Posted by cybersoyuz 1 day ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOPiSYUSrQ0
and the second, which is one of my favorite videos of all time (if you only watch one, I'd pick this one)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMVl5U3SlS0
I think he mentions Old Man Murray's piece in the second!
Just watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si_iveNrUPo
And tell me if you can hear "Siera ga ookuri suru Thexder" (Thexder presented by Sierra) there. Even now, at most I can make out Sierra and a distorted bit of Thexder, even knowing how Thexder is rendered into katakana.
Puzzle Dependency charts in game design help this (from Ron Gilbert/ Monkey Island etc...).
Very few modern adventure games bring any of that back.
A lot of early adventure games were Cruel - requiring the user to replay the game over and over because they got something wrong was a cheap way to extend play time without having to add more content. Thankfully, most modern developers have realized that players hate having to do that.
> It was created by the game's producer, Steven Hill, after a puzzle designed by the game's lead designer, Jane Jensen, was cut due to budgetary reasons.
> It came as a result of a puzzle created by the game's designer, Jane Jensen, needing to be removed due to budget concerns.
What an incredibly classic, braindead tragedy.
I laughed a bit too hard at this. Pure "follow my train of thought" puzzles aren't the most fun, and I think they fit best in the larger context of something like Uncharted. Just give me a skip button.
I can also recommend his other site, Analog Antiquarian[1] where he writes more about the larger history. His Magellan series that's going on now is really amazing, makes you feel like you're really experiencing the epic voyage through South America and South East Asia.
[0] https://www.filfre.net/2018/06/doing-windows-part-1-ms-dos-a...
EY later settled in court at 300 million but never admitted any wrongdoing. So much for the reputation of the "big four" which at the time was still known as "big five".
Find a discrepancy and every damn time the auditors will say “oh, that information was not provided to us”.
It’s like if you hired a judge for your own prosecution. What judge is going to find you guilty?
See also ratings agencies in 2008.
https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/ubss-auditor-issues...
I think this says more about how worrisome UBS is than how unreliable auditing is.
And then:
> “Have you and Ken ever thought about selling Sierra?” <Forbes> asked her out of the blue one day in the lobby of the Paris hotel.
> “No,” Roberta answered shortly. “We’re not interested.”
> “But if you ever were, what sort of price would you be looking at?”
> “A lot,” Roberta replied, then walked away as quickly as decorum allowed.
Pretty clear which of the two was the better business person.
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softporn_Adventure
Interesting to read the link to the Leisure Suit Larry game.
It's entirely possible that everyone in the photo needs to pee.
Edit: common homophone issue
The pirates of pestulon base in space quest 3 I think. It was pretty funny. Making fun of the cubicle office which was pretty much Avant la lettre back then (i know in Europe we only really got those in the late 90s). In 2000 I still had my own office as a trainee
It's such a contrast then to read (what I find profoundly distasteful) quotes like this from the other side of the company. Ken Williams: "I read books about business executives who owned yachts and jets, and who hung out with beautiful models in fancy mansions. I knew that was my future and I couldn’t wait to claim it.".
It's a tragedy Ken Williams managed to overrule nearly everyone familiar with Sierra (including his wife) opposed to the acquisition by CUC.
On the second point, when I read his book (https://kensbook.com/) I was disappointed to not hear about the magic of the games themselves and the creative process behind them. It became clear that his primary goal was to grow a business, he thought being a game distributor was more exciting, but then was disrupted by Steam, shareware, and online distribution.
I can’t play a game like Luigi’s Mansion without feeling like that was one of the inspirations.
Before BG3 came out I started to try to finish BG which I played but got stuck a third of the way through. I made it at least halfway, but then the betas were coming out so I just watched other people play through on YouTube. Which I suspect many people did if they even bothered exerting themselves that much.
What other games have good playthroughs?
They just released Colossal Cave a few years ago.
Nothing good lasts forever, that's just how it is.
Oh, I played many of the others, but SQ -- specifically II -- was what made me fall in love with adventure games, warts and all. I learned English (well, besides taking actual English classes anyway) by typing words in its text interface.
I remember being nine years old, sitting in front of SQ1 with my best friend, and trying to survive the escape pod early in the game. How do you avoid dying when it crashes on an alien world?
Our only hope was my neighbor who was a few years older and seemingly infinitely wise. I called him up, and patiently he spelled out the magic words to type before launching the escape pod:
“FASTEN SEAT BELT”
What do those words mean? We had no idea, but we lived on to explore another world.
A few years later I could read and write English just fine, but had no idea how anything was pronounced. Sierra English was a real thing among my generation.
https://kotaku.com/spaceventure-space-quest-kickstarter-stea...
I backed the project, but at one of the lowest levels, so I'm not really mad. It's just kind of sad.
I've read an article that guesses they must have attempted changing Unity versions at least a couple of times, partly because they couldn't figure out how to solve a savegame bug (still not working right!).
Somehow this reminds me of Duke Nukem Forever.
To be honest I'm not sure I want to relive that era; my memories of it are some of the fondest, but I don't think I'd like to play these games nowadays (it's been a while since I replayed them using DOSBox or ScummVM!).
(Spoiler for Part II of this article, I guess!)
For one example, Ultima 1 was developed by a couple people, sold for ~$40 USD, and eventually sold over 1.5m copies according to https://www.newspapers.com/article/austin-american-statesman... and other sources. So that alone probably made everyone involved in the game's development millionaires, even if the publisher took a huge cut.
Doom/Quake is about as realistic as Escape From Tarkov is easy-going, light hearted, non-at-all-sweaty fun.
> People don't strictly want to play games as much as they want [an] experience
this would ^ probably be more accurate version of your statement. it's not always about realism.
That’s a very sweeping statement to make about a very large number of unrelated people. I happen to be a gamer and your statement doesn’t describe my wishes or experiences very well at all!
I’d much rather play a game of NetHack than some new ultra-realistic PS5 game. I’m not the only one who feels this way. There a ton of other people like me. People who enjoy retro games, puzzle games, point and click adventure games, RPGs, strategy games, and countless other games that aren’t focused on immersive graphics or realistic simulations.
Been playing on and off for 20 years and have only managed a single ascension in that time!
If you haven’t heard of it, check out The November NetHack Tournament [1]. I played it for the first time in November of last year and almost got a Wizard win (ran out of time) after getting so close with a Monk (got killed by Rodney’s touch of death after he stole my only source of magic resistance).
I’m looking forward to playing again this year!
What do you mean by that? Do you mean in the context of that era?
IME people what games to be fun because every single genre has a multitude of conceits to make the game playable and technologically feasible. The ones that eschew (most of) those conceits like ARMA and flight simulators are very niche or like Dwarf Fortress and Factorio, complexity is the point (which requires its own conceits to be feasible).
People want to ride into battle and swing swords and conquer civilizations, not manage the intricacies of military campaign logistics and foraging operations and tax collection.
I assure you that there is a niche market of folks who absolutely love the latter. My father was in the military logistics group.
Have you ever played D&D? There is no graphics, it's all in your head. I've played amazing adventures many years ago that I can still visualize in my head.
A few years later, the investment cycle moved on towards 3D and online. Different medium, different message. That really is all that is needed to explain the trends. Galaga remains fun and playable, but nobody is marketing Galaga as the next big thing, so it isn't making sales charts.
Isn't this what is leading AAA game studios to financial ruin these days? Incrementally improved realism has become unaffordable.
0: https://www.vice.com/en/article/inside-story-sierra-online-d...
I came away kind of sickened by the "corporatization" of art (and I think game development is a kind of art when it's at its best). Budgets, deadlines... Gross.
Wild window in time though that was.