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“… (by eternalcaretaker@hotmail.com ) I’m running WinXP with a Soundblaster Audigy 2 card. When I run the game using either VDMS or Dosbox, I get music and sound but I can’t get the speech to work. How can I get the speech to work?Thanks =)…”
What’s your resource.cfg file say?
(If it’s just your speech not working, and digital SFX aren’t playing, I’d say it’s a resource.cfg issue. Open with Notepad and paste the contents here.)– Alistair
King’s Quest 1 original, SCI or the new Tierra VGA version, is my first question 🙂
Also, you’re running KQ5 CD version with the DOS version (sierra.exe), right?
And I’m from South Australia 🙂 Welcome to the boards, always nice to see another Aussie in the community.
– Alistair
Thanks for the feedback Ken, alot of interesting facts about Phantasmagoria i never knew right there. I’ve actually had a hard time finding information about the game, and i went out to buy an older computer just to play phantasmagoria (the first one only). I only found one Decent Resource on Phantasmagoria on the web, and in all the older mid 1990 magazines i could find VERY LITTLE information. Oh well i’ll keep working on my idea’s and eventually try to come up with a plan there (may even decide to approach sierra after my credibility rating goes up)
As for sierra re-releasing phantasmagoria, i dont see it happening. They re-released games like kings quest, gabriel knight, larry ect. but i dont see it happening to a game of which is popular among adventure gamers; even today. Sierra seems to be steering away from the BEST period of adventure gaming (quest, knight, larry, police quest, phantasmagoria)
If sierra were to get back into the older 2D/FMV adventure gaming market they would see alot of older players return, and alot of the new game players would also turn back to the genre. Games back then wernt so reliant on the factors that todays games are, police quest was one of the games of which that could really apply to. I’d love to see sierra do some decent adventure games and not these crappy 3d ones, not only are the controls and cameras monsters to work with, but the resolution in the graphics just doesn’t feel right, the old 2D like graphics gave a unique experience to gaming.
When the FMV like games started to arrive, they died out quickly, but if those games made a return these days, they would have better graphics, could be used in a different format, programming language could also help enhance gameplay. Technology would these days give a major ovehaul to that type of adventure gaming we saw in the early to mid 90’s.
Yet, modern day sierra is too busy with these First Person Shooters and crappy adventure types, while although popular has totally steered out of the direction of which sierra was mainly founded on. It would need a major overhaul of the company to bring back the programming part of sierra and the original gaming types of which sierra was the best at (yourself, roberta williams and many other names that should be thanked for setting the standard for those sort of adventure games in a way)
Anyway thanks again for the quick response Ken,
Tim Roberts.
Leopold:
You may want to consider using my system as part of the promotion of your book – http://www.talkspot.com
Here’s what I did to promote my book ( http://www.kensbook.com ): I set up a mailing list, and sent out each day roughly a page of text. The mailing list grew with each day to several thousand people. When the book was released, I have a large audience of people already waiting to buy the book.
-Ken W
Hello everyone,
For anyone who is interested, I have written a novel about the death of the adventure game – or, more accurately, about the hostile takeover of one of the world’s most popular computer gaming company in the mid 90s. It will be published this Fall, but in the meantime I will be serializing the first third to a half of it, one chapter every week, at http://www.gamequestnovel.com. I hope you’ll check it out. The first chapter is up now and so far I’ve gotten great feedback.
While Game Quest is obviously inspired by a lot of crazy things that went on at that time of history (the death of the adventure game, the rise of the Internet, 1st person action shooters, girl-gaming, etc…) it’s not intended to represent any of those institutions, characters or events as they really happened. I saw a good backdrop for a story and wanted to tell that story without reality (which can be boring) getting in the way, while still paying tribute to a fascinating & inspiring part of gaming history.
I am a VERY long time Sierra and adventure game fan. When I was young I wanted to work at Sierra, but seeing as they probably didn’t hire 12 year olds from other countries, I turned my creative outlets to writing. I think writing this book has helped satiate that desire.
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“… (by Tim Roberts) I’ve been wondering does sierra (the company who dont sell movie rights to people with idea’s of reviving a series in a way that it doesn’t break away from the original idea ect.) still own the rights to Phantasmagoria?
…”Sierra DOES own the rights to Phantasmagoria, although I would be surprised to see them ever do another Phantasmagoria game.
Here’s a bit of history on Phantasmagoria:
- The first game was a huge hit, selling nearly one million copies. Players loved it, and most reviewers loved it.
- Because the first game was such a hit, we rushed the second game into production. I wanted Roberta (designer of Phantasmagoria, and my wife) to do Phantasmagoria II, but she refused. She thought is was too soon to do another one, and wanted to “save it” until later. She preferred to jump immediately into another Kings Quest game.
- Phantasmagoria II was started with a different designer, and was a mess. It’s not clear who is guilty, but probably the most guilty would be me. I switched designers from game 1 to game 2. Each designer has their own vision for what Phantasmagoria should be. Roberta had hers, and Lorelei had a slightly different one. Each could produce a good game on their own, but when one designer tries to emulate another designers style, or takes the game in new directions that are inconsistent with the first, it just doesn’t work.
- Another problem with Phantasmagoria II was an out of control budget. I remember being frustrated with cost overruns, and ultimately having to make a decision to ship the product, even though the team wasn’t ready to release the game. The game that shipped still had some bugs, and needed patching.
- Lastly, both Phantasmagoria and Phantasmagoria II were harmed by the sale of Sierra. The distribution of Sierra’s products were taken over by Davidson Software. For those that don’t remember, Davidson was a major educational software publisher. It’s owners, Bob and Jan Davidson, believed Phantasmagoria was an evil product, and should be abandoned. I had to argue behind the scenes just to keep it on the order form. The sales force, and even the customers, had no trouble figuring out that Phantasmagoria was not supported by Sierra management, and sent back their inventory, rather than pushing the product. Momentum for the product flipped overnight.
I would be surprised to see a third… Actually if Sierra were smart (assuming there is a Sierra), they would find the old video footage and re-release Phantasmagoria. It would be a hit if done right. I have zero doubt.
-Ken W
Ahhh! collector’s right. Scroll down, click on number 7:
http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?userid=l73zAGKBk2&EAN=28946968321&ITM=1
This is at Mobygames:
http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/original/981602955-00.gif
Has anyone ever got this death screen in Willy Beamish. I wish sure I knew all the ways to die in that game.
If I am recalling the right piece from the game, I believe it’s “Anitra’s Dance” from the “Peer Gynt Suite”.
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“… (by Julie ) It’s by Aubrey Hodges. It’s on my iTunes as just “Hotel Mordavia.” You can get it from queststudios.com.
…”Okay, I’ll have to clarify what I meant. Aubry Hodges took the song from an old classical piece. I want to know the name of THAT song and the composer who wrote it. Thanks for the effort, though, Julie. Much appreciated!
It’s by Aubrey Hodges. It’s on my iTunes as just “Hotel Mordavia.” You can get it from queststudios.com.
DOSBox!
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“…
Wow, you’re right… I keep forgetting that Sierra as a development company no longer exists in any form whatsoever… purely a brand name at this point. Sad…
…”It wasn’t going to last forever. The writing was on the wall when Sierra was sold to CSC, and the news of Vivendi dissolving it just confirmed what everyone already knew. Sierra had a good run, though, and Ken and Roberta single-handedly changed the industry. Ever wonder how sound cards came to be standard gear on PCs?
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“… Also, let’s not forget that Sierra is dead, and the only relevance it has anymore is to the fans that played their games. Who better to make new ones, then?…”Wow, you’re right… I keep forgetting that Sierra as a development company no longer exists in any form whatsoever… purely a brand name at this point. Sad…
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“… (by Johann de Waal) But how can something close out the series when it isn’t even part of the series?
…”I wouldn’t be so quick to marginalize fan efforts. I think KQ9 could shape up to be as good as anything Sierra did. I thought that AGD’s revamped KQII was better than the original. It had more of a story, more depth to the characters, and most importantly, it was fun to play. Don’t get me wrong, I still appreciate the original KQII, but I think AGD delivered a great game.
Also, let’s not forget that Sierra is dead, and the only relevance it has anymore is to the fans that played their games. Who better to make new ones, then?
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“… (by DJ ) <<< Not really a fitting end to such a series, but I guess spectacular flameouts like that are to be expected when the company gets sold off and the core devteam either leaves or gets fired. If you want another case study, look what happened to Ultima. >>What happened to the Ultima series? Was the final game a disappointment? I remember playing Ultima in the early 90’s… I remember # 7 — “The Black Gate” — had a fabulous ending with that monster yelling “d*mn you, Avatar!” etc. Did Richard Garriot (aka Lord British) stop designing?
Anyhow, is the KQ9 game expected to close out the series, or leave open the possibility for more KQ games?
…”
The Ultima VII’s were some of my favorite games. But then EA picked up Origin and things started getting weird. Ultima 8 wasn’t that bad story wise, but it was an incredibly frustrating game. They put in these ridiculous arcade-style sequences where you had to get across, say, a lake and you had to jump the stones to do it. The jump length was fixed so if you made a misstep (very easy to do) you’d die and get to spend 5 mins restoring, as the game was quite a pig. Eventually they released a patch that allowed you to double-click where you wanted to jump and the Avatar would bullseye it. That made the game playable. Wasn’t anywhere near as good as the previous Ultimas though. The thing that ticked me off most about U8 is that they took a step backwards and got rid of the close-up character portraits that U7 was known for. Overall, U8 had the feel of a game that was hammered out because someone didn’t have anything better to do at the time.
Where do I begin with Ultima IX? Let’s just say it was released 6 months before it was done. It was literally unplayable and broke all sorts of common sense rules, the first one being “Don’t render objects the player can’t see..Like, say, the entire game world that’s outside of the room you’re locked in”. I had a pretty beefy system at the time and that thing was wheezing on U9. After an endless stream of patches, it resembled a somewhat playable game, but there were still a lot of quest killers. One of the quests was to get a dagger sigil, and that involved killing three demons. However, it was possible to kill all of them early in the game BEFORE you took on the quest. If that was the case, no dagger sigil for the player, and no way to finish the game. I almost fell into that trap…Luckly I only found two of the three demons. Had I found the last one I probably never would have seen the end of the game. There were also problems with savegames going corrupt, the player getting stuck in a perpetual poisoned state, etc. Yeah, it was good stuff. The story was so-so. By no means was that game adequate to top off a series lasting more than 20 years.
Richard Garriott still had a hand in designing the later Ultimas, but was probably marginalized after the buyout, and maybe figured “Why bother? I’ve made my millions”. He hasn’t dropped off the face of the earth, though.. I heard he’s running the American arm of the company that’s doing City of Heroes.
I’m certainly not an authority on KQ9. I don’t have any inside scoop and all I know about it is derived from tidbits and screenshots I see on the site. I’ve seen some posts from the lead, Caesar Bittar, around here and my understanding is that there is enough of a script to win a paper drive trophy at the local elementary school. I’ve got to think that it will be a pretty cool game.
I’ve gotten that GDI error before, when my computer was hanging during GK2 installation. I was able to get rid of it by quitting something that’s running on the task manager. I forget what it is but I’d know it if I saw it. Next time you get the error, can you do ctrl-alt-del and post everything that’s listed on the Processes tab? (Rebooting your computer also gets rid of it… or did in my case, anyway.)
I think the 999.pal error happens when you don’t have CD#1 in the drive when you launch your game. This is another problem I had with GK2. Putting CD#1 in the drive fixed it. (I was able to keep CD#1 in one drive and use the other drive for whichever CD I was up to in the game, and this worked fine.)
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“… (by Johann de Waal) But how can something close out the series when it isn’t even part of the series?
…”Yeah, that’s true. Probably wasn’t the best way for me to phrase the question.
However, I just feel like, since it isn’t often that we see fan projects of this large scale and since, from what I’ve seen, this new impressive-looking “King’s Quest” project will continue stories developed from previous games AND since it seems like it’s being created with the old, familiar Sierra adventure game “spirit” in mind, then as far as I’m concerned this new project deserves to be considered a continuation (at least of sorts) of the series.
I guess I don’t see the point in insisting that new non-Sierra projects like KQ9 aren’t “real” parts in the series. I think we all know the difference between official Sierra projects and fan projects, and we all also understand that we probably won’t be seeing any new old-style adventure games from Sierra in the near future, so why not appreciate and enjoy the fabulous new work that is being done in this old adventure game spirit.
But back to what i was trying to get at in a previous post… I was simply curious whether the KQ9 creators saw their project as a kind of conclusion (at least their version of one, if even a temporary one) to the series/stories given the previously described, less-than-satisfactory KQ8 ending.
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“…But how can something close out the series when it isn’t even part of the series?…”🙂 I don’t think that KQIX will close any doors to future interpretations of the KQ world, if that’s what was meant. Obviously it will say “this is where the characters are going and what’s happening next,” or there would be little point to it. I think it’s pretty interesting that – what is it again? – you get to play Alex, Rosella, and Graham? Graham hasn’t had a go at it since King’s Quest V, but regardless of his age I think having him play a prominent role in the game will in a sense close out the series – unless you want to play Quest for Pension or Quest for the Missing False Teeth.
But how can something close out the series when it isn’t even part of the series?
But anyway . . . yeah, it’s totally ridiculous what EA did to Origin. Here you had one of the premiere (and certainly the technological leader) game developers going in the early 90’s. EA then acquired them (because frankly, EA’s in-house games usually sucked) with money obviously borrowed from Satan, and screwed Origin into oblivion. Just draw up a list of all time great PC games, then count the number of appearances by Origin games, you’ll be surprised. After all, who can forget Bioforge, Ultima 4, Ultima 7, Ultima Underworld, Martian Dreams, Crusader and its not-quite-a-sequel, Wing Commander 1 and 2, Privateer 1 and 2, System Shock? And the list goes on. Man, what a sad tale.
