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After seeing Faith tell a little bit about herself, I thought I should, too. 🙂
My name is Joshua McMillin, though everyone calls me Josh. I’m 30 years old, but still a kid at heart. 🙂 I have a degree in computer science, and would love to get a job as a computer programmer, systems analyst, or anything else involving computers, networks, and/or the internet. Right now, I’m stuck working overnight at Target. It’s not that bad a job, but if I want to get married, have kids, and raise a family, I’m going to need a better paying job. My favorite genre of computer/video game is the adventure genre. King’s Quest is by far my favorite series, especially King’s Quest V. I love all Sierra games, though. 🙂 Console-style RPG’s are my second favorite genre. Final Fantasy, Suikoden, Star Ocean, etc…There’s a lot of them I like. The games I’m currently playing are as follows: PS3 – Assassin’s Creed & Persona 3 FES (a PS2 games), Wii – Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, PSP – Brave Story, DS – Magical Starsign, PC – A marathon of all the King’s Quest games.
Aside from play computer and video games and messing around on the computer, I also enjoy reading a lot. I’m currently re-reading all the books in Robert Jordan’s massive Wheel of Time series. Anyone who’s read the books knows that this can take awhile. 🙂 I also enjoy relaxing outdoors on a nice day, riding a bicycle, swimming, writing stories (another big one), designing my own adventure games, watching anime (another big one), reading manga, watching movies and TV series on DVD, and so on and so on and so on; there’s many, many other things I like to do. As you can tell, I love doing lots of different things. 🙂
Anyway, I don’t wish to bore you further with this, so let’s all get back to gaming! 🙂
Hey new admins,
Where can we put in requests for site tweaks? I have a few annoyances I’d like to fix…
Manish
Thank you for the welcome! 🙂 I’m hoping for good things for the Archive project. I’m still taking a look at as many past messages on it and other topics as I can. The Archive project is one of those I’m looking at the closest. I can tell you that if I’m able to do even half of the stuff I hope to do on this site, I’m sure you and a lot of the other site visitors and members will be happy. 🙂
Thank you very much! 🙂 I hope I end up worthy of this site and its purpose. I have a lot of things I’d like to see on the site, a lot of things I’d like to do. I guess time will see what I am able to do. 🙂 Again, thank you for the warm welcome!
Oh my goodness! The Art of Sierra book looks amazing (I want
)! Is it still in production? The site seems to suggest the project was last updated August 2006.I think a much more sophisticated Adventure game could still work,
But the hardware may not be up to par with what I envision.
I always was fascinated with 3d and I remember Sega had a pretty descent game that used LCD glasses ,looked really good for the time.
Ken, like you said and I think back to George Lucas’ original movie Adventure, he had the idea and then tried to build the tools needed to get it done.
I used to write c programs in notepad, c to me anyway, is like paper and pencil, meaning you always go back to what works.
Your games were really ahead of thier time in terms of concept, a lot of games today try to make an interactive movie experience.
That could be fun to write a complete interactive game/movie using upgraded technologies, not really video cutscenes but actually interaction between the characters and scenes, with some nudging to help the player see everything the developer or director wants them to.
What did you write your original AGI in? And did you remember how long it took you to finish?
Do you personally own any of the source code from the early early sierra days, ie Mystery House?I personally wouldn’t rule out adventure games entirely just yet – they’re definitely not as popular these days as RPGs and FPSs, but Telltale Games has definitely shown that adventure games can still have a valid place in the market. Their new Sam and Max games are doing very well. I think working with online sites like Gamefly/Gametap as a stepping-off point and releasing them in bite-sized pieces really worked out well for them, and the games sell just as well in stores now, too (they even re-released the old Sam and Max graphic novel AND cartoon series thanks to the success of the new games). They proved that there IS still a place out there for a well-crafted adventure game, and also proved that plenty of people are still interested in the old franchises. In my generation in particular (the 20-30 year olds), nostalgia is a huge thing.
*edit* and I even just read that they’re releasing Sam and Max: Season One for the Wii this year, too!
But hey, don’t get me wrong here – I’m not trying to tell you to make an adventure/quest game! If you get the opportunity, you should do whatever the hell you want. I’m just saying it might not be quite right to write off the genre just yet.
Also, if you don’t hear back in a few weeks, that doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t hear back at all. My partner’s in the business and often complains about the general slow reaction times involved with the higher-ups in most companies these days. It’s often helpful to know someone else in the company that can give them a little kick in the rear occasionally to get things rolling.
I would agree with Ken that there is not a market for the early Sierra adventures. But, I must say the market doesn’t know what their missing.
The history of Sierra I would like to read about is Ken Williams, IBM and Windows (aka Bill Gates). The programs created by Sierra after the use of an IBM program mirror the behavior of Windows. There must be a story in that which would interest game programmers and early computer bufs. This was a transition time from MS DOS to Win 3.1.
If you’re looking for a book about Sierra On-Line I’d recommend High Score. It had a industry wide focus but there was an extensive Sierra On-Line section. It looks to be ‘out of print’ but there are several used copies on Amazon.
The book was co-authored by Johnny Wilson who was the editor of Computer Gaming World when it was still a computer games magazine (and, you know, still existed). I’ve seen Wilson mentioned here and there as a ‘friend’ of Sierra On-Line during the early days and the Sierra section does have a inside feel to it. If you haven’t already, check it out.
Andy
Webmaster
SierraVaultYeah, I would still appreciate some help if you don’t mind! It seems like I’ve tried everything to make sense of the controls… but there doesn’t seem to be any kind of logical outcome to anything I do. I start to think “oh okay, setting the angle like this will make it do this” and then BAM, it does something entirely different. I can’t seem to find any answer to this problem elsewhere online, so I figured I’d ask you guys, because if anyone would know it’d be someone around here. 😉
MXoder said: ‘….The only thing I could see great about a cell phone adventure game…’
I doubt that whatever I would do (were I to do something) would have much in common with the old Sierra adventures. They were great at the time, but it has been nearly 30 years since Roberta and I did Mystery House. Adventures were fun at the time, but I don’t think they would work in today’s market, no matter how well done. That said, it depends on the definition of the phrase ‘adventure game’ . I do believe that people still want to role-play as a character in an alternate universe, and that the concept of allowing you to be a knight in an ancient world, or an astronaut in space, is still valid — but, without revolutionary change, the category is dead. Better graphics won’t help.
Roberta and I have discussed some radical ideas in this area, and if ever we sit still long enough we’ll make something happen. My guess is that until we get boating behind us, and I get Talkspot ‘done’ nothing is going to happen (at least not with us). – Ken W
Back to the subject that started this thread… it appears that a book about Lucasarts is coming!
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/wp-content/uploads/lucas_bolt_b.jpg
So maybe we’ll also see a book about Sierra as well, one day. In fact, from the description in the link, that’s exactly the kind of Sierra book I would have wanted to see: an art-book with early concept-sketches and reference material.
Ken and Roberta,
You are always welcome in Florida!The only thing I could see great about a cell phone adventure game is that most companies would not want an employee to bring in a desktop computer into the work place. ; )
If you travel the world or hang out South of Florida, I hope you have a great time.
MxCoder
“Our son Chris has a ton of experience working on cell phones, and is fairly negative. He doesn’t think there is a market and thinks we would be wasting our time.”
I think this has been the case since the dawn of cell phone games, but I am holding out hope. Perhaps platforms like the iPhone and Android will change things. Surely there are sites out there with sales figures and such for cell phone based games and entertainment? I remember my old way of doing market research was to visit handango.com to see which apps were selling best. 🙂
Wow. You nailed that one. I don’t know if anyone remembers the old Panasonic 3DO systems, but I actually purchased one of those for around $300 I think. This was in 1994 (or maybe 1995). I bought Dragon’s Lair for the exact reason you mentioned. It looked really cool and whoever marketed that product needs a raise because of all the pretty pictures and exciting descriptions on the box that made me feel like this was a “must buy”. But this game was a dud in my opinion, as was almost every other game I bought for the 3DO system. You had almost NO control whatsoever of your character. You would move the controller when the character was ready for direction ( a few times per scene at best ), and the rest was simply eye candy.
No – I don’t think we ever met, or at least I didn’t know him. I do remember someone coming to visit us who demo’d Dragon’s Lair, and my attempting to license it, so that may have been him. My vague recollection is that Dragon’s Lair was ultimately released, but not by us, and didn’t do very well. I remember Roberta and I playing it, and thinking “This is beautiful, but it just isn’t fun.” The problem was that there were too many times when the player had no control, and these cold get boring. I thought it had a market, and that people would buy it just to show it off, but it would quickly get tiresome. -Ken W
We haven’t done a lot of boating in Florida, but we have had boats there twice. The first time was when we crossed the Atlantic in 2004. We started across from Fort Lauderdale. Then, last summer we were there with another boat to leave for the Bahamas, where we ran more than 2,000 miles on a little 27′ power catamaran. – Ken W
Well that’s great. I love boating but I don’t own one. I live in Florida so boating here is good.Have you ever been boating here?
My brother has a small 26′ center console. Its older from a long gone builder in Miami, he just put a new v6 mercury on it ,and does about 40.
Setup mostly for fishing so not very comfortable but very fun., not to many things better than a early morning on the water.
The boat is not bad, but twin engines are really the best when is comes to reliabilty and maneuverabilty. I’ve driven some small single engine and some 60′ foot twins with side thrusters and the 60′ are much more enjoyable and easier to handle, I think.
he Florida keys are interesting and we have the intracoastal for showing off your boat, it is always calm on the intracostal.
I wouldn’t say Florida boating is better but I think the West Coast has rougher water and more difficult navigating. But I do recommend I trip down if you have never done it.Thank you everyone. If I get a response I’ll post something here. I’ll give it a week or two. Perhaps he is thinking about what to say … or, perhaps the message didn’t make it through the system to him.
The thing I like about the iphone is that it represents something really new. I focused on the iphone becuase it is a portable gaming platform, that is always on the internet. It has a touch screen plus tilt sensors. As has been suggested, I like the idea of some massively multiplayer game using the iphone as the front end. This said, I’d like to think of something “outside the box” to do. I really don’t want to fall into the trap of convincing myself I can do something that has been done 50 times before better than anyone else has done it. My focus will be on “what’s something that no one has thought of doing, that might be possible.” We’ve got a few ideas, but nothing really radical. If Activision says they are interested, Roberta and I will keep pushing until we come up with something fun. Our son Chris has a ton of experience working on cell phones, and is fairly negative. He doesn’t think there is a market and thinks we would be wasting our time. He might be right.. If Activision responds with a “let’s talk”, I’d spend a month or so thinking of something worth doing, that I could get excited about. Both iphone and PC products would be considered. I think anything I do would have a server component. I wouldn’t limit my thinking to just games. The goal is to find new forms of entertainment, and I’m not sure games are the only way to entertain using a internet-connected multimedia device. I wouldn’t rule out a game .. but, I’d really like to think broader than that.
Currently, I’ve got two things keeping me busy: 1) We are very active boaters. We just took our boat from Seattle to Costa Rica, over about a six month time. I’m just wrapping up a book about the trip that should be out within about two weeks. Unless your into boating, it isn’t very exciting – but, check http://www.nordhavn68.com for it to be available. 2) I have a little website maker I’ve been working on with my other son, DJ — http://www.talkspot.com It is starting to generate money, and growing quickly (nearly 25,000 websites!) I had thought it would be a one year project, and now it has stretched for five years, and still isn’t making money. It has allowed me to keep my programming skills current, and been a bunch of fun. I need to keep focused on it so that I can get it to breakeven, which should happen in the next year.
Roberta has been hard at work on a book about the Irish immigration (to the US). She’s always loved history, and has spent years researching the book. Book writing isn’t as “sexy” as building games, but it’s much more practical when you are living on a boat.
-Ken W
