Prerelease:Loom (DOS)
This page details pre-release information and/or media for Loom (DOS).
The first LOOM design document was created on August 18, 1988.[1] It was announced to the public at the 1989 Summer CES. A planned released date around January 1990 slipped; the game was finished on March 6, 1990,[2] and released in May 1990.
A talkie CD version with VGA graphics, heavily revised and condensed dialogue, and many character close-ups removed was released in 1992.
 | To do: Flesh out the captions and citations. |
Floppy Prerelease Images
"Cathedral", an early art test by Mark Ferrari
A very early image of Bobbin in the Forge. Bobbin's sprite has the eyes placed lower and is missing some wrinkles on his robe. The background is different also, with the woodbin and the archway to the furnace missing, as well as the door to the cell. Instead, the walkway high overhead is continuous, and there's a firepit in place of the woodbin.
The Great Scythe with white ropes and the same very early Bobbin sprite. The distaff appears yellow.
An early image of the Forge
Mandible's castle, with the rocks on the shore not finalized
Bobbin in Mandible's dungeon. Note the early musical scale, and the absence of the Scrying Sphere.
Early view of the Forge, another screenshot showing Bobbin's lower eyes. His distaff in the wrong hand as well.
The owls on Loom Island. The font is different, and the standard SCUMM crosshair cursor is visible. Bobbin's eyes are fixed, but his robe still lacks wrinkles.
Early version of Hetchel's tent, including the Straw into Gold spinning wheel. A sheet of paper is on the table instead of the Book of Patterns, and the wrinkles on Bobbin's robe are still missing. The upright flask on the table is empty. Finally, something (a cliff or another tent) is visible outside the tent opening.
Lightning strikes the tree on Loom Island. The right edge of this background was cropped in the final game.
Early version of Hetchel's tent, now with the Book of Patterns added and the wrinkles on Bobbin's robe finalized
Early screenshot of Hetchel's tent with the spinning wheel. Note the thin font.
Early screenshot of Mandible's balcony. The thin font has a different drop shadow here.
An early image of the Loom Sanctuary. The tapestry on the wall is not torn, and glass shards from the shattered window are visible on the floor.
The text of the accompanying article mentions "the triumphant conclusion of the game". Either there was a miscommunication or something very different for the ending was planned at one point.
A screenshot on the box with a different GUI image for the sheep in the meadow.
A screenshot on the box with a different GUI image for the seagull. Notice the small crosshair cursor.
Another version of the screenshot with the different seagull image in the GUI. The cursor is absent here.
This black-and-white scan from the manual shows more clearly that the font in this screenshot has a different, more complicated drop shadow.
A prerelease screenshot of a French build. Notice how the game window is vertically centered during cutscenes. It's possible this was a "bullshot" where the French translators pasted French text over an original pre-release English image.
A text caption for the exterior of Crystalgard that doesn't appear in the final game.
One of the Shepherds talking to Bobbin. In the final game only Bobbin has white text.
In some early builds the GUI displayed a grayed-out distaff during some cutscenes.
Bobbin outside the Loom Island tents, without the distaff. Notice the screen is vertically centered even though this appears to be gameplay.
The Loom Island docks, with the grayed-out distaff
Bobbin being caught by the workers polishing the Great Scythe, with vertical centering. The dialogue here does not appear in the final game.
Mandible's castle, with vertical centering
Mandible's dungeon. The Sphere is still not present.
The Loom Island crossroads. The exit to the tents is marked with a picture in the GUI, a feature which was later cut. (Other screenshots from this article show the pointer cursor from the final game was in use by this point.)
Elder Atropos, with white text later changed to teal. The word "Membership" in his dialogue was later put on its own separate line. Vertical centering is present here as well.
Fleece's text color is green here instead of yellow. Her sprite has a proper right-facing view with her distaff in her right hand. This was later cut and her left-facing view was mirrored.
A deleted room in Crystalgard, along the passages from the chalice room to the graveyard and the sphere room, containing three giant hourglasses. Two of them are sealed and have run down, but the third is open and active, and being filled by a Glassmaker shoveling a giant pile of sand. In the floppy version the hourglasses are still visible in the long shot of Crystalgard.
Some unused art for LOOM that was shown off by Brian Moriarty in his presentation at GDC 2015:
An early version of the exterior of Crystalgard.
An early version of the chalice room in Crystalgard, featuring a maze and several mirrors.
The deleted hourglass room in Crystalgard. The Glassmaker shoveling sand has white glasses.
Moriarty's presentation also featured some footage of the ending, but the footage appears to have been from an early build, with some lines of dialogue absent.
Chaos' lines "Your pious meddling has foiled my dream of an eternal empire, bound together under One Rule... MINE!" do not appear. As a result, his angry face as he finishes speaking is used with an earlier line. Cygna's line "However, it is also a chance for we on THIS side to begin a second Pattern, cleansed of wickedness!" is absent as well.
The music also has some differences. After Bobbin tears open the Loom, Chaos' theme plays for a bit, before being cut off when Bobbin gains the high C note. The final version instead uses a reprise of the intro theme that begins when Cygna's closeup appears. Additionally, there's a musical sound effect when Chaos breaks the handle of the Great Scythe (the same as the window shattering in the Loom Sanctuary earlier) that was later cut.
Chaos' angry face appears with different dialogue than in the published game
DOS CD Prerelease Images
The forest, showing an unfinished sky and sea in the background
The Shepherds, wearing gray tabards like they do in the FM Towns and TurboGrafx-16 versions. However, their animations shown here are unique to the DOS CD.
Mandible's dungeon. It looks like there's a crack of some sort in the Scrying Sphere.
Rusty and Bobbin both holding distaffs in the scene where Rusty shows Bobbin the Forge
References
- ↑ Brian Moriarty (LucasArts, Infocom) - Loom Post-Mortem talk at EVA 2015 (Argentina) - EVA Expo, 2015
- ↑ GDC Vault - Classic Game Postmortem: Loom - Game Developers Conference, 2015
