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I salute whoever's idea it was to put every subforums I check every day at the top rather than the very bottom and I weep for the RON subforum for being left all alone down there at the bottom. Also, recruitment dedicated subforum, it was about time, the old thread was a mess.

Seeing as the people on the Double Fine forums are mostly players and not designers or players with serious interest in design, I wasn't expecting anything more than requests from idea guys sprinkled with a couple of knee-jerk reactions against Telltale latest design choices and "deaths are bad" debates, not serious questioning about the typical Sierra or LucasArts GUIs there, in fact I think lot of people will request for it to make a come back.

And since I:
1. Much rather discuss these serious questioning here with you,
2. Don't see a need to voice my opinion in hope to steer the game design in one direction,
3. Fully trust Ron and Tim on the design,
4. Want to see a Ron and Tim's game, not a game designed by a 80 000 persons committee,
5. Have a huge problem in discussing adventure games with people who knows squat about indies,
I'm not interested in posting there.

You could also find it by yourself, in true adventure game fashion.

The biggest problem for Al, and one I hadn't thought of until right now, is probably Magnum Cum Laude and Box Office Bust.

I don't know. I think the biggest problem is how crazy fractioned the Sierra communities are compared to LucasArts communities. LucasArts, if you like one game, you will most likely like them all as the gameplay, mood and humor are relatively similar from one game to the next. Sierra, if you like one series you will not automatically like the others. There also hasn't been any Sierra version of Mixnmojo and Lucasforums to cultivate this sense of unity among Sierra fans, gather them and keep them talking about Sierra stuff.

While Double Fine had the support from the fans of LucasArts, Ron, Tim, Monkey Island, Sam and Max, Maniac Mansion, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango and Psychonauts and other Double Fine titles, Al and Jane will mostly rely on their respective fanbase. I have no doubt both projects, and Tex Murphy will meet their goals, but I doubt we'll witness the same overfunding craze of the Double Fine kickstarter. It's also clear that you could not pull off the same stunt for a lesser known title like Freddy Pharkas, Manhunter, Conquest or Laura Bow, with the current situation Sierra communities are in, at least not without revising your goal.

Can't speak for the other wars but console wars are easy to explain. When you're young, you have no money, it's your parents who buy your games and consoles so you'll be stuck with only one up 'til you get a job and money. So, "Every consoles sucks except mine" is a coping mechanism to compensate for the fact you can't buy every consoles out there.

Then you become old, make carloads of money and you can buy all the consoles and the games in the universe. Except by now you have a job, a promotion 'round the corner, friday's poker night with the friends, a loving spouse, a bunch of kids, a yard to maintain, in laws to visit... but you only have twenty four hours a day, not a minute more. So you start hating dozens of game series, genres, even consoles as a coping mechanism for the fact you can't play all the cool stuff that get released every years, even if you wanted to.

There, the reason why console wars exist.

And on a sadder note, I too have an embarrassing confession to make: I am not participating to this year AGS award on the account that I haven't played all the cool games that got released last year, thus I am unqualified to vote.

My post was faster but yours was more informative

I don't know if it's the same story as yours, but the only story I heard that's remotely similar is the offices of Steve Jackson Games that once got raided by the US Secret Services when they were writing the GURPS Cyberpunk pen and paper RPG twenty years ago.

http://www.sjgames.com/SS/

There is a nod to this event in Introversion's Uplink game.

Imagine a Fate of Atlantis offering multiplayer experience in a coop fashioned way -- that would be absolutely awesome I think.

Which is exactly how multiplayer adventure games should be implemented if you ask me. Playing Portal 2's coop campaign only strengthened my belief. And there's been many indie adventure games released recently that featured more than one player character, or that gave the player character a partner to follow him around. Blackwell, Gemini Rue, Ben and Dan, Da New Guys... I'm not saying these particular series should go multiplayer, but anyone who's considering making a short freeware adventure game with more than one player character should seriously consider the opportunity of being the first or at least one of the first multiplayer adventure game out there because there's really just a tiny step to take to reach that level.

And contrary to the original poster's belief, there is a market for multiplayer adventure games, I never got the feel that we are some sort of single player adventure games only elitist community, we've had a lot of discussions about this in the past and there's a lot of people here who'd like to play such game. It just so happen that most people have been all talk and no action on that subject.

And like Scavenger said, MMO are not the solution. If you ignore the fact they suck balls at telling stories with the whole "there is no ending, everything is reseted every hour, nothing you ever do has any meaning, now go kill me ten wolves" gig, but adventure games aren't about combat, minigames and chatroom, they're about stories and solving puzzles, a successful multiplayer adventure game would be one where more than one player cooperate to solve puzzles and make story decisions, sometimes maybe even conflictual story decisions, why not?

So yeah,
Short game length
+ chatroom to throw ideas around
+ puzzle focused
+ linear, room/level structure
+ two player characters coop mode
+ timed and coop puzzles, maybe even character exclusive abilities puzzles
- obligatory Portal 2 plot rip off
- Quest For Glory overambitious MMO combat, AI stuff and minigames
= Maybe the first ever point and click multiplayer adventure game?

Vivendi's dead. It's Activision that owns it all now, except Larry.

Sorry, I probably screwed up with the tense I used in that sentence - I know Vivendi's not around now but at the time Josh Mandel and SQ7 were dealing with Vivendi. Around the time of the acquisition they were selling off the Sierra IPs - I don't know if they actually offloaded any other than Larry (since I think Telltale bought King's Quest more recently..)

I think Telltale bought a license, not the IP, like they did for Tales Of Monkey Island. As for the other IPs, other than Leisure Suit Larry, the only other Sierra IP that isn't owned by Activision is Gold Rush.

It's funny but now that I think about it, I have the strange feeling that before long we'll see some fan teams using Kickstarter to acquire license and fund remakes and fangames.

Also, hurray for Shadowrun Returns, now that was a game I was waiting for a long time.

Larry I will most likely back, to what extend I have no idea since I don't own an iphone. Now if it was certain it would land on PC I'd back them just as much as I backed Double Fine, both for them to make another game and to compensate for all these times I pirated their games. I'm not starving for another of Jane Jensen's game, seeing as I could just give Gabriel Knight a third try if I wanted more of her, so I won't bother with her kickstarter.

So Codemasters want Al Lowe to remake LSL1 to prove he/his team can do it before they let him make an original LSL title.

It's not Al and his team. It's Replay Games and Al. It's Replay Games that asked Codemasters if they could revive Leisure Suit Larry ages ago, Codemasters agreed for a remake, and later on Replay Games asked Al and (even later) Josh if they were interested in working with them.

It would have been better if they got Al involved right off the bat but I suppose Al was not interested in interrupting his retirement to experience yet more refusals from publishers and investors. It's a bit like Catch-22. You need Al to get a sequel and you need approval to get Al.

See it from the bright side, it won't just be an HD treatment, we'll get more jokes, puzzles, locations and girls, and if it's successful, they won't have to remake another game ever again.

I don't know if that's just a matter of Vivendi playing hard ball

Vivendi's dead. It's Activision that owns it all now, except Larry. And the Shadowrun guys are in a much different situation, they're dealing with a pen and paper RPG company, not Activision, and they offer an up to date, multi-platform RPG, not an old school PC adventure game, like most people proposed when they tried to deal with Activision.

games like Space Quest and Kings Quest did because they were treated like an essential game mechanic rather than an unfortunate consequence in those games, and to make it worse, they would often poke fun at you as well

To each their own I suppose. A little pleasure I have with Sierra games is to die in every ways I can think of because much of the humor and some little pearls of animations are hidden in these deaths. I would have loved if they implemented a Try Again button from the get go to remove the hassle of having to save and load every time, especially when some of their series took so much joy in killing and poking fun at the player's or protagonist' expense. But I also think in some games the whole walk one pixel off and you die gig is taken too far.

No item were active. I just interacted with the nest, and UNGA got scared, fled all the way down to the bottom of the cliff and when he was done saying he shouldn't do that again, UNGA's sprite turned back into the tiny sprite used when he's up the cliff and proceeded to walk back up, this time in a straight line (not using the shortcut), and when he reached the top, the game crashed.

I haven't tried to replicate it unfortunately. But I finished the game, I mean, BLUNGA finishes game. BLUNGA likes game. BLUNGA likes text and graphics and music and voices but mainly text and voices. BLUNGA needs SEQUAL.

In Loom, sometimes when you examine an object, a four note melody will be played on your staff. You got to write down those melodies and use them to solve puzzles.

One of the first melody you learn is the Open melody. When you look at an object and play the Open melody on your staff, whatever you are looking at will open (if it's an object that can be opened of course, like a door.) If you play the melody in reverse, the object will close. You start with three different notes, as you progress in the game you will unlock more notes and be able to play more melodies.

Most of the game is spent exploring your surrounding, learning melodies and using them to solve puzzles and make the story progress. There are no inventory puzzles. And one last advice, if it's your first time, play on Beginner, not Expert. The interface has more information and is easier to use on that difficulty. It's not like Lechuck's Revenge, the puzzles are not different from one difficulty level to another (although a cutscene near the end of the game is extended if you play on Expert.)

Play it, it's a short and easy but fun game.

BLUNGA meets bug after climbing cliff and going near AHGAL. UNGA climbs down then says something then turns tiny then climbs back up then game crashes.

BLUNGA thinks game affects typing.

I can't think of a Sierra game that does this more than once. KQ5 with the cat. LSL3 with the locker. I know I'm forgetting instances, but my memory is poor, so feel free to list ones I've forgotten.

Let's take Space Quest I as an example because I'm familiar with it. You can get screwed up if you:

Spoiler

Forget to get the cartridge and/or translator before leaving the Arcada,
Forget to get the glass shard before entering the cave,
Cross the stone bridge twice without killing the Orat,
Forget to read the cartridge,
Forget to pick it up again,
Get your skimmer stolen,
Leave Ulence Flats without the jetpack and/or the coordinates to the Deltaur,
Miss your chance to pick up a grenade.

[close]

That's ten just in the same game.
Space Quest II? Which I replayed last month...

Spoiler

Forget to rescue the Pinkunz,
Don't get the Labion Terror Beast mating whistle,
Don't get the spore,
Don't find up the gem,
Tie the rope to the stump instead of the log,
Forget to pick up the gem when it falls from your hand,
Don't pick up the glass cutter,
Don't stop the clone invasion.

[close]

Eight.
King's Quest V? Oh, that one is a bit fuzzier...

Spoiler

Don't rescue the mouse,
Forget the gold coin and/or the lamp in Ali Baba's cavern,
Get stuck in the forest without the honeycomb,
Eat the pie,
Tie the rope to the stump instead of the rock,
Forget to get a piece of crystal in the Yeti's cave,
Forget to get the necklace in the nest,
Forget the hook on the harpies' island,
Go in Mordack's castle without saving Cedric, (I'm not sure about this one)
Don't pick up the cheese on your first visit in Mordack's dungeon.

[close]

Eleven. I probably missed or got one wrong. I'm much less familiar with this one, and I know there's a bunch of hidden flags before you can get past the snake.

And to clarify my post, a whole lot of Sierra games are flawed. Sometimes the pros outshine the flaws, other times, it's the other way around. Sierra made plenty of awesome games but they also made some mediocre and bad games. Like you, I find the notion that all Sierra games are mediocre/bad to be ludicrous, but I also find the notion that all their games are brilliant to be just as ludicrous. Sometimes you just need to compare them with other games in the same series to notice a disparity in term of quality.

And on the Sierra versus LucasArts rivalry, I think, and it's just my opinion, that most LucasArts adventure games are superior than most Sierra adventure games, but I have a little bit more respect for Sierra because it was a company with employees to pay and ends to meet, they had to diversify their activities and push hardware, LucasArts was much more like a fun project for LucasFilm, and they could afford to spend more time designing and polishing their games. And yet, I don't have as much fun discussing LucasArts adventure games as I do with Sierra. I love Monkey Island, but I never registered on a forum to talk about it. Sierra however I love to discuss. Probably because I have more fun talking about flaws.

Oh, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is easily LucasArts' most flawed, most player unfriendly, most badly implemented game LucasArts ever made. It's objectively a mediocre even bad game which I love dearly. Even more than Fate of Atlantis. Which is no doubt superior to The Last Crusade. Yet, The Last Crusade had this awesome multi linearity aspect which they completely butchered in the sequel. And I love to talk about it all the time on m0ds' forum because I hope Fountain of Youth will steal some elements from it, and better implement them.

Oh, and Leisure Suit Larry VII is awesome, and you should give it a try, because that crazy Al Lowe implemented a text parser in addition to the point and click interface. And you can try and type all kind of verbs in addition to the context sensitive verbs the point and click interface gives you, for extra jokes, although it's no IF game.

Oh, and m0ds, if you want, I'm pretty sure we could write you a list of Sierra games that are player friendly, worth playing and have stand alone plots.

antipus: You have a lot of catching up to do then!

Secret Fawful: And I have no respect for a self proclaimed Sierra fan who's into blind fanboyism and never sat down and played every Sierra games to examine what made these games tick, what they did right and what they did wrong. Sierra made a lot of great games but they also made a lot alright and bad games too.

Aye, it's a great, fun and long game, I played it a couple months ago, and been listening to the soundtrack since then. Easily last year's best metroidvania.

And yeah, Good Old Games' now GOG.com, same philosophy but now selling recent and indie games too. No time to sit on your laurels, Davey, you've got another store to conquer!

Punch-Out excepted, I've always prefered wrestling to boxing. Throwing the other guy off the ring, slamming them when they're down, punching the referees, grabbing chairs... that's so much better than boxing.

I would go for the iron man method too, you can save between battles, but not during. It will make decisions much more important. You'll just need to design battles so they can be won in less than one hour to keep things fair and playable.

If I had to suggest two King's Quest games to someone who never played them, it would be King's Quest I, in its original goodness, for nostalgia and history sake and if you've Spaced and Policed, I'm fairly sure you know the kind of challenge to expect from it, and King's Quest VI, because most of what a lot of people hate about King's Quest is absent from this game.

My embarrassing confession is that I haven't played Barn Runner since The Armageddon Eclair (I think), nor Ben Jordan after the fifth game, because both of those series have such an extensive lore that is somewhat required to remember in order to fully appreciate the plot of each chapters and the series as a whole, and since I don't have enough free time to replay every games prior to a new chapter release, I've decided to simply wait 'til both series are completed before playing them in one long go.

But Ponch knows all about this and pardoned me already.