Loom - A Fantastic Adventure,  Friday, 10 August 2007 The graphic adventure Loom by Lucasfilm Games (later Lucasarts) was unique. Not just from the story and atmosphere, but also technically. It did not use the traditional Lucasfilm Games/Lucasarts engine to control the the characters in the game, which was used prior Loom in adventures like Zak McKracken and Maniac Mansion and after Loom in adventures like The Secret of Monkey Island, Monkey Island 2 and Indiana Jones 3 and 4.

The controls were much more simple and provided less options for the player. To the simplified navigation was a unique control added that allowed the player to play sequences of sound. Those sounds play a key role in the game, because they trigger actions in the game if used at the right place and the right time.

Loom uses less colors than the Lucas games that follow, like Monkey Island, but even with the limited number of colors were the designers able to create beautiful images and scenery's that were enhanced by fantastic background music.

The story is a fantasy fairy tale and was well scripted. Although some joke were added to the game, remained the atmosphere overall very melancholic and sad. It is after all a sad story of a lonely pupil who is trying to find out what happened to his clan members who miraculously disappeared at the beginning of the game.

The puzzles are not very hard and are quickly solved by experienced adventure gamers. It is a great game for people who are new to the genre. Loom was also the first adventure game for me and opened up the whole world of Lucasarts adventures for me. The game-play is somewhere around 1-2 hours, if you know all the puzzles and can play it through that it looks like a movie. It is much shorter than most other Lucasarts adventures.

Loom remains my favorite adventure from Lucasarts, even though Monkey Island 1+2, Indiana Jones 3+4, Full Throttle and The Dig tried hard to kick it off the throne. I always hoped that Lucasarts will release a upgraded CD-Rom version for the PC with enhanced graphics, animations and speech. It did unfortunately never happened.