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(gabriel knight mac)
hello, I have gabriel knight 1 for mac and it crashes in the iddle of the game (in the dragon animation part, where gabriel becomes an janthenjagger) and near the end of the game, where I’m trying to play the rada drums.
It just says some kind of error and then it crashes.
I have a iMac G3/233 Mhz with os 9.2.2.
I would apreciate any kind of help since this is one of my favorite games.
Thank you.(re: re: Animation Tools for Kings Quest VII?) Most of the games were done using traditional animation techniques. We would paint the backgrounds, and do pencil sketches for the characters. Animation was done using “flip book” style animation of pencil sketches which were then scanned and painted.
Final cleanup of the animation was done using an off the shelf paint program (Photoshop, Paintshop) and then, the animation went into a proprietary Sierra developed animation sequencer, for insertion into the game.
-Ken W(re: re: Kings Quest novels) Sierra had nothing to do with the Kings Quest novels, beyond licensing a company the permission to write them. I asked Roberta if she read them, and she says she thinks she did, and that she thought they were ok, not great.
-Ken W(re: Kings Quest novels)
The Flying Castle was AWFUL. The only good thing in it was Alex himself and one small part where Alex has to cross a river. Other than that, it was your standard castle adventure on crack. The other two were much, MUCH better. I even keep mine in plastic bags and locked in a chest, but I still had to read them once.
(re: King’s Quest 6, and illogical puzzles… (mini-spoiler))
I remember getting the invisible ink part because the whole thing with the dwarves was like the story of the old blind men and the elephant, where 5 blind men feel different parts of a elephant and think its 5 different things, one feels the leg and thinks its a tree, for example. King’s Quest 4 wasn’t really that bad compared to KQ7. How in the Lord’s name are you supposed to know using the comb on Valanice will make her cry?
(re: Animation Tools for Kings Quest VII?)
I don’t remember if it was on the KQ7 CD itself, the KQ Collection or I saw it on the internet somewhere, but I remember seeing a video of the artists drawing the cels for the game.
(re: I need help with Silent Thunder: A-10 Tank Killer)
Try Dosbox
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/news.php?show_news=1
it might be just what you are looking for
Hehe, that’s an infamous one… 🙂 The game hints poorly that you should guess this, but at least if you answer Rumplestiltskin you are told you’re close. It’s a good example of what was considered a challenging puzzle in those days. In the remake of the game, the gnome’s identity was better hinted by the graphics, and the name was changed to Nikstlitselpmur, which is simply Rumplestiltskin spelled backwards instead of in a backwards alphabet.
Still though, the game doesn’t require you to figure out the name to actually complete it. But you cannot get the maximum amount of points if you don’t though…
I wonder how many people who solved the original puzzle without help. I suppose Sierra got their share of letters asking about it. 🙂
(re: re: re: re: re: new picture) So did the pic of Roberta up registration as predicted, Ken?
Maybe you should do a split screen between that picture, and some of her old video game covers. One in particular comes to mind =)
-Brad(re: re: re: Good old Sierra-Times, Thanx to Ken & Roberta!)
Marco,
Do you have a website for your game company? I would love to check it out 🙂(re: re: The Sierra Pest)
Great to see old friends unite.. always a mind blower.
Anyway any word of this MP3 interview? Id love to hear it as well 🙂That’s it. I numbered a-z then z-a and the numbers match. So Ifnkovhgroghprm is Rumplestiltskin if you used the alphabet backwards. Just like Roberta would be ilyvigz. Thank you.
I just asked Roberta. She says it’s been a while, and she’s not sure, but she thinks: That it’s Rumplestiltskin spelled backwards, with a backwards alphabet: z= a, etc.
-Ken W
(re: The downside of Sierra?) “I’m curious as to what the downside of running Sierra On-Line was? “
The paperwork never bothered me. It’s not that bad. When you’re small, there isn’t that much, and when you get big, there are people (accountants and lawyers) who do everything for you.
Personally, the part I hated the most was dealing with employees. 99.9% of employees are awesome, 99.9% of the time – but there are always exceptions. People who don’t come to work with the right attitude drive me up the walls.
I don’t want to get into specifics, because it wouldn’t be appropriate, but I’ve been through major trauma dealing with employees.
Examples of things that weren’t that fun:
Union organizing. (The Machinists union wanted to organize our entire staff)
Sexual Harrassment lawsuits – some justified, some that weren’t. Our company had perhaps 50-100 people in a supervisory or management capacity. No matter how well you train them, bad things seem to occasionally happen.
Employees who were unskilled, that were hired well above what they had ever made previously, promoted, paid more – and, then file suit against you for back overtime pay.
Employees who are grumpy, non-competitive and seem to hate you no matter what you do.
Having to fire people who you genuinely like, but who can’t handle their jobs. Especially those with a family.
Not being able to fire people (for litigation risk reasons) who aren’t doing their job, or managers, who don’t understand the need to “prune” the workforce regularly, and government bureaucrats who disagree with the entire concept.
Employees who don’t understand how hard it is to make money. There are people who don’t seem to get it that running a company profitably isn’t easy.
Actually, I wish you hadn’t asked this question. There is no way I can answer it without sounding like a villain. The honest truth is that it can be tough dealing with employees under todays labor laws. I’m not saying that there haven’t been times when employees were mistreated by their employers. Today’s laws exist because of past, and recurring, abuses. I understand why the laws are in place, and that they are a necessary evil.
Generally it wasn’t the laws that bothered me most – it was employees who were “just putting in time”. My goal was to assemble an army of the worlds greatest developers, to build the worlds greatest games. Anyone who didn’t share that vision dragged down the whole effort. Customers can tell when they play a game if the team building it really cared about the game or not. One person who does mediocre work, or who isn’t giving the project their all, can ruin the entire effort. Even in customer support – one person who isn’t as friendly as they should be, could bury the whole company. My commitment was always to the thousands of people who would work for Sierra in the future, and to the millions of customers – not to any one employee.
Once again, let me state: these are the exceptions, not the rule. Most employees are wonderful people, who work HARD for the company, and are team players. I just wish it were unanimous. Headaches dealing with people, are for me, probably a bigger reason why I never want to work again, than because I am enjoying retirement.
-Ken W(The downside of Sierra?)
Heyah,
I’m curious as to what the downside of running Sierra On-Line was? I’m actually starting my own business (hey, we all want to be rich), and my most miserable times thus far are paperwork – the mounds and mounds of legal paperwork that must be done, even for a small sole proprietorship. Not to mention the county, city, state, and federal taxes that must be done on a seemingly endless basis.
–LordKaT
(re: re: re: re: new picture) I say leave the new picture. 🙂 Sex sells and Roberta is a very, very sexy woman! (And I mean no disrespect to ya Ken, merely complimenting how beautiful your wife is, both physically and mentally) 🙂
Not only does Roberta look good, that Latte is HOT!
-Ken W
PS Sorry … that wasn’t punny.(re: About Artwork and Copy Protection) 1. I understand that for your VGA games, you scanned hand-painted backgrounds. What did you do with those paintings after they were scanned? Do you still have them? I’m sure there are quite a few die-hard Sierra fans who would gladly purchase one (me included!) :))
We did hand paint the backgrounds. Our official policy was to save the backgrounds, in case we ever did a re-release of the game, and wanted to upgrade the quality of the graphics. I’ve heard rumors that many of the backgrounds have been lost or stolen. I also heard a rumor that they appear from time to time on eBay, but have never seen one. I agree – these would be worth buying if you could find one.
2. It seems that Sierra switched from disk-based copy protection to manual lookups somewhere in 1988. Did you make this change out of convenience to your customers, or was it (as one source claimed) because the then-popular “copy2pc option board” could circumvent all disk-based copy protection schemes?
I made the decision. It was made primarily because the copy protect was failing on legitimate copies on some drives, and was considered annoying by our customers. Also, as you mentioned, there were devices on the market that would copy the disks anyhow.3. I noticed that with PC versions, there are three different disk-based copy protection schemes used by Sierra. Did you program them in-house, or did you license them from a third-party company (i.e. Aztech’s Neverlock or ProLock)? This may sound like a strange question, but I’m very dedicated to researching ancient copy protection schemes. 🙂
We mostly programmed our own. I don’t remember ever licensing someone elses other than once or twice. It was too expensive to do a license for copy protect.
-Ken W(re: re: re: new picture)
I say leave the new picture. 🙂 Sex sells and Roberta is a very, very sexy woman! (And I mean no disrespect to ya Ken, merely complimenting how beautiful your wife is, both physically and mentally) 🙂
(re: KQ4 unreleased cover art) Good job finding his website. I searched casually earlier today and didn’t find it.
Alright, since I’ve been contacting lots of other artists / designers, I’ve sent David an email to see if he is the artist and what he can remember about it, and if he has any sketches / painting of it still (or any other Sierra artwork for that matter). If anyone else has already emailed him, please refer him back to me if he replies to you.
Very cool to hear that you have the original KQ4 box art painting Ken. That’d definitely be something to get a hi-res scan of as we collect your stuff (if it’s not irremovably mounted or something, that is).(re: re: re: re: re: re: KQ4 unreleased cover art) Roberta is standing next to me…
She says she doesn’t remember this particular cover. The cover that she remembers is taken from a painting that we have (the original to) at home. It’s of Rosella on a horse, being attacked by flying demons. She doesn’t know where this cover came from. Strange. Maybe it was deemed too controversial and not used. I don’t remember any controvery around it though.
-Ken W(re: re: re: re: re: KQ4 unreleased cover art)
I did a search on him and by the look of his other art. the box art loomk like his other art.
(re: Laura Bow Games?)
Like Martijn said there are two Laura Bow games. The Colonel’s Bequest and Dager of Amon Ra. I got both of them when I picked up the Kings Quest box set. it was a bonus Played Colonel’s Bequest to the end, but never finished Dagger of Amon Ra. It warned me that it may not play properly and unfortinantly it was right.
(re: Animation Tools for Kings Quest VII?)
I found the making ofs on my Kings Quest Collection CD. Well, i mean with animation Tools, which Tools were used, to put the Animation together (like (i know silly example) Flash). I didn’t know, that Sierra developed their own Animation Software…
Thanks anyway…
