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My article on the impact of Sierra Online’s Adventures
Hi,
My name is Raz and I’ve been an adventure gamer since I discovered Police Quest back in… 1990, I think. I am also an animation researcher, and recently an article by me about Sierra’s adventure games was published in the Animation academic journal. The article argues that Sierra’s place in history of gaming should be re-evaluated, not just as the maker of adventure games, but also for the contribution its adventure games made to the concept of animation all across the gaming field.
The article can be read here:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/17468477211025665
I don’t think it’s too heavy on academic language, but I’m not the best judge on that. If you read it, I hope you’ll enjoy it, and I would welcome any comments.
Skimmed the article, seems like a good read.
I have have a weekend off (sort of), so this is going to be a welcome diversion.
Hi Raz,
I’m reading and enjoying this. Came across this sentence, which I think might contain a typo. I’m having a hard time parsing it.
“When Sierra On-Line introduced animation to the adventure genre with King’s Quest, the game was already featured in most other genres of digital games.”
Maybe the word ‘game’ is meant to be ‘technology’?
Player, purveyor, and propagator of smart toys and games for all ages.
Facebook.com/weplayfaves
IG @weplayfaves
The article makes reference to “Wizard and Princess (1980) and The Zone (1982)”. Shouldn’t that be “The Wizard and the Princess” and “Time Zone”?
(Though the first one seems to have a few alternate titles, according to MobyGames.)
Baron_Blubba: Yeah, that was a mistake on my part.
eriktorbjorn: I’m not 100% sure, really, but I recall several references, including official ones, to “Wizard and Princess”.
It’s an interesting piece! Good catches by eriktorbjorn and Baron_Blubba.
I recently looked it up “The Longing” and I think it does something interesting in regards to the subject of this article. It seems to use its setting and basic plot as a stage for players to animate the main character as they see fit. However they want to pass the time, it’s up to them.
Haven’t played the game, but it’s fun to think about its concept in the terms your article presents.
The passage about Gertie the Dinosaur reminded me of a game I have played: “The Stanley Parable”. It explores the tension between ludus and paidea and gives the player a lot of agency to openly rebel against both the narrator and (what is presented as) the intended path and outcome of the game.
Another thought: this article describes my personal experience with the old Sierra titles very well. I loved walking around Tamir, Llewdor and Daventry. I feel that element of free-roaming exploration is sometimes lost in modern titles. These games often go for a more structured narrative, where locations are all in service to the puzzles/story progression.
Another thought: this article describes my personal experience with the old Sierra titles very well. I loved walking around Tamir, Llewdor and Daventry. I feel that element of free-roaming exploration is sometimes lost in modern titles. These games often go for a more structured narrative, where locations are all in service to the puzzles/story progression.
I agree with this very much. A lot of modern games feel like adventures down hallways, where older games felt like adventures across a world, and I use ‘world’ literally and figuratively with regards to the physical and narrative scopes of the games.
Player, purveyor, and propagator of smart toys and games for all ages.
Facebook.com/weplayfaves
IG @weplayfaves
eriktorbjorn: I’m not 100% sure, really, but I recall several references, including official ones, to “Wizard and Princess”.
I don’t know either. I just checked my “The Roberta Williams Anthology” manual, and there it’s “Wizard and the Princess”, so there is at least one “the” in the title there. And that’s also what the splash screen says when I run the game in ScummVM:
Though in the hints section of the same manual, it says “How to get past the rattlesnake in The Wizard and the Princess”, so they just can’t make up their minds…
Anyway, that was just something I noticed while writing the post. The main thing I wanted to point out was “Time Zone” instead of “The Zone”.
At least the High Res series names it Wizard and the Princess on the box. And MobyGames has it listed as The Wizard and the Princess.
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