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(re: re: Ken Williams – after Sierra)
Having Sierra owned by Microsoft
is the worst idea I’ve ever heard in my life. Please, please, I’d rather the French water guys own Sierra than Microsoft. Microsoft would an end to everything.(re: Getting into the biz…)
Chris,
Obviously you can seek a designer position, but in most start-ups, the designer either has also be a programmer, artist, public relations, or accountant. Do you possess any of those other skills?
If you can, find a friend who programs, and find a friend who can do art. Sit down and develop a concept. Flesh out the concept with flow charts. There are some good books on the market, I think one is called Game Design, it’s a few years old, but still incredibly relevant (I think it went for $19.95, if you want me to look up the ISBN, just say so, and I’ll go find it in my bookshelf).
I’ve wanted to work for Sierra since I was 11 and have since gone to college for Digital Media. This summer, I co-developed a small prototype computer game in Director MX in 10 weeks (4 weeks research, 6 weeks programming, we’re entering public beta 1 on Friday). I got lucky, my college said, “Hey, this is a good idea… if you promise to do it, we’ll give you $2,000 ($5/hr) and we’ll even give you a $500 supply budget.” This was arranged under the CUR (undergraduate research) program, and I might present my game at the National CUR conference in April, if I can get my act together.
Anyway, just find some friends, and sit down, get some pizza and soda, talk about what you used to love about computer games, throw around some ideas, go home, come back in two weeks, revise your ideas… once you find one you like, commit to it, plan it, program it, draw it, beta test it, and distribute it. Even if you don’t sell 50,000 copies, you still have the satisfaction of creating an incredible piece of work.
Good Luck,
Dave>I grew up playing and appreciating the Sierra adventure games, not necessarily for their graphical updates, or the puzzles for that matter, but for their stories and their characters. I love writing and just graduated from college with a degree in cinema.
I realize that the software business is not the same as it was during the time of the former Sierra, but I’m very much interested in telling stories through games. I guess my question is how does one get into this business? I’m not a programmer, nor do I have much desire in knowing the technical aspects of creating games to a certain point. Do the designers start out as technical experts, and does one need to have both technical and creative skills in order to pursue this line of work? <
(re: I made a lot of Mac and Netscape changes)
Ken,
I run Mozilla and Netscape, and have access to Macintosh computers. I will double check, but I suspect everything will work fine.
Dave
(re: re: What happend to Lori and Corey Cole?)
I know that Corey is programming. He gives really good advice. I asked him about game programming two years ago, he said know a little about every language (c++, java, etc) but know how to learn a language in a week. If you can pick up a language from a book in a week, if you know programming concepts, you should be all set for a job. It’s all about versatility.
Obviously, this is paraphrased and half forgotten, but that was the gist of his message. I think he and Al Lowe are my all time favorite programmers. The kind of people you just have to look up to, because they are just that damn cool.
(re: re: re: Ken Williams – after Sierra)
The point of buying Sierra is that you are buying the greatest game artwork of all time. It’s like buying Disney’s original films. If someone offered you the first 25 years of Disney’s films, full rights, wouldn’t you take it?
$500 million is a little pricey. If we can get it down to $100 million or so, we could get a deal.
Dave
(re: re: Ken Williams – after Sierra) I know how you feel, trust me, I know. I know the feeling that you have about Sierra and its best creations.
Ken has already explained that:
—–
“I think about it sometimes. I did make a call to see if Sierra could be bought back, but have no idea how I would raise the $500 million or so it might take.
Actually, what I would most like to see occur is for some game company to make me “chairman” of a product committee, where I can spend my life working with the product teams. I don’t ever want the grief again of “trying to make quarterly revenue goals”. But, I do miss the creativity and innovation of building great product.
Sooner or later, Sierra will be managed by someone who thinks I could add value. (I hope…)”
—–
The problem is, I can’t see the point of buying back Sierra. The only thing you would archive this way is to be able to mark a product with the Sierra name. But why do you need that? It will be nothing but a waste of money.
For example, I could have produced a game that incorporates the best of Sierra in it, but of course it couldn’t carry Sierra’s name.
Would you buy my game if it indeed was of an outstanding quality, or you’d say, no, I don’t buy crap because it is not produced by a company named Sierra?
HTH,
Vesko(My email address) My email address is:
Link:kenw@seanet.com (mailto:kenw@seanet.com)I’m currently in Germany .. .on a 9.6 modem connection (argh!)
-Ken W(re: contacting the 2 guys) Well Scott Murphy has his e-mail given on his homepage, I’m not sure how you contact Mark Crowe though
Link: http://www.scottmurphy.com(http://www.scottmurphy.com)
(re: Space Quest 4 CD) I had the same problem, unfortunately if Turbo or Moslo doesn’t work, then I’m afraid you’re in trouble. the reason is simply that your computer is too fast for the CD version, (but then again I have no idea why it’s ok for the disk version)
I used Turbo and had Roger walk very fast, that was the only way for me to finish the game, but yes it was very hard and you have to know what to do in each sequence where the game is too fast, and about the killer robot in the beginning, best just do quickly one thing at a time and hide million times. Slow I know but better take longer than being constantly killed.(re: re: Ken Williams Q&A)
Whats your email? I have a site you may be interested. I respect this site enough not to broadcast it. 🙂
(re: re: Space Quest 4 CD) I’ve already tried slowing it down but it doesn’t help. Besides if it’s that much trouble I think I’ll stick with the disk version…
(re: re: VaperCalc)
That one’s easy – it was there to puzzle the players. What was the “silly clowns” setting in LSL3 supposed to do? I suppose programmers want to have fun too! ;o)
(re: Space Quest 4 CD) Klick the hand on the timepod immediately after entering the scene (having set speed to minimum and detail to maximum of course) and you’re through. You’ll definitely be stuck in the galaxy galleria running from SP though (in the hoverblade arena sequence).
There used to be a savegame download to get you past those tricky situations at sierra.com’s techsupport (like the one they still have there for SQ1), but I can’t find the SQ4 one anymore there. Look hard on the web, maybe it’s still out there somewhere!
Damn, I hoped to put the download link up here, so you could get it right away, but somehow it’s gone. Sorry for this. I think I still have these savegames somewhere, though. If you can’t find them, post you’re e-mail address here and I’ll look for ’em and send ’em to you.CnC: Red Alert 2 featured Soviet ships and zeplins taking out NYC too. Infact, Westwood re-released the game with new boxes because of that.
(re: VaperCalc)
LOL… it always puzzled me too. Because you couldn’t even use it! Someone with the know please answer!
(re: re: The Black Cauldron – my Sierra story) My birthday is August 4th….
It’s interesting we have the same story (including the birthdate, possibly)… Quite astounding…(re: looking for a game) Normaly, you can download it at
Link: http://www.abandonware-france.org(http://www.abandonware-france.org) (re: Getting into the biz…) I have similar aspirations of game design, though I’m more interested in the art of gameplay and interactivity, linear story-telling goes for books, plays and movies… I wanna let you know that there are more and more good schools out there, go to gamasutra (my top picks are digipen, fullsail and CDIS in vancouver).
regards,
märt(re: KQ6 – Floppy Demo) wow! that’s *very* different from the movie on the mac version!
i will upload it tomorrow from work but i’m pretty sure no one will be able to watch it. it’s just listed as “document” (not a .mov file) and even though i’m supposed to be able to play it from within a quicktime player, my mac at work won’t even let me do that. worst case scenario, i’ll take a bunch of screenshots so you can see the differences. the mac movie has no conversation at all… it’s all “narrated,” which i actually prefer. makes it a bit more mature, IMO (the talking heads look sort of goofy to me…)
-emily(looking for a game)
i have been looking for king quest 6 for a long time now and i cna not find it anywhere, does anyone know where i can download it?
(re: re: Other) Umm, the Eco Quest story is actually pretty simple. It didn’t sell well enough, so a sequel was never considered. At least that’s as far as I know. Someone probably had an EQ3 story in mind, but it was never turned into a full-scale project. Pity though. I’ve always loved the games. EQ1 was my first Sierra game in VGA and I was amazed at the graphics. The story, music and everything else in it is superb too. (Has anything Jane Jensen has put her hands on been anything less than great?) I would love to own a copy of the EQ1 CD version. EQ2 was a little weaker as a whole, but I liked the athmosphere. The fact that there wasn’t even a talkie version of that one speaks pretty well of its success.
However, I believe at least EQ1 brought in a lot of money to Sierra over a long period of time. Years and years after its release you could hear about it, and I think it sold very well in Europe.(re: re: Space Quest Movie?) Coincidentally, both Futurama and Space Quest came to the same fate: Cancellation! 😉
(re: a man obsessed!) Wow, that’s really interesting! Please do upload it, if it’s a .mov file, it should be just fine. Upload it to the museum area. I was going to upload the PC demo last night, but I didn’t have time. I’ll upload it tonight for sure. It’s 3 megs. (EDIT: It’s now uploaded in the KQ section of the Museum)
And as for the 30 meg toon.avi, yes, that’s what the PC version CD is on the collector’s CD too. So that’s why I was always confused – because I have an interaction mag that says 50 megs. So was it going to be 50 megs? Was there a longer original version? Was it compressed differently originally? Or was it a typo, and supposed to read 30 megs? I’ll scan that clipping and upload it too. (PS -> very busy at the moment, but I’m not forgetting scanning Interaction magazines project).(a man obsessed!)
told you!
screens 1 and 2 show the opening text (notice it’s a different font than in the PC movie). screen 3 shows the first shot after the text, as the “psycho-esque” music starts playing. this is the point where the camera pans down on alexander.
sorry for the low quality, i took screenshots at 256 colors on the mac, and for some reason photoshop wouldn’t let me save them as jpegs…
Valanice does make a brief appearance after Alex looks in the mirror, but there’s no conversation between them.
interesting difference between this short movie and the “extended” one is that Cassima doesn’t actually call out Alexander’s name… he just sees her. so it’s not even clear if she’s thinking about him. this influenced the story for me… until you send Cassima the ring, you don’t know if she actually wants you or not. whereas the extended movie where she calls him (rather blatantly) changes the tone of his voyage…
btw, the mac version had a 3MB movie that used QuickTime. i’m going to see if i can get it running on a PC (wasn’t actually able to run it on the mac without launching the game, so i kind of doubt it)… but if i can, i’ll upload it here.
🙂 emily
KQ6 mac opening movie – screen 1
kq6 mac opening movie – screen 2
kq6 mac opening movie – screen 3
