I only know Sierra because they published Half-life. P&C adventure games were already dying in 1998.
The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition
51–60 of 119 posts
Re: The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition
#52I only know Sierra because they published Half-life. P&C adventure games were already dying in 1998.
You are not my son.
Re: The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition
#53Sierra was responsible for creating two of my favorite games of all time - King's Quest VI (designed by Roberta Williams / Jane Jensen) and Conquests of the Longbow (designed by Christy Marx). 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…
This is interesting was there already enough money in videogames to make people multi miljonairs in those days?
Re: The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition
#54Sierra was responsible for creating two of my favorite games of all time - King's Quest VI (designed by Roberta Williams / Jane Jensen) and Conquests of the Longbow (designed by Christy Marx). 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…
It was Space Quest for me. 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.
The guys who created Space Quest kickstarted another sci-fi comedy adventure game... 13 years ago. It went (and is still going) poorly, and Kotaku just posted about the ordeal today:
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.
Re: The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition
#55The business side of things with sierra is certainly spectacular. But the story of the characters making the games would be so much more interesting. Where did the humor come from? What was office live? How come the games were both topsellers and also extremly silly? I remeber a space quest scene where a room full of computers was a joke on sierra offices. How did that make it into the final product?
With a boss that goes around whipping the developers as well. As a kid this was forever etched into my mind as what a game software company looks like.
Re: The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That's why Doom/Quake resonated. People want these simulations to be as realistic as possible. 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.
If I could strafe jump as well in person as Quake, well, everyone would know
[deleted]
Re: The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was Space Quest for me. 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.
The guys who created Space Quest kickstarted another sci-fi comedy adventure game... 13 years ago. It went (and is still going) poorly, and Kotaku just posted about the ordeal today: 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.
The Two Guys From Andromeda? Wow.
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!).
Re: The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition
#58People don't strictly want to play games as much as they want to experience alternate realities. That's why Doom/Quake resonated. People want these simulations to be as realistic as possible.
> People want these simulations to be as realistic as possible. 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…
People want both of those things, possibly different people.
Re: The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition
#59Old Man Murray wrote a great peace in 2000 about who killed adventure games, the answer to which I won't spoil since it's an easy read: https://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html
>Did you read all of that? If not, good for you! Dumb as your television enjoying ass probably is, you're smarter than the genius adventure gamers who, in a truly inappropriate display of autism-level concentration, willingly played the birdbrained events described in that passage.
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.
Re: The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition
#60Old Man Murray wrote a great peace in 2000 about who killed adventure games, the answer to which I won't spoil since it's an easy read: https://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html
Important context that's come to light since then https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_hair_mustache_puzzle
I mean its a bad example, but not the only example of obtuse puzzles in games preventing forward progress in game. Dead ends and not being able to finish if messed up a previous steps were real problems. This was a bigger issue when the internet wasn't available to help out. I like adventure games, but even still they can be difficult and frustrating (although maybe I'm not great at them)
Puzzle Dependency charts in game design help this (from Ron Gilbert/ Monkey Island etc...).