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Wigga:  For people who don't own credit cards, we'll also be accepting International Money Orders.

All of this will be a fair while off, though, and anything could happen regarding distribution at this stage. A handful of publishers have contacted us so the possibility exists that the game may eventually be sold in stores. This all depends on various factors though. If we do end up distributing the game exclusively via the website then we'll make every attempt to make payment options as flexible as possible.

Hmmmmm... hummmmmm.... HMMMMMMM...

Okay, I guess you're right. At first glance that statement could easily be misinterpreted. It doesn't go into further detail and people might naturally jump to the most literal conclusion. That's not our intention, however, so I've reworded it to sound slightly less evil.Ã,  Ã, 

Cool? Now, let's all hold hands and sing "We are the World".Ã, 

Thanks for the compliments, btw! As for the guy with the Astroboy hair... you mean, Nash, Erpy's avatar? Heck no, if we used that in our commercial game, Squaresoft would probably form a lynch mob of their own to send after us!

Hey, guys, thanks for the comments!

Josh, your project looks amazing too! It'll sure be great to play another AGS game with a Western setting. Those backgrounds look very Lucasarts'ish and ours are kind of Sierra'ish, so it'll be really interesting to experience the two different flavours. Can't wait!

As for the statement on the website, allow me to clarify this. I know it sounds conceited, egotistical, and probably even a little bit evil... but it's referring specifically to "classic" adventure gaming and its effect on the commercial market; specifically, how the release of our KQ1 remake, in turn, had an effect on commercial sales of MOE and garnered the attention of professionals in the gaming industry to take notice of classics again (many ex-sierra employees, ex-Lucasarts, and even some current iD software programmers have contacted us to name a few). It also sparked a rise in fan game production from other teams that continues to grow to this day and these teams also help to bring classic adventure games back into the spotlight.

The reason we said "nearly single-handedly" and not "single-handedly" is because it would be insulting to the rest of the amateur community to suggest that we were fully responsible for getting classic adventure gaming back onto its feet (particularly where the commercial market is not directly concerned). There are many awesome examples of original (non fan based) amateur games that have contributed to the publicity of the classic adventure genre as well... not to mention Chris Jones and others who tirelessly maintain and upgrade their game engines with classic features!

We dislike blowing our own horn, but also understand that this must be done sometimes from a business sense. Ã,  Most companies have some similar type of marketing slogan, though they have no way of backing the statement up. We, at least, have some basis of justification behind ours. There's no denying that Tierra/AGDI has had a dramatic impact on the adventure gaming world and has sustained interest in the genre. After all, this was our original intention and goal. I know some people will find ways to refute the statement, but we believe that there's truth to it... and as you said, it also looks cool to publishers! j/k Ã, 

As far as the 3D prerendered graphics are concerned, they allow us to render complex animations in a shorter amount of time, and make them more detailed than their 2D equivalents.

Many 2D adventure games have amazing backgrounds, but are marred by substandard character animations. Ã, 2D character animation is no easy (nor speedily accomplished) task -- and we'll willingly admit that we don't currently have the resources, talents, nor time to create as many 2D frames as this game requires, and still maintain the level of quality we want to reach. Prerendered 3D animations can look very good and can also provide more complex movements with less effort. Plus, the animations are a whole lot easier to edit, too, if changes are required. Ã, The frames generated make use of alpha blending which makes the character edges blend smoothly into the backgrounds -- something that is not so easily accomplished with 2D sprites. Ã, 

If a player analyses a game from a technological standpoint, they're bound to notice things like this, regardless of the technology used. A similar argument could be made about 2D sprites looking 'pasted over' the backgrounds... but I digress -- such things are merely stylistic choices made by the designer to achieve the look and feel that they envisioned for their game. It all comes down to personal preference and in the end, we play adventure games primarily to enjoy the stories and that's what counts, right?

Wow, what an interesting thread! I can actually appreciate some of Interference's points. Here’s the story: Originally, we didn't even plan to release the KQ1VGA remake publicly. We were only going to create Royal Quest... a game that made fun of KQ1's "trite" elements and frequent death situations. However, before we tackled that complex task, (not knowing how to script in AGS at this point) I wanted to "mimic" the scripting of the original King's Quest game so that I had a guide, something to learn from and compare my progress against. To that end, KQ1 proved quite a useful candidate for remaking. An original game, such as Royal Quest, would have been unchartered territory and also would have taken much longer to complete with my limited AGS knowledge at the time.

So I scripted KQ1VGA with the intention of gaining more experience with AGS and making a 1:1 remake of the EGA version -- just to see if I could recreate every situation from the original. To tell the truth, I wasn't looking at the dead-ends/frequent deaths from a casual player's point of view, I was looking at it as a scripting challenge... to recreate the game in AGS exactly as it appeared in its original form.

Mind you, at this point we still had not plans of a public release.  Towards the end of the scripting process, I began to think, "Hell, maybe we should release this thing to the masses! A lot of work's gone into it...  someone out there might want to download it." And that’s exactly what we decided to do.  It was then that we removed a few of the original game's 'flaws/features' (depending on your personal preference) in order to make it more bearable for new players. We also wrote up several solutions to dead-end problems. For example, in the original game if that Troll takes the Magic Mirror from you, then that's it... game over, man. So we added a part, where IF the troll took any important items from you (and you used the goat to make him fall in the water), then you could simply walk down stream a bit and find your possessions washed up on the shore and take them again. We were also gonna add a part where the giant would chase you down the beanstalk and you could use the woodcutter's axe to chop it down to kill that big bastard (jack and the beanstalk style).  When we announced these intended improvements on our forums, though, the general consensus was that most people would have preferred not for these changes to be added to the game for fear of making it too different from the original. KQ1VGA 1.0 was, however, released without the "pushing rock" death. We actually received more than a few complaints about that one's absence (surprisingly)... so back in it went for v2.0!

I guess the original KQ that was released in 1984 was a pretty big technological leap from other games available at the time.

Ken: ”Can you trip over a tree stump in real life?”
Roberta: “Sure, let's throw that in our game! That'll impress people.”
Ken: “Can you swim and drown in real life?”
Roberta: “Uh huh...”
Ken: “Great, let's throw that in too. What would happen if you pushed a large boulder on top of yourself in real life?”
Roberta: “ It’d crush you!”
Ken: “I'm glad we had this brainstorming session. Throw that into the mix as well.  People will be so amazed at how lifelike this game is!”

…and people, no doubt, WERE impressed at these things in 1984. No other game at the time allowed the much more than static monocrome graphics. KQ1 was like the Mario64 of it’s time.

Ironically, this same WYSIWYG approach is adopted by most, if not all, modern FPS shooters as well. If you see a pool of water, you can swim in it, and drown if you stay under for too long. If you see a high cliff, you can walk off and fall to your death. If you see a guy pointing a gun at you... then you know damn well that he's gonna shoot you, so you better shoot him back first! Not being able to walk off the cliff or drown would feel unrealistic and illogical in accordance with real life. Granted, this is a little more noticeable in first person perspective games. However, most games do try to portray a certain element of realism and in the case of KQ1, we get the same "if you do a stupid thing, you receive a fatal consequence" type of game play. Doom had these 'don't fall of the ledge or you'll die' puzzles too, just like KQ1 does. Furthermore, in Doom you're often forced to bypass these puzzles to end the level (The end of tricks and traps in Doom2 always drove me crazy!), whereas in KQ, sometimes the player is forced to walk the annoying path (KQ3) and sometimes it's obvious that they must use common sense to avoid it (serpent infested moat).

While Sierra's early approach (letting players do anything that would result in death in reality) was probably seen as impressive in the early 80's, I think they may have slightly overlooked the fact that people play games to escape from reality. Not that they really cared back then because it impressed people and made them rich. But still,  I do think there should be some borders between games and reality. Therefore, I don't disagree with death situations in games. Personally, I prefer the Sierra approach (i.e. being able to die), over the Lucasarts one of not usually being able to die until the end scene (i.e. Full Throttle), although I must admit that the Lucasarts approach was also used in GK1 and it did not reduce my enjoyment (nor the suspense level) of the game one bit.

What I think it all boils down to is just being fair to the player. Obviously, pushing a rock from the wrong side (which, let's face it, could be ANY side to the unsuspecting player) isn't cool by today’s standards. But as long as adequate warning is given to players, then, IMO,deaths shouldn’t be considered a flaw. (I always had more of an issue with dead-end situations in Sierra games rather than anything else).  

As CJ said, KQ1, being the first of it's kind, was more of an experiment than anything else.  You can see where these errors have been amended in later KQ/Sierra Adventure games. Nothing ever gets better without learning from mistakes or trial and error. KQ1 was a good game for its time. By today's standards it probably only holds sentimental value for those who played the original. But we must also remember that if it weren't for KQ1, then no other adventure games (Lucasarts ones included) would have eventuated the way they did. It's all cause and effect, you have to take the good with the bad and see the greater long-term advantage of the situation. Refinement is what makes things better. Instead of criticising the early adventures, as adventure game fans we should at least respect them (even if they frustrate us); for the path that they’ve forged, and for the influence they’ve had to make adventure gaming as a whole, a much more enjoyable experience!

The guy who did the interview asked a bunch of very specific questions which were geared towards the revival/legal side of the remakes, rather than the technical and creative side.

Like Erpy said earlier,  a lot more stuff got cut out of the interview due to lack of space. The interviewer didn't really ask anything which could lead onto the subject of mentioning AGS, unfortunately. But in other interviews held in the past, we've credited AGS as the engine we use, and Chris as being the creator. So don't worry, we're not going to steal AGS, run away with it,  laughing at Chris as we take all the credit for developing the engine ourselves, and then call him mean names behind his back just to add salt to the wounds :

Besides, anyone who read the CGM article will probably download the games, both of which mention AGS (and have a link to the website) in the top (i.e. important) half of the readme.txt file. Either that, or they'll ask how we made the games on our forums, and we'll direct them here.

Hey guys, if anybody would be interested in helping out with character and sprite animations for Quest for Glory 2 VGA, please send us an email at  kqvga@hotmail.com

The job would basically involve pixel-editing over the existing EGA QFG2 animations (adding more details and color to them), creating some new animations from scratch, and possibly also helping out with background animations.

It's preferable if you have some previous experience with animations in AGS games and that you'd also be able to contribute to the project on a regular basis.

It would be great, as well, if you could send a sample animation showing your work.

Thanks!  

http://www.tierraentertainment.com

netmonkey: Hmmm, good question. I'm not sure exactly how many hours exactly per week, suffice to say that it's quite a few. Most of the time it's just a matter of sitting down, working for hours at a time, regardless of motivation levels and working out of sheer willpower. Of course, that's not always easy when there's other things you'd rather be doing!

These days, I tend to do most work at night time. It's much less tempting to go outside and do other stuff when it's dark:) It helps to visualize the end result in your head constantly when working. Also, think of every scene you complete as another little portion of the game that's one step closer and will never need to be done again. Mind encouragment tricks like that really work! Also, you must drink tea. And if you don't like tea... then you must learn to like it! I think that's the biggest secret revealed right there.  8)

Gonzo: Thanks, I sure hope so. QFG2 VGA will probably be a lengthy and difficult game to make. But I'm hoping we can keep it faithful to the rest of the series.

Ah, ok. Thanks for the info guys.

And M0ds, that FoY project is looking fantastic!  

Hey guys 'n girls,

Does anyone happen to know who created this Arabian style background:



It was posted on one of the AGS forums (critics lounge, maybe?) about a year or so ago. We were going to ask them if they wanted to help out with some background art for QFG2 VGA, but can't remember who posted it now!

If anyone knows who created it, or if YOU are this person, then please fire an email towards kqvga@hotmail.com and let us know. Thanks!