Roberta Williams/Josh Mandel discussion

[nachtritter]

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

a one-man boycott against a growing, changing monolith that once was a smaller and more manageable entity that meant something to me

Hipster.

[joek86]

Originally Posted by doom saber

Just seems like if there is a game with less involvement from the original character, people would think the creator hates it. I remember how there were rumors about the creator of Dragonball not liking Dragonball GT despite there isn't any source.

That's true, but he did hate Dragonball Evolution, but then again, who doesn't?

[Rather Dashing]

Originally Posted by joek86

That's true, but he did hate Dragonball Evolution, but then again, who doesn't?

There is not a single negative statement by Akira Toriyama regarding Evolution. Hell, I don't think I've ever seen a quote from him that is negative about anything other than his own work. He's really laid-back when it comes to his creations.

[doom saber]

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

There is not a single negative statement by Akira Toriyama regarding Evolution. Hell, I don't think I've ever seen a quote from him that is negative about anything other than his own work. He's really laid-back when it comes to his creations.

NVM misread your comment

[doom saber]

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

There is not a single negative statement by Akira Toriyama regarding Evolution. Hell, I don't think I've ever seen a quote from him that is negative about anything other than his own work. He's really laid-back when it comes to his creations.

here is the quote:

As the original creator, I had a feeling of "Huh?" upon seeing the screenplay and the character designs, but the director, all the actors, the staff, and the rest are nothing but "ultra" high-caliber people. Maybe the right way for me and all the fans to appreciate it is as a New Dragonball of a different dimension. Perhaps, this might become a great masterpiece of power! Hey, I look forward to it!!

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news...ragonball-film

[Josho]

Al Lowe did a tremendous amount on Freddy Pharkas, and, as with all his games, he was primarily responsible for it. He did the original design document (which isn't the one on his website; that's a much later iteration, close to the final version if not THE final version); subsequent versions of the design were worked out between the two of us, and he always had final say -- which is exactly how it should've been, given that he was by far more experienced than I was, and his name was going to be first and foremost on the box and in the marketing. I was to receive the benefit of an overseer on my first game, ensuring an expected level of quality, and his name on the box would guarantee that it would sell even if I didn't perform.

Most of the puzzles and plot were his, particularly in the first half of the game. He wrote a little of the text and a little of the music. Parts of the finished game, we designed together, some large parts were virtually all his and some smaller parts were virtually all mine. I conceived and wrote the ballads (based on the backstory that Al had written), 95% or more of the text, gags, dialogue and narration, fleshed out the characters and locations, designed and wrote the demo, wrote about 95% of the manual, did all the producer duties, and directed the game on a daily basis. Al oversaw everything, checking it all frequently to see that things met his standards and making fine-tuning changes all along the way.

There were many, many things I wanted to do with the game, and Al let me do almost all of them, even when he was uncertain of the direction I was going. I don't recall him "flexing his muscles" very often (I can only think of two broad areas where he regularly overruled me: I thought we REALLY didn't need puzzles involving both flatulence AND diarrhea in the same game, and I really don't like timed puzzles). But overall, Al was a flexible, generous, and thoughtful co-designer and guide, and I learned a great deal from him.

Many, many months later, when they decided to make a CD version, Al did everything involved in the conversion: he cast and directed the voice work and supervised the whole process (I was busy working on SQ6 and trying, on a daily basis, to get Scott to co-design it, but his mind and spirit were far elsewhere by then).

Al is as much Freddy's Dad as I am, perhaps more or less depending on where one feels the soul of a game comes from. He was in every way an absolutely formative and positive force, from start to finish.

I hope that makes things clearer.

Sometimes, we lurk.

Josh

[JuntMonkey]

Originally Posted by Josho

Al Lowe did a tremendous amount on Freddy Pharkas, and, as with all his games, he was primarily responsible for it. He did the original design document (which isn't the one on his website; that's a much later iteration, close to the final version if not THE final version); subsequent versions of the design were worked out between the two of us, and he always had final say -- which is exactly how it should've been, given that he was by far more experienced than I was, and his name was going to be first and foremost on the box and in the marketing. I was to receive the benefit of an overseer on my first game, ensuring an expected level of quality, and his name on the box would guarantee that it would sell even if I didn't perform.

Most of the puzzles and plot were his, particularly in the first half of the game. He wrote a little of the text and a little of the music. Parts of the finished game, we designed together, some large parts were virtually all his and some smaller parts were virtually all mine. I conceived and wrote the ballads (based on the backstory that Al had written), 95% or more of the text, gags, dialogue and narration, fleshed out the characters and locations, designed and wrote the demo, wrote about 95% of the manual, did all the producer duties, and directed the game on a daily basis. Al oversaw everything, checking it all frequently to see that things met his standards and making fine-tuning changes all along the way.

There were many, many things I wanted to do with the game, and Al let me do almost all of them, even when he was uncertain of the direction I was going. I don't recall him "flexing his muscles" very often (I can only think of two broad areas where he regularly overruled me: I thought we REALLY didn't need puzzles involving both flatulence AND diarrhea in the same game, and I really don't like timed puzzles). But overall, Al was a flexible, generous, and thoughtful co-designer and guide, and I learned a great deal from him.

Many, many months later, when they decided to make a CD version, Al did everything involved in the conversion: he cast and directed the voice work and supervised the whole process (I was busy working on SQ6 and trying, on a daily basis, to get Scott to co-design it, but his mind and spirit were far elsewhere by then).

Al is as much Freddy's Dad as I am, perhaps more or less depending on where one feels the soul of a game comes from. He was in every way an absolutely formative and positive force, from start to finish.

I hope that makes things clearer.

Sometimes, we lurk.

Josh

Can you please write a book about the history of Sierra with all sorts of juicy info and sell it as an e-book or whatever?

[doom saber]

Originally Posted by Josho

Al Lowe did a tremendous amount on Freddy Pharkas, and, as with all his games, he was primarily responsible for it. He did the original design document (which isn't the one on his website; that's a much later iteration, close to the final version if not THE final version); subsequent versions of the design were worked out between the two of us, and he always had final say -- which is exactly how it should've been, given that he was by far more experienced than I was, and his name was going to be first and foremost on the box and in the marketing. I was to receive the benefit of an overseer on my first game, ensuring an expected level of quality, and his name on the box would guarantee that it would sell even if I didn't perform.

Most of the puzzles and plot were his, particularly in the first half of the game. He wrote a little of the text and a little of the music. Parts of the finished game, we designed together, some large parts were virtually all his and some smaller parts were virtually all mine. I conceived and wrote the ballads (based on the backstory that Al had written), 95% or more of the text, gags, dialogue and narration, fleshed out the characters and locations, designed and wrote the demo, wrote about 95% of the manual, did all the producer duties, and directed the game on a daily basis. Al oversaw everything, checking it all frequently to see that things met his standards and making fine-tuning changes all along the way.

There were many, many things I wanted to do with the game, and Al let me do almost all of them, even when he was uncertain of the direction I was going. I don't recall him "flexing his muscles" very often (I can only think of two broad areas where he regularly overruled me: I thought we REALLY didn't need puzzles involving both flatulence AND diarrhea in the same game, and I really don't like timed puzzles). But overall, Al was a flexible, generous, and thoughtful co-designer and guide, and I learned a great deal from him.

Many, many months later, when they decided to make a CD version, Al did everything involved in the conversion: he cast and directed the voice work and supervised the whole process (I was busy working on SQ6 and trying, on a daily basis, to get Scott to co-design it, but his mind and spirit were far elsewhere by then).

Al is as much Freddy's Dad as I am, perhaps more or less depending on where one feels the soul of a game comes from. He was in every way an absolutely formative and positive force, from start to finish.

I hope that makes things clearer.

Sometimes, we lurk.

Josh

Thanks for the clarification.

[MusicallyInspired]

Welcome, Josh. You rock.

[Brainiac]

Now entering the forum, His Royal Majesty, King Graham I of Daventry!

Welcome to the madness, Josh Mandel. Now can I talk to you about my taxes?

[Daventry]

Originally Posted by JuntMonkey

Sierra did do that kind of thing for marketing purposes. Josh Mandel posted at adventuregamers that he saw a review state that Freddy Pharkas was "Al Lowe at his purest" or something like that. Meanwhile Al Lowe had done virtually nothing on the game, with Mandel being the real designer.

Thanks for the clarification Josh. I just knew that statements like the one above were absolutely not true.

[aaroncarney]

I'm surprised so many people don't really have faith that this could work. Look what they have done with sam and max and monkey island. AMAZING games. It could be quite different... but so what? At least we are getting another Kings Quest.

And even if Roberta Williams isn't part of the team, again... so? She was part of the Mask of Eternity team and look how horrific that game is. I imagine the team behind the new Telltale Games are huge fans of the series and know the games well. They will do a good job (a better job than MOE at least) and if its different, so be it, it could breathe new life into the series

[BagginsKQ]

While I'll respectively disagree that KQ8 is 'horrific'.

Infact, Roberta is behind why MOE is so different. If she didn't have any problems with outside forces (trying to censor the game and remove combat and violence, etc), it would have had even more combat and boss fights. It would have been 3-d and had combat regardless.

[MusicallyInspired]

Sam & Max and Monkey Island were very different kinds of adventure games. They only did well because they both had people who had worked on the originals working on these new titles. Also, neither of them are Sierra adventures. Very different breeds.

And Mask of Eternity is not "horrific".

[Jon NA]

Roberta's working on a facebook game?
http://www.gamezebo.com/news/2011/08...ooks-odd-manor

[bbk5]

Originally Posted by Jon NA

Roberta's working on a facebook game?
http://www.gamezebo.com/news/2011/08...ooks-odd-manor

What that article leaves out is the game is from her son's new company. I think she's just helping to give them a little boost with her name.

[Jon NA]

Huh ... That explains it!
But still, I guess from KQ fans' point of view It's a shame she doesn't want to get out of retirment to work with Telltale briefly like she does with her son's company ...

[gamer247]

Originally Posted by aaroncarney

I'm surprised so many people don't really have faith that this could work. Look what they have done with sam and max and monkey island. .

There work has been downhill since Monkey Island so there's plenty of reason to be worried.

[Anakin Skywalker]

Originally Posted by Jon NA

Huh ... That explains it!
But still, I guess from KQ fans' point of view It's a shame she doesn't want to get out of retirment to work with Telltale briefly like she does with her son's company ...

It's a bit different though. KQ is probably HER baby to her. I don't think Roberta would want to work on a KQ game unless she had total control over it or was the primary designer or at least had final authority over the game's content. Even on the KQ games that she was least involved in, she still approved the content, she still was the designer, the game was still basically HER's.

TellTale and probably very few other companies would give her that much power, so for her there's no reason to get really involved...For her it'd probably be a replay of the KQ8 situation, having to work on her baby with other people telling her how to work on it, which apparently stressed her out so much that she started crying one day in her bed (according to a book which talks about KQ8's development). I think KQ8's development and watching the death of Sierra traumatized her and left her not wanting to be in any situation like it again.

A game like her son's is different. It's a new thing that's not her baby, she probably has little personal emotional investment and memories attached to it, it's quite a different ballgame. It doesn't come with the baggage that working on a King's Quest game would for her.

[MusicallyInspired]

That's a good point. All we know is that Telltale talked to her and she declined. We don't really know the reasons why.

I don't think either Roberta or Ken did one ounce of design on their son's game. They're just advertising it for the PR. Their names do go a long way in certain niches.