4 ms·

That was a fantastic read. My best friend back in school had this game and I played it several times during school holiday. As described in the article, it felt

That was a fantastic read. My best friend back in school had this game and I played it several times during school holiday. As described in the article, it felt like an actual episode of the X-Files. Had an interesting packaging as well because of the 7 CD's it included. If I remember correctly, it did have a showstopper in, not sure if intentional or not. At the very beginning, when the reporter asked you for information, and you don't give any ... later in the game (in the ship) when you need her help, the game just can't go forward. And you have no idea why, because nobody tells you. This is so stuck in my head as a very bad design choice, if it was intentional.

mh- 2y ago
I feel like 90s PC games were filled with things like this. Stuff that would be probably day one patches in the following decade, but that (of course) wasn't a thing then. I remember at least two of the Police Quest games having similar breakage, where you just couldn't go forward after putting 20+ hours into the game, because of a choice you made early on.
- wingspar 2y ago
  A perfect imitation of real life…
- Agingcoder 2y ago
  I think that was fairly common with sierra games, happened a lot less with Lucas ones.
  - stavros 2y ago
    That seems like a horrible design choice, though. It just randomly and gratuitously punishes the player for something they couldn't even have foreseen.
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      It was (for modern games), and it wasn't (for games of the time). Given media storage capacity and computational limits, a lack of internet, and the scheduling dictates of boxed software... I remember playing games much longer, before the next one was available. Consequently, design choices that seem sadistic now were part of the replayability. In the same way that shmups, bullet hell, and insane platformers (and more recently *Souls) all have their own fanbases.
      - stavros 2y ago
        It's not the same. I still remember playing Grim Fandango all the way to one scene before the end, getting hit by a bug that meant I couldn't trigger the final scene, thinking "fuck this" and quitting. I never did finish the game, even though it was the only game I'd have in a few months. Injustice is injustice, and players resent it.
        ethbr1 2y ago
        It's worth distinguishing bugs from intentional design. The latter at least had a different flavor of "Well, I shouldn't have done that." Even if unknowable at the time of choice. Itself probably a legacy of sadistic DnD DMing, where players survived despite the odds. Though I too remember quite a few games having out-and-out bugs that locked their primitive progression state machines.
        stavros 2y ago
        Did Sierra games explain their reasoning? Was it "well, you didn't give me information when we first met two years ago, so I won't tell you who my boss is now", or was it indistinguishable from a bug?
        ethbr1 2y ago
        From memory, and it's been a few years, Sierra games had both bugs and severe plot-related consequences. Usually of the "This thing happened because you did / didn't do that thing" format. E.g. the infamous bomb detonating your police car, if you didn't first walk around it to complete an inspection (something no one would have thought of the first time) or the myriad of ways to arbitrarily die in Kings Quest by walking onto the wrong screen If you played Sierra adventure games... that was just part of the schtick tho.
  - xirdstl 2y ago
    Could almost call it a staple of Sierra games.
  - tiltowait 2y ago
    While frustrating, obtuse, absurd, and a plethora of other adjectives aside, those (early, at least) Sierra games had the benefit of being pretty short. If you screwed yourself because you walked over the bridge one time extra in King’s Quest 2, a restart only cost you somewhere in the neighborhood of half an hour. (I’m not sure about later games, though. Maybe they were worse?)
  - glimshe 2y ago
    It didn't happen at all after the first couple Lucas Arts game. The made it impossible to get stuck as a design principle.
  - selcuka 2y ago
    There was even a gag about it in the Curse of Monkey Island (Lucas) where your character (Guybrush) seemingly dies and credits start to roll, but the narrator recognises that it is not a Sierra game, credits start rolling backwards and the game resumes.
- minikomi 2y ago
  There's definitely a Space Quest game where if you kiss an alien early on there's a non-escapable death by stomach-bursting right near the end.. bummer if you saved after the kiss (I did).
- bzzzt 2y ago
  Many of the Sierra contemporary games including the 'interactive fiction' that inspired them had sudden deaths, dead ends or living dead scenarios, mostly to pad play time probably.
drooopy 2y ago
Searching for that bullet in the warehouse was an absolute nightmare during my first playthrough.
a_bonobo 2y ago
You just unlocked a memory for me - I distinctly remember playing this with my friend on his computer and we were just completely stuck at the ship, with no way forward. We must have missed the reporter!

mh- 2y ago

I feel like 90s PC games were filled with things like this. Stuff that would be probably day one patches in the following decade, but that (of course) wasn't a thing then. I remember at least two of the Police Quest games having similar breakage, where you just couldn't go forward after putting 20+ hours into the game, because of a choice you made early on.

wingspar 2y ago
A perfect imitation of real life…
Agingcoder 2y ago
I think that was fairly common with sierra games, happened a lot less with Lucas ones.
- stavros 2y ago
  That seems like a horrible design choice, though. It just randomly and gratuitously punishes the player for something they couldn't even have foreseen.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    It was (for modern games), and it wasn't (for games of the time). Given media storage capacity and computational limits, a lack of internet, and the scheduling dictates of boxed software... I remember playing games much longer, before the next one was available. Consequently, design choices that seem sadistic now were part of the replayability. In the same way that shmups, bullet hell, and insane platformers (and more recently *Souls) all have their own fanbases.
    - stavros 2y ago
      It's not the same. I still remember playing Grim Fandango all the way to one scene before the end, getting hit by a bug that meant I couldn't trigger the final scene, thinking "fuck this" and quitting. I never did finish the game, even though it was the only game I'd have in a few months. Injustice is injustice, and players resent it.
      - ethbr1 2y ago
        It's worth distinguishing bugs from intentional design. The latter at least had a different flavor of "Well, I shouldn't have done that." Even if unknowable at the time of choice. Itself probably a legacy of sadistic DnD DMing, where players survived despite the odds. Though I too remember quite a few games having out-and-out bugs that locked their primitive progression state machines.
        stavros 2y ago
        Did Sierra games explain their reasoning? Was it "well, you didn't give me information when we first met two years ago, so I won't tell you who my boss is now", or was it indistinguishable from a bug?
        ethbr1 2y ago
        From memory, and it's been a few years, Sierra games had both bugs and severe plot-related consequences. Usually of the "This thing happened because you did / didn't do that thing" format. E.g. the infamous bomb detonating your police car, if you didn't first walk around it to complete an inspection (something no one would have thought of the first time) or the myriad of ways to arbitrarily die in Kings Quest by walking onto the wrong screen If you played Sierra adventure games... that was just part of the schtick tho.
- xirdstl 2y ago
  Could almost call it a staple of Sierra games.
- tiltowait 2y ago
  While frustrating, obtuse, absurd, and a plethora of other adjectives aside, those (early, at least) Sierra games had the benefit of being pretty short. If you screwed yourself because you walked over the bridge one time extra in King’s Quest 2, a restart only cost you somewhere in the neighborhood of half an hour. (I’m not sure about later games, though. Maybe they were worse?)
- glimshe 2y ago
  It didn't happen at all after the first couple Lucas Arts game. The made it impossible to get stuck as a design principle.
- selcuka 2y ago
  There was even a gag about it in the Curse of Monkey Island (Lucas) where your character (Guybrush) seemingly dies and credits start to roll, but the narrator recognises that it is not a Sierra game, credits start rolling backwards and the game resumes.
minikomi 2y ago
There's definitely a Space Quest game where if you kiss an alien early on there's a non-escapable death by stomach-bursting right near the end.. bummer if you saved after the kiss (I did).
bzzzt 2y ago
Many of the Sierra contemporary games including the 'interactive fiction' that inspired them had sudden deaths, dead ends or living dead scenarios, mostly to pad play time probably.

drooopy 2y ago

Searching for that bullet in the warehouse was an absolute nightmare during my first playthrough.

a_bonobo 2y ago

You just unlocked a memory for me - I distinctly remember playing this with my friend on his computer and we were just completely stuck at the ship, with no way forward. We must have missed the reporter!