here than just Java. Java is how we deliver our technology, the InstantAction player, to your computer. We’re working on a Mac versions as we speak and we’ve gotten a lot of input requesting Opera – we’re listening :)
Ian
- IA Support & Community
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I’m using FF and it shows up for me.
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Same here, I am using Mac and Safari. And I agree with the above: what’s the point of embedding Java if not for offering maximum compatibility ?
Although it is a bit more complicated than just “using Java and it works” and developer ineptness is a bit exaggerated. Various VMs are notoriously incompatible, so you would actually have to make an effort to have your program work on each one. However, _not_ doing the effort means you do not care for compatibility (or actually want to sabotage it), and that in turn means your tech choice of using Java was dubious at best.
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To avoid horrible, horrible issues with Windows Vista and 7 “silent plugin failure for non-admin users” features.
Any other questions? :)
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Also note that it has hardware requirements and that it appears to save some game files on your computer
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Apparently my Snow Leopard system “requires an update”.
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Damn Java update, always trying to get me to install the Yahoo toolbar.
Let it be known that I will never knowingly install Yahoo, Google, Ask.com etc. toolbars… ever!
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Every time I see one of those toolbars on someone else’s computer, I hesitate to plug in removable media, or let it connect to the wifi. It seems an analogy to STD symptomes may be warranted, though maybe inappropriate.
Maybe it’s more like that single, inconvenient (x) to that seemingly irrelevant question on the blood donor’s application form.
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Just remember to use a condom on your memory stick. That ought to do the trick.
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Oh dear, Minimum OS… words fail me (and them too it would seem).
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Crashes Firefox here.
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Oh, wow! Play our Web game by installing a blob of proprietary software that only works on some browsers, and then only on Windows! Oh joy! It is, in fact, even more useless that Quake Live! What will they think of next?
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OK the not compatability bashing has gone too far.
This is actually quite a smart idea, and it will probably soon work on anything anyway, since it’s written in Java.
That being said: What key do I have to push to get past the opening screen?
edit: Nevermind, my 20 minutes are over. I had the game running in the background for a while for the music.
Btw it would have been backspace, strangely. At least that is the key that gets you past the opening screen in the Steam version.
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One of the things that occurs to me is that maybe they check hardware because the full game (What they’re trying to sell here) only works on Windows? It still doesn’t excuse not having Opera support, but I could see someone saying ‘Well, we only want potential customers to play the demo’ type of thing.
Not that this is a _good_ business choice, just that maybe it was a choice.
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The full game will also run in your browser if you buy it. We’re not actually streaming the “end result” of the game to you, but rather the game itself which runs off of your hard drive. So, you have to have the necessary hardware to run the game. The idea of starting in the browser to allow everyone to find, try and play the game as quickly as possible as well as share it like a YouTube video.
We’ve heard a lot of feedback on Opera – we’re listening! :)
- Ian
IA Support & Community
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Works ok in Chrome, up until the point where you have to use a mouse, and then find out you can’t move it : ( (sigh… and the keyboard shortcuts don’t work either)
Still a good concept, and hopefully they can fix the bugs/improve compatibility for the next couple of releases.
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It’s possibly because Chrome/WebKit doesn’t allow the cursor to be redrawn as anything other than a HTML/CSS standard version. I’ve come across a few web-apps that have to make exception for Webkit browsers for the very same reason.
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Oh joy! I haven´t had so much compatibility problems to play Monkey Island since the first version for DOS. That´s what I call nostalgic… ;D
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Alec: you can actually embed right from the widget, the little icon will give you the instructions and link.
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“OOPS! GAME NOT STARTED Sorry, we have encountered a problem”, but it’s not a big deal, I was just curious. Now I’m not.
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Ugh. I really dislike the new art style as much as I expected to. Thankfully there’s classic mode, but since I can’t use that I can’t check if that has the original music as well.
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Actually, compatibility issues and java usage aside, this is the way to present game demos in the future. Of course, it’s gonna be limited by streaming the game, but people are now used to this kind of fast access to things. Would any of you download a YouTube video to watch it?
Still, there’s a long way to go before this reaches its full potential; someday a 5 min demo of a fps will be able to be streamed, which will surpass the awful trailers we get now or silly 3gb downloads for a trial.
I really believe they’re making a step to the right direction with the way demos are handled, but I’d like them offering a stand-alone download along the full browser version when you buy.
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Has anyone actually talked about the game yet?
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why would anyone buy it in java though when you can get the proper game for the same price on steam?
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