14 ms·

The Mortgaging of Sierra Online

113 points by D_Guidi 7y ago

Razengan 7y ago
Sierra and LucasArts' games were my vindication for getting an "IBM PC" instead of the Commodore Amiga I had been lusting after in magazines. I'm glad there has been a resurgence in point-and-click adventure games lately (like Thimbleweed Park, Broken Age, Samorost, Machinarium etc.) and I hope they become more popular again.
- shdon 7y ago
  You might be surprised to find how popular they still are, even if they don't get much love from the large game development studios. There are many smaller companies or groups (Wadjet Eye, Phoenix, King Art, Infamous Adventures) who make adventure games for the love of the genre and many indie developers. For instance, check out the yearly Adventure Jam, (which ended 2 weeks ago) to see what motivated people can do in just 2 weeks time. The site is https://advjam.com/ https://advjam.com/ Disclaimer: I participated both last year and this year.
- CalRobert 7y ago
  I think tablets have paired extremely well with Point and Click adventures. The Journey Down was very enjoyable, for one.
  - golyi 7y ago
    Agreed. I have been revisiting a lot of these old school adventure games and even playing them in their entirety through ScummVM for Android. Haven't had that much luck with ResidualVM which tries to emulate 3D adventure games like Grim Fandango and Escape from Monkey Island, here's hoping they get it to a more stable state.
    - CalRobert 7y ago
      For what it's worth, DoubleFine put out a great version of Grim Fandango for mobile.
  - Razengan 7y ago
    I highly recommend Broken Age, from Grim Fandango/Full Throttle's Tim Schafer: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/broken-age/id887649233 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/broken-age/id887649233 This was great on the Apple TV, where I first played it, and you get the iPad version too for just 5 bucks.
- ex3xu 7y ago
  You might be interested in the Irony Curtain [0], which came out fairly recently. And though it's a bit debatable if their games could be considered point-and-clicks, I still hope someone pops up to fill the void left by Telltale Games as well -- Tales from the Borderlands was truly an awesome experience. [0]: https://www.gog.com/game/irony_curtain_from_matryoshka_with_love https://www.gog.com/game/irony_curtain_from_matryoshka_with_...
- dalore 7y ago
  I happily played Sierra and LucasArts' games on my Amiga 500. Here is a list of Amiga Games on wikipedia showing the King's Quest series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amiga_games_(I%E2%80%93O)#K https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amiga_games_(I%E2%80%9...
  - Razengan 7y ago
    I know, but as far as I could tell, Amiga had the better music, while PC/VGA had the better graphics (and sometimes more content).
    - zantana 7y ago
      It depends on your time frame. The Amiga got lots of nice stuff in the beginning, and got a whole bunch of great developers, mainly from the UK, but over time the PC market was much bigger and PCs were always getting more powerful. For me the turning point was Wolf3d. After seeing it running on all the PCs on the tables in the old computer shows at the Cow Palace, my days on the 500 were limited.
    - dalore 7y ago
      Amiga 500 had great graphics and music for it's time (1987-) Is there even a comparable PC at that time? I believe we had the Atari ST, Apple IIgs, and Acorn around the time.
      - Razengan 7y ago
        I had to make do with a Commodore 64 until around 1993 I think, by which time PCs were comparable with Amigas or exceeded them.
ex3xu 7y ago
I'm just here to suggest that anyone looking for wholesome, intellectually challenging games for kids should look into both the Dr. Brain and Incredible Machine series. The later entries especially in both series still hold up today as seriously amazing and entertaining puzzle games for kids to develop critical thinking skills.
- mikepurvis 7y ago
  The Incredible Machine 3/4 does indeed hold up well. I recently grabbed "Crazy Machines 3" off of the steam sale to try to scratch that itch and it just wasn't the same.
  - playworker 7y ago
    FYI Wikipedia suggests that GOG.com has the originals and that a game called Contraption Maker on Steam is a spiritual successor by the original developers
    - mikepurvis 7y ago
      Yup: https://www.gog.com/game/the_incredible_machine_mega_pack https://www.gog.com/game/the_incredible_machine_mega_pack https://store.steampowered.com/app/241240/Contraption_Maker/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/241240/Contraption_Maker/
- cm2012 7y ago
  Dr Brain was very exciting as a kid.
- liberte82 7y ago
  Dr Brain was my favorite game as a kid, I played it over and over and over. So fun. I was so excited when the sequel (Island of Dr Brain) came out, and it was just as good.
- stevekemp 7y ago
  Good writeup here, from the same author: https://www.filfre.net/2018/06/the-incredible-machine/ https://www.filfre.net/2018/06/the-incredible-machine/
kevingadd 7y ago
Anyone else seeing all the 9s in this article replaced with em dashes? It's really confusing me.
- jfk13 7y ago
  I believe you have an old (and broken) copy of the Lucida Grande font installed for some reason. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1542644 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1542644.
zeveb 7y ago
I absolutely love these write-ups! Every time one comes out I read it immediately. This doesn't jive with my recollection, though: > The monochrome cargo vans of 1985 had improbably become the multimedia sports cars of 1993, all whilst sticking to the same basic software and hardware architecture. I don't really believe that this was true until after the adoption of Windows 95 (and remember, Windows NT retained the older Windows 3.1 look for longer; well into the late 90s my college labs' Windows machines looked ancient). At the time, the Mac was the closest thing to a multimedia sports car (with Amiga being the hand-crafter multimedia Rolls Royce, to carry the metaphor too far): it was attractive and ran well. Those of us who used Macs back then look at Windows 3.1 and thought it was a joke; we didn't even think DOS was worth noticing. In retrospect, I actually have a lot more respect for DOS now than I did then: given what it was, it wasn't actually bad, and it enabled some neat programs. If I were teleported back in time, I might get a DOS box. But there is no way I'd want to use Windows 3.1 again — give me a System 7, 8 or 9 Mac anytime!
- ido 7y ago
  NT4 used the win95 interface, it came out about a year after win95.
- empath75 7y ago
  Soundblaster and vga cards came out before windows 95 did. You had games like Wing Commander and Doom and such that came out well before windows gaming existed.
  - bluedino 7y ago
    People forget that originally, Windows 95 was a resoure-hogging, performance-robbing, disaster of a gaming environment until Windows 98 or so. 3D accelerators and internet play finally killed off DOS. Even in the days of Windows 95, you had to drop down to 320x200x256 to get any decent performance on the average PC.
    - dehrmann 7y ago
      The only acceptable Windows 9x variant (ME included) was Windows 98 SE.
chasingthewind 7y ago
I grew up with Sierra adventure games in the 80s and they hold an incredibly special place in my heart. I love reading these articles about what was happening behind the scenes so thanks for posting. Despite my extreme level of nostalgia for those old games (I installed KQ3 a few weeks ago just to visit Manannan) I find them unplayable today. I think the last Sierra adventure that I honestly enjoyed was probably KQV. When I look at the list [0] of their releases I think the last Sierra adventure game I ever bought was probably Dagger of Amon Ra. By about 1991/1992 I was beginning to move on to other genres. When more open games like Microprose's Darklands and Origin's Ultima 7, Ultima Underworld, and Privateer were released I switched over and never looked back. I haven't played an adventure game for more than a few hours since. I often wish I could travel back to 1989 and sit down in front of my IBM PS/2 30/286 and fire up The Colonel's Bequest or KQIV and experience the enjoyment that I felt with those games one more time. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sierra_Entertainment_video_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sierra_Entertainment_v...
- liberte82 7y ago
  I'm one of the few who really enjoys KQ7. This was their foray into the modern era, making a game that doesn't soft-lock you or require impossible knowledge (i.e. trying pretty much every permutation/combination of items for the right answer).
  - shdon 7y ago
    I quite liked it too. Many people also seemed to dislike the Disney-esque animation style, but I think that suited the game very nicely.
- Razengan 7y ago
  King's Quest V, Space Quest IV, and Quest for Glory IV were also the last Sierra games I played to the finish (and enjoyed.) After that, I felt there was a noticeable drop in the quality of the hand-drawn artwork, and soon after, the 3D-for-the-sake-of-3D hysteria that overtook the industry and we had to suffer through a few years of 3D games that were uglier than the 2D games they "superseded." See King's Quest 8: Mask of Eternity (at your own peril. I'll spare you the link.)
lordleft 7y ago
Fans of this should check out MetalJesusRocks' channel on YouTube. He was a former Sierra Online employee and is one of the biggest figures in the YouTube retro gaming scene. Great video where he reminisces with a former employee here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmNCFtAlYN0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmNCFtAlYN0
liberte82 7y ago
Let's not forget The Realm, Sierra's entry into the exploding MMORPG genre at the time. Believe it or not, it's still alive and well, after having changed owners quite a few times. It hasn't changed much since the late 90's. This was my first MMORPG experience and I sunk many many hours into it!

113 points by D_Guidi 7y ago

Sierra and LucasArts' games were my vindication for getting an "IBM PC" instead of the Commodore Amiga I had been lusting after in magazines. I'm glad there has been a resurgence in point-and-click adventure games lately (like Thimbleweed Park, Broken Age, Samorost, Machinarium etc.) and I hope they become more popular again.

shdon 7y ago
You might be surprised to find how popular they still are, even if they don't get much love from the large game development studios. There are many smaller companies or groups (Wadjet Eye, Phoenix, King Art, Infamous Adventures) who make adventure games for the love of the genre and many indie developers. For instance, check out the yearly Adventure Jam, (which ended 2 weeks ago) to see what motivated people can do in just 2 weeks time. The site is https://advjam.com/ https://advjam.com/ Disclaimer: I participated both last year and this year.
CalRobert 7y ago
I think tablets have paired extremely well with Point and Click adventures. The Journey Down was very enjoyable, for one.
- golyi 7y ago
  Agreed. I have been revisiting a lot of these old school adventure games and even playing them in their entirety through ScummVM for Android. Haven't had that much luck with ResidualVM which tries to emulate 3D adventure games like Grim Fandango and Escape from Monkey Island, here's hoping they get it to a more stable state.
  - CalRobert 7y ago
    For what it's worth, DoubleFine put out a great version of Grim Fandango for mobile.
- Razengan 7y ago
  I highly recommend Broken Age, from Grim Fandango/Full Throttle's Tim Schafer: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/broken-age/id887649233 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/broken-age/id887649233 This was great on the Apple TV, where I first played it, and you get the iPad version too for just 5 bucks.
ex3xu 7y ago
You might be interested in the Irony Curtain [0], which came out fairly recently. And though it's a bit debatable if their games could be considered point-and-clicks, I still hope someone pops up to fill the void left by Telltale Games as well -- Tales from the Borderlands was truly an awesome experience. [0]: https://www.gog.com/game/irony_curtain_from_matryoshka_with_love https://www.gog.com/game/irony_curtain_from_matryoshka_with_...
dalore 7y ago
I happily played Sierra and LucasArts' games on my Amiga 500. Here is a list of Amiga Games on wikipedia showing the King's Quest series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amiga_games_(I%E2%80%93O)#K https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amiga_games_(I%E2%80%9...
- Razengan 7y ago
  I know, but as far as I could tell, Amiga had the better music, while PC/VGA had the better graphics (and sometimes more content).
  - zantana 7y ago
    It depends on your time frame. The Amiga got lots of nice stuff in the beginning, and got a whole bunch of great developers, mainly from the UK, but over time the PC market was much bigger and PCs were always getting more powerful. For me the turning point was Wolf3d. After seeing it running on all the PCs on the tables in the old computer shows at the Cow Palace, my days on the 500 were limited.
  - dalore 7y ago
    Amiga 500 had great graphics and music for it's time (1987-) Is there even a comparable PC at that time? I believe we had the Atari ST, Apple IIgs, and Acorn around the time.
    - Razengan 7y ago
      I had to make do with a Commodore 64 until around 1993 I think, by which time PCs were comparable with Amigas or exceeded them.

ex3xu 7y ago

I'm just here to suggest that anyone looking for wholesome, intellectually challenging games for kids should look into both the Dr. Brain and Incredible Machine series. The later entries especially in both series still hold up today as seriously amazing and entertaining puzzle games for kids to develop critical thinking skills.

mikepurvis 7y ago
The Incredible Machine 3/4 does indeed hold up well. I recently grabbed "Crazy Machines 3" off of the steam sale to try to scratch that itch and it just wasn't the same.
- playworker 7y ago
  FYI Wikipedia suggests that GOG.com has the originals and that a game called Contraption Maker on Steam is a spiritual successor by the original developers
  - mikepurvis 7y ago
    Yup: https://www.gog.com/game/the_incredible_machine_mega_pack https://www.gog.com/game/the_incredible_machine_mega_pack https://store.steampowered.com/app/241240/Contraption_Maker/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/241240/Contraption_Maker/
cm2012 7y ago
Dr Brain was very exciting as a kid.
liberte82 7y ago
Dr Brain was my favorite game as a kid, I played it over and over and over. So fun. I was so excited when the sequel (Island of Dr Brain) came out, and it was just as good.
stevekemp 7y ago
Good writeup here, from the same author: https://www.filfre.net/2018/06/the-incredible-machine/ https://www.filfre.net/2018/06/the-incredible-machine/

kevingadd 7y ago

Anyone else seeing all the 9s in this article replaced with em dashes? It's really confusing me.

jfk13 7y ago
I believe you have an old (and broken) copy of the Lucida Grande font installed for some reason. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1542644 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1542644.

zeveb 7y ago

I absolutely love these write-ups! Every time one comes out I read it immediately. This doesn't jive with my recollection, though: > The monochrome cargo vans of 1985 had improbably become the multimedia sports cars of 1993, all whilst sticking to the same basic software and hardware architecture. I don't really believe that this was true until after the adoption of Windows 95 (and remember, Windows NT retained the older Windows 3.1 look for longer; well into the late 90s my college labs' Windows machines looked ancient). At the time, the Mac was the closest thing to a multimedia sports car (with Amiga being the hand-crafter multimedia Rolls Royce, to carry the metaphor too far): it was attractive and ran well. Those of us who used Macs back then look at Windows 3.1 and thought it was a joke; we didn't even think DOS was worth noticing. In retrospect, I actually have a lot more respect for DOS now than I did then: given what it was, it wasn't actually bad, and it enabled some neat programs. If I were teleported back in time, I might get a DOS box. But there is no way I'd want to use Windows 3.1 again — give me a System 7, 8 or 9 Mac anytime!

ido 7y ago
NT4 used the win95 interface, it came out about a year after win95.
empath75 7y ago
Soundblaster and vga cards came out before windows 95 did. You had games like Wing Commander and Doom and such that came out well before windows gaming existed.
- bluedino 7y ago
  People forget that originally, Windows 95 was a resoure-hogging, performance-robbing, disaster of a gaming environment until Windows 98 or so. 3D accelerators and internet play finally killed off DOS. Even in the days of Windows 95, you had to drop down to 320x200x256 to get any decent performance on the average PC.
  - dehrmann 7y ago
    The only acceptable Windows 9x variant (ME included) was Windows 98 SE.

chasingthewind 7y ago

I grew up with Sierra adventure games in the 80s and they hold an incredibly special place in my heart. I love reading these articles about what was happening behind the scenes so thanks for posting. Despite my extreme level of nostalgia for those old games (I installed KQ3 a few weeks ago just to visit Manannan) I find them unplayable today. I think the last Sierra adventure that I honestly enjoyed was probably KQV. When I look at the list [0] of their releases I think the last Sierra adventure game I ever bought was probably Dagger of Amon Ra. By about 1991/1992 I was beginning to move on to other genres. When more open games like Microprose's Darklands and Origin's Ultima 7, Ultima Underworld, and Privateer were released I switched over and never looked back. I haven't played an adventure game for more than a few hours since. I often wish I could travel back to 1989 and sit down in front of my IBM PS/2 30/286 and fire up The Colonel's Bequest or KQIV and experience the enjoyment that I felt with those games one more time. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sierra_Entertainment_video_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sierra_Entertainment_v...

liberte82 7y ago
I'm one of the few who really enjoys KQ7. This was their foray into the modern era, making a game that doesn't soft-lock you or require impossible knowledge (i.e. trying pretty much every permutation/combination of items for the right answer).
- shdon 7y ago
  I quite liked it too. Many people also seemed to dislike the Disney-esque animation style, but I think that suited the game very nicely.
Razengan 7y ago
King's Quest V, Space Quest IV, and Quest for Glory IV were also the last Sierra games I played to the finish (and enjoyed.) After that, I felt there was a noticeable drop in the quality of the hand-drawn artwork, and soon after, the 3D-for-the-sake-of-3D hysteria that overtook the industry and we had to suffer through a few years of 3D games that were uglier than the 2D games they "superseded." See King's Quest 8: Mask of Eternity (at your own peril. I'll spare you the link.)

lordleft 7y ago

Fans of this should check out MetalJesusRocks' channel on YouTube. He was a former Sierra Online employee and is one of the biggest figures in the YouTube retro gaming scene. Great video where he reminisces with a former employee here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmNCFtAlYN0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmNCFtAlYN0

liberte82 7y ago

Let's not forget The Realm, Sierra's entry into the exploding MMORPG genre at the time. Believe it or not, it's still alive and well, after having changed owners quite a few times. It hasn't changed much since the late 90's. This was my first MMORPG experience and I sunk many many hours into it!