Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
(re: King’s Quest V for NES)
I got some in-game screenshots of both the Sega KQ1 and Nintendo KQ5 games on my King’s Quest website. Links below.
Despite being terribly inferior to the original games, I think it’s fun that they made it to the consoles. And I would also love to know more about how these conversions came to be.
KQ1 remake screenshots on bottom of page
KQ5 remake screenshots on bottom of page(re: Interview With Al Lowe)
Interviews with Al are always a welcome read. The fact that this one was done before Sierra’s game announcement does not lessen its content đ
(re: King’s Quest V for NES)
I have definitely seen some screenshots floating around on the internet (but i’m not sure if what I saw was KQ5 for the SNES or for Sega?) I’ve seen the gypsy camp and the town, compared to the VGA graphics. I’ll try to find them.
It is interesting that Mordack’s castle is featured so prominently on the box… again, I wonder if it was because the audience was used to seeing dark castles in their games?
-emily
(re: re: re: King’s Quest V for NES)
Wow I totally forgot about King’s quest for the master system. I thought they did an ok job reworking the King’s Quest I graphics and would consider it a decent port. I’m sorry I stole that box scan from Martin Nielson and Nesworld and so I don’t have the original box but I did have the cartridge. Unfortunately I don’t have a scanner so I’ll try to find some more pics on the internet.
(re: re: King’s Quest V for NES) Very interesting! This brings up memories (I recently finished the regular old VGA PC version you all know, but the game regularly crashed while the ending movie played – but that is a different story.)
I think screenshot #4 isn’t the lower (organ) hallway connecting the kitchen and the dining room but the upper hallway, the one leading from the bed chambers and study (#2) to the laboratory with the wand machine (#1)
It’s really cool to see what looks like a real box scan with loads of screenshots.
I tried to find screenshots for the NES version of KQV but couldn’t find any. I thought by some time that it was fake and there had never been a KQV for the NES. It was hard to believe for me anyway, since KQV was Sierra’s VGA prototype and that didn’t seem to go along well with the NES’s limited graphics support. I’d heard, however, that Sierra had always been negotiating about video game console conversions.
I wonder how this game sold (or KQ1 for the Master System.) I know there was also a NES version of Lucasfilm Games’ very first graphic adventure “Maniac Mansion”, but there were obviously no more conversions, so by the time classical adventure games had finally made it to the console market they were obviously not “state of the art” enough anymore.
Ken, do you know how the market for adventure game console conversions was`or do you remember what negotiating with Sega and Nintendo was like?
I also remember another story connected with the console conversions or rather a rumour. It said that in Leisure Suit Larry 1, the parts that were covered by “censored”-bars used to be un-censored (I’d always taken it as a joke, that it had been supposed to be as it is right away.)
Due to plans to convert the first Larry game to the Master System / NES, however, that had somehow been rejected by both companies (Sega and Nintendo) because of being too mature for the intended audience, the game was eventually censored.
Sega and Nintendo still wouldn’t want to buy the game, but from then on it was censored.
Is that correct or is it just another wild rumour? Might Al Lowe know anything about this?(re: King’s Quest V for NES) I think you’re right about them all.
The third one is the side of Mordack’s castle, where the grate is. That’s what’s on the floor, and around are the ocean, rocks, and sky. Cedric is saying “Come on, Graham! This place gives me the shivers!”
Interesting how many pictures are used from Mordack’s castle!(re: re: King’s Quest V for NES)
I would say that the 2nd screenshot is Mordack’s library, 4th is the hallway with the organ and the last one, the entrance to Mordack’s castle. I have no idea about the 3rd one. Maybe the 5th one is the ant hill near the beginning?
(re: List of who has which magazines) Brad:
The summer 96 issue of InterAction I have has Randy Johnson on the cover.
We did multiple different covers on several occasions. Here’s why: Authors would get really upset if someone elses product got the cover of InterAction. Part of my job was to keep everyone happy, motivated, and building product. If we had two hot products at the same time, we would print half the magazines with one product on the cover, and the other half with a different product on the cover.
My holiday 98 issue has three race cars on the cover.
The vol1 # 1 is as you described it.
The Spring 1988 Vol 3 issue I have is labeled “Sierra Newsletter” and is black and white. It’s about a 24 page newsletter.
The buyers guide is just a catalog.
The Education stuff was a different newsletter we did just focused on education.
I think I now remember that the Mad magazine has some Sierra stuff in it.
Here’s something fun: one of the contracts I found today was with Disney, for a Leisure-Suit Larry film. Disney licensed the film rights, and for a while, there were rumors Jim Carey would be Larry, but nothing ever came of it. I’ve tried for years to get the film rights to Larry, and will hopefully get them someday.
-Ken W(re: re: InterAction Mag.)
Ken,
At first glance it looks like you have Spring 1998 which in all my searching I have not come across anyone that has that magazine.. so hold on to that one. =)
Check the :
Summer 96 Baseball
Holiday 98 RacingCan you give me a better idea of what is on the front cover?
My Summer 96 shows a picture of Lighthouse, and has “Lighthouse” written big across the bottom. It does mention Baseball ’96 on the cover though – but thought maybe you had an alternate cover.My Holiday 1998 is blatantly Kings Quest VIII : MOE graphics on front, but it does make a reference to Racing, but is very secondary. Anyway if you can clarify on those two.
I know of one guy who has the Vol 1#1 newsletter, but it would probably be easier to get it scanned from you. It’s the one with Cranston Manor and the little armour guy right?
The one you have listed as “Vol 3 KQ3 ships for Apple” did you mean Vol 1 #3? And you are for sure that it is Spring 1988? It would seem like #3 would be 3rd Quarter, or Fall.
Is the Sierra Buyers guide 1996 more of a catalog or a magazine?
As far as Kids Bytes, and Mad Magazine. Not quite sure. The only thing I can think of is that I think there is a Leisure Suit Larry reference in one of the MAD cartoons.. if my memory serves me correctly. I’ll have to dig through my stuff, and see if I have that one too. I’ll only assume that there is some Sierra nugget in the Kids bytes / Brightstar.
Anyway those were just a few questions I had. Keep me posted.
-Brad
(re: King’s Quest V for NES)
> As fortold by ancient warlords, Kings Quest V has finally arrived to weed out the weak and immortalize the brave.
?? ancient warlords?
It’s interesting to me how the language on the back of this box is different from the blurbs you’d read on the PC versions… they worked very hard to make it sound Zelda-like. (Like the talk about magical items to supplement your mortal strength.) I wonder how well this sold?
Great line about the wise owl, too. Fortunate, my arse.
Can anyone identify the screens on the box? The top one looks like Mordack’s lab (but I wouldn’t have guessed it without his dialogue picture there). What about the other screesn? What’s that spider one?
-emily
(re: re: InterAction Mag.)
Well, I’m glad you’re going to scan Roberta’s design documents — the KQ games were always my favorites, anyway!
I wonder if any of the other designers still have their documents and could be convinced to share some scans with us?
-emily
(re: InterAction Mag.) As I mentioned earlier: today, I spent the day digging through our mini-storage unit to see what old Sierra “stuff” I had.
Well… it was a day of good and bad news. I found lots of old products, a bunch of pictures of the Sierra staff, copies of Interaction Magazine, press clippings, and tons of my old correspondence.
I wanted to find old game design documents, but they weren’t to be found. The design teams themselves had these. Roberta has her old designs, and I’ll post those here as I get them scanned. But, I had nothing from the other projects.
There was some amazing correspondence I’ll post here if I can. Much of this is covered by secrecy agreements, which hopefully have expired. I have copies of correspondence with MANY industry legends – even Bill Gates himself.
It was a fun day, reliving Sierra’s history. I have a huge pile of stuff – far more than I have time to sort through or scan. I’m not sure what the next step is, but at least now I know what I have, and can start building an action plan to put it here.
-Ken W(re: King’s Quest V for NES) Jared, that’s really cool, but hard to read. Did you scan that yourself? If so, would you be able to rescan it at 300 DPI and save it as JPG quality 12 for the archives on this site? Is there a front cover? Do you have the cartridge and could you scan that too? I’m not sure if Ken’s code still resizes pictures, so you could place the pictures into a zip to prevent it from doing that.
I too would like to know more details about how KQ5 for the NES came about. Also, I didn’t realize it was for the NES, I thought it was for the SNES – am I just wrong, or are there two versions out there then?(re: re: Random Encounters on KQ games)
i’m not sure about this, but i *think* the tierra remake of KQ1 is true to the original… and in the original, certain characters only “randomly” show up on certain screens.
my mom used to think it was really funny, how that wolf music made me jump…
-emily
(re: Random Encounters on KQ games) Have you played the sierra vga remake of King’s Quest 1? I played it before even seeing the original so I wasn’t too scared off running into random creatures. It seems in that version the ‘random’ creatures only appear in certain dark forested areas. You are pretty safe if you just stay away from there. I learned that the hard way my first time….walked right on into the forest and was captured by the witch.
(re: re: re: re: re: Leisure-Suit Larry)
No that doesnt shock me much at all…..just check the forums I visit. There are surprisingly quite a bit of younger people who played these games throughout their lives. đ
(re: re: The ESRB and video game violence) I think this really does depend on who plays the game. Myself, I probably played many violent games throughout my life and I was not affected enough to go out and hurt people.
However, violence is not ‘essential’ towards making a game creative and popular. Games like Mario and King’s Quest managed to remain very popular games without hardly any use of violence….at least not excessive killing (unless you really like turtles and are offended by jumping on them). There are tons of games which use non-realistic violence and can do a better job than games were you are told to decapitate a victim in full detail.
No-one should take games too seriously anyway. You should treat it as Ken said, a movie, and just enjoy it and have fun. You don’t need to actually start acting like the game character or anything. Maybe parent’s should not give really young kids violent games like shooters until they are old enough to know better.(re: re: re: re: Leisure-Suit Larry)
Avatar, this may be a shock to you, but don’t think you’re not the only 18 year old around …. đ
doern
(re: InterAction Mag.) After a year of putting it off, I finally dug into my storage unit, with the help of two moving guys .. and, dug out 15 huge boxes of my old Sierra files.
That’s great to hear Ken. Brad will be thrilled if you have a complete set of magazines, as it will help him fill in the gaps. Besides the magazines, I’m sure you must have tons of other goodies – I am emailing you that proposal now.(re: InterAction Mag.)
AWESOME KEN!!!
This is the stuff I have been anxiously waiting for!! After your posting of the KQ design notes, I’ve been dying for more!!
Also, I really really like the new site design! The menu bar at the top reminds me off the old Sierra menu bar from earlier games, which happened to be my favorite! Kq1-6 and so on…
Ryan
(re: The ESRB and video game violence) There is no doubt in my mind that people learn from the games they play. It’s tough for me to believe that anyone argues against this.
Sierra didn’t make violent games because I didnât like them. I did ultimately approve Half-Life, but it was a tough decision, and not one that I would make today (post Columbine).
I saw the lawsuit. I am anti-censorship, but I have very different feelings about what is appropriate for a mature adult, and what is appropriate for a 10, or 13, year old child.
Theoretically, if the rating system is working, games can be published with mature, or violent, content and their distribution restricted to adults. Unfortunately, this doesnât work. Store clerks donât check IDs, and many parents donât care what games their kids play.
I am VERY opposed to censorship. However, I have come to the point where there needs to be some common-sense legislation. The tricky part is who decides what is appropriate, and who defines what is appropriate.
For instance, It seems clear to me that films such as Shindlers List, or Saving Private Ryan should exist, yet these are just as violent as most computer games. I spent much of my life arguing that telling stories on a computer is just as important as telling them through film, and that the same rules of content, and breadth of content, should apply.
There are important distinctions between violent films, and a game in which the player runs (or drives) from place to place killing everyone in sight. In a film, there is a greater level of abstraction between the viewer and the characters in the film. Great films do make you identify with the characters, but not nearly to the level of a computer game. A great computer game makes the player a character within the game. Done correctly, a computer game becomes a simulation. Itâs like a story-based version of Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Just as film works best when there is a âsuspension of disbeliefâ, games work best when you literally become the protagonist in the game. Games are MUCH stronger than film, in that deep down, when watching a film, you know that ultimately the film is going to end the way that it ends. Nothing you can do is going to change the outcome. This is not true with a game. Games can be realistic simulations of synthetic worlds.
Films can, and do, change opinions. Computer games have even more power to do so. If you take a kid, particularly one whose value system is already a little out of whack, and then place them into a simulator (computer game) wherein they are given a gun, and told to shoot everyone in site, and then they are rewarded by both the computer simulation, and their fellow gamers, based on their success as a killer, and then send that kid out into the real world where they are perhaps teased by those around them, you have a VERY dangerous situation.
I do not intend to say that a normal kid can be turned into a killer by a computer game. Most of our value system comes from our parents and our peers. If 99% of what a kid sees/hears is sending the right message, then a violent computer game (or song, or book, or film) is not going to change their lives. On the other hand, if a youth, who was borderline anyhow, finds themselves respected, as the hero in a violent computer simulation, it could easily be the straw that breaks the camels back.
I am not a psychologist, nor am I a politician. I have no idea what a law would look like that I could support. For me, the key issue is the goal of the game or movie. Creators must understand the power they have to shape opinions, and the responsibilty that comes with this. If they reward, or glamorize, indiscriminate killing, then they shouldn’t be surprised when this conduct is repeated on the streets.(re: The latest site version & message mix-ups) By the way, I’m having several ideas about how to best archive design material you have… and I will present to you a solid proposal once I’ve been diligent and done my homework, drafting the proposal and researching possibilities (working on it all now).
Brandon – I’ve been talking to Brad Herbert about reorganizing the boards – and he has some ideas on reorganization he was going to try tonight. Feel free to email him and offer any ideas you have.
You are correct in saying that I’m too bogged down in coding to do a proper job managing threads. My hope is that someone (or, someones) on the board will help out with that end of things.
Thanks!
-Ken W
PS I’m not sure what is up with Jouke. I am him an email… I know he was working on a site design, and I was helping him try to break through to customer support at a stubborn ISP (unsuccessfully).
