History VideoGame / Loom

* TrulySingleParent: Bobbin was woven out of a single gray thread through the power of RealityWarper alone. It's somewhat unclear if Bobbin is actually Cygna's dead baby that she weaved new life into, since drafts can raise the dead under some circumstances, or if he's an entirely new person, making Cygna an example of this trope.

---> '''Bobbin:''' [[Film/StarWars I have a very bad feeling about this.]]

* WeCanRuleTogether: [[spoiler:Chaos pulls this on Bobbin toward the end of the game, not just asking but telling him that he will be its advisor in the use of the Loom. It isn't fazed when Bobbin immediately shuts the idea down, arrogantly believing that he will cave with enough time and pressure. [[HoistedByHisOwnPetard This keeps Bobbin alive long enough to defeat it.]]]]

''Loom'' is an epic fantasy {{adventure|Game}}, released by [[Creator/LucasArts Lucasfilm Games]] in 1990, which tells of the Age of the Great Guilds, a time when the peoples of the game's world banded together to form city-states around their chosen profession. One of these guilds, the Guild of Weavers, eventually perfected their craft so that they could weave more than just fabric, and started weaving drafts into the very fabric of reality itself. Shunned by the other guilds as practitioners of witchcraft, the Guild of Weavers isolated themselves from the rest of the world onto an island of their own, naming it after the great Loom they held as the symbol of their guild.

* BalefulPolymorph: This was presumably the ''idea'' behind the elder's method of banishing Cygna by turning her into a swan. By the beginning of the game, however, not only has her power returned but [[spoiler:the swan form ends up being [[CursedWithAwesome incredibly helpful,]] allowing her and the rest of the Weavers (including Bobbin) to easily travel outside of the pattern and carry their half of the world to safety.]]

* AlmightyJanitor: Taken UpToEleven and ''beyond'' in the backstory. The guilds started out as just that, guilds representing common laborers, like glassmakers, blacksmiths, and shepherds, but now have all evolved to a point where they rule the world. For instance, the glassmakers can make crystal balls that can see the future, or they can make an AbsurdlySharpBlade out of glass which is so powerful that they're afraid to use it. The weavers, of course, became powerful [[RealityWarper Reality Warpers]] capable of reweaving reality itself.

* TheQueensLatin: The voice acting in the audio drama and the talkie version (which has all of the same actors plus a few more) reveals that all of the characters have some manner of British accent, with most characters having English accents and the Shepherds having, Scottish accents.

* TheQueensLatin: The voice acting in the audio drama and the talkie version (which has all of the same actors plus a few more) reveals that all of the characters have some manner of British accent, except the Shepherds who are, of course, Scottish.

** Several PC games after ''Loom'', made by Creator/LucasArts or not, included references both to it and to Brian Moriarity. Bishop Mandible's assistant, Cobb, even shows up in ''VideoGame/TheSecretOfMonkeyIsland'' as an NPC pimping off this game.

* WorldOfSnark: Though not nearly as egregious as the more comedy-focused Lucasarts titles, the entire script is still generously peppered with dry humor. Not even the [[spoiler:AnthropomorphicPersonification BigBad is safe.]]

* ApocalypseMaiden: Bobbin, being conceived through magic, is destined to bring about the Third Shadow. [[spoiler:[[SubvertedTrope This is only the prejudice of the Elders]], however; apparently, the patterns is actually failing of its own accord.]]

* BalefulPolymorph: This was presumably the ''idea'' behind the elder's method of banishing Cygna by turning her into a swan. By the beginning of the game, however, not only has her power returned but [[spoiler:the swan form ends up being [[CursedWithAwesome incredibly helpful,]] allowing her and the rest of the Weavers (including Bobbin) to easily travel outside of the Pattern and carry their half of the world to safety.]]

* TheQueensEnglish: The voice acting in the audio drama and the talkie version (which has all of the same actors plus a few more) reveals that all of the characters have some manner of British accent, except the Shepherds who are, of course, Scottish.

* RadioDrama: The talkie version was done by veteran radio voice actors, averting the usual "bad, early video game voice acting by developers".

* AllThereInTheManual: Some versions of the game [[{{Feelies}} came shipped with an audio cassette]] containing a thirty-minute audio drama that tells the game's backstory.

* ApocalypseMaiden: Bobbin, being conceived through magic, is destined to bring about the Third Shadow.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Bobbin turns into a swan, and, together with the other weavers, is only able to save half the world after sacrificing the Loom. The BigBad, Chaos, claims the other half of the world, swearing to torment and ruin it so Bobbin will forever be tormented by thoughts of the half of humanity he abandoned. Oh, and Hetchel dies. In fairness, the story was ''supposed'' to get a continuation, but the failure of the sequels to materialize means that the ending suffers from LeftHanging something fierce.]]

* AmbiguouslyHuman: While the Weavers ''were'' human at least at some point, something happened to them along the line that now causes [[spoiler:immediate, agonizing death to anybody who sees them without their hoods on.]] It's also suggested that they [[TheBlank do not have faces]], or maybe even ''[[LivingClothes bodies]].''

* BrownNote: It is said to be death to look upon the face of the [[InTheHood perpetually hooded]] Weavers. [[spoiler:Turns out, it's true.]]

* AmbiguouslyHuman: While the Weavers ''were'' human at least at some point, something happened to them along the line that now causes [[spoiler:immediate, agonizing death to anybody who sees them without their hoods on.]] It's also suggested that they [[spoiler:[[TheBlank do not have faces]], or maybe even ''[[LivingClothes bodies]].'']]

* VideoGameCaringPotential: Bobbin can choose to restore the Blacksmiths' firewood supply with the filling draft after escaping their prison cell.

''Loom'' is an epic fantasy {{adventure|Game}}, released by Creator/LucasArts in 1990, which tells of the Age of the Great Guilds, a time when the peoples of the game's world banded together to form city-states around their chosen profession. One of these guilds, the Guild of Weavers, eventually perfected their craft so that they could weave more than just fabric, and started weaving drafts into the very fabric of reality itself. Shunned by the other guilds as practitioners of witchcraft, the Guild of Weavers isolated themselves from the rest of the world onto an island of their own, naming it after the great Loom they held as the symbol of their guild.

** [[spoiler: The CD version has Bobbin state that healing the body was actually easy, but it required the actual soul being there, which could only happen thanks to Mandible's tearing the pattern open in the first place. So, this only works in an actual doomsday scenario.]]

* DoomedHometown: Weaver Island, as well as [[spoiler: the rest of the world]]. However, except for [[KickTheDog one]], all the residents of Weaver Island survive the ordeal! In fact, in a strange way, the very act that doomed the hometown actually saved them all, and [[spoiler: they survive when the world is torn in half. Everyone in the wrong half of the world is left behind to a bleak future at the hands of Chaos and the horde of the dead]].

* GainaxEnding: Due to the limitations of how the graphics can portray what happens in the game, the events of the ending can be confusing. [[spoiler: After the entire world is split in two, the swans take the other half and fly away with it. But what it looks like in-game is that they're flying with the ''hole'', inside the ''other'' half where they left all the other characters.]]

* TheGrimReaper: The game implies that our image for the Grim Reaper comes from [[spoiler: Chaos, it even gets a huge scythe]].

* NowDoItAgainBackwards / MagicAIsMagicA: Drafts can be reversed -- that is, their notes played in the opposite order -- to create the opposite effect. A few drafts are palindromic in nature and thereby have no reverse. [[spoiler: The Transcendence draft, despite being reversible, does absolutely nothing if reversed.]]

** [[spoiler: Even more literal in the CD version : "For this, you will be rewarded. Join me now -- as my SLAVE."]]

* WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway: Subverted with the Dyeing draft. Bobbin '''really''' hates how he can only make objects green, but it helps him save a flock of sheep later. [[spoiler: As the only white-colored moving object, he gets taken instead.]]

** This becomes an almost-plot point (and somewhat frustrating) in that at one point near the end, [[spoiler: Chaos]] uses a draft in a cutscene (but close enough for the player to hear.) Unfortunately, you're not carrying your distaff at the time (which normally echoes music and shows you which notes to play.) It's totally possible, if you have a good ear,[[labelnote:*]]and the game's Expert mode is essentially the special mode for people who have ''exactly'' this kind of good ear,[[/labelnote]] to recognize the notes of the draft and play it yourself. In some versions of the game, you use this draft later, and you have to learn it the 'proper' way [[spoiler:(at great personal cost)]] before it will work. (In other versions of the game, you use a different draft.)

* DoomedHometown: Weaver Island, as well as [[spoiler: the rest of the world]]. However, except for [[KickTheDog one]], all the residents of Weaver Island survive the ordeal! In fact, in a strange way, the very act that doomed the hometown actually saved them all, and [[spoiler: they survive when the world is torn in half. Everyone in the wrong half of world is left behind to a bleak future at the hands of Chaos and the horde of the dead]].

* DummiedOut:
** An early screenshot showed a room in the Glassmakers' City with three giant sandglasses, two of which had run out and were sealed up; the last one was open at the top and a worker was pouring sand into it to keep it running. The three sandglasses of course represent [[spoiler: the three Shadows, of which the first two have long since passed, and the third is imminent]]. Some sources say the room was cut to save disk space, while Brian Moriarty claims the room was cut when Crystalguard was redesigned during development. The sandglasses can still be glimpsed in the 16-color version, in the wide shot of the city (though they were painted out in the VGA upgrade).
*** The existence of a puzzle can be deduced: [[spoiler: Bobbin was probably going to use the Emptying draft (which you can play by the time you get to Crystalgard) to empty the sandglasses. The running sands mark the time remaining until the Third Shadow: they were being replenished indefinitely, but presumably Bobbin screws that up and reduces the symbolic time until the Apocalypse to nil. NiceJobBreakingItHero! Alternately, playing the draft in reverse might have ''added'' time before the apocalypse.]] All Moriarty has said on the subject, to date, is that it would've been a time-travelling puzzle.
** VGA renderings of the character closeups, first created for the FM-TOWNS release, were planned to be used in the CD-ROM version and are still present in the datafiles. However, except for Chaos, all of them went unused, allegedly due to an inability to create convincing lip-sync animations. (One artist, apparently frustrated by all this work going to waste, actually hid a scathing message in the Elder Atropos closeup - LOOM SUCKS!)

At its time of release, ''Loom'' was noted for its ambitious fantasy story, imaginative setting and surprisingly barren user interface: The only item the player could carry was the Distaff, a magical instrument used to shape the world around the player and solve puzzles, which was used by learning and casting short four-note drafts that could be heard around the game world. Most of these drafts were also randomly generated at the start of each game, meaning they would have to be re-learned on each individual playthrough[[note]]The CD version does not randomize the drafts: instead, you are not allowed to use a draft until you've heard it[[/note]].

Two sequels, ''Forge'' and ''The Fold'', wherein the player would take control over two minor characters, whom Bobbin met in the course of ''Loom'''s story, were supposed to bring closure to the StoryArc started by ''Loom'', but due to a lack of manpower, work on on them never began. There is a fan-made sequel in the works, available [[http://forgegame.com/ here]] with a demo out.

* KansasCityShuffle: Bishop Mandible traps Bobbin in a cage, but doesn't take the magical distaff Bobbin carries. [[CardboardPrisonBig mistake]], right? [[SubvertedTropeNot quite]] -- Mandible is actually after the Draft of Opening. He watches Bobbin cast the spell to unlock the cage and then takes the distaff.