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(re: The Beast Within Actors)
And did you know that one of the actresses was in a James Bond movie? Yeah. The German news reporter was played by Mary Stavin, who appeared in the 1985 Bond movie A View to a Kill. She’s the agent in the iceburg submarine in the beginning of the movie. 🙂
(re: The Beast Within Actors) who’s policeman fink? the only cop i remember in GK2 is leber.
von glower had a tiny part in an episode of John Doe last season, and i’m sure i saw herr huber as a patient on ER but he wasn’t credited so i’m not sure it was him.
it is too bad none of them have had any significant roles. dean erikson says on his website that he expected his wrok on GK2 to help him get into movies, but casting directors don’t take work on a computer game seriously…
-emily(re: Finding / buying old InterActions) Sounds good Adam, I’m adding you to my list of contacts for Sierra goodies, to archive in this project. Sorry to hear about your loss of magazines – that saddens me for you to lose them. I would be crushed, if I lost my Sierra collection to some disaster.. let’s just hope that I won’t ever have to worry about it. Thanks for joining the project!
-Brad
(re: The Beast Within Actors) Ron House, who played Policeman Fink, was one of the co-writers and main actors in the wonderful British comedy BULLSHOT – a parody of the BULLDOG DRUMMOND series. Apparently, House was in a theater group together with Alan Shearman and Diz White, and the three of them became famous for their stage version of BULLSHOT. George Harrison produced the film version.
(re: re: re: re: re: Ken Williams Q&A) I was actually only prohibited from running a software company for five years. That expired in 2001 – I can do anything I want now. (which is exactly what I’m doing!)
Wow! That’s the first time I’ve heard that. Happy news! 🙂(re: re: What Sierra Means To Me) I first encountered Sierra and computers for that matter in 1988 at Delaware Tech. My professor had Leisure Suit Larry II and we would play after classes for hours trying to figure out the puzzles! What fun it was. That year I bought my first computer (286 – he he) and started my vast collection of Sierra games. I played them all. I absolutely enjoyed every one of them. They were awesome! I wanted my experience to be the best possible experience and proceded to upgrade everything I could. I bought the Ad-Lib card and CM-64 through Sierra. I had my stereo hooked up to it with two giant 16″ speakers on top of my hutch. I would crank up the soundtracks to max when I was playing. Red Baron was one of my favorite soundtracks.
Nowadays, I fix PCs for a living. I still continue to upgrade my PC at home to get the most out of every game I buy.
Sierra has given me the greatest hobby I could ever desire! Now, if they could just get those games to work in XP!!! 🙂(re: Finding / buying old InterActions) I used to have almost every mag. from Interaction. I got a free sub with every Sierra game I bought and since I owned every Sierra game for the longest time, I had a lot of mags. The unfortunate thing is that when I moved into my new house, all of my old mags got ruined by a water pipe burst (what a mess it was). Anyhow, I had trouble convincing the the insurance guy of the collectible value of these mags. He didn’t get it. I did however, get $400 for my ruined CM-64 Sound Module. I do still have a few collectables. I have some letters that were written to me from people at the company and a couple of promo items I picked up in the years. I’ll see what I can dig up when I get around to cleaning my basement. I would love to see some scanned mags and read some of the articles that I loved so much.
(re: re: The Beast Within Actors) Ya, I knew that Peter Lucas was the most famous of all the actors…As for Mr. Smith (I don’t his name either!) he was also in Seinfeld…George asked him for the death certificate. Verner Huber was also in Seinfeld…
(re: The Beast Within Actors) The actors in The Beast Within havent got very important roles in movies or tv shows, i know about Peter Lucas (Von Glower) appearing in Indepence day, Walker, and some shows more. And recently i have seen Mr.Smith (dont know his real name) acting in 3rd rock from the sun
(re: Police Quest 3 Driving Sequence)
Turbo or moslow are good programs to slow down the computer, Turbo helped me finish police quest 3
(re: Police Quest 3 Driving Sequence)
i did some trick and worked fine letting me finish the game, i dont remember well what i did, i messed with the game configuration, i think i putted the game’s gfx to black & white turned sound off or something like that, it sounds weird but i was able to play it at a good speed.
(Emily’s Documentation / Books)
That’s cool Emily. Tell you what, I didn’t get around to updating my list, but once I do, you can compare with what I have (I have a few of the things you do too). Then whatever is not on my list you can work on scanning. Then you can just upload them here and Brad or I will download em, then you can delete em. You could just put a message in this thread and upload and delete attachments from it. I’m sure Ken won’t mind a couple megs of temporary space. Or you could email me (different email than my email listed here) 1 image per day.
(re: Finding / buying old InterActions) Yes, the bottom row-left is the one I have. If I get my scanner hooked up, I will post a bigger picture of it for you.
I don’t have the Fall 1997 mag, I have the Spring 1997 mag. I don’t see it in this picture. Mine has the Shivers game on the cover. Not sure what other cover there might be for that one. It looks like the second biggest article in the mag is on Sierra Pro Pilot.
(re: re: re: re: Ken Williams Q&A) Ken, thanks for responding to this one!
this little tidbit is worth my asking…
Ultimately, to get a publishers attention, you need a working demo of the game. It doesn’t need to be more than the first level. It’s nearly impossible to know if a game is any good looking at a paragraph of text. You need to see something on screen.
i figured this was the case and the fact that you stated a single level as being good enough was exactly the detail i was looking for. this definitely shed’s some light on the subject for me. what i’ve done up to this point is purely story development. i am working under the assumption that anything beyond this stage is moot if nobody buys into the story and characters. would you agree?
i’ve drawn out the first 6 scenes (down to the dialog) … i was going to produce a demo from this … then on to the publisher sale’s pitch! i was going to do much of the programming (with help from a few others) for the demo. i was also hoping to recruit some artists from the local university for graphics. at this point i have no clue what i would do about music …thought about bits and pieces of sierra game music, but i would assume there are legal issues with that.
who says game development isn’t fun?! 🙂You are thinking the right kind of thoughts. The actual plot isn’t as important, as the niche it fits into, and the size of the niche. And, even this is secondary to “how it looks/feels when you see it on screen”. My brother John, who ran marketing for many years at Sierra, used to say that ‘it’s all about WOW value’ – if someone says WOW when they see the screen from 10 feet away, you have them sold. This is not completely true, but it’s close. You need to have three components: a story that intriques the user (characters/plot), WOW value (snazzy graphics, cool/new technology) and an underlying game mechanic that is fun (not sure how to describe this – but, there needs to be a game – it can’t just be pretty pictures).
Check out garagegames.com — it’s Jeff Tunnel’s website (one of the founders of Dynamix, a Sierra family company). Jeff’s company is devoted to empowering game developers. He has (or, had the last time I looked) a bulletin board just for people trying to put together a team to do a game. There were coders, designers, musicians, etc all looking for a chance to build a game.
Good luck!
-Ken W(re: re: re: Ken Williams Q&A) Ken, thanks for responding to this one!
this little tidbit is worth my asking…
Ultimately, to get a publishers attention, you need a working demo of the game. It doesn’t need to be more than the first level. It’s nearly impossible to know if a game is any good looking at a paragraph of text. You need to see something on screen.
i figured this was the case and the fact that you stated a single level as being good enough was exactly the detail i was looking for. this definitely shed’s some light on the subject for me. what i’ve done up to this point is purely story development. i am working under the assumption that anything beyond this stage is moot if nobody buys into the story and characters. would you agree?
i’ve drawn out the first 6 scenes (down to the dialog) … i was going to produce a demo from this … then on to the publisher sale’s pitch! i was going to do much of the programming (with help from a few others) for the demo. i was also hoping to recruit some artists from the local university for graphics. at this point i have no clue what i would do about music …thought about bits and pieces of sierra game music, but i would assume there are legal issues with that.
who says game development isn’t fun?! 🙂(re: re: Ken Williams Q&A) how about a private message section (one where the sender and you were the only ones that could view the message) where we could pitch you ideas (in my case game ideas). you could give a thumbs up if you think the idea is good and has potential or thumbs down if its a dud . maybe even an in-between for ideas that have potential depending on certain other factors.
My email is easily determined (
Link:kenw@seanet.com (mailto:kenw@seanet.com)
) .. when I’m not travelling, I’m pretty good about reading through my mail.
Here’s the problem with what you’ve suggested though: good ideas are a dime a dozen. Everyone has a good idea for a movie or a book, or even a computer game. Most of these really ARE good ideas. The tricky part is taking an idea the next step to being a viable game.
To do that there are a lot of things that have to come together:
The skill of the team
The publisher, and what kind of products they are known for
The popularity of the license (if any)
The user interface
How the game plays
Etc.
In 1996 when Sierra was sold, I had been in the industry for nearly 20 years and knew almost every game published, and the people behind them. Now, it has been seven years since I’ve been in a computer store – I’m not sure my opinion is worth what it once was.
Ultimately, to get a publishers attention, you need a working demo of the game. It doesn’t need to be more than the first level. It’s nearly impossible to know if a game is any good looking at a paragraph of text. You need to see something on screen.
-Ken W(re: re: re: re: Ken Williams Q&A) Dont’ forget that Ken isn’t allowed to start up a new game company though…
But I agree that small development houses are the future!
I was actually only prohibited from running a software company for five years. That expired in 2001 – I can do anything I want now. (which is exactly what I’m doing!)
-Ken W(re:Police Quest Area) Hey,
Recently I bought the gray box edition of Kings Quest ii from ebay, the seller just happened to be Steve Walls, Jim Walls’ son. I wrote to him voicing my appreciation for his father’s games and he replied with some cool info. I guess Jim was working for Electronic Arts helping with console games. His latest and last work was The Legend of Black Kat(I think that was the title, its a pirate game). He recently retired from there and is living in California still. Steve also told me some neat things about PQ and Iceman. Sonny and Steve from PQ1 were named after two of Jim’s sons, Sonny and Steve. The man depicting the main character(can’t remember the name) on the Codename:Iceman box is Jim’s youngest son and the girl with the blanket or hood on is his daughter. Anyway I don’t have Jim’s email but his son told me that he always loves hearing how much people appreciated his games and the impact they had.James
(re: re: re: Ken Williams Q&A) Dont’ forget that Ken isn’t allowed to start up a new game company though…
But I agree that small development houses are the future!(re: re: Ken Williams Q&A) That is an AWESOME idea.
Hopefully Ken wouldn’t mind assuming his old position without a paycheck 🙂
I have a feeling that people like you are going to be the “Next Generation” of game maker. With Ken looking out for us, what could go wrong???(re: PQ1 VGA remake – manual)
Wow, cool beans! Thanks so much for this and the website for the replacement docs!! I’ll have to try things out over this weekend maybe, not much time for gaming these days unfortunately. But thanks!!
(re: re: re: PQ1 VGA remake – manual) I have the correct codes on a printed paper from an old message board, but the codes in the manual are all wrong, so yes they are different.
(re: re: possible to view images at 100%?) I don’t have a ton of the old documentation, but I hang onto it with rabid fierceness, so what I do have is pretty nice. I know I could download these games if I wanted to… but the manuals are hard to come by!
I have documentation for KQ5-7 (the king’s quest 6 manual is very nice, on this stiff paper that was meant not to xerox…), SQ1 & 4, QfG1, PQ1 VGA (there’s writing on the map though… I didn’t do it! got this used…) & PQ4, GK2-3, Rise of the Dragon (Dynamix), and Red Baron. I have hint books for KQ5, PQ4, Freddy Pharkus… there may be a few more things in the stack, I’d have to go look. Oh, I just bought a boxed Castle of Dr. Brain, there’s a manual and hint book in there too. Unfortunately my dad gave away our Apple IIGS games when he gave away the computer, so the earlier stuff was lost. (I never quite forgave him for this…)
I had started scanning the Space Piston magazine from SQ4 to upload here, but the files got so big I never finished.
I’d be happy to scan stuff at high resolution and upload them for you somewhere so you could tweak them. Just tell me what you want and where they should go.
-emily
ps These are books, but I also have the KQ7 hint book / strategy guide thingie (like there was strategy involved…), Larry collection strategy guide (which includes an interview with Al Lowe), and King’s Quest Companion version something-or-other… it goes through KQ6. For catalogs, I have 1995-1996 games, “Family Spectrum of Games” that came with Dr. Brain (and Larry’s in there! guess they didn’t actually mean “family games”…), maybe some others but I have to go through the boxes and look.
