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(re: AGI Interpreter Recoding) And don’t forget Brian Provinciano’s latest release, GBAGI.
Basically, it’s AGI on a GameBoy Advance. You need a flash cart for full advantage, though… you can’t get it onto a cartridge without one, and if you’re going to use an emulator, you might as well use another interpreter.the hand? Are you playing the VGA remake by Tierra? (Both of the Sierra versions had text parsers — no hand icon.)
If it’s the Tierra remake, look for a faint red X on the ground. You have to stand there to be picked up. Go to the X, then try using the hand again.
-emily
No matter what I try I cannot jump and get the condor to grab me. The bird flies by and I use the hand, and I jump, but to no avail.
(Email games offer . . . or IM!)
Hey everyone,
In an effort to lighten the load for requests, you’re welcome to IM me ( D Dohboy ) if you’re looking for some of the old games, I’ve got about 35 titles or so. I also tracked down a copy of the INN/TSN remake, it’s not online, but you can create your character.
Also, if anyone has the Laffer Utilities let me know. I’ve been trying to track it down for ages. Thanks!
(re: re: Does sq6 have copy protection?) Actually no that is not the copy protection, it might seem like it but it is not, both Scott Murphy and Josh Mandel have confirmed it. It’s a bloody pain in the ass I admit that and the hints in the manual help little or not at all.
All walkthroughs available on the net have the solution for the puzzle.(re: Offer to email old games)
I once had the Leisure Suit Larry games, but they were thrown out while moving last Christmas. I was wondering if you could send me the first 5 (or is it 4?) Larry games. If you have Larry 6 non-talkie version, I’d be willing to take it too (I assume the talkie would be too large). I appreciate the help and support. Thanks.
(re: re: Ken: your personal collection of Sierra games)
> I’m wondering just how the program works, and then will
> it read the image afterwards?The program stores a very accurate representation of all the “pulses” for each track of a floppy disk. This is (nearly) the lowest level of representation possible (we are talking about a far lower level than sector data, not to mention files!), so any kind of protection or strange layout can be imaged properly, and automatically.
The program requires some hardware:
– a “good” motherboard, in this case not meaning new or fast. It seems Pentium and older AMD motherboards are the best in this case.
– a fast parallel port card. A dedicated PCI-based parallel port card is best.
– a simple 2-wire cable that connects to the floppy cable on one end, and to the parallel port on the other.The software is not able to write images back to disk (mainly because, generally speaking, this is technically not possible), so the images must be used with emulators. The first emulator to support these images is the Amiga emulator WinUAE (www.winuae.net). Other emulators should follow (probably Atari ST first).
Anyway, I think the most important now is to backup the disks before they get corrupted. Emulators can be developed/enhanced later.
> at least many people here have original disks for the
> PC-era of Sierra’s games.In fact, I have quite a few myself as well 😉
> Perhaps if you were to give more information about the
> program and ideas about how such an archive could be
> created, how it would be organized, etc.I would think that it is better to start with Ken’s collection, and create a list of what’s missing, posted on this site. Fans could then make images of the missing games. I’m ready to offer registered versions to anyone having missing games, as well as give any advice to help setup a working configuration for the imaging process.
I’d like to see all Sierra games imaged, including any version for any machine in any language (I think LSL3 was the first multi-language Sierra game, at least in Europe).
The box, manuals, etc. should also be properly scanned (I’d say in 600 dpi quality) and the scans archived along with the disk images.
Vincent.
(re: re: re: re: Ken: your personal collection of Sierra games)
> That said…. I’m in overload mode. I mentioned in
> another post that fun keeps getting in the way of my
> spending time at my computer. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not
> ready to give up my geek-status, but I am starting to
> border on having a healthy relationship with my computer.
> Hopefully, I’ll find a way to get things back to normal
> at some point, but for now, finding time to rummage
> through my garage, and backup floppies isn’t happening.
> Hopefully, someone out there will pick up the slack.I’m ready to do it! I would indeed be extremely happy and honoured to do this task.
I think your collection could be the base of a full Sierra collection. I could backup all your games and create a list of what you have and what you don’t have, so that, as Brandon said, Sierra fans could complete the collection.
I think it would be more “authentic” (and also most probably faster) to start with your collection.
I am ready to take the time and effort to take care of this, and am free to do it whenever is more convenient for you.
> I’ve always thought about opening a small museum that
> would showcase the old games; not just Sierra’s, but all
> of the old games. I may do this someday. Specifically,
> I’d like to do something in the tourist area of Seattle.
> I’d find old Apple II’s, Atari 800’s, etc and all the old
> games, and any old information I could find on the
> history of computer gaming. I doubt it would be a big
> success, but I bet it wouldn’t lose money either. We’ll
> see… it’s on my to-do list.I also happen to be particularly interested in this topic. I’ve been part for some years now of a local association that aims at building a computer museum.
Vincent.
(re: Ken: your personal collection of Sierra games) I like this idea – the only thing that could get in the way of it being “useful” publicly is of course Sierra protecting their copyrights. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been doing the same sort of thing with my own collection of games, except not by using disk images.
I’m wondering just how the program works, and then will it read the image afterwards? Because the fans have great collections of disks too, not just Ken. Some insane fans may even have better collections than Ken. I don’t know about all the early non-PC games, but at least many people here have original disks for the PC-era of Sierra’s games. Perhaps if you were to give more information about the program and ideas about how such an archive could be created, how it would be organized, etc.(re: re: Magnetic Scrolls ?)
Oops, sorry Ken, didn’t want to intrude in your private live. I was just curious (on top I’m home with flu, so I have more time these days 😉 ). Don’t worry, of course there is no rush. Family goes first (I see your point of the PS though… it’s like what I think sometimes about vacation and Christmas time !!!).
Really, thanks for being so kind, it looks like this it typical of Sierra (the old, the one) people and fans. A while ago I had some friendly mail exchanges also with Al Lowe, on the end of Sierra after you sold. He has always been very kind too. It takes time to adjust to this for me: usually, the people you consider a sort of “myth” are so far…
Ciao and enjoy your vacation.
Giovanni(re: re: re: Ken: your personal collection of Sierra games) Preserving the old games is important. I’d hate to think that ANY of our older products would just disappear because no one took the time to back them up. This happened in the film industry. There are many old films that will never be seen again because the prints were poorly preserved, or just not preserved.
That said…. I’m in overload mode. I mentioned in another post that fun keeps getting in the way of my spending time at my computer. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not ready to give up my geek-status, but I am starting to border on having a healthy relationship with my computer. Hopefully, I’ll find a way to get things back to normal at some point, but for now, finding time to rummage through my garage, and backup floppies isn’t happening. Hopefully, someone out there will pick up the slack.
I’ve always thought about opening a small museum that would showcase the old games; not just Sierra’s, but all of the old games. I may do this someday. Specifically, I’d like to do something in the tourist area of Seattle. I’d find old Apple II’s, Atari 800’s, etc and all the old games, and any old information I could find on the history of computer gaming. I doubt it would be a big success, but I bet it wouldn’t lose money either. We’ll see… it’s on my to-do list.
-Ken W(re: re: re: Inca Series) I’ve been thinking for a couple of days about how to comment on Inca. It’s not an easy topic, and hopefully my answer won’t upset anyone who worked on the project.
Inca should have been a major hit, but wasn’t. It had the potential, but was missing some key ingredients. The sound track was amazing. Technically, it was ahead of its time. The plot had some flaws (my opinion), and the product was not well play tested. A game such as this needs to start easy, and then add complexity over time. Inca was too difficult in the early levels. It also suffered from being buggy at introduction.
My recollection is that it sold very well in Europe, but that it sold poorly in the US.
Inca was really the first action game, that I can remember, to blend in a story. For those who haven’t seen it – I would compare it to Wing Commander, which was a huge hit.
Overall: I think Inca could have been one of our biggest hits if we had taken the extra months required to really polish the game. I don’t recall if this was an issue with Inca or not, but there were times when a game would be nearing completion, and suddenly find itself over budget, and in danger of missing Christmas. I was often faced with the dilema of whether or not to ship a game, or hold the game, and continue spending. If a product slips past Christmas, its sales forecasts would often be cut in half. Then again, if you ship a product that isn’t ready to go to market, you could lose your customer base. At Sierra, we usually made the right decisions, and became #1 because of it. But unfortunately, “usually” isn’t “always”.
-Ken W(re: Did your kids ever get into game design?) Our oldest son DJ has no interest in the games business – he decided to become a chef, and is doing very well at it. To be precise: he’s currently a sous-chef at a hot new restaurant (called Cinch) in Santa Monica Ca.
Our younger son, Chris, used to travel with me to Japan, where we had an office, and decided that he wanted to live in Japan. He spent four years there going to college, and sees his long-term goal as to be a film maker of Japanese animated films; Anime. Chris’ website is
Link: http://www.aahz.com(http://www.aahz.com)
Chris is also a VERY talented software engineer and game designer. He worked for a while for Electronic Arts on games, and is currently working for a cell phone game company called Dwango – but, moving to Japan soon to work for a company there that I don’t know much about.
-Ken W(re: Magnetic Scrolls ?) I did go to the site for Magnetic Scrolls, but haven’t yet made an effort to play the games. I really had never heard of them.
We’re in Mexico now. Our home here is in a town that is a tourist destination, so whenever we come here, we get LOTS of visitors. Roberta’s parents came for a week, then my parents, then some old friends from Sierra, Al Lowe and family just sent their flight schedule to come here, Roberta’s spanish teacher and husband are coming down, etc. When people are here at the house, I get almost no time on my computer. We do love having people here, and are having a great time – so, game play, and getting some work done on the software behind this site, will have to wait until things come down.
-Ken W
PS There are times when retirement feels like more work than work ever was.(re: Letter from the past) Sierra gave a LOT of time and effort to thinking about multiplayer adventure games, but never really came up with an idea that worked. We had all the technology and servers, but weren’t sure how to design a game that would be fun.
One effort was a game called “The Realm” for our online games network, INN. It was a HUGE success, but the game was more of a RPG than an adventure game.
We added multiplayer capability to some of the adventure games that shipped towards the end – I think Shivers. It was not much more than just a chat room that connected you with others playing the game at the same time. Almost no one used this feature — although, remember, this was in the pre-broadband days.
I tried to add some multiplayer capability to every product — even Bass Fishing and The Incredible Machine had multiplayer capability. From all this, I was hoping I would grow to understand better what might make a good multiplayer adventure game, but nothing ever emerged.
But, we did try…Hopefully someday someone will solve this riddle – how to do a great multiplayer adventure game, that doesn’t turn into an RPG game. Actually, there was a lot more to do in The Realm than just fight. Perhaps it WAS the first multiplayer adventure game. I’m sure that we have former Realm players on this site. Maybe one or more of them will comment on this.
-Ken W(re: Woodruff and the Schnibble Manual)
And here is a screenshot from Woodruff.
Woodruff screenshot(Many Thanks to Ken and Roberta)
If it wasn’t for my dad letting me play a cool looking game called “Kings Quest” in his computer lab at work all those many years ago, I don’t know if I would have stuck with being a computer gamer for so long. I’d probably be one of those console-only gamers who never realized that PC games existed.
Even to this day, thru my collection of FPS games, RPG’s and action games – I’ll still go back and play thru all the Sierra Quest games (that I can get to work in these modern times) and still have fun doing so.
Thank you for the good times and introducing me to games that were actually FUN! 🙂
(re: re: Inca Series)
I loved both INCA games … I got through the second one within a single day, though, which was very disappointing since I shelled out about $100 for it. INCA 1 was much more difficult … in fact, I never managed to get through the final space battle in INCA 1, and it drove me nuts. I got so frustrated that at one point I just deleted the entire game from my hard drive, just so I wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore … still a good game. Beautiful graphics and a great score.
(re: re: Ken: your personal collection of Sierra games)
Hi Ken,
The reason I was asking is because I am very interested in preserving all Sierra games.
Cartridges usually last for a very long time, and they are also easily dumpable.
For example, I have dumped the 2 Sierra PCjr cartridges I had (which are available on a friend’s site http://retrograde.trustno1.org/pcjr.htm).CDs also last for a quite long time, and they are more recent and probably easily dumpable as well.
The preservation of floppy disks, on the other hand, is a little more difficult. That’s why I have created the Disk2FDI software that is able to image any floppy disk with an excellent quality. With this tool, it is possible to dump any floppy, even a protected original, for any machine, then preserve the imaged floppy on a CD, DVD or whatever future storage may become available. The problem with real floppy disks is that they can get corrupted with time, so the task of preserving the older games should be done as soon as possible.
Floppy disk images can then be used with emulators supporting the image format, just as if you were using the original floppy with the real machine. BTW, that is what was done for the Roberta William’s Anthology.
What Disk2FDI adds is the ability to automatically image any original protected disk with only a PC.I was thinking that it would be very nice to make images of your collection, so that it can be preserved safely for the future.
I’m not (necessarily) interested in getting the games myself, but rather make sure there is at least a properly imaged copy kept somewhere. I also think that would be very interesting if a Sierra collection was made from the collection of the founder of Sierra himself. Whether it can become available to the public by one way or another in the future is another story…
I would be glad to offer you a free registration of Disk2FDI (www.oldskool.org/disk2fdi) so that you can use the enhanced imaging functionalities. I would also help you in any way I can so that you can setup a working configuration to make Disk2FDI work well.
Making such a collection with eBay would probably be very time and money-consuming, especially since I don’t live in the USA.
I know you may not have much time to do this, but please let me know what you think about the general idea of preserving the old games this way.
Vincent.
(re: Ken: your personal collection of Sierra games) Vincent:
I have a lot of the games, but have no idea which ones. We moved a few years ago from a large house to a much smaller house, and put everything that didn’t fit into a mini-storage unit. This included all of the old software that was on shelves in my office. About once a year I visit the storage unit or one reason or another, but it’s a dark and dreary place – and, not a place I want to hang out long enough to search through the boxes.
-Ken W
PS The best way to find the old Sierra games is to monitor eBay. Almost everything comes up for auction sooner or later on eBay.(Ken: your personal collection of Sierra games)
Hi Ken,
I would have liked to know (if this is not an indiscreet question) which Sierra games you personally possess.
Do you own only a few, or nearly all of the Sierra games of the 80’s and 90’s?
Also for which machines do you have them (Apple 2 and IIGS, PC, Atari ST, Amiga, Mac, …)?
Vincent.
(re: Sierra games changed my life!)
At last a place to praise the great ones of old.
From when I was around 8 years old, up until my early twenties, Sierra games were the ultimate form of entertainment to me.
When asked what my favorite book was, I always answered Gabriel Knight : Sins of the fathers. I know, it is not a book, but it is richer than any book I’ve read.
Theses games make your mind travel like nothing else.
To this day I cannot believe I experienced all of these emotions in a game. And now I have to get used to simplistic predictable stories, games with no real interaction between characters, and no memorable characters to converse with.
Sierra games felt special. They had almost a home-made quality to it…you could feel the love that was put into it. 🙂
I have noticed that there are not many companies who have deeply touched the soul of their customers the way Sierra did.
The boxes were awesome. The anticipation before booting up a Sierra game is a feeling I have yet to experience with something else.
These are just some thoughts, friends.
!Simon Love
(re: re: Problems with KQ V —-> Dark Forest)
The Windows version of King’s Quest V checks your screen resolution/color depth before it starts. If it does not find 640 x 480 resolution , 256 colors it will quit the game before it even starts. On Windows XP “Compatibility Mode” will let you set older games to run at this resolution/colors, but KQ5 checks before Compatibility Mode can change it.
To get around this problem, you will need to set your resolution down before you launch the game. This can be done in the advanced settings of your display settings dialog. A more convenient way to do this is to make a batch file to replace the Windows shortcut for the game. To do this:
1) Right click on the KQ5 shortcut, choose “Properties” and copy what is in the “Target” box
2) Open Notepad, paste what you copied into it and save it with a “.bat” extension, such as KQ5.bat
3) Right click on this bat file and go to the compatibility tab to set the bat file for 640 x 480 and 256 colors.
When you double click on this bat file, Compatibility Mode will change your resolution and launch the game. When the game starts, it will already be 640x480x256 and will then run.
(re: Leisure Suite Larry film)
Speaking of Sierra franchises and movies, does anyone else feel like Colin Mockrie (from Who’s Line is it Anyway) would be the perfect fit for a Leisure Suit Larry film? Since the first time I saw him, I though: That guy IS Larry Laffer!
Just a random thought for all of you.
(re: re: Phantasmagoria Memories? Questions for Ken or Roberta) My answers to your questions are embedded below. Roberta said she’ll take a stab at these tomorrow afternoon. Her answers will be MUCH better than mine.
-Ken W
Questions:
How long had Roberta had the idea for Phantasmagoria?
*** I don’t know. Roberta will have to answer this. In a way, it’s not unlike her first game, Mystery House – which was 10 years previous.
How long before she was given the go ahead?
*** Phantasmagoria was a tough sell inside Sierra. It needed a huge budget, and was a risky project. New technology, new techniques, new kind of game, everything. That said, my rule was always that your ability to make things happen at Sierra flowed from the profitability of your last game. Roberta had a string of hits, so she could do what she wanted.
Ken, What was your role in helping Roberta?
*** I had two roles: 1) TRY (unsuccessfully) to keep the project on budget. And, 2) Give ideas to the technology group on the extentions to SCI needed to support the game.
Were either of you ever concerned about the massive costs associated with completing this project?
*** Myself much more than Roberta. I always played the evil corporate villain role within the company. (trust me — it didn’t always work)
Could either of you describe the process that went along with assembling the cast?
*** Roberta will have to answer this. I know that she wrote descriptions for each character, and that these were then used for casting sessions down in Hollywood.
Did you hold many auditions etc?
*** Yes!
What was it about Victoria Morsell that made her desirable for the role of Adrienne?
*** Speaking as a fan of the game: I thought she was awesome in Phantasmagoria. She had the right look, and did a solid job as an actress. Roberta dropped out of Phantasmagoria after the first game. Lorelei took over the series for the sequel, and wanted to do her own game. I wanted a direct continuation of the story, and to bring Victoria/Adrienne back. Unfortunately, I didn’t just force this to happen, and Phantasmagoria II had very little to do with Phantasmagoria I — and, sold about 20% of the number of copies.
Did the cast have much initial difficulty acting in front of a blue screen?
*** It was a long shoot — about nine months — and, very complex. It was tough aligning the actors with the 3-d rendered sets.
Who selected the outfit that Adrienne would wear? Were the colors of the clothing chosen for any particular reason?
*** I don’t know — but, I HAVE THAT SHIRT!!! The orange top she wore! I talked her out of it at the end of the shoot, and had it framed.
Do you have any fun memories between you (Ken or Roberta) and the cast that you would like to share?
*** Roberta will have some great answers to this question.
