AGS - Which way are you heading

[magintz]

Latley I've been playing a lot of the old classic Sierra games, including Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest and Space Quest; mostly games I have never played.

I began to realise something, AGS has abilities to make games such as ones like these, but I feel that it is slipping more to the Lucas-Arts side of the genre; much like the games I make. I really do miss some of the classic text-parser games, where some puzzles reside within the wording.

I play a lot of AGS games nowadays, and although not have some of the best, biggest adventuring knowledge I'm still a fan. I think that alliance can usually be spread by the first adventure game you pick up, which for me was Hugo House of Horrors, followed by Monkey Island 1. Because of this I chose lucas-arts games - the graphics were better, the humour was more enjoyable, guybrush had such a funny name, and I was a n00b on the adventure scene and didn't enjoy dead ends or death.

Most of the community seem to have forgotten about all CJ's hard work in implementing the text parser, so somebody please use it, I really enjoy sitting at my keyboard thinking up things to do

My main argument in this post, is really to get you thinking, which way are you swaying, and why? - is it because of the first game you ever played?
Why does it seem that Sierra style games aren't as popular?

Thanks for reading my random outburst of jibberish

[Nacho]

I preffer Lucas because I see silly that you can die by clicking in a cliff or something like that. Sierra games were not reallistic in that aspect. Do you remeber how Laura Bow died everytime we click in the road? Is she stupid? can´t she see the comming cars? And what about King Graham? Can´t he see the cliffs, why don´t he stop? Lucas´ were better, and there were not dead ends. Ron Gilbert said: It is stupid that when you´re in an adventure game in New York you can´t go on in the adventure because you forgot to pick a pencil in Los Angeles... There are no pencis in New York? I agree with him.

New York is full of Pencils...

[magintz]

^_^

I think that deaths in adventure games can be badly done, but sometimes I like a little death, e.g you have 5 minutes to disarm the bomb and if you fail you die. I think that all adventure game characters should have built in common sense, how many times have you played Kings Quest and fell off a cliff or drowned? and how many times have you tried to pick up an object and he says he doesnt need it? If he has the common sense to see into the future and know he's not going to need the object, surely he knows that cliffs are dangerous and water is wet.

Dead-ends can be even more frustarting. In a game I am currently planning there are suitable dead-ends, where if you miss something, you have to do another puzzle somewhere to make up for it, and that only happens once.

[Minimi]

hey, I made a textadventure recently, in multimedia fusion, and you can play download it at my website Im planning on making a textadventures in combination with panorama pictures.

[aussie]

I started playing King's Quest and I loved them, that's how I got into adventure games. Then came Space Quest, Police Quest, Quest for Glory, Gold Rush! and so forth.

But boy, when MI came out, they changed the concept of adventure games - no dying, no dead ends, no guess-what-word-the-programmer-was-thinking-of... MI ruled!

I still think of sierra games with affection, but I have to agree with Farlander. Lucas imporved upon sierra's concept.

[Privateer Puddin']

stop telling people to use the parser, my game wont be as special!!

[Raggit]

Lucas bitterly stole Sierra's concept and ruined it.



Just my opinion.

[DarkStalkey]

Troll.

[Scummbuddy]

Raggit, care to elaborate?  Im just curious, not attacking you.

My first adventure game was Moop and Dreadly, wait no, it was Monkey Island, back when it first hit shelves, and I was just like 7 years old.  It was amazing.  Growing up with more LucasArts goodness, I then learned about Sierra's games, and they really never interested me, mostly for the said reasons above, nor do I have any interest in playing them now.  I would though play one made by our friends here with that style in mind, but I'm always a sucker for games styled in the ways I grew up with.

[AGA]

The simple fact is that you can't rightly compare Sierra and LEC games. They are completely different, and pretty much the only similarity is that they're adventures.

LEC tended to make humourous games, with little serious content (Indy excepted, obviously), Sierra made more serious games (with a few more humourous exceptions like SQ and LSL).

LEC wouldn't let you die (usually), Sierra was FULL of deaths.

LEC games tended to be a bit easier, and easier to play and complete, finishing a Sierra game was quite an undertaking, filled with deaths and dead-ends.

Although I love both Sierra and LEC, I don't think you can really decide who's 'best', given just how different they are. If you like LEC's games, but not Sierra, then great, but that doesn't make LEC the better company, it just means Sierra doesn't appeal to you.

[Timosity]

I preffer Lucas because I see silly that you can die by clicking in a cliff or something like that. Sierra games were not reallistic in that aspect. Do you remeber how Laura Bow died everytime we click in the road? Is she stupid? can´t she see the comming cars? And what about King Graham? Can´t he see the cliffs, why don´t he stop? Lucas´ were better, and there were not dead ends. Ron Gilbert said: It is stupid that when you´re in an adventure game in New York you can´t go on in the adventure because you forgot to pick a pencil in Los Angeles... There are no pencis in New York? I agree with him.

New York is full of Pencils...

But if you are silly enough to click off a cliff you should fall off, which is more realistic to start with, and as for pencils, what if you were stuck in a cage in New York and you forgot to pick up the Magic Marker in Brisbaine, cause you forgot to order it from Amsterdam, you'd be stuck in the cage without being able to draw a magic door, even if there was a magic marker in sight just out of reach at your present predicament.

Personally, I grew up with Sierra games, and didn't really play any LucArts games until later on, I prefer not dying and walking deads can suck, but what it comes down to is Sierra designed games that could really bug you and make you stuck, more for adults really.

LA designed more for a younger generation, but the games were just as good, I like them both, cause you get different feelings from playing them all, plus it gives you twice as many games to enjoy.

[Darth Mandarb]

I haven't played too many of LEC's games.

I would have to say I preferred Sierra's style.

Actually I preferred the really old style where you didn't use the mouse.  I liked typing in commands and using the keyboard to navigate.  There was a certain magic involved with it.

I didn't like how easy it was to die, but that just added to the challenge.

Hey, that's just my opinion!

dm

[Barcik]

Magintz, I think you are wrong in dividing between these two styles in relation with our games. Most games here are neither LEC, nor Sierra, but somewhere on the line between the two.

[Raggit]

Well, I guess I just get sick of people constantly going to war over the two.

Does it matter wich one we preffer??? Isn't it enough that we just like adventure games?

I phrased my first post wrong.  But what I mean is that in all rights Sierra had basically invented the graphic adventure game, and in my eyes LEC copied the idea.

But hey, if you like LEC that's fine and if you like Sierra that's fine.  It'd be better if we could all get along becuase we LIKE adventure games, not WHOSE adventure games we like.

But having preferences is not wrong either.

[SSH]

Deja vu?

Basically, there are two types of people in the world:

Those that want to categorise everybody/thing into one of two categories and those that don't

I'm in the latter  

[magintz]

I didn't mean to start wars between the two companies, and isolate anyone because of there choice. All I wanted to do was get peoples opinions, see what they prefer and why, and which style they "sway" towards when making their games. Obviously everyone ahs there own unique style and most fall between the two.

With me I tend to sway more towards the lucasarts side, having actions such as walk-to, pickup etc, rather than the cycle through right click or text parser, as that involves far more work in my opinion.

I think that most people are bigger lucasarts fans purly because of the timing when their adventure games where released. The games were aimed at teenagers (mostly) and so fell into our category, while Sierra aimed for the older generation, before some of us where born .

I don't want people to make choices and reject one company just becasue you "prefer" the other, but I want to see if you understand why you are leaning to one alliance, whether it be loyalty or enjoyment.

[TerranRich]

My game sways more toward the Sierra style, simply because I am more familiar with it. My first adventure game, after Hugo I, was Space Quest IV, and then King's Quest V. Then, I got into the other Quest games, while my dad got into LSL  :

My first LEC game was (not surprisingly) Monkey Island I, which I first played (surprisingly) about 6 months ago. Until I joined the AGS community early last year, I had only known about Sierra  adventure games; I didn't even know LEC existed. Therefore, my game uses a Sierra-style menu interface. I wasn't intuitive enough to create my own.

[Darth Mandarb]

SSH - No!!!  There are THREE types of people in this world.  Those who can count and those who can't.

I think both styles  are acceptable.  I don't have a problem using one or the other,  I just perfer the old-old-school stylings of the godfater of adventure games, Sierra.

Can't we all just get along???

dm

[magintz]

I agree (slightly) with DM, Sierra is almost like the creator of adventure games, they were the first big company to really take adventure games seriously as a genre. They developed the first generation of addiction, which later spawed into what we see today.

Lucasarts can be more enjoyable than the Sierra games, but that's becasue it's been refined to suit a more modern audience, unlike Sierra which still remains a long away memory of the past which we all miss and cherish deep within our fat encrusted hearts.

[Trapezoid]

Yeah, Sierra invented the graphic adventure, but LucasArts instilled some theory and a sense of cinematics into it. Sierra games didn't really have much of a plot, they were more like serials or something. In the 90s, though, they started taking a little inspiration from LucasArts, and made some great games, like Gabriel Knight...