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Bacter
Jan 27, 2012

Nie wywoluj wilka z lasu, glupku.
Newest thing: The End part 1 The End part 2
































INVESTIGATION SUMMARY TO THIS POINT










Oh, what in the blue blazes is this?

WELCOME! To Let's Play Discworld Noir - the hybrid (but almost all screenshot) ha ha no it's all video LP. I've been wanting to do an LP of this for quite a while, and I'm very happy to be showing it off to all of you!

Alright, what is Discworld Noir?

Discworld Noir is the third of three Discworld-based adventure games, the first two being imaginatively titled Discworld and Discworld II. All three were developed by Perfect Entertainment, but while the first two follow Rincewind the magician in plots that borrow from a series of Discworld novels and are frequently (and slightly unfavorably) compared to Simon the Sorcerer, the third uses an original character, in an original storyline, and stands by itself to a much greater degree.

It's far and away my favorite of the trilogy.

Why?

Because it's very, very well-written and crafted. Pratchett had a big hand in this original story. The pacing is great, there is a mid-game mechanic introduction that feels natural, and really opens the case back up just when you are getting stonewalled everywhere that's really satisfying.

The voice acting is fantastic. It might be a little hammy, but that's kind of the point. This game is an homage and a mockery of noir, which is also just about my favorite genre. I like sci-fi noir (Gemini Rue is so great), and fantasy noir is every bit as good, it turns out.

What's your least favorite thing about the game?

Graphics. 3D stuff doesn't age well. It works well enough, and a lot of work obviously went into them, but Lewton's face looks downright creepy most of the time. Those HUGE EYES!

What's a Discworld?

Boy oh boy are you missing out. Discworld is the brainchild of Sir Terry Pratchett, and it describes, over the course of 40 books and counting, a wonderful, comedy-styled take on fiction and fantasy. It started out as a vehicle to parody a lot of established fantasy tropes, but grew into its own monster. It's fantastically popular, and very, very good. You should read them.

But you don't have to! That's the nice thing about Discworld Noir. Even moreso than the other Discworld games, you don't need ANY Discworld knowledge to enjoy this game.

I think you'll get some extra enjoyment out of the game, seeing places and people that you recognize from other books, but you never get a leg up story-wise, and the game is pretty good about explaining things without having a huge text dump. I guess if you've read the books you can probably figure out that Vimes and the patrician aren't going to die. Spoiler alert you guys they won't die.

What should I know, though? Any background at all?

Alright. We're in Ankh-Morpork. That's a big city. Big enough to support a Private Investigator. There is magic in this setting, but not everybody knows it - mostly just the wizards, and they are in the Unseen University. Witches can also do magic, but they're more wild and natural, and less important in this game.

There are dwarves, who are your standard fantasy dwarf. Trolls are made of stone, and get dumber the hotter they get. No elves (in this game) Elves are horrible, hateful creatures who charm people into liking them half-elves aren't so lucky, but just as mean. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, all exist and act just like your standard fantasy tropes. There are a bunch of gods. We'll get into that later. It's MOSTLY a medieval level of tech, but A-M has been improving itself constantly, so there are some surprisingly modern touches. Flying machines aren't known, ships or horses are the usual mode of transport. That's about it!

Thread rules?

NO SPOILERS. This is a mystery, and I don't want it solved. No talking about things we haven't seen yet, if you know what's going to happen. Speculation is fine.

One nice thing about this being a separate story that doesn't draw on the main canon is that you can talk about anything else discworld, and please do. I've been on a discworld kick recently, so I'm happy to talk particulars of the universe, favorite books, characters, etc. As always, I'll shut it down if it gets crazy off-topic.

Any thread participation?

Nah. Doesn't fit the style of this game, sorry. Just sit back and enjoy! Yeah a couple votes. Obviously, anything you want to contribute will get put on the fridge door and much appreciated.

Weren't you running Guacamelee?

Still am. This is a side-project! As a SSLP without much thread participation VLP with a standard amount of thread participation, it'll be easy to keep both going.

NOTE FOR FUTURE LPers. SSLPs are more work than VLPs. Whodathunk?

Bacter fucked around with this message at 11:53 on Dec 25, 2014

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Bacter
Jan 27, 2012

Nie wywoluj wilka z lasu, glupku.



















Recipe makes: One (1) Discworld Noir game playable

Pre-recipe note by author

Ok so, this is kind of a lot to go through. No lie. The main problem with Discworld Noir is that it falls juuuuuust in this little sweet spot of games that were made after it's convenient or easy to get them to play on dosbox (I've never managed that with Discworld Noir, but I've heard it's possible), and before games you can get to play on a current Windows machine with compatibility mode (again, that I've managed).

Now, Discworld Noir is such a great game that I'd claim it's EASILY worth the effort this takes, especially with my awesome step-by-step, this-totally-worked-for-me guide available here. But if you hate adventure games or something YMMV.

Keep in mind though, there are actually a pretty decent number of great games that fall into this category. Off the top of my head, I've managed to get these three working only through this basic recipe:

Amber: Journeys Beyond
Titanic: Adventure out of Time
Noir: A Shadowy Thriller

So you may want to get a whole stable of games you want to play to make this worth your while.

Necessary ingredients:

- 1 Discworld Noir iso
(note: against all reason, it appears to be abandonware. Come ON, gog!)

- Access to Windows XP from CD or direct .iso.
(note: If your parents aren't crazy hoarders, try to find a musty old computer store. You KNOW they'll have one)
(double note: I think probably windows 2000 would work too. Windows 98 does not, at least not that I was able to make it)

- VMWare Player
(note: NOT VMWare Player Plus. Unless you want to pay money for no reason!)

- Daemon Tools Lite
(note: Again, not daemon tools. That's either a trial period or for-pay. Lite will work well enough for us, goons!)

Assembly instructions:


1) Install VMWare Player and Daemon Tools Lite

2) Open VMWP, choose "Create a New Virtual Machine"

3) Point it to either your installer disk or .iso location

4) Open daemon tools lite

4.5) Mount the Discworld Noir .iso (click the bottom-left icon, a CD on paper with a green plus, and select the DWN .iso)

4.75) Note what letter drive the .iso is mounted to

5) In VMWP click "Player" in the top-left of the screen, then CD/DVD (Ide) then Settings
That's Player->CD/DVD(ide)->Settings

4 Again) Select Use Physical Drive, then select whatever letter the DWN .iso is mounted to in daemon tools

6) Now you should be able to install Discworld Noir on VMWP, and play it regularly!
(Note: I understand a common hurdle is that in some downloadable .isos, the DWN CD 1 and 3 are reverse labeled - you'll want
to START mounting DWN3 as the install disk, then move to 2 and to 1. DWN3 is the play-the-game CD)

Note: The game will break if you try to load from the intro screen. You must always watch the intro, but once you start gameplay you can load games like usual.

Regular Play Instructions / recording

You don't have to go through ALL that normally, but it's still more of a hassle than just regular Dosbox. After the initial install, you can just load up VMWP and play DWN straight from it.

Recording is, of course, even MORE fun.

For video recording, I found an old version of FRAPS and dragged and dropped it into VMWP. In installed in in the XP box and am able to run it on there. I likewise am able to drag and drop the finished video files out of the windows XP machine onto my desktop. I've seen some people have trouble setting that up, but it worked out-of-box for me. Sometimes you have to hold the file for a long time against the edge of the VM box before it'll move onto your desktop. Just imagine the edges are made of thick jello!

For audio recording, I downloaded AudioDensityDemo from VB audio, set Output Devices (under Options) to MME, then set the "recording device" to "CABLE Input in both the Windows Sound Mixer and Audacity.

From there, audacity should record what's happening in the VM. I'm sure there's some janky way to get audacity to simultaneously record this and your microphone if you want to do live commentary, but I do post, so I just separately record the video in FRAPS and the audio in Audacity, making sure to have an easy synchronization point (the music instantly changes when you move from a silent place to the world map, so I use that).

Then just save the game audio as a .wav, combine it with the .avi you get from FRAPS in AviSynth, and play it with headphones on in VirtualDub. With headphones on you can record your talkymumbles in audacity (making sure to set the recording devices back to microphone!), overlay that audio track on the game audio in audacity, save that as the new .wav, combine that with the video in avisynth, and use RipBot to save the whole mess as a .mp4.

Easy!

Bacter fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Jan 30, 2015

Bacter
Jan 27, 2012

Nie wywoluj wilka z lasu, glupku.


Soundtrack



Credit where credit's due.

Published by GT entertainment, developed by Perfect Entertainment for the PC and Teeny-Weenie games for the Playstation (weirdly enough)



And that gets us to the title screen. Let's JUMP RIGHT IN!

Awesome intro movie!

Or, for the movie-challenged:

Soundtrack



Orphrey and Euripus. It depends who you talk to, really).

Suffice it to say that being the goddess of Misunderstanding she wasn't especially popular and it didn't take much to prevent her from being invited to weddings, which didn't please Errata at all, and so she devised a cunning plan to take vengeance.

She got Neoldian, Blacksmith of the gods, to make a golden falchion and told him to engrave on the blade of the sword, "For the strongest."

The resulting fight between almost eighty War gods would have ruined the wedding had Neoldian not inadvertently engraved,

LAGUNCULAE LEYDIANAE NON ACCEDUNT
(which roughly translates to "Batteries not included")

Fortunately for Errata, an argument broke out between Patina, goddess of Wisdom (who claimed the sword was a subtly observed metaphor for the hopelessness of existence), and Cephut, god of Cutlery (who claimed it was a big knife). The argument went on for so long that a passing dog managed to borrow the falchion and go on a short quest, returning as the god of Canines and Unlikely Subplots in Legends before anyone noticed.

In the end, it became so heated that Astoria, goddess of love, bribed Rhome of Tsort (or Ephebe. Or no fixed abode) to steal the falchion and hide it just to shut her sister up. In return Astoria gave Elenor to Rhome (even though she wasn't hers to give, which was typical of the gods) and the resulting extra-marital confusion blew up into the Tsortean Wars.

In the carnage that followed, the Tsortean Falchion was lost, perhaps forever...


We open with a rousing legend, and a tale of a lost sword! But being the genre-savvy goons we are, we know immediately that the sword ISN'T lost forever. It'll probably turn up in some warehouse or temple, or...



Or ok, we could go to an aerial view of a trenchcoated figure! Probably some disaffected loner, stumbling or rambling home from a den of iniquity.



It becomes clear very quickly that instead of just an aerial view, we were watching that figure from a high perch. And we are now leaping after that figure, at a quite disconcerting rate of speed. We are pretty awesome, just judging based on our momentum and speed.



And based on how quickly this chump runs from us. He tears down the alley as fast as his feet can take him and throws himself up the fence at the end. I marked him with a circle, for ease of identification!



We give VERY quick chase (on a straightaway, there's no competition. We'd run this guy down in a matter of seconds). Apparently, he dropped a sword before vaulting the fence.

Penny prize for guessing which particular sword this is - now the only question is why did this guy have it, and what are we going to do, now that we have it?



Well, one thing we KEEP doing is hauling as fast as we can after the runner. So we weren't just after the sword!



He (and I'll admit, I'm just assuming it's a he) is always juuuust out of reach, taking quick turns and using ladders to evade us. But we're so fast it's hard to image we won't catch him soon!



He throws barrels at us, which trips us up for like half a second. He is seriously going to have to do better.



It seems like we've got him up against a dead end...



But he manages to get the gate open, then closes and locks it on us! ARGH.



Hilariously, we are just having NONE of that, and go full-on cheat mode. We jump to the top of the fence, perching on it. That's easily a seven-foot vertical leap. We are clearly something other than human. Or everybody is a gnome, so the perspective is off, and that was easily a five-foot vertical leap, and we are something other than gnome!



Finding the next gate locked, the mysterious figure who you totally can't tell is the main character based off of the costume design or box art takes a hard left. Our claws are almost on him! Go team claws!



But when the beast takes the hard left, we're gone. Yes, I've switched identifying with the pursuer to the pursued. I'm done with team claws! Go team wily trenchcoat!

The beast opts for high ground, and scales a wall.



Ehhhh. I was pretty bullish about our chances of getting away a few minutes ago, but now that the monster's got a good vantage point and we're in the open...



Is it too late to change back to team monster?



Oh. I... guess it is.



Rest in peace, you adequate but not inspired running son-of-a-gun.



Whoever you were.



Goodbye



Our blood, of course, gives birth to the moon. The Ankh-Morporkian creator myth!



We pan out to buildings...

Oh wait no, this is the hard-boiled intro narrative, not the creation myth!

Management would like to apologize for the error.



The buildings were church(es?), and this is a graveyard. Settle in for the first of many EXTREMELY HARD-BOILED DIALOGUES. Take it easy. Make sure you're sitting down and getting lots of water. This isn't for everybody.

I would highly recommend listening to the voices - I'll try to get some video clips (FRAPS is having a lot of trouble record this based on the setup I have right now, especially voices, but the voice acting is so superb. I'll change this once I get a good voice acting clip. Until then, This video starting at about 2:05 is where we are. Don't watch ahead!)

- I've had some bad days since I started work as a private investigator, but I've never woken up dead before.

- It all started the week before, on a cold and wet Sektober day in Ankh-Morpork, the oldest and most depraved of all the cities on the Discworld, but, hey, you've got to love it.

You know, I don't even mind the flashback intro here. The voice acting is THAT GOOD.



After a flash of lightning, we're taken to...



A row of buildings, where a caped, booted, and gloved figure approaches.

- I'd been working as a PI for a little over a month, and business was slow. Hiring an investigator to look into your business requires trust, and the amount of trust in Ankh-Morpork wouldn't fill a cup.

And it's a small cup I'm talking about.


- Sure, people trust that you don't get on the wrong side of the Patrician. They trust that you don't walk into the Shades alone. People trust that the Assassin's Guild will fulfill your contract or double your money back.

- Yeah, people even trust death. Just don't ask them to trust their mothers.



And with that bit of sage advice, we're catapulted right into act 1!

Join me next time, as we figure out who we are, who that figure approaching the building is, what our case is, the meaning of life, and if we can get any coffee from the imp-powered infernal coffee machine in our office!

nimby
Nov 4, 2009

The pinnacle of cloud computing.



I loved this game when I was young, before I even heard about the Terry Pratchett books. It's only been a few years since I actually read all the books and then replayed the game, it's still amazing!


The voice acting is so good, too. The only thing I hate about the game is Rhodan.

The Lord of Hats
Aug 22, 2010

Hello, yes! Is being very good day for posting, no?
If the coffee machine is imp-powered there is no chance whatsoever of getting coffee out of it, if only because we didn't bother to read all 200 pages of the manual, and accidentally broke its warranty (by purchasing it).

supermikhail
Nov 17, 2012


"It's video games, Scully."
Video games?"
"He enlists the help of strangers to make his perfect video game. When he gets bored of an idea, he murders them and moves on to the next, learning nothing in the process."
"Hmm... interesting."
Hey, Bacter, you might be interested to know that you've got a link in the first update claiming to be "Soundtrack" which actually leads to a picture. Otherwise, I am a great fan of Terry Pratchett, but not so great an admirer of adventure games and... are you seriously trying to compete with the grandmaster of comedy? :colbert:

Tiggum
Oct 24, 2007

Your life and your quest end here.


Fantastic game. I tried to replay it a while back and found that it was just too buggy and I had numerous crashes and glitches and got completely stuck at one point though.

BTW, I'd love it if anyone who spots any references could post them, because this game is full of them. Obviously we've got the Tsortean Falchion as a reference to the Maltese Falcon already, but there are definitely a bunch of other Humphrey Bogart references coming up (particularly to The Big Sleep) and probably tons of stuff I missed when I played it as well.

Tiggum fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Nov 24, 2013

Bacter
Jan 27, 2012

Nie wywoluj wilka z lasu, glupku.
Oh, I'll strenuously avoid getting in the way of the writing and humor in this game - it's my favorite part! That said, this being an LP and all, yeah, I'll be providing commentary on what happens - that's just part of the job!

Anoia
Dec 31, 2003

"Sooner or later, every curse is a prayer."
Happily, the great Adventure Game revival has hit the Discworld games as well. Word is they'll be making games based on the Tiffany Aching series, which means tons of psychotic blue Smurfs wee free men.

nimby
Nov 4, 2009

The pinnacle of cloud computing.



Anoia posted:

Happily, the great Adventure Game revival has hit the Discworld games as well. Word is they'll be making games based on the Tiffany Aching series, which means tons of psychotic blue Smurfs wee free men.

They're not smurfs, they're pictsies!

Anoia
Dec 31, 2003

"Sooner or later, every curse is a prayer."
Ah, that's it, I couldn't think of the punny highland tribe name they had.

This game is probably the most mention the goddess Errata (a parallel to Eris, thus "to the strongest") ever gets beyond a few footnotes in the books, and yet she manages to catapult us into the Discworld's own version of the Maltese Falcon. :allears:

Scribbleykins
Apr 29, 2010

Any scientist with the right background can brew his own booze.

...

What do you mean electrolytes aren't used for brewing booze? That's silly!

...

Well when all you have are chunks of TNE and an overly large water ration, all the world looks like a still!
Grimey Drawer
This is a great game set in a great setting, with a great story and some great acting. I was so sad when my old cds stopped working and refused to install it, as I usually pulled it out to re-play every now and again. Thank you for setting this up, Bacter! I'll be following this thread with relish.

Also, to anyone who hasn't yet read any Discworld books, I highly encourage you to give them a shot. Most of the books are standalone pieces, some have a sort of continuity, but nothing that really prevents you from picking up a later book and getting into the spirit of the thing.

Anoia posted:

Happily, the great Adventure Game revival has hit the Discworld games as well. Word is they'll be making games based on the Tiffany Aching series, which means tons of psychotic blue Smurfs wee free men.

This makes me inordinately happy. Where did you hear/read it?

Anoia
Dec 31, 2003

"Sooner or later, every curse is a prayer."

Scribbleykins posted:

This is a great game set in a great setting, with a great story and some great acting. I was so sad when my old cds stopped working and refused to install it, as I usually pulled it out to re-play every now and again. Thank you for setting this up, Bacter! I'll be following this thread with relish.

Also, to anyone who hasn't yet read any Discworld books, I highly encourage you to give them a shot. Most of the books are standalone pieces, some have a sort of continuity, but nothing that really prevents you from picking up a later book and getting into the spirit of the thing.


This makes me inordinately happy. Where did you hear/read it?

Off the man's page itself (which is actually tended by his wife, I think)... But it seems they have a different definition of "adventure game" here:

http://www.treefroggames.com/witches

The whole set-up still looks pretty interesting, though.

evilmiera
Dec 14, 2009

Status: Ravenously Rambunctious
I liked this game quite a bit, but not as much as I would've back in the day. Why? Because I had a lousy loving disc drive from a terrible company who bought the cheapest of cheap stock drives, meaning the many CDs of this game got gobbled up and rarely ran properly if at all. Didn't make traveling from scene to scene any easier when it had to constantly load from disc.

SnakeF
Jun 4, 2013
Oh man, I was actually thinking a few days ago about whether there was a Discworld Noir let's play on Something Awful and I couldn't find one on the Archive. Glad to see the forums are somehow psychic and know that I was looking for this, it's especially good seeing as I can't get it to work on my newest computer :(

Nemo2342
Nov 26, 2007

Have A Day




Nap Ghost

Bacter posted:

Alright, what is Discworld Noir?

Discworld Noir is the third of three Discworld-based adventure games, the first two being imaginatively titled Discworld and Discworld II. All three were developed by Perfect Entertainment, but while the first two follow Rincewind the magician in plots that borrow from a series of Discworld novels and are frequently (and slightly unfavorably) compared to Simon the Sorcerer, the third uses an original character, in an original storyline, and stands by itself to a much greater degree.

It's far and away my favorite of the trilogy.

Excuse me, but I believe you will find that Rincewind is in fact a wizzard (it's written on his pointy hat) :colbert:.

Otherwise, I am looking forward to this. I played the first 2 games a lot, and was always sad that I couldn't track this game down back when it was current.

Sally Forth
Oct 16, 2012
I think this was the first game I ever bought for myself and I loved it to bits, even though I expect a good bit of it went over my head. It'll be nice to see an LP of it now that I'll actually get the references!

Tiggum
Oct 24, 2007

Your life and your quest end here.


Scribbleykins posted:

Also, to anyone who hasn't yet read any Discworld books, I highly encourage you to give them a shot. Most of the books are standalone pieces, some have a sort of continuity, but nothing that really prevents you from picking up a later book and getting into the spirit of the thing.

I'd actually recommend not starting at the beginning. I feel that the series doesn't really hit its stride until about book eight (Guards! Guards!). The earlier books are still enjoyable, the style just shifts a bit as the series progresses. For people who've never read any of them before I recommend starting with Going Postal (actually the 33rd book) because I think it's one of the best ones and really shows off a lot of what Discworld is about.

AJ_Impy
Jun 17, 2007

SWORD OF SMATTAS. CAN YOU NOT HEAR A WORLD CRY OUT FOR JUSTICE? WHEN WILL YOU DELIVER IT?
Yam Slacker
I bought my father a signed copy of one of the Discworld games many a year ago. I'll be watching this with great interest.

McKilligan
May 13, 2007

Acey Deezy

Tiggum posted:

I'd actually recommend not starting at the beginning. I feel that the series doesn't really hit its stride until about book eight (Guards! Guards!). The earlier books are still enjoyable, the style just shifts a bit as the series progresses. For people who've never read any of them before I recommend starting with Going Postal (actually the 33rd book) because I think it's one of the best ones and really shows off a lot of what Discworld is about.

I'd recommend anyone who wants to keeps things in chronological order to start with Guards! Guards!, as that's a great spot from which to see Ankh-Morpork slowly evolve and develop, along with it's characters. Of course, you could start just about anywhere, but Vimes is so much better when you've kept up with his arc.

I'm kinda of suprised that I'd never heard of this game before - I knew there were a few older discworld adventure games, but hadn't heard of this one. I'm also a big Noir fan, have just been gorging myself on Raymond Chandler, hoping to chime in if I catch any references.

McKilligan fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Nov 25, 2013

Bacter
Jan 27, 2012

Nie wywoluj wilka z lasu, glupku.

Nemo2342 posted:

Excuse me, but I believe you will find that Rincewind is in fact a wizzard (it's written on his pointy hat) :colbert:.


An unforgivable oversight! You are indeed true, and Bundifund and I still have to force ourselves to spell Wizard with one z to this day. FOR THIS REASON, I am so bad.


I should mention that getting this thing to run on a modern computer is like living in a living nightmare.

In order to record video, I've currently installed FRAPS on a virtual machine emulating my old copy of Windows XP, and using file sharing to... well, it's a house of cards is what I'm saying. Also, fraps blows up every time a new audio or voice track is switched. It's good times! If anybody is interested, I can share exactly how I got it working.

steinrokkan
Apr 2, 2011



Soiled Meat

Tiggum posted:

I'd actually recommend not starting at the beginning. I feel that the series doesn't really hit its stride until about book eight (Guards! Guards!). The earlier books are still enjoyable, the style just shifts a bit as the series progresses. For people who've never read any of them before I recommend starting with Going Postal (actually the 33rd book) because I think it's one of the best ones and really shows off a lot of what Discworld is about.

Indeed - the Guards storyline is probably the strongest one in the entire universe (IMHO by a long shot).

I've heard a lot of good things about this game, but never picked it up on account of only having read translated versions of Discworld that had all the names changed. Now that it's being LPed, maybe I'll have an incentive to look up some of the differences between the original and the translation!

Wisp
May 17, 2010

Glad to see someone playing Discworld Noir. It's a shame this game is so obscure, because it's actually got a pretty great plot and some nice puzzle design.

McKilligan posted:

I'd recommend anyone who wants to keeps things in chronological order to start with Guards! Guards!, as that's a great spot from which to see Ankh-Morpork slowly evolve and develope, along with it's characters. But of course, you could start just about anywhere, but Vimes is so much better when you've kept up with his arc.

I started with Guards! Guards! and never regretted it. If you're new to Discworld and end up liking Noir, in fact, the early Vimes books might especially be a good place to start - they're got a similar style to this game, just more police procedural than noir.

Dr. Buttass
Aug 12, 2013

AWFUL SOMETHING
I played this game once. After a point I just kind of gave up; I had too many questions to keep track of, and not enough of them got answers from any of the available stoolies, so I ended up getting frustrated and spending my time reading the books instead.

steinrokkan posted:

Indeed - the Guards storyline is probably the strongest one in the entire universe (IMHO by a long shot).

It is, but maybe give Snuff a miss. It's not up to...er...scratch.

sullat
Jan 9, 2012
What's wrong with the first books? The first two are pretty good, even if they fall into the classic ”young(ish) wizzard saves the world” genre.

Doopliss
Nov 3, 2012

sullat posted:

What's wrong with the first books? The first two are pretty good, even if they fall into the classic ”young(ish) wizzard saves the world” genre.
I liked the first two, but they were more than a bit spastic. Rincewind seemed to just get bounced around everywhere by forces outside his control, with no reason or rhyme. The plot can get a bit painful when the writing fails to distract from it. Guards seemed a lot more solid in that regard.

Hotwire
Mar 11, 2006

hehehe
Mentioned this on youtube, Bacter, but credit where it's due for just getting the bloody game running.

Pinechild
Sep 14, 2011

McKilligan posted:

I'd recommend anyone who wants to keeps things in chronological order to start with Guards! Guards!, as that's a great spot from which to see Ankh-Morpork slowly evolve and develop, along with it's characters. Of course, you could start just about anywhere, but Vimes is so much better when you've kept up with his arc.

Other good starting points (in addition to Going Postal, which is highly recommended):

Small Gods: The old-testament-fire-and-brimstone god of the only monotheistic religion on the Disc gets stuck in the form of a turtle, and has to rely on a young initiate of his religious order (who's not too bright) in order to figure out what's going on. One of my personal favorites, has some interesting discussions of theism and philosophy, along with a bunch of religious history jokes.

Reaper Man: Death takes a holiday. Frankly, any of the Death sequence could serve as its own starting point, but this one's the favorite of a good friend of mine. Soul Music might be better if you like rock and roll Music With Rocks In.

Wyrd Sisters: Macbeth, as a comedy, from the witches' points of view. If you like Shakespeare references, the witches sequence is the one for you.

The Truth: The story of Ankh-Morpork's first newspaper; also, the Watergate conspiracy. This one's also essentially a stand-alone, but its characters show up quite a bit in the other Ankh-Morpork settings, and it's a good political drama to boot.

Tiggum
Oct 24, 2007

Your life and your quest end here.


sullat posted:

What's wrong with the first books? The first two are pretty good, even if they fall into the classic ”young(ish) wizzard saves the world” genre.

Nothing wrong with them, they just don't give a particularly great idea of what the rest of the series is like. The first few are basically just generic fantasy parodies without much thought put into the setting or story, whereas the later ones are more about the stories and characters.


Pinechild posted:

Other good starting points (in addition to Going Postal, which is highly recommended):

It's also worth mentioning that there are TV adaptations of Wyrd Sisters, Soul Music, Going Postal, Hogfather and The Colour of Magic. My favourites of those are Wyrd Sisters and Going Postal, and the only one I didn't care for at all was The Colour of Magic. David Jason as Rincewind is just not something I can get behind at all.

Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music are animated serials, each of the others is a live action two-part miniseries.

The Saurus
Dec 3, 2006

by Smythe
I loved the books and the first 2 Discworld games, but this got pretty bad reviews at the time so I never bought it. Will be interested in following this LP.

Nemo2342
Nov 26, 2007

Have A Day




Nap Ghost

Bacter posted:

I should mention that getting this thing to run on a modern computer is like living in a living nightmare.

In order to record video, I've currently installed FRAPS on a virtual machine emulating my old copy of Windows XP, and using file sharing to... well, it's a house of cards is what I'm saying. Also, fraps blows up every time a new audio or voice track is switched. It's good times! If anybody is interested, I can share exactly how I got it working.

I haven't owned a computer that could rung Discworld 2 since sometime in the late 90s, and I've never wanted to jump through all the hoops it's going to take to get it running on a modern machine. That's also the reason I've never gotten to play Discworld Noir, so I am glad you managed to get it running.

sullat posted:

What's wrong with the first books? The first two are pretty good, even if they fall into the classic ”young(ish) wizzard saves the world” genre.

The problem with the first 2 books is that they are very much parodies of other (older) fantasy works, and while they are still entertaining they aren't quite what I'd start someone on who was new to the series. I'm also not a huge fan of Equal Rites either, so I'd probably start them on Mort if I was dead set on giving them something from the beginning of the series.

AtomikKrab
Jul 17, 2010

Keep on GOP rolling rolling rolling rolling.

You might as well start with the first book. :colbert: otherwise you can't see the improvement as clearly.


Also the DEATH line of stories is my favorite. If only I had a plush Death of rats... If only.

nimby
Nov 4, 2009

The pinnacle of cloud computing.



Tiggum posted:

It's also worth mentioning that there are TV adaptations of Wyrd Sisters, Soul Music, Going Postal, Hogfather and The Colour of Magic. My favourites of those are Wyrd Sisters and Going Postal, and the only one I didn't care for at all was The Colour of Magic. David Jason as Rincewind is just not something I can get behind at all.


I actually like the Colour of Magic TV adaptation, because it combines the 2 first books into something you can easily follow without having to reread them. I really liked the books when I started, but they have very little coherence. The Going Postal adaptation left out too much of the book for my tastes :(


Which is why I really love Discworld Noir, really. It is not an adaptation of a book, so they are free to do whatever. And boy, did they do a lot of whatever. I'm not sure which character I love more. Probably Mooncalf.

Bacter
Jan 27, 2012

Nie wywoluj wilka z lasu, glupku.
I would recommend the Vimes saga (and I actually did like Snuff, but I can see where you're coming from), but my FAVORITE series is probably Moist Von Lipwig. He's the star of Going Postal and Making Money, both of which come highly recommended.

His stuff is... I'm not even sure what genre to call it, really. He's a horrible con-man who uses those abilities to lead major government institutions at the, uh, "encouragement" of Lord Vetinari.

But my personal favorite book is probably still Reaper Man. It's just so full of good quotes. “Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.”

Next halloween, I should see about going as Bill Door.

And on the subject of death, who can outdo Mr. Teatime for awesome villains? Only POSSIBLY the guy from Small Gods.

(update later today!)

Anoia
Dec 31, 2003

"Sooner or later, every curse is a prayer."

Hotwire posted:

Mentioned this on youtube, Bacter, but credit where it's due for just getting the bloody game running.

This cannot be emphasized enough. The arcane methods involved are well worth finally seeing this finished.

Meanwhile, if you're just using compatability mode the best you can hope for is playing without the ability to save, but the game still tends to randomly crash.

Tiggum
Oct 24, 2007

Your life and your quest end here.


Bacter posted:

And on the subject of death, who can outdo Mr. Teatime for awesome villains? Only POSSIBLY the guy from Small Gods.

Teatime was pretty great (especially in the TV adaptation), but I think Mr Tulip's my favourite.

Tenebrais
Sep 2, 2011

Bacter posted:

I would recommend the Vimes saga (and I actually did like Snuff, but I can see where you're coming from), but my FAVORITE series is probably Moist Von Lipwig. He's the star of Going Postal and Making Money, both of which come highly recommended.

Raising Steam came out recently and stars Lipwig too. I haven't finished it yet but it's a great read so far.

Lots of fond memories of Discworld Noir, so I look forward to reliving it through this thread.

DLord
Apr 28, 2013
Oh, nice. I found a little about this game but never a full playthrough. I am looking forward for you to play this game. It's a blast at times.

Oo Koo
Nov 19, 2012
It's been a really long time since I last read anything Discworld, but I think my favorite was the Science of Discworld. It was fun reading about the wizards trying to figure out our universe and physics and the accompanying chapters of real science were also fascinating.

Also this game is really good, and I think I almost managed to complete it without resorting to a guide when I played it as a child, I think my only hangups were one piece of pixelhunting and the very final interaction you have to do before the ending cutscene rolls.

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Tiggum
Oct 24, 2007

Your life and your quest end here.


Tenebrais posted:

Raising Steam came out recently and stars Lipwig too. I haven't finished it yet but it's a great read so far.

I'm about half way through and pretty underwhelmed so far. The last four (Unseen Academicals, I Shall Wear Midnight, Snuff and Raising Steam) haven't really done much for me. I kind of wish he'd just leave the Discworld setting alone at this point, because both Nation and Dodger were really good.

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