[Arial Type]

Well, Al Lowe looks good as ever, the remake (and the idea of remake) - not. I have nothing against remakes and ports, but after Box Office Bust and a dork named Allen Covert I wouldn't trust anything without number 8 in the title and Lowe credited as a project leader.

PS I wonder how much a reunited old-school Sierra kickstarter would cost...

[MoP]

How about this?

Originally Posted by Replay Games

"Now just get Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy on board for Space Quest 7 and I'll happily put more money down."

We're way ahead of you!! - Scott is ready to jump on board, we already spoke to him. Mark, however, can't since he works for Foundation 9, a developer / publisher and he would have a "conflict of interest" as he put it. Having said that, however, the last game, Space Quest 6, was all Scott & Josh (no Mark Crowe involvement) so we think we can hold pretty true to the SQ franchise with those two geniuses on board. We're in the middle of negotiating the rights for King's Quest as well as Space Quest & Police Quest too. It all depends on the success of this first game, though.....everybody wants to see how much demand is out there.

[Oscar]

The worst part is the remake doesn't even look as good as the previous one.




Yeah if you're into this 'HD-everything' insanity I can see it might be important to have the maximum amount of pixels and number of colours, but art style still matters, doesn't it?

[diego]

been there...

[Winterfury]

It's too bad that they chose to remake LSL1 and not LSL2, which out of all games in the series would probably benefit the most from a remake.

BTW,

Originally Posted by diego

The game is being produced (remade) by anonymous team with Al Lowe (who is the one fans want) being merely a presenter.

I don't know about that..

Originally Posted by Replay Games

Every single person on our design team is a Sierra vet from one project or another. That's how you know you're getting the real deal. Mr. Al Lowe himself is spear heading this project to make sure you get the REAL Leisure Suit Larry!!

[jhetfield21]

i'd be happy if the remakes where made in a Love for sail template.
the only one i've played but the overall experience was great.while i haven't played the rest i'd love to play them if they were a little upgraded in graphics and interface.
although i'd possibly grit my teeth and play those that i could anyway(the old ones that can be played through scummvm or sth)

[Arial Type]

I just checked several names on MobyGames. Basically, Replay Games is run by Paul Trowe, who indeed worked on several Sierra projects... as a beta-tester. Sabine Duvall worked as an international producer on a number of Sierra titles (this doesn't include any Larry game), and Leslie Balfour wrote documentation for Space Quest 6 and The Beast Within. That's some team.

[ozzie]

Well, and Josh Mandel, of course.

[JuntMonkey]

Originally Posted by thejobloshow

Thank you, can't stand people who don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

I'm sorry... but Larry is probably one of the only franchises where I act like a giddy teenage girl responding to a vampire in Twilight taking their t-shirt off. It was my first exposure to adventure games, and Sierra, and has remained my favourite adventure series ever since.

This is something I've been waiting for since 1999 and I intend to give Al Lowe every cent I can scramble.

This is getting an oddly negative reaction from many people. Blog commenters hate it. I think that a lot of people have the brand "Leisure Suit Larry" tied up with Magna Cum Laude and Box Office Bust, which is part of the issue.

I could understand it if the haters thought that this simply does not look like a good remake, a sentiment I fully agree with at this time. But that doesn't seem to be what most people have a problem with. It's the license itself that they're against, and the idea of resurrecting a franchise that (apparently) "should have stayed dead".

Why there was a clamoring for new Sam & Max and Monkey Island games but an actively negative reaction against LSL is beyond me. Many of the haters may be unaware that LSL3 and LSL6 are legitimately fantastic adventure games that are right up there (or higher than) Monkey Island and the rest of the oh-so-sacred Lucasarts classics.

This guy on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/#!/foxvanallen

expressed interest in an unfunding campaign for LSL. I asked why and he said the misogyny, posting a picture of Magna Cum Laude as an example. He hasn't responded to a tweet asking if he's played the earlier games.

[JuntMonkey]

Originally Posted by Arial Type

I just checked several names on MobyGames. Basically, Replay Games is run by Paul Trowe, who indeed worked on several Sierra projects... as a beta-tester. Sabine Duvall worked as an international producer on a number of Sierra titles (this doesn't include any Larry game), and Leslie Balfour wrote documentation for Space Quest 6 and The Beast Within. That's some team.

Originally Posted by ozzie

Well, and Josh Mandel, of course.

And Al Lowe?

[Kurufinwe]

Originally Posted by Arial Type

Leslie Balfour wrote documentation for Space Quest 6 and The Beast Within. That's some team.

Hey, don't be mean! She was also the best thing about Laura Bow 2, as the voices of Laura and the narrator. (I'm not trying to be sarcastic here; I really loved her work in LB2.)


Anyway, I really like Larry, but I'm not sure I'm all that excited about yet another remake of the first game, especially when, as Oscar noted, it doesn't really look as good as the previous remake.

Also, when is this supposed to take place? I mean, Larry was a guy with his mind stuck in the 70s trying to make it in the late 80s / early 90s. Part of the games' humour played on the contrast between his outdated references and style and the current period. How does that work now that the period in which the games take place is just as outdated as the 70s?

What I guess I'm trying to say is that, since the Larry games were full of references to the culture and (even more importantly) mindset of the times in which they were made, I'm not sure they've aged all that well, and I'm afraid they might feel dated nowadays, and ridiculous for trying to hide their age behind a fresh coat of paint. If Larry was a joke for still wearing a leisure suit in the 80s and thinking it hadn't gone out of style, isn't the joke now on the people trying, in 2012, to peddle a game which is firmly stuck in the 80s?

[jaap]

It's good to see most people agree on the remake vs original game debate.
I'm also bummed it's just the 2nd remake of lsl1, but pledged $15 anyway. The goal of 500k is pretty steep for a remake, we'll see if they'll get there.
We'll see

[Adventurere No.1]

Originally Posted by Winterfury

It's too bad that they chose to remake LSL1 and not LSL2, which out of all games in the series would probably benefit the most from a remake.

Thanks God, i am not the only one who seen the greatness in LSL2 ...

[Adventurere No.1]

Originally Posted by diego

been there...

isnt it a total different approach

[Arial Type]

Originally Posted by Kurufinwe

Hey, don't be mean! She was also the best thing about Laura Bow 2, as the voices of Laura and the narrator. (I'm not trying to be sarcastic here; I really loved her work in LB2.)

I didn't know that! Then again, I only watched a part of let's play on Youtube
Still I don't think it's enough for a "dream team" and "the team that created Leisure Suit Larry 1". Even Josh Mandel doesn't have much to do with the series, and both him and Lowe are obviously used for advertising purposes only. Those guys don't even bother to mention there was already a VGA remake before. The one they are redrawing right now.

[Oscar]

Originally Posted by Adventurere No.1

isnt it a total different approach

Not really - replacing an visually attractive and artistically consistent style with an uneven but coarsely styled cartoony sheen, like a painter running some watercolours over a van Gogh.

[Adventurere No.1]

Originally Posted by Oscar

like a painter running some watercolours over a van Gogh.

i like that

[Eivind]

Although I'd prefer a completely new LSL, this isn't a hard choice for me. If Al Lowe wants my money to make a new game, he gets it

As for the staff of Replay Games - check out http://www.replaygamesinc.com/about-us/. Leslie Balfour hasn't only been writing documentation, but also been "a producer, designer, business development manager, caterer, and limo driver". Josh Mandel co-designed Freddy Pharkas, among other things.

500k sounds like a lot, but remember that Double Fine was able to gather over six times that amount in their Kickstarter

And I actually agree that I'd prefer the art style of the first LSL1 remake. But, hey, the project is still in a very early phase!

[jaap]

If you go to the kickstarter page, there is now a FAQ.
The 3 most pressing questions can be found below.
I'm not sure I agree totally with them. As for the possibility for a new LSL game: why do you have to prove to codemasters the quality when making a remake? This doesn't make sense, as the content will be similar to the original game. The only thing you can do wrong is the visual / sound design. But i doubt that that would have been controversial anyway. Codemasters were the guys publishing the horrid Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust. Why would they suddenly be interested in quality????

You guys announced this back in October. Why are you asking for the funds now?
This must be the #1 question asked all over the internet today! We announced in October that we secured the development and publishing rights to the original Leisure Suit Larry franchise (series) of games. We showed a 1-room "proof of concept" that helped us secure the rights, so we showed those images in our press release at the time. We originally planned on getting VC (venture capital) funding so we can re-make the entire franchise from scratch for all the new platforms with the best graphics style, voice overs, orchestrated sound, etc. The response we received shocked us. This is what they literally told us "we like your company but we want nothing to do with Leisure Suit Larry since it will tarnish our good name". So it took us a few months to re-think our strategy and when we went to DICE to do the interview with Spike TV, we saw what amazing success our friends at Double Fine had and Tim convinced us to do the same.

How come it's costing you $500,000 to do a re-make of Leisure Suit Larry and it only cost Double Fine $400,000 for a brand new game?
This was another really popular question today. I (Paul) just got off the phone with Greg, the producer over at Double Fine and asked him how it was possible to make a full fledged adventure game for $400k when it's costing us $500k to re-make Leisure Suit Larry. He told me that they initially only planned on making a small iOS game with 3 people on the entire team: 1 artist, 1 programmer, and 1 producer. That, plus they already had a game engine they spent millions of dollars making for a previous game whereas we're using the Unity engine and we're starting with the PC English version, which is a huge, huge difference!! The only thing we can re-use is the original design. Everything else we need to create from scratch: characters, environments, animations, engineering, and even sound effects.

I love the game but I would pledge more if you guys made a brand new Leisure Suit Larry game instead of a re-make of LSL 1
We would LOVE to make a new version of Leisure Suit Larry!! We thought about making LSL 4 (the missing floppies) or 8, or even 69!! The problem is, Codemasters, the publisher that owns the rights to Leisure Suit Larry and sold them to us wants to see what we can do with the game first. They said if we do a good job at a re-make then we'll have total freedom to do what we want on the next game. So, we have to really kick major ass on this game and show Codemasters what we're capable of. Once we do that, and the game is a success, then we can talk about a new design for our good friend Larry. Trust us, nobody wants to see a newer version of Leisure Suit Larry than us, his biggest fans (yes, we too are fans of Larry Laffer).

[zane]

Originally Posted by jaap

I love the game but I would pledge more if you guys made a brand new Leisure Suit Larry game instead of a re-make of LSL 1
We would LOVE to make a new version of Leisure Suit Larry!! We thought about making LSL 4 (the missing floppies) or 8, or even 69!! The problem is, Codemasters, the publisher that owns the rights to Leisure Suit Larry and sold them to us wants to see what we can do with the game first. They said if we do a good job at a re-make then we'll have total freedom to do what we want on the next game. So, we have to really kick major ass on this game and show Codemasters what we're capable of. Once we do that, and the game is a success, then we can talk about a new design for our good friend Larry. Trust us, nobody wants to see a newer version of Leisure Suit Larry than us, his biggest fans (yes, we too are fans of Larry Laffer).

So, theyr doing crowd sourcing, but staying under the leash of the publisher. Give me a break. Why doesnt the publisher pay for it then.