This is a spoiler-free guide for people who wish to check out the game Loom, a point-and-click adventure game designed by Brian Moriarty and developed and published by Lucasfilm Games in 1990. This is not a walkthrough and is just meant as an intro to inform people what the best version of the game is and help get started playing.

Why Should I Play It?

Loom is a must play for fans of point-and-click adventure games. Unlike other games from the era, including other adventure games by Lucasfilm Games, there is no inventory and all the puzzles revolve around spells you cast using musical notes created by your staff. It’s a fascinating system for an adventure game and was a joy to play as someone that was a fan of other Lucasarts games. The game also features wonderful art in the EGA version and the version of Swan Lake that plays throughout the game is very well done. All the puzzles felt very logical to me and it’s shorter than other games by Lucasfilm Games, making it easy to recommend to people new to the genre as well. I only played the game for the first time a few years ago and felt that it held up very well. There are no deaths or (as far as I know) any dead ends you can hit in this game, which makes it another reason why it’s a great game for adventure game beginners.

How Do I Get Started?

Unfortunately, the version available on Steam and GOG is not the one people generally prefer, which is the EGA version of the game. While the EGA version has less colors, the art is still superior to the later cd-rom VGA version, which is the one available today. In addition to this, the VGA version made room for the voice acting on the cd by cutting many lines of dialog, closeups of characters talking, multiple puzzle solutions, and censored some cutscenes. My recommendation would be to download the EGA version of the game from your illegal software download site of choice, but buy the VGA version of the game on Steam or GOG so you still own a copy legally. If you are curious about trying the game with 256 colors, I would recommend finding the FM-Towns version. While it does not have the voice acting that the cd-rom version has, it does not cut nearly as much as that version.

Before you start playing the game, I would strongly recommend listening to the audio drama prequel here. This was a cassette that came with the original release of the game. It’s fun to listen to, provides some important background information before you play, and it’s only 30 minutes long.

Once you have the game downloaded and have listened to the prequel, you are ready to play. The game runs well in both ScummVM and DREAMM. If you’re unfamiliar with DREAMM, give it a shot. It was created by Aaron Giles, a former employee at Lucasarts, and is an emulator exclusively for Lucasarts games that aims to be a more accurate emulation of these games, including using the original save and load menus.

Tips for Playing Loom

There’s a couple things to keep in mind while playing the game that will help you full appreciate it

Take Notes
The spells you learn in this game are not saved to any sort of in-game notebook, so make sure you write them down instead of trying to memorize it all. Many of the spells are randomized so you will not be able to just look it up in a walkthrough later.

Hints Are Ok!
If you’re struggling with a part of the game and it’s getting in the way of you enjoying the game, it’s ok to look up hints! I think this guide on UHS Hints is good for giving hints for what to do next, without giving away the entire solution.