Adventure Gamers - Forums

I am an old Sierra fan. I grew up on Sierra titles and played most of the Lucasfilm titles only later on. Zak McKracken was one of the few Lucas titles I played. That said, I do think why Lucas titles are better regarded these days is that their design is closer to what modern games are. Not all of them, but in their best, they feel fairer designed towards the players in a sense, that they feel like games the designers actually want the players to complete and not get artificially stumbled on because they forgot to pick up an item from the first screen of the game you can’t return later on.

For gaming as a whole, Sierra is more important than Lucasfilm was during its early days. Sierra did push the industry forward by showing people were willing to spend some extra if that meant better sounds and graphics. But many of the Lucas titles have aged better.

Burge - 21 August 2020 09:44 AM

I find it a little strange to have that amount of buy in company wide when it was such a source of frustration for players. Surely there should have been a little push back from developers?

It was in part to make people buy hint books or call hint lines. In part, it was to make the games last longer.

Burge - 21 August 2020 09:44 AM

I find it a little strange to have that amount of buy in company wide when it was such a source of frustration for players. Surely there should have been a little push back from developers?

As far as I recall, Jane Jensen was the first to push towards more forgiving deaths and trying to avoid dead ends. And that was only starting with King’s Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow and especially Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers.

I recall a couple of old Sierra devs stating that at least some of the dead ends and harder than needed puzzles were designed to add more length to the game as well as to get some additional revenue from hint books and hint lines. Al Lowe said in one interview, they made more money on selling hint books on Larry 1 than they did on selling the game itself.

The only other option for most players back then was to either to buy hint books or wait for a computer magazine with hints that were specific to their needs. And as people did buy fewer games back in the ‘80s, the devs also wanted to make sure the players got bang for their buck.

GateKeeper - 21 August 2020 10:34 AM

tomimt - 21 August 2020 09:46 AM

For gaming as a whole, Sierra is more important than Lucasfilm was during its early days. Sierra did push the industry forward by showing people were willing to spend some extra if that meant better sounds and graphics. But many of the Lucas titles have aged better.

If think “gaming as a whole”, then in all fairness we should also talk about games like X-Wing/Tie Fighter series which are still considered among best space fight sims ever made. Of course technically speaking they weren’t developed by LucasArts, but they were developed for LucasArts, a bit like Space Quest V was with Sierra.

Note that I said during the early days, which I meant the ‘80s. By 90s Sierra was already beginning to be left behind whereas Lucasfilm found their stride with Star Wars titles. I guess it deserves repeating, but Sierra really never did find a way to utilize the new technologies when 3D games became increasingly more relevant. Sierra, on the other hand, had placed their bets on FMV to be the big seller.

Sierra never really was able to shake off that adventure game developer imago. This despite Sierra did publish some great simulators like Red Baron (1990) and Nascar Racing (1994). Those, I think, show they had access to good 3D knowhow, but from some reason that never trickled down their main franchises.

GateKeeper - 21 August 2020 10:34 AM

Have we been playing same games?
Are we talking about the same Jane Jensen?

I seem to recall that towards the end of Gabriel Knight, there is a maze that had deadly traps, and it even involves a dead-end at one point if you happen to do, or rather not do, something.

The number of deaths is lower in Gabriel Knight, but that ending was brutal even by Sierra standards if you ask me!

Is said “try”. I never said they succeeded.

But it’s the reason why - if you don’t have all the necessary items before going into the dungeon in King’s Quest VI - there’s a prompt urging you to check if you have everything. They don’t stop you from entering anyway, but for Sierra, indicating there *might* be dead ends was a first.

And in Gabriel Knight, the first time you can die is in Day 4, almost halfway into the game. For a company that generally made sure you could die on the very first screen of the game, that’s a huge leap forward.

And as I recall, Jensen *really* had to convince Roberta Williams to go along with this “fewer deaths and try to avoid dead ends” thing.
They didn’t have a structural system in place like the one Ron Gilbert made.

TimovieMan - 21 August 2020 11:02 AM

And as I recall, Jensen *really* had to convince Roberta Williams to go along with this “fewer deaths and try to avoid dead ends” thing.

I just listened to a podcast with Al Lowe, where he said, that during the production of King’s Quest 3 he tried to convince Roberta to allow at least certain amount of misspelling in doing the magic spells. She was very adamant on “it’s all or nothing approach”, so Al’s suggestions were quickly discarded.

Advie - 20 August 2020 01:45 PM

tomimt - 20 August 2020 08:58 AM

This is somewhat relevant to this topic, as I just heard that Ken Williams is writing a book about Sierra history: https://kensbook.com/

The contents presented start from how Ken and Roberta met and end with Mask of Eternity.

i know about that book for a while but i am not really interested bc of what i read Ken says that is only about ‘Market and product strategies’, things that ‘will bore people’ as he had put it.

I think you will be surprised. I’m going to search for the video but Metal Jesus (YouTube personality and ex sierra employee) has said he and many others have been used as collaborating sources to detail a few “juicy nuggets”. I assume he’s talking about the environment because he later talks about it being a dorm like experience.

I just watched the High Score episode with Ken and Roberta. It’s a pretty decent documentary series, but if they ever do a second season if it, I’d hope they concentrate more on the history of specific companies and people at least episodes worth. I’m certain there would be some interesting stuff devs from different companies could tell if given more time.

The way the series is now, I’m constantly thinking how interesting it would be to hear Yoshitaka Amano, Roberta Williams or Richard Garriott talk more on their process and approach on games be it as an artist or as a designer.

tomimt - 21 August 2020 10:36 AM

I recall a couple of old Sierra devs stating that at least some of the dead ends and harder than needed puzzles were designed to add more length to the game

I don’t know about additional revenue from hint books, but as for extending gameplay ... absolutely. There is only one Sierra dead end that I know of that was the result of bad programing. That was a “possible” dead end in Shivers. It required thae absolute worst of all possible circumstances to come together for the dead end to occur, but it was there, and I found it. That is was not intentional was confirmed by Sierra programmers back in the day when there was a Sierra forum on Compuserve that was staffed by Sierra people. It’s where I met Josh Mandel.

All the other dead ends, per those same people, were intentional. And, like death, were intended to extend game play. This was in the day when length of game equated with value when a game might easily sell for $50US or more.