For anyone that didn't know Larry is out.

[Iliya]

I re-played it. Everything is perfect - background graphics, jokes, music, voices. One thing I didn't like - character animation. Especially girls walking animations. Terrible. The city map is also very bad drawn. But I enjoyed it, everything else is very nice.

[Secret Fawful]

I do agree that I'd rather see Al Lowe make a new game. I would like to see LSL 3 given the VGA treatment, though. Mage's Initiation has gorgeous graphics and isn't filled with low brow humor. That helps. As far as I remember, Leisure Suit Larry barely made it, and it wasn't doing too well for a while. The Kickstarter only made 155k over the goal, and you have to take into account the fact that most Kickstarters get the most contributions at the beginning and end of the campaign. LSL had about 14k backers, while Broken Age had around 87k. The difference between the success of a Lucas alumni and a Sierra alumni is pretty big. Broken Sword had only 14k backers but it made over 300k over its goal. Jane Jensen and Tex Murphy did way worse, but in terms of big name, well known adventure games, I'd say LSL didn't do great. Larry is easily one of the top ten most recognizable adventure games. You also have to take into account that the people who backed it are probably not going to be needing to buy a copy, so I don't know how well it will do after the fact. Most of the Sierra remakes here were made during a time when, I personally, don't remember seeing a lot of criticism toward Sierra. It's really become more of a recent criticism.

[Andail]

I really don't understand what you're trying to say. Do Sierra and LucasArt have to be equally popular due to some kind of ancient agreement? Can't people just like different things?

One thing that annoys me is when people attribute others' disliking in something to an artificial, insincere pretense. Like whenever someone tells a rude joke that happens to be really boring, and when nobody laughs he complains they're being too PC to appreciate it.

I was brought up on a diet of Sierra games and little else - I played all the LSLs, all the SQs, PQs, KQs etc before I even looked at a LucasArt title. They're still really dear to me. But in retrospect, many of those games were flawed in many ways, and especially their sense of humour feels dated now. They fail to entertain a post-pubertal me, anyway.

[Secret Fawful]

There are flawed LucasArts games too, and more than people would like to pretend. I don't care if what I say is annoying. Sierra games are both unfairly judged and hated, and their flaws make people overlook their design successes and innovations. In fact, most would say they had no innovations, but were only backwards.

Sierra might have made some hard games, and even had dead ends in some games, but their flaws never equaled the bottoms that The Last Crusade fell to, and Day of the Tentacle was a massive step backwards in design innovation from the game that coined the term cutscene. Replacing the original, unique Winnick art style with Chuck Jone's CalArts bullshit was a massive-enough disappointment. I can argue that Sierra games deserve to be equally popular or at least respected, and I will argue it. Maybe not Leisure Suit Larry in terms of innovation, and I personally don't like Space Quest, but Laura Bow, Gold Rush, Gabriel Knight, Police Quest, and Quest For Glory all have great design, and four of those series are overlooked or becoming overlooked because of current prejudices. Whenever people bring up Gabriel Knight, nowadays people tend to think about the article on Gabriel Knight 3 (which has good puzzles besides the infamous one), and go EWWWWWWWWWWW. People look at the timed gameplay in Colonel's Bequest, and the dead ends it can create in the narrative, and go EWWWWWWWWW, while ignoring how it fits murder mystery cliches and investigation into the design. Laura Bow 2 took it a step further and brought those cliches, investigation styles, and deduction into both mechanics and design, with things like relevant topics jotted down in a notebook, eavesdropping, finding and NEEDING evidence to pin down the culprit at the end, etc. but is overlooked and bashed because it hides items. Gold Rush has large, expansive, branching quests epic in scope, especially for the time, but "it's HAAAAARD wahhhh gonna soil my diaper and cry". Police Quest had interesting procedural gameplay with impressive attention to detail, but "that's tedious wahhhh I'm gonna moan and piss my pants". Gabriel Knight used its investigative gameplay and descriptions to paint the world, scenes, and story in a way very closely resembling how a novel works, and I loved that. At the very least the first two are still somewhat respected, but I have seen people go pish tosh to the whole series because of what they heard about three.

Hell, you can respect something without liking it. I admit I hold respect for Day of the Tentacle for its multiple character gameplay, animation quality, and memorable characters themselves. But if one can't look at the merits of something even when they don't enjoy it, then they're biased. And there is a lot of LucasArts bias, especially in terms of design.

Speaking of AGS, Ben Jordan did a great job of mixing the good merits of both design styles.

[ThreeOhFour]

The difference between the success of a Lucas alumni and a Sierra alumni is pretty big.

Bill Tiller's failed.

[Secret Fawful]

The difference between the success of a Lucas alumni and a Sierra alumni is pretty big.

Bill Tiller's failed.

That's a fair point, and he had A Vampyre Story and Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island in between, both immensely unpopular. However, there is one difference, that being how vocal the criticism of Tiller is. It's not very vocal at all. People tend to go, eh, I dunno, I wish him success but AVS was disappointing. Sierra on the other hand gets a mob with pitchforks and fiery torches. Hell, lots of people wish Bill more success, especially his fellow designers, like Ron and Tim.

Oh, and I forgot the Two Guys From Andromeda kickstarter, which did even poorer than Larry, with only 39k over its goal and 10k backers. That one almost didn't make it.

[ThreeOhFour]

Yeah, Andromeda guys did juuuust scrape in. There is definitely acknowledgement of at least some of the weaker moments in LA games, though. Sure, everyone mentions that cat hair puzzle, but everyone also mentions the monkey wrench puzzle. Everyone goes on about how much Phantasmagoria sucks (it does) but people also go on about how Escape From Monkey Island is Satan's own sinister mewling fetus (I kinda liked it!). Sierra released a buttload more games, and some stuff - like Larry 2 - just attracts hate like a magnet because they embrace so many elements people dislike so wholeheartedly.

I think even ex-LucasArts guys have trouble getting their stuff noticed. Mike Levine and Larry Ahern's Insecticide flopped, which is a real shame. The Telltale guys do modestly well, but have not been brave enough to work on an original IP yet. I firmly believe that Schafer gets at least half of his modern adulation from Psychonauts, from people that don't even know what Full Throttle is, or care much about his days at LucasArts.

[Khris]

I'm "biased" towards LucasArts because their games had less design flaws. Yes, flaws. Not charming little weaknesses (or even features) that make it more challenging, FLAWS.
"Save early save often" is fine, and dying is also fine, but I simply dread the idea of being in a constant state of not knowing whether I'm stuck because I'm missing something or because the game is already unwinnable.
The other thing about Sierra games that I hate is that they feel "sticky". I don't know how to describe this, but the entire gameplay is like covered in syrup. It feels as if the CPU is constantly struggling with keeping up with the game, independent of the speed setting or the actual hardware power. I guess it's an engine thing. I just can't stand it.
Curiously, the older games don't have that. I really like Gold Rush! and Colonel's Bequest, and I play through them every year or so.

[Secret Fawful]

I wouldn't call Telltale's success modest since they won millions of game of the year awards for Walking Dead, a game I personally have a lot of objections with. (I hate zombies)

Anyway, I've been playing through Larry. The design is fine. The humor is fine. The narrator sucks. After hearing Al Lowe's soothing voice in the tutorial, I hate this annoying typical narrator voice.

The animation goes from being all right at first to absolutely awful later. I wonder if they ran out of money. Lots of one frame animations, and replacing actual movement with movement lines to simulate movement. Female walkcycles are absolute shit. The map screen is atrociously ugly. Still, I do want VGA 2 and 3, and an 8. I just know to expect low-budget animation, or almost none at all. There was one puzzle that was illogical; well, technically a few, but a lot of them had hints or direction. One just didn't, and it had a completely ridiculous result, even with the hint. I understand where their reasoning came from, but I thought it was dumb. (The cat) I also despise slot machines in adventure games. The slot machine in Space Quest 1 EGA killed that game for me. I can deal with dead ends, and tricky timing, and pixel hunts. I can not deal with chance based gameplay in a logic based genre, sitting for two hours waiting on a result. If the idea was to put me off of gambling (this wasn't the idea), then they succeeded.

[mkennedy]

So does the remake still use the SCI engine or whatever it was that Sierra used?

[AGA]

So does the remake still use the SCI engine or whatever it was that Sierra used?

No, all new (as far as Sierra games go).  It's Unity, I believe.

[miguel]

(...)and Day of the Tentacle was a massive step backwards in design innovation from the game that coined the term cutscene. Replacing the original, unique Winnick art style with Chuck Jone's CalArts bullshit was a massive-enough disappointment.

I don't agree with you here. What they did regarding backgrounds and sprite work was simply fantastic, a low-res master piece.
But of course, it's a matter of personal taste.

[Babar]

Adventure gamers nowadays don't have the patience for silly, dumb, low brow humor, basic stories, and traditional puzzles. That stuff is too low brow now. Also, anything that doesn't use LucasArts design rules to a tee is evil and should be avoided.

And really, though, who isn't a non-fan of Larry for these reasons anyway?

I am possibly being incredibly narcissistic here, but if part of what you're referring to is like my attitude in my Mechanics vs Narrative thread, let me preface this by saying I LOVED loads of Sierra games: KQ5 (which everyone hates) and 6 (didn't like 7), SQ1 and 3 and 4 (didn't really like 5 or 6), Quest for Glory 1,3 (which again everyone hates) and 4 (didn't much care for 5, of course ), Gabriel Knights 1 (didn't like 3 ), Conquest of Longbow, Dagger of Amon Ra, Willy Beamish, even the kids stuff like the Mixed-Up Mothergoose games and Eco Quests, and Heart of China and Woodruff and the Schnibble if they count. I admit I never really had the same passion for the Leisure Suit Larry games (still played them all, though ) and Freddy Pharkas (felt a bit aimless at the start), or Torin's Passage (so you can see why I didn't back his kickstarter) or Police Quest.

So while I don't LIKE much of their puzzle design (not that I knew that when I initially played the games), that didn't stop me from playing the games and loving them, but I have to admit that if I played them today, I'd probably have a walkthrough an alt-tab away (and I have played some of them I missed from my pre-internet days like that...I couldn't help it). And I loved the "low brow" humour in Space Quest ("You've been a real pantload!" still makes me smirk). Many people here have a hatred for mazes (Catacombs in KQ5 and Labyrinth in 6), but enjoyed that challenge and would immediately whip out a square grid notebook and mapping it out- it was a consistent system with rules I understood (entering any screen could potentially cause insta-death, save once safe in each screen, save at the start, etc.) and if followed them consistently. For me, the love of Sierra games was usually because of the atmosphere and immersion (tension of the Ice Queen in KQ5, or the hilarious quirks of the Islands in KQ6, the exploration and finding stuff in Conquest, the humour of the Space Quest games)and the rewards of solving puzzles (more places to explore, little animations, jokes, etc.) rather than the puzzles themselves.

I think there was a thread with "Your Favourite Puzzles" here a while back, and I can't honestly give the best Sierra games greater preference there over the best LucasArts ones...like the time travel puzzles in DotT, or the Insult Swordfighting in Monkey Island 1, or the entire mechanic of Loom- stuff that is again in a consistent and understandable system that still tax your noggin' and you can use or warp and twist in funny ways to get results. The closest thing I can come up with in the Sierra games I played was the final battle against the wizard in KQ5.

Sheesh...that was a long off-topic. But yeah, I didn't buy this remake, and probably won't any time soon.

[abstauber]

... and why is it always LSL 1? There's already the VGA remake - so why not remaking part 2. Or give us a new Codename Iceman
At least for me the VGA remake is more than sufficient, I even like the AGI version except for the music.

[Krazy]

Gotta say. I prefer Chuck Jones/Cal Arts over giant Jimmy Neutron bobble heads or square heads with one pixel noses and eyes.

[Secret Fawful]

Gotta say. I prefer Chuck Jones/Cal Arts over giant Jimmy Neutron bobble heads or square heads with one pixel noses and eyes.

One of these is unique and irreplaceable, not to mention reused in Zak. Unique art styles, especially translated so well to low res are worth keeping around, and Winnick's art fits the game SO well. I'll preserve game styles if it's in my power. I took the Monkey Island 1 deluxe paint style for my game because the original low res blues and pixel art is beautiful to me, and even has a magical quality, although I translate my own style through it. I know DOTT had great animation, and the team were from CalArts, which is why they picked the style. But the game completely removed the best aspect from Maniac Mansion, which was the use of timers and cutscenes to give the game a sense of place and to make the Edisons real people who operate independently of or because of your actions, as if they're people with "lives". More games need that sense of place. And I wasn't specifically referring to you, Babar.

[Krazy]

Don't you think it's better to try new things, evolve (even make mistakes) than to keep making the same game? Every LucasArts adventure is unique and different to the last in some way and I don't know why you would want otherwise.

[Trapezoid]

Maniac Mansion had an art style??

[Secret Fawful]

DOTT didn't really evolve. It didn't take the concepts and mechanics from the original and improve them. The multiple character system is largely the same, at least in scope. Maniac Mansion is one of the earliest graphic adventure games. It's ridiculous that no games expanded on the AI it had until the masterpiece that is The Last Express.

[Krazy]

What? It did. They tried to have more than three characters and then realised that it was getting in the way of making a concise, well structured and rewarding game. They took the multi-character mechanic of the original and added an extra time travel element to increase each player characters relevance. What AI in Maniac Mansion? You mean timed events where the characters would walk through the house at certain times?

I really don't know what you find so appealing about the pre-DOTT character designs. Honestly, I feel like DOTT and Sam & Max were around the time they realised how distinct, expressive and well drawn they could have characters look in 320 by 200 resolution.

Maniac Mansion had an art style??

In the same way five year old kids have an 'art style'.