@konstantinosd Here's another ad that hints at more continuity with the Moriarty/Eaken version (where the Cocytans actually created humans in the distant past): #thedig#lucasarts#adventuregames
@TheSpaceshipper Fun fact: after the Prometheus trailer came out, a shot in it that prominently featured a bowl of life-creating black goo (on a pedestal beneath the Xenomorph carving in the alien ship) was altered for the final film to have a green crystal suspiciously reminiscent of the life crystals in #LucasArts' #TheDIG. #adventuregames
@danielalbu Screenshots of the regular inventory (left) & idea inventory (right) in Brian Moriarty's version of #TheDIG. They were separate sets of icons; the upper right GUI button switched between them.
Notice Low's idea inventory includes the Space Shuttle, Earth, Mission Control (?), Toshi Olema (the cut fourth astronaut), Judy Robbins, & Ludger Brink! #lucasarts#adventuregames
One has the narrator's words when gameplay starts ("Stranded on a desolate alien world...") repeated towards the end of the intro cutscene before gameplay.
The other, more common version doesn't have that problem, but does have an ending cutscene that repeats several frames of video. The shot of Spacetime Six has several frames from the beginning repeat at the end, right before it moves onto the next shot. #adventuregames
So one version has audio repeating in the intro, and another has video repeating in the ending.
And when you look at the file dates it gets even weirder.
The earlier version, with doubled lines in the intro, had intro & ending cutscenes made on May 2, 1995.
The later version had the intro cutscene fixed on May 11, 1995. But a month later, on June 5, 1995, the ending cutscene in that version was revised so it included some doubled frames! #thedig#lucasarts#adventuregames
I haven't found all the files for the earlier version, but the cutscenes appear in this incomplete dump on Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/LUCAS_201307
I) Inventory;
C) Call someone on the PenUltimate;
W) Walk to/Do cursor;
E) Examine cursor;
L) Look at item on cursor
Which spells "I C WEL" or "I see well". Amusing for a game whose main goal is to "open the Eye". (Note that they specifically avoided putting Examine on "X"!) #lucasarts#adventuregames
(Most of the details are based on character concept art by Peter Chan in the strategy guide. However, the white boots are all me.) #thedig#lucasarts#adventuregames
One reason sprites in #TheDIG were redesigned before release was so they'd have proper proportions with square pixels.
#LucasArts apparently had plans to release a Windows version with graphical filtering. This would probably have raised the resolution from 320x200 to 640x400, without any aspect-ratio correction, as with a similar option in #RebelAssault II.
Notice the moon in the intro is perfectly round with square pixels, but overly-stretched with aspect ratio correction. #adventuregames
Contrast the Klein bottle from Brian Moriarty's #TheDIG design, which was intended to be seen with pixels with a 5:6 width:height ratio.
And in the published game's finale, the Eye Portal looks squished without aspect ratio correction. Maybe an oversight - but fitting as the portal to a place where different realities come together. #lucasarts#adventuregames
Something else from #TheDIG game text files: there's a "shattered tablet" hotspot label in the museum, and a cut line from Low saying "The tablet shattered when it hit the ground" (the latter of which I knew about already).
Perhaps at one point the tablet would shatter in an earthquake and there was supposed to be a puzzle involving piecing it together. #lucasarts#adventuregames
Another #TheDIG discovery: at one point one of the Nexus door controls was specially marked as a "red panel". (In the final game they're all just labeled "panel", along with the "alcove" for the four metal plates.) #lucasarts#adventuregames
Found something interesting in #TheDIG game text files: apparently the larger and smaller moons of Cocytus are respectively named Dis and Faustus. #lucasarts#adventuregames
There's also a cut hotspot for Low interacting with the "guardian creature" (the alien dog) guarding the Eye Portal, and a cut line with some further Hell symbolism for Low refusing to walk towards it: "If I go out there, that devil-creature will eat me." #thedig#lucasarts#adventuregames
Huh, there's a strange hotspot in Brink's life crystal machine room labeled "i am touchable". Not sure what that's for. #thedig#lucasarts#adventuregames
Finally watching #StarTrek#StrangeNewWorlds S1. Episode 2, "Children of the Comet", is about a comet that's going to hit the planet Persephone III. An away team then finds a temple on the comet surface. Rather #TheDIG-like, especially with the underworld-themed planet name.
But then there's a scene with Uhura and Samuel Kirk (Jim's brother) talking about a large pod with markings on it in the center of the temple, where the dialogue is nearly verbatim like that of a scene early in the game: