(re: re: re: re: re: re: Not a “pure” Sierra game, but…) I don’t remember why the Goblins series was renamed to Woodruff and the Schnibble…
The games were developed by Coktel Vision, a subsidiary of ours that was based in France.
Here’s a few comments on Coktel:
Coktel Vision was dominant in education software in Europe. They had a series of products called “ADI” that were curriculum-based educational software. The ADI series had hundreds of individual products each targeting a different grade level and subject matter.
I always wanted to launch the ADI software in the US. We spent years converting the software, and did launch it – and sold almost no copies. In Europe, (or, at least the portions of Europe we targeted) all schools had rigid curriculums. All students learn the same thing at the same time, from the same books. The ADI series was meant to exactly mirror the in-school studies. No such rigidness exists in the US, which made it tougher for us to adapt the products to the US market. Also, my staff didn’t like the project, and grumbled about working on it. I’m not sure we ever gave the project our best effort. I would be curious to see one of the old ADI boxes if someone has one and wants to scan it.
The name Coktel Vision was a strange one. At the time, I thought it must mean something in french, which I now know that it doesn’t. I remember asking Roland, Coktel’s founder, years after we acquired them, where the name came from. His response: “I was having a drink one day, thinking about starting a software company, and voila – I had the company name and the idea.” Why he misspelled Coktel, I do not know.
Many Sierra divisions tried to do Adventure games, but it is harder than it seems. None of the divisions ever shipped a hit. Dynamix tried with Rama and Coktel with Goblins. The closest to success was the Dr. Brain series done by our Brightstar division in Seattle. I loved the Dr. Brain games! Actually, Brightstar did another series that I thought was incredible: EcoQuest.
-Ken W
