Discworld

[Arbiter]

Is there a legal way of obtaining Discworld games?

 

[Maxie]

they're abandonware
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/discworld-2r9
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/discworld-ii-mortality-bytes-48i

 

[RuySan]

Why would you subject yourself to that? I still have PTSD from trying to play Discworld without a walkthrough.

 

[CryptRat]

Well the game is very hard and it's likely I'll never complete it, I'm not sure, sometimes I makes some progress, but what's certain is that it's among my favourite videro games anyway, writing is maybe the very best, music is among the very best, Rinwewind's expression are just perfect. It's natural that a Discworld game is not any logical, and then you want it to be the pinnacle of cartoon logic adventure games where all interactions are about "trying something which is very barely logical to begin with and something totally different of what you were thinking about happens" like when Rincewind (or Will E. Coyote) tries something. I think that today people know what they're going into when trying the game although' there's certainly something to say about misleading discussions about all the adventure games, old ones in particular, being actually similar, while they're not.

My only gripe is that since I spend half of my sessions trying everything on everything it's very awful that it has no or about no failure line of text.

Coincidentally I have read the books exactly up to when the game was released, I think it helps a bit because you get what most characters you meet are up to at least while the rightfully and brillantly non-sensical dialogs don't always inform you much, first time I played it I didn't get some things that I get now, but it's not like The Hitchiker's Guide where you may be stuck in the very beginning if you don't know you're meant to lie down in front of the towing, which actually happened to me, probably I didn't remember what actually happened, I remember asking a friend who was there and he told me that's what happened in the book.

Also almost sure 2 is really not as hard, I remember much less pixel hunting in particular where some random parts of items are spots but maybe I'm remembering wrong, this one I beat, it took me a while but I think I did not cheat but it's been a long time and I'm not certain. It's not as good either but still very good.

Why using a walkthrough, accept you won't beat the game now, you probably beat games now that you played but did not beat when you were 7 and you're probably happy that you didn't cheat back then, once you cheated your playthrough is definitely ruined, maybe in 2060 you'll play all these old games you've never managed to beat before with your friends of the retirement home because you've got nothing else to play anymore, there are many reasonably hard games I've not finish and will gladly get back to. Not saying it's not much more compicated, there'd be a lot of things to say about looking for the solution of a puzzle in a game which is mostly not about puzzles and you play for other reasons, unlocking optional content in JRPGs which was not hidden completely without selling guides in mind and 25 years ago what you did was chatting with your friends which were likely be playing the same game as you since one of you acquired a legal or pirated copy of the game and shared copies with the others and the situation is different now so you want to check this one thing you've missed to advance, here we're talking about Discworld so I'm a bit off-topic and I'm not talking about you but overall I think many people who actually like games are ruining their experience by not simply ignoring walkthrough exist without really realizing it, they started using walkthroughs somehow and now it's simply part of the game while it should not. I think it's cool that there's always another harder game I can't beat.

 

[Grauken]

Is there a legal way of obtaining Discworld games?

Define legal

 

[V_K]

Also almost sure 2 is really not as hard, I remember much less pixel hunting in particular where some random parts of items are spots but maybe I'm remembering wrong, this one I beat, it took me a while but I think I did not cheat but it's been a long time and I'm not certain. It's not as good either but still very good.

I haven't played the first, but yeah, I think the challenge level in DW2 is just right. Except for that one puzzle at the very end, where there's a certain NPC randomly appearing in a certain location.
What I really loved about it is the open-ended nature, there are always several lines of puzzles to pursue and very few bottlenecks. If you're stuck at one, you can always go try another, which makes the whole experience of getting stuck a lot less frustrating.

Why using a walkthrough

In case of bottlenecks usually. When there's that one puzzle you're stuggling with (oftentimes because it's bullshit) but would like to continue.

 

[V_K]

Another thing I really loved about DW2 is how it acknowledges that you're on the right path. When you're trying an action that is part of the solution, but requires some additional steps to be done beforehand, Rincewind would say something to the tune of "Good idea, but not just yet". It's just a very good safeguard against "moon logic", when the player thinks of a good solution but not exactly the solution the designers had in mind. I wish more Adventures would do something like that, it's extremely frustrating when you get stuck to the point of opening a walkthrough, and it turns out you had the right idea but just got some small detail wrong.

 

[Duraframe300]

Finished 1+2.

Don't really get the complaints about difficulty to be honest. Like at all. Sure 1 featured plenty of moon logic and needs plenty of patience, but I've played harder 90's adventures and 2 was super easy.

Now looking at Discworld Noir, but noticed that ScummVM doesn't support the engine (only some preliminary work done for years) and there are no real guides for playing on modern hardware. Can somebody help?

Or should I just go for the Playstation version in an emulator?

Edit: Ah, yah. Shittiest thing about Discworld 1 was the L-Space animation. Probably took 3+ hours of playing time alone watching that shit.

 

[Aeschylus]

They're not that hard if you've actually read the books, most of the 'moon logic' makes a certain amount of sense in-universe. That said 1 is much harder than 2, and also better.

 

[Maximilian]

They're not that hard if you've actually read the books, most of the 'moon logic' makes a certain amount of sense in-universe. That said 1 is much harder than 2, and also better.

What makes 1 an odious experience to me personally is the 'use L-space to move back in time' segment. If you fail to pass it at the first try, you're stuck in a loop and bound to load some former savefile. Needless to say, I was stupid enough to have overwritten my last savefile, losing hours of progress.

 

[Duraframe300]

They're not that hard if you've actually read the books, most of the 'moon logic' makes a certain amount of sense in-universe. That said 1 is much harder than 2, and also better.

What makes 1 an odious experience to me personally is the 'use L-space to move back in time' segment. If you fail to pass it at the first try, you're stuck in a loop and bound to load some former savefile. Needless to say, I was stupid enough to have overwritten my last savefile, losing hours of progress.

Not sure what part you are referring to here, but leaving the map/crossing l-space resets most events. At least there was always a way out for me despite sometimes thinking there wasn’t.

Are you sure you were stuck?

 

[Maximilian]

They're not that hard if you've actually read the books, most of the 'moon logic' makes a certain amount of sense in-universe. That said 1 is much harder than 2, and also better.

What makes 1 an odious experience to me personally is the 'use L-space to move back in time' segment. If you fail to pass it at the first try, you're stuck in a loop and bound to load some former savefile. Needless to say, I was stupid enough to have overwritten my last savefile, losing hours of progress.

Not sure what part you are referring to here, but leaving the map/crossing l-space resets most events. At least there was always a way out for me despite sometimes thinking there wasn’t.

Are you sure you were stuck?

I were stuck and unable to progress. Maybe it was some scummvm bug. Admittedly, this was uncomfortably long ago and I'm unable to give you any relevant details.

 

[Hellraiser]

Is there a legal way of obtaining Discworld games?

I know the OP is ancient but since nobody mentioned this in this topic already and I was looking into this last week, it appears the rights to the games fell down some legal rabbit hole of mergers and acquisitions and Pratchett's daughter has no idea who has them*. In any case the Pratchett estate does not have the rights. Chances of a new release via GOG or Steam whatever is your favorite porn deletion tool are therefore slim, unless some lawyer realizes that someone could make a buck off something they had no clue the company owns.

*Personally I am surprised no internet autist bothered to try to figure out who has them. At first glance it seems Sony might have them, since originally Psygnosis published the two games before the success of Wipeout got them gobbled up. But the developer underwent some fucked up mergers so maybe that is what the daughter was talking about. Still if I had to make a bet, I would bet on the legal docs collecting dust in some Sony UK archive.

If any autist from the UK is reading this, this might be the perfect quest for you! Discover who owns the rights so that people can buy a worse than original re-release, from which some unrelated to the developers blokes can profit.

 

[Aeschylus]

Is there a legal way of obtaining Discworld games?

I know the OP is ancient but since nobody mentioned this in this topic already and I was looking into this last week, it appears the rights to the games fell down some legal rabbit hole of mergers and acquisitions and Pratchett's daughter has no idea who has them*. In any case the Pratchett estate does not have the rights. Chances of a new release via GOG or Steam whatever is your favorite porn deletion tool are therefore slim, unless some lawyer realizes that someone could make a buck off something they had no clue the company owns.

*Personally I am surprised no internet autist bothered to try to figure out who has them. At first glance it seems Sony might have them, since originally Psygnosis published the two games before the success of Wipeout got them gobbled up. But the developer underwent some fucked up mergers so maybe that is what the daughter was talking about. Still if I had to make a bet, I would bet on the legal docs collecting dust in some Sony UK archive.

If any autist from the UK is reading this, this might be the perfect quest for you! Discover who owns the rights so that people can buy a worse than original re-release, from which some unrelated to the developers blokes can profit.

The Turbo-Autists who create ScummVM (seriously, read their mailing list sometime) spent years trying to untangle the rights and make the DW games freeware to no avail. But I suppose crazier things have happened.

Spoiler

Also, basically any time you ask 'where can I find obscure PnC game X?' the correct answer is Adventure Legends

 

[Manny]

I just finished Discworld last night and what a good game! It's been a long time since I've had so much fun with an adventure. Discworld is one of those classic-era games that I hadn't played, in part due to its reputation for being extremely difficult and unfair, to the point of not being able to win it without the use of a walkthrough.

After playing it, I think its bad reputation is exaggerated, as others have already commented above. It is true that there are a couple of puzzles that force logic too much, some other that forces us to relate quite distant events (for example, remembering something that happened in Act 1 to overcome an obstacle in Act 2) and a couple that may be considered unfair. But, in general, it seems to me that the puzzle design, except for a few cases, is quite good. In fact, I only had to go to a walkthrough twice in Act 2. Of course that meant forcing me to accept being stuck for some time again without consulting clues on the internet, which was normal in another era. But what a pleasure when after a day or two you find the solution!

I think that the game could have corrected some of the design problems simply with some answer to some use of objects that is not restricted to the generic "That doesn't work", so that the answer guides the solution a little bit, of course without falling into the exaggeration of some current adventures in which the comments end up explaining what has to be done. In fact, I prefer this type of design in which the game dares to fail by giving fewer clues so that the player must make relationships that are not so obvious than the one that tends to make those relationships explicit. Obviously, in the ideal design, a game should know how to guide the player on the solutions to the puzzles, but without falling into the obvious. Likewise, the game needed a lot more playtesting time, as it feels quite unpolished at certain points. For example, sometimes you can redo the same action of picking up an object twice.

All in all, a great game, with a nice puzzle design, that has only a few small problems, a nice story, excellent humour and one of the best performances I had the pleasure of hearing in a game: that of the Monty Python Eric Idle as Rincewind.

PD: Maximiliam, maybe you are playing the first version of the game? Based on what I have read, that version has quite a few bugs. In the second version at least, which is the one I have played, there is no problem with going to and from L-Space. At least in dosbox.

Spoiler

The Adventure Legends has the first version only, just in case.

 

[CyberWhale]

Finished 1+2.

Don't really get the complaints about difficulty to be honest. Like at all. Sure 1 featured plenty of moon logic and needs plenty of patience, but I've played harder 90's adventures and 2 was super easy.

Now looking at Discworld Noir, but noticed that ScummVM doesn't support the engine (only some preliminary work done for years) and there are no real guides for playing on modern hardware. Can somebody help?

Or should I just go for the Playstation version in an emulator?

Edit: Ah, yah. Shittiest thing about Discworld 1 was the L-Space animation. Probably took 3+ hours of playing time alone watching that shit.

How to Get Discworld Noir Working on Windows 10
https://www.payneful.co.uk/blogsplosion/2017/06/15/how-to-get-discworld-noir-working-on-windows-10/

Discworld Noir Win10 Fix by Loma
http://www.mediafire.com/file/cifk85ab5s8u142/DiscWorldNoir_Fix.zip/file

P.S. I know I have pinged you on the wall, but wanted to provide the fix for other people as well.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Is there a legal way of obtaining Discworld games?

You need to change the laws to do that.

 

[Darth Canoli]

You need to change the laws to do that.

 

[Dexter]

Don't really get the complaints about difficulty to be honest. Like at all.

I played all of these years ago and don't remember that much about them anymore, but I remember being able to finish Discworld 2 and Discworld Noir and on two separate attempts to play through the first Discworld getting stuck in exactly the same spot halfway through the game and not even a Walkthrough helping me find a solution, so I never finished it. I think it was something like the character I was supposed to interact with on a screen didn't appear or I didn't find a specific object or something.

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

There was a game-breaking bug in one of the Discworld 1 builds. That's probably what you ran into.