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SierraGamers has 4750 registered users at this time. Never mind all the adventure fans we can reach through various other adventure websites and message boards who may not be registered here.
There is a ton of work and thought being put into the InterAction Magazine project as well as other archival projects currently in progress. Please trust us that we will make this stuff happen and that we will do a professional job of it. I’m not really sure that adding a little message from Ken would make it any more marketable – after all, there are lots of little messages from Ken on these message boards already.
I know some of you guys have wanted to help with archival stuff – I still have those scans you sent Chris – in the near future we will be launching new areas of the site that everyone can participate in. We are taking our time in everything we do to ensure that’s it done right. Please give us a bit of patience.
>In other oddities, the last versions of Sierra games were released with the new labels/boxes.
>I have an Apple 2 version of Mixed-Up Mother Goose in the same box as the 1990 VGA version.
>It’s usual to see the Apple 2GS version of King’s Quest 1 in the 1990 box. Also, KQ1-4, SQ1-3,
>etc. were released with the newer box sticker displaying a big “EGA” instead of the usual 4 or
>so small lines of text.Oh yeah… and I recall the opposite happening too. My dad has a copy of SQ1VGA in the old EGA box and there’s a 256-color sticker on it.
The Waffle Walker? Yeah, I’m just asking to be eaten, aren’t I?
I figured that VDMS wouldn’t change anything no matter what I did, but I guess I was at the point where I wanted to try anything. I already tried it in 256 colours and 640*480 res, but it didn’t work (I tried on two different computers).
It seems weird playing the DOS version … what with the huge mouse cursors and pixilated character portraits. It never seemed like the KQ6 that I’ve always known and loved.
Thanks for helping though!
Why not both?
And really, this has the potential to sell many more than fifty copies. In the end, it’ll all come down to effective promotion (plus obviously affordability).
Back in the early nineties, I believe Sierra intended on doing talkie versions of many of their already released 256 colour VGA disk-based games, but never actually got around to doing it. (There are some other threads on here detailing some of those projects.)
In many cases, we’ve actually seen CD versions of games being advertised, but never actually produced and sold. You’ll notice that some issues of Interaction carry third-party ads for CD versions of Conquests of the Longbow (there’s a short demo on this site), Larry 5, etc. And we know the CD version of SQ5 had all the planning done, i.e. was ready to go into the sound studio, when it was canned (and what a shame!).
And as far as I know, there never was a CD version of EcoQuest 2.
I think there probably will be about 50 fans willing to shell out some money for the magazines. Maybe less… How many board members do we have?
How about a word from Ken Williams with an autograph instead of some word from ex-employes 😉
Quote:
“… (by Tom Procyk)
Much to my surprise, I noticed a version of Space Quest 4 – high density disks – with the tan labels! Now I assume this was during the transition period to the colorband labels, but it’s still cool to see them on black disks for a new(er) release. …”I think the transition to the colorband labels occured around 1992. So, the first versions of KQ5, SQ4, and probably others such as PQ3, QFG1VGA, SQ1VGA, etc. had the tan labels.
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“… This leads me to my second oddity discovery: The “odd” version of King’s Quest 5. (with the goofy photo of King Graham dragging everything and the family dog into the game on the box) The 256-color versions I’ve seen of this release all had 8 disks on 3.5″ and the 9th (startup disk) on a 5.25″ What was the reason behind this? Seems to me this would cause some problems along the way somewhere. Later versions had all 9 disks on 3.5″ …”This version is not so odd, it’s just the original release 😉
At the time (1990), on the PC the standard was still 5.25″, but it was quickly transitionning to 3.5″ (HD). Many people (including myself) had their HD 5.25″ drive, but had also bought a HD 3.5″ drive because their prices had come down so much. Some people also either didn’t have a hard disk yet, or it was still very small (like 20-30MB) and fully occupied. Since KQ5 required 2 disk drives to run without a hard disk (you had to leave a single disk inserted in one of the drives, while the other had all the swaps), it was distributed with both formats, one of them only with the startup disk. You would insert the startup disk in your older 5.25″ drive (and leave it there for the whole playing time), and the other disks in your brand new 3.5″ drive.
This time really didn’t last long. The Atari ST, Amiga and Apple 2/2GS quickly died, and people started buying new PCs like crazy. These new PCs (around 1992) always featured 3.5″ drives (gone were the days of 5.25″), at least a 386 processor, always VGA or Super-VGA, and at least a 40MB hard drive.Aah, those were the days! 😉
In other oddities, the last versions of Sierra games were released with the new labels/boxes. I have an Apple 2 version of Mixed-Up Mother Goose in the same box as the 1990 VGA version. It’s usual to see the Apple 2GS version of King’s Quest 1 in the 1990 box.
Also, KQ1-4, SQ1-3, etc. were released with the newer box sticker displaying a big “EGA” instead of the usual 4 or so small lines of text.Vincent.
Tom: Cool! Any chance you still have those letters? Also, any chance you still have any of those demo CDs?
Brandon Klassen, archivist ~ SierraGamers.com admin/dev team ~
You got it. Pretty much, there are countless variations / oddities of Sierra releases. Here’s a fun one. I have two sets of 5.25″ Camelot disks. On one of them, the labels say version “1.001.000” and on the other set of disks, the labels say version “1.001” but the version file on those disks also say “1.001.000”. Weird eh?
I remember having a bug before where post titles got truncated. I can’t remember what caused it at the moment though. I’ll see if I can fix that for you. By the way, welcome here and enjoy your stay! I’m sure some of us here would be interested to see / read your class project!
Brandon Klassen, archivist ~ SierraGamers.com admin/dev team ~
I remember the InterAction CD VERY vividly… sadly it never happened. I sent in my $20(?) money order (at the time not old enough to have a checking account or credit card, haha!) and order form or whatever I had to do and only got two letters back: One saying the CD was delayed until next quarter, and the following one with a refund and a brief statement saying the project had been cancelled.
I DO remember the following issue(s) of the magazines started to contain the demo CDs with them from time to time (with an INN trial and a few videos or playable demos of games).
Tom.
**Hmm. I Titled the thread Sierra Oddities, but it dropped the word Oddities… that’s odd.***
Hi everyone! Like all of you here, I’ve been a Sierra fan for life but I just started getting into this site after using Sierra for a class project regarding the change in logo and how it reflects the image of a company’s technical documents. (everyone else was doing the BORING Cingular/AT&T merger) This is what got me back into re-discovering the games. This site, as well as many others like it have helped me learn a lot more about Sierra than I thought I knew!!
Introductions aside, and not wanting to clutter the post with my personal reflections, I’ve noticed a few oddities lately when searching e-bay auctions to help fill holes in my Sierra collection. For one, I’ve always been a fan of the tan-colored disk labels with the picture of half-dome on them, but only really associated them with the 3.5″ low-density 720k disks. I’ve only ever seen the white lables with the color bands on high density disks for the newer 256-color games. (I associated this with the change from the old, 16-color, parser Sierra to the new, 256… well, you get the point)
Much to my surprise, I noticed a version of Space Quest 4 – high density disks – with the tan labels! Now I assume this was during the transition period to the colorband labels, but it’s still cool to see them on black disks for a new(er) release.
This leads me to my second oddity discovery: The “odd” version of King’s Quest 5. (with the goofy photo of King Graham dragging everything and the family dog into the game on the box) The 256-color versions I’ve seen of this release all had 8 disks on 3.5″ and the 9th (startup disk) on a 5.25″ What was the reason behind this? Seems to me this would cause some problems along the way somewhere. Later versions had all 9 disks on 3.5″
While on the topic of disk colors, in both the Space Quest 4 and King’s Quest 5 listings I saw on eBay, the 3.5″ disks changed colors from black to blue for a couple of the disks. Now while this is not uncommon (We’ve all had that one “odball” colored disk, either white or blue, throw off our perfectly symmetrical Sierra sets!) it IS uncommon to see a high density disk that’s blue. (they’re all usually black unless it’s an AOL disk) So this leads me to my next question: Were these early releases of these games, on the tan mountain labels a mix of high and low density disks?
Other disk label “oddities” include the picture of Half-Dome being glossy on some labels (like my QFG2 set) but not on later ones (like my Jones in the Fast Lane set). I assume the change in label design (to the color bands) was due to a cost issue. Those full color pics on each label were nice, but probably VERY expensive!!
Had a few more oddities on my mind before I started writing, but they escape me right now. I’ll come back when I think of them! 😉
Tom.
Thanks for all the info… I was suprised that IMDB (which I understand is a user-supported DB) would list guys who essentially posed for pixelated still shots as “actors” but your defintily right, there is no PQ3 voice version.
Now to find the elusive EcoQuest 2 Voice version! I think that’s the last CD-ROM game I need to require (from ’90-’95 anyway).
Or you could use Turbo like a normal person, instead of collector’s method of blowing up every 5 seconds and driving yourself insane.. *grin*
– Alistair
Quote:
“… (by The Walker) Hey guys,Does anyone else have this problem? I got the windows version of KQ6 running with VDMS, but the graphics for the mouse pointer don’t change as they should (i.e. If I select WALK/TALK/LOOK/GRAB from the menu, it doesn’t change. If I right-click, it doesn’t change). If I move the mouse outside the kq6 window and then bring it back in, it will change to what it should be, but this is really annoying. Is there any way around this? I’ve tried various settings in the Compatability tab and in VDMS… don’t think anything is working. I don’t have this problem with sq4.
…”
Hey there (QFG3 reference in your nick?),Don’t play KQ6 *or* SQ4 WIN versions, they’re crap. 🙂
But if you will persist with it, I’d set your display to 256 colours and 680*480 resolution, which SHOULD fix the cursors. But if it doesn’t.. then just play the disk version (which is better).
VDM Sound won’t change anything to do with graphics, by the way.
regards,
– AlistairQuote:
“…This is a tricky one… For the longest time I’d always assumed PQ3 did not have voices and was never released with in a CD-form. I have never seen an ISO available anywhere, and I have never seen a copy of the CD-ROM version available on Ebay. However, recently I realized that this would have been right between the time of the no-voice VGA games (SQ1 VGA, PQ1 VGA) and the Voice games (where there was some overlap such as KQ5 and KQ6)….”
That assumption is correct, none of the ‘Sonny Bonds’ PQ’s were released on CD, except for ‘Sierra Originals’ rereleases which are just disk games put on a CD.
PQ3 was made well before PQ1VGA, which was amde after Jim Walls left Sierra for Tsunami (as did other Sierra employees).
In fact PQ1VGA fits between KQ5 and 6. 🙂Quote:
“…So I took a trip over to IMDB, and found this entry…http://imdb.com/title/tt0289398/
You’ll see there are clearly several voice actors associated with the game there.
But then I took a trip to Moby Games, and their cast listing seems to imply they are “Actors” I have never seen a non-FMV game refer to their voice talent as “Actors.” And considering KQ5 was released a whole year earlier and had voice actors, it’s thoroughly confused me….”
I just checked the page in question.. nowhere does IMDB say that the people are ‘voice-actors’. (Though I DID skim the page..)
Rather, those people are ‘screen capture artists’, pictures of people (largely Sierra employees it seems too!) playing characters, which Sierra did a LOT, especially around that time.KQ5 original disk version was released in 1990, yes. KQ5CD was reelased later, probably in 1992.
Quote:
“…Can anyone confirm that there is in fact a released voice-acted version of PQ3 out there? Or are these actors only the actors who posed for the artwork in the game?…”
I think I summed it up.. no voice PQ3, just capture artists (‘actors’).Next post:
Quote:
“…its funny that you bring this up because i have just finished collecting all of the police quest games and i keep feeling it isn’t complete because i have this weird memory of their being a cd version of police quest 3. i never owned it, but i seem to remember ads for it.i think i can even remember the specific ad. it was for sprint, and if you signed up with them you could select 2 sierra cd games from a list that they were offering. get this, leisure suit larry 5 was also on the choice list! and this wasn’t just a text list of games, there were actually pictures of the games on cd….”
LSL5 never got a voice release either. Maybe Sierra planned it, but it never happened..Quote:
“…i think what may have happened was that it was released on disk first, like almost all of the other sierra talkies. then maybe there were plans to put it on cd, and they started advertising it before it was made. then it got cancelled. i am probably completely wrong since im basing this on my old memories.or maybe the games were just released on cd, but not actually talkie games….”
This actually is fair logic. Either of thsoe are entirely plausible.Quote:
“…good luck. if you find it, let us know….”
Sure, if you find anything, spill. 🙂 But there’s no PQ3 CD, other than a ‘CD release’ which just has the disk files on CD rather than floppies.Regards,
– Alistairits funny that you bring this up because i have just finished collecting all of the police quest games and i keep feeling it isn’t complete because i have this weird memory of their being a cd version of police quest 3. i never owned it, but i seem to remember ads for it.
i think i can even remember the specific ad. it was for sprint, and if you signed up with them you could select 2 sierra cd games from a list that they were offering. get this, leisure suit larry 5 was also on the choice list! and this wasn’t just a text list of games, there were actually pictures of the games on cd.
i think what may have happened was that it was released on disk first, like almost all of the other sierra talkies. then maybe there were plans to put it on cd, and they started advertising it before it was made. then it got cancelled. i am probably completely wrong since im basing this on my old memories.
or maybe the games were just released on cd, but not actually talkie games.
good luck. if you find it, let us know.
Quote:
“… (by Ants Bull)
The graphics take the same amount of space whether it is 160×200 or 320×200. Each pixel in the 320×200 graphics modes used in the AGI PC games simply is drawn 2 pixels wide. The AGI engine doesn’t store graphics as bitmaps, but drawing instructions – such as draw a red line from (0,0) to (100,100) then a circle etc. So I don’t think size was a problem. …”So that’s indeed what I thought. Thanks for the confirmation!
Quote:
“… And since the screen is drawn once when it is loaded, speed wouldn’t have really been affected much either no matter what mode. …”Well, the speed was affected by the re-drawing of the sprites (characters, castle flags, etc.). The more and bigger the sprites, the slower the gameplay, at least on low-end machines such as the PCjr which is the slowest PC compatible in existence. Having a half-resolution would have freed bus bandwidth for the CPU (let me know if you’re interested in more details about this), and required to move half the data for sprites.
Quote:
“… Maybe it is just that the 320×200 mode is far more common (e.g. supported on CGA PC, Tandy and PC Jr). …”It’s true that the CGA BIOS does not support the 160×200 resolution. So maybe porting to CGA was considered right from the beginning of the development of the PCjr version?
Quote:
“… Also of note to people interested in this is that it was possible to hack standard CGA colour card/RGB monitor setups (the four colour cyan, magenta etc setup) to display 8 or 16 colours at 160×200. If Sierra had known about this back in the day, there could’ve been a driver to get 16 colour AGI games running on CGA! This is probably most interesting to those who had to struggle through the AGI games with CGA (like me!). …”Well, I’m glad to say Sierra *did* know about this back in the day! 😉
http://www.mobygames.com/game/pc-booter/kings-quest/screenshots
BTW, it does not work on RGB monitors, but on composite monitors.
Or maybe you’re talking about the 160×100 16-color “graphics” mode (which is a hacked text mode)?Vincent.
Quote:
“…
– At least in the Tandy 1000 version (not sure about the PCjr), the original King’s Quest and the following AGI games use the 320×200 resolution to display the 160×200 graphics, although the PCjr and Tandy 1000 machines feature a native 160x200x16 graphics mode. Why was this move taken, as it consumes more memory and makes the games slightly slower since twice as many pixels must be written? Was it to display the more-easily-readable 320×200 font?
…”Hi Vincent, I have mucked around with the AGI games and written tools to extract the graphics from them and turn them into javascript stuff, so I know a bit about what goes on underneath.
The graphics take the same amount of space whether it is 160×200 or 320×200. Each pixel in the 320×200 graphics modes used in the AGI PC games simply is drawn 2 pixels wide. The AGI engine doesn’t store graphics as bitmaps, but drawing instructions – such as draw a red line from (0,0) to (100,100) then a circle etc. So I don’t think size was a problem. And since the screen is drawn once when it is loaded, speed wouldn’t have really been affected much either no matter what mode. Maybe it is just that the 320×200 mode is far more common (e.g. supported on CGA PC, Tandy and PC Jr).
Also of note to people interested in this is that it was possible to hack standard CGA colour card/RGB monitor setups (the four colour cyan, magenta etc setup) to display 8 or 16 colours at 160×200. If Sierra had known about this back in the day, there could’ve been a driver to get 16 colour AGI games running on CGA! This is probably most interesting to those who had to struggle through the AGI games with CGA (like me!).
I would have to agree with Bruce Campbell. Sure he might not look the part but Ash reminds me alot of Roger in some ways
Quote:
“… (by Brandon Klassen) Even the ads are going to appear in the mags. Every page will be included.The proceeds will go to recover the cost of scanning the mags and the production costs of the collection.
…”How many takers do you think there will be? The only way to make it really professional is to send a master to a rep plant for pressing and labeling – not cheap or even possible below certain quantities. Might be nice to have a supplementary dead tree publication with Sierra’s history and maybe a few words from ex-employees or something like that, too. But I’m probably getting too far ahead there. But if you want to get away with selling it, that’s probably what it will take.
Even the ads are going to appear in the mags. Every page will be included.
The proceeds will go to recover the cost of scanning the mags and the production costs of the collection.
I remember reading somewhere on this site that the original ads that appeared in the magazine would not be included with the digital copies. However, perhaps they should be. Paging through old Interactions now, there is no clearer way to identify the context (or gaming environment) within which Sierra’s games were released. (I remember Chips&Bits selling Return to Zork for $69. I bought it second-hand a few years ago for a little over one dollar.) Anyway, for lack of a better word, I think it would help today’s readers in imagining the right “atmosphere”. Or something like that.
Quote:
“… (by Ken Williams) Sorry … I have no email address or phone number for Jeff Stephenson.
…”But still, Ken, do you have any clue about the questions above? Also, did the choices mentioned above had anything to do with what IBM wanted?
I have another question not directly technical. I was briefly in contact with a beta tester at IBM who tested the original King’s Quest before release. He told me they were 2 beta testers at IBM for King’s Quest. At the time, were you aware of the existance of these “external” beta testers? Did you have any contact with them, and did they bring any feedback about the game that could have shown in the final product?
Also, do you know who was responsible for the original PCjr packaging (cover, manual contents and graphics, original keyboard overlay)? Has it been done at Sierra or at IBM?
Thank you,
Vincent.
Sorry … I have no email address or phone number for Jeff Stephenson.
I did run into his wife, Avis, a couple of years ago at a restaurant in Bellevue Washington. I believe they live somewhere in the Seattle area, but that’s as much as I know.
-Ken W
Maybe Ken can indeed answer. I’ll ask the questions for Jim here (I’m sure he won’t mind 😉 ), but I’d also like to know.
– Why a resolution of 160×200 was chosen for the AGI engine, as it was created for the PCjr, and the PCjr was capable of displaying 320×200 with the same amount of colors (16). Was any porting to the Apple 2 (or maybe other machines like the C64) already planned at the time?
– At least in the Tandy 1000 version (not sure about the PCjr), the original King’s Quest and the following AGI games use the 320×200 resolution to display the 160×200 graphics, although the PCjr and Tandy 1000 machines feature a native 160x200x16 graphics mode. Why was this move taken, as it consumes more memory and makes the games slightly slower since twice as many pixels must be written? Was it to display the more-easily-readable 320×200 font?
– Was it considered at any point when developing the AGI engine for the PCjr, if Apple 2 conversion was planned, to have the resolution adaptable? Since the graphics are made of lines and region fills, it could have been possible to have the coordinates stored for 320×200, then the x coordinates divided by 2 for the Apple 2 and other 8-bit machines. Were there other issues involved that prevented from doing this in a reasonable (or even doable considering the deadline) time?
Thanks in advance for any recollection,
Vincent.
