Replay Games Kickstarter / KQ/SQ/LSL Rights

[Blackthorne519]

Yeah, and basically its a test to prove that a decent Larry game can be made by this team - if this leads them to making a new Larry game, I'm cool with it. If the donors donate $500,000 and it happens, I'm all for it. Hey, it's the donors money. They can give it if they want to - and hopefully replay does a good job with it. Personally, I think they will.


Bt

[Irishmile]

Originally Posted by Anakin Skywalker

But this is a remake of a game that already got a remake.

True.. but the remake itself is already 21 years old, and didn't have voice.

[thom-22]

Originally Posted by Irishmile

its all going to depend on the amount of money they get.. they have all the right elements needed to make a great game.. They have Al and Josh to write, and they have some pretty decent artists and background artists.

Sure they have the right people to make a great Larry game, but do they have all the elements to make a successful product? Management that can stay within time and budget? Programmers and build engineers? Are they investing in a portable engine to benefit from economy of scale for subsequent games? How about support? You know, there's no tech support section on the Replay website...

In fact it's hard to tell from the site what exactly Replay does. They claim to be a publisher and developer, yet a good number of the games they show under "our games" were developed and released before Replay was even founded. Which of those games did Replay actually design and code? According to the App Store database, they've only published one iOS game but it's not clear that the individual who actually developed it did so under the auspices of Replay; it seems to have been a student project.

Originally Posted by wilco64256

Well for one thing remakes are WAY cheaper to make because pretty much all of the writing and general game design is already done. Unless you add/change lines or add some new locations you're basically starting right off the bat with a complete game design to work on. That saves a TON of work in the development cycle.

Except this is Larry 1 Reloaded, they talk about additional locations and re-writing and they are going to have additional expenses for a game this old, especially voice work, beyond a straight-up remake. Theoretically a quick remake, being cheaper, is a good way to start generating income to finance more ambitious projects, eg. all-new sequels. I kind of thought that's what was going on when they initially announced this last year. But now it's a project unto itself, probably not the one most Larry fans want, yet they're now being asked to fund it. I'm not real keen on the idea of using Kickstarter to capitalize a company.

I wonder why they didn't (or couldn't) do a quick remake of Love for Sail, which already has nice graphics and voice, updated for all the modern platforms and start bringing in money and testing the waters that way. Not to mention it was a pretty good game IMO, entertaining and fun to play. My memory is hazy but it doesn't seem like it would be too outdated.

[tomimt]

I think Al Lowe said that most of the art stuff Sierra did for games is lost. Some of it is can be found, but for a complete game you have to do a lot of stuff from scratch.

I think they chose not to do Love for Sail, as it has a lot of pretty nice cinematics, which could be expensive to reproduce in high resolution. And as it has a lot of talking characters the voice budget could rise high.

[BagginsKQ]

Anyone realize that the closest thing that LSL1 HD remake is similar to is Sierra's only successfull remake franchise...;

Mixed-Up series, specifically Mixed-Up Mother Goose, which went through four versions, (3 remakes)... AGI, enhanced EGA, VGA (with CD audio), and finally SVGA...

Mixed-Up Mother Goose (AGI)

Mixed-Up Mother Goose Enhanced (SCIEGA)

Mixed-Up Mother Goose Multimedia (SCIVGA)

Mixed-Up Mother Goose Deluxe (SCISVGA)

I wouldn't have been surprised if Sierra could have gotten remakes in general to be successful, that they might have taken the same route with many of their most popular series... But alas, history took a different route...

[tomimt]

I had no idea there's Deluxe verison out of Mother Goose. I got the EGA and VGA versions ages ago in Roberta Williams Anthology set.

[BagginsKQ]

Roberta Williams Anthology has the AGI EGA version...

I'm not sure if the EGA enhanced version was ever released in any collection.

The Deluxe version was rereleased in the King's Quest Collection II, a bit after the release of teh Roberta Williams collection.

[blueskirt]

Anyone else is wondering if the crazy fragmentation of Sierra communities compared to LucasArts communities could be a problem to the success of Sierra related Kickstarters?

The mood and humor between LucasArts adventure games are so similar, if you like one game, you have good chances of liking them all. There's also Mixnmojo and LucasForums which act like a hub for all things LucasArts and ex-LucasArts employees related things and cultivate a sense of unity among LucasArts fans.

By contrast, Sierra games and series are vastly different in mood, tones and kind of humor, Leisure Suit Larry is simply not the same as King's Quest or Gabriel Knight, and these differences subsist even when you delve deeper in a subgenre, fans of King's Quest are not automatically fans of Quest For Glory or Conquests.

And as a result, we don't have a Sierra equivalent of Mixnmojo and LucasForums, although we haven't been lacking new material to cover in the last couple of years, with various releases and announcements of fangames and remakes, to fan made Let's Play, retrospective and interviews with Sierra designers, to Telltale's King's Quest revival and veterans getting out of retirement. Instead all the information is spread across many websites and forums, each dedicated to a specific series, fan project or aspect of Sierra.

And now we have this situation where any LucasArts related Kickstarter will interest all LucasArts fans, but Sierra Kickstarters will interest only a specific subset of fans among all Sierra fans. And if the future of Sierra depends on crowd funding, we might face a problem one day. I have no doubt Al and Jane will meet their goal, but I don't expect the same kind of overfunding we've witnessed with Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2 or Shadowrun Returns. And Kickstarters for lesser known series and designers will have a much harder time meeting their goals.

[MusicallyInspired]

Originally Posted by blueskirt

And as a result, we don't have a Sierra equivalent of Mixnmojo and LucasForums

I beg to differ. They may not be well populated (although they have seen an increase in visitation as of late!), but the Sierra Forums Gateway connects a myriad of different Sierra forums together. And various websites act as the main hub for Sierra news for each game series (SpaceQuest.Net, etc). Also, the Mixnmojo forums aren't that well populated either.

Because there are so many different types of games it doesn't really make sense to have one giant one for all of them anyway. The gateway is the closest thing. The Sierra Help Pages more or less acts as the "hub", though, since it's about all of the series.

[BagginsKQ]

I have created wikis for nearly every major Sierra IP (at least mainly for series with 2 or more games)... There is also a general Sierra wiki (that one is still in the beginning stages, when I took it over)...

Still the most active ones (as in most active edits in last six months to a year, and number of editors) so far are the King's Quest, Space Quest, Quest for Glory, Police Quest, and Conquests wikis...

Freddy Pharkas wiki is growing (mostly stubs at the moment), but still has a ways to go...

Strangely, haven't seen much action on the Gabriel Knight or Laura Bow... But I'll likely continue to add to them, when I have more time, and I have a chance to play through them again...

[barchetta]

Space Quest Creators Reunite and Promise a New "Spaceventure"

Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy, creators of the Space Quest series of adventure games by Sierra Online, today announced they were gettin' the band back together, under the (Two) "Guys from Andromeda" nickname they coined for themselves so long ago.

There isn't much yet to announce in the way of funding, game direction or details, but the Two Guys do need your help. The video is just a spread-the-word effort trying to trundle up social media support for their project through Facebook or Twitter or YouTube. The company is also hiring.

http://kotaku.com/5902030/space-ques...w-spaceventure

[Lambonius]

And suddenly, Telltale making a King's Quest game is about the least exciting news around.

[MusicallyInspired]

Originally Posted by barchetta

Space Quest Creators Reunite and Promise a New "Spaceventure"

Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy, creators of the Space Quest series of adventure games by Sierra Online, today announced they were gettin' the band back together, under the (Two) "Guys from Andromeda" nickname they coined for themselves so long ago.

There isn't much yet to announce in the way of funding, game direction or details, but the Two Guys do need your help. The video is just a spread-the-word effort trying to trundle up social media support for their project through Facebook or Twitter or YouTube. The company is also hiring.

http://kotaku.com/5902030/space-ques...w-spaceventure

http://www.telltalegames.com/forums/...ad.php?t=29004

[thom-22]

Originally Posted by blueskirt

Anyone else is wondering if the crazy fragmentation of Sierra communities compared to LucasArts communities could be a problem to the success of Sierra related Kickstarters?

The mood and humor between LucasArts adventure games are so similar, if you like one game, you have good chances of liking them all. There's also Mixnmojo and LucasForums which act like a hub for all things LucasArts and ex-LucasArts employees related things and cultivate a sense of unity among LucasArts fans.

By contrast, Sierra games and series are vastly different in mood, tones and kind of humor, Leisure Suit Larry is simply not the same as King's Quest or Gabriel Knight, and these differences subsist even when you delve deeper in a subgenre, fans of King's Quest are not automatically fans of Quest For Glory or Conquests.

And as a result, we don't have a Sierra equivalent of Mixnmojo and LucasForums, although we haven't been lacking new material to cover in the last couple of years, with various releases and announcements of fangames and remakes, to fan made Let's Play, retrospective and interviews with Sierra designers, to Telltale's King's Quest revival and veterans getting out of retirement. Instead all the information is spread across many websites and forums, each dedicated to a specific series, fan project or aspect of Sierra.

There are a number of explanations one can identify as to why DFA attracted so much money, but I'm not sure Mixnmojo is one of them. I don't really know, though -- I've heard of the site, used it for reference a few times over the years, but never as a source of news or interaction. Double Fine had its own fanbase and network that, I would have to guess, was more important than any "LucasArts community" was to the success of DFA.

Originally Posted by blueskirt

And now we have this situation where any LucasArts related Kickstarter will interest all LucasArts fans, but Sierra Kickstarters will interest only a specific subset of fans among all Sierra fans. And if the future of Sierra depends on crowd funding, we might face a problem one day. I have no doubt Al and Jane will meet their goal, but I don't expect the same kind of overfunding we've witnessed with Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2 or Shadowrun Returns. And Kickstarters for lesser known series and designers will have a much harder time meeting their goals.

I'm not sure I can think about all this in terms of "the future of Sierra". Is that really the thing to be desired here? If the success of these projects depends on crowdfunding, then ultimately they'll have to sink or swim on their own merits. I don't see how I have a stake in the idea of Sierra as a unified whole, absent the coming forward of someone with the necessary resources and talent to make that a realistic option. And it seems kind of late for that now there are three sets of former Sierra designers working independently and the KQ license is already held by Telltale.

At the same time, I would find it convenient if there was a website feed aggregating news -- major news only -- about all the projects involving former Sierra designers and properties (even including fangames). I subscribe to Telltale's blog and signed up for all the media from Andromeda, but I just don't have time to wade through every little post from the other two commercial projects, in which I have only marginal interest; I'd still like to keep loose tabs on them, though.

Originally Posted by Lambonius

And suddenly, Telltale making a King's Quest game is about the least exciting news around.

Yeah, TTG has sat on KQ for 14 months now -- if it hasn't already lost its novelty, it certainly has now.

[Blackthorne519]

Yeah... it has totally lost it's novelty. I mean, maybe if we'd seen or heard something in the past few months - but I've honestly got a speck of interest at this point. I'll check it out when it or something comes out, but my bubbling enthusiasm has totally waned.


Bt

[blueskirt]

@ MusicallyInspired, BagginsKQ, thom-22

I don't know but the way I see it, the reason why LucasArts communities went thru the sky while most Sierra communities crash and burned is because of this network and unity among LucasArts fans, from Star Wars to Indiana Jones to adventure games and Double Fine and Telltale and Autumn Moon, they've reached critical mass and now have so many implicated contributors and fan material creators that their machine is self reliant, they create so much that more fans join their forums than fans leave it.

Sierra instead needed a dedicated forum for every Sierra related site and project, and every time a site stopped being updated or a project was canceled or completed, everyone went home. No critical mass achieved. And now Tim and Ron could overfund their adventure games projects forever* while people like Al, Leslie, Josh and Jane can barely make it past their Kickstarter goal in the same span of time, and I think that's partly because we lack the machine LucasArts fans have.

Just because we're scared of mixing together fans of Larry and fans of King's Quest, even if most of them like more than one series, myself I grew up playing Police Quest I, Space Quest III, Gold Rush and Conquests Of Camelot on my dad's knees, I was a total fanboy of Goblins and Incredible Machine during my childhood, I played the crap out of Castle Of Dr Brain, EcoQuest, Blue Force and VGA Space Quest and King's Quest games with my cousin, I was grounded for blowing up our monthly thirty hours "bandwidth" limit because I spend a whole night pirating early Police Quest and King's Quest games when we got the internet, I got hooked to Leisure Suit Larry and Quest For Glory during my teenage years, I discovered and played them remakes and fan games, I tried to finish both Gabriel Knight and Laura Bow three times without succeeding in between all this mess, in the last years I got around to play Pepper's Adventure In Time and Conquests For The Longbow, Return of the Incredible Machine for the first time ever, I've watched Sierra Let's Play myself to sleep for a whole year now, and I'm currently playing The Black Cauldron and Vohaul Strikes Back and I've had a blast all these years, and I know I'm not alone.

I don't even identify myself as a King's Quest fan, there's plenty of other Sierra titles and series I loved much more yet I still find myself lurking on King's Quest related sites and forums, including this very forum, late at night reading posts and articles because I like Sierra as a whole. I like reading and talking about it and its games.

And I discover the SpaceQuest.net revival project and all I see is squandered potential because, damn, that site was so damn awesome and informative and so well edited and friggin' entertaining and and all I can think of is why not expend it to cover every damn Sierra, Dynamix, Coktel, fan games and former Sierra employees titles, give these fine games the SpaceQuest.net treatment, with scans of official hint books, box art, manuals, soundtrack, easter eggs, cameos, death lists, FAQs, behind the scene tidbits and interviews, it would be just like the LucasArts Secret History craze, except with Sierra.

Why do I have to check a dozen different forums to keep up with Sierra related news when we could have a site dedicated to all thing Sierra, for both official and fan related news, gather every Sierra fans under in one forum, reach critical mass, get the machine running and discuss and create and celebrate Sierra games like we did in the good old days. Such project would have a tremendous impact on the Sierra community as a whole, and unlike a fan game, it's not something contributors and editors would work on for a decade in secret, it's something that would be updated constantly and fan reaction would be instantaneous.

[/rambling]

Anyway, I think my point has been made, if there was one in the first place. I'm spending ways too much time reading about games and not enough time actually playing them these days, so this will be the last time I'll bring up that subject.

By the way, MusicallyInspired or Collector, since I can't be arsed to register on a forum for a single post and since I have Vohaul Strikes Back to finish, one of you gotta convince Frans of SpaceQuest.net to give fan material, (that means fan games but also noteworthy Let's Play, fan arts, articles, analysis, retrospectives, interviews, like the one Josh Mandel had with Matt Chat...) the coverage and treatment they're due on his site, to help spreading the word about them and encourage creative people to create more otherwise as soon he'll be done with his site update and run out of the official material, the Space Quest community will crash and burn once again.

* It's no jealousy, I can't wait to play Double Fine Adventure, I just wish the future Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest and Quest For Glory games have the same production values as Double Fine Adventure.

[Lambonius]

Originally Posted by blueskirt

And now Tim and Ron could overfund their adventure games projects forever* while people like Al, Leslie, Josh and Jane can barely make it past their Kickstarter goal in the same span of time, and I think that's partly because we lack the machine LucasArts fans have.

Uh...I think you're neglecting the fact that Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert both continued to make successful video games professionally all the way through the present day, while all the ex-Sierra guys got out of the business in the late 90s. I'm fairly certain that has significantly more to do with the success of their Kickstarter than any imagined Lucasarts fanboy unity vs. Sierra fanboy disparity.

[thom-22]

Yeah, I agree with Lamb and tried to say something similar in previous post. My willingness to support an unspecified Schafer-Gilbert game came as much from my enjoyment of Psychonauts, Stacking and DeathSpank as it did from fond memories of Monkey Island, Tentacle and Grim. I also think that getting there first, turning it into a celebration of adventure gaming in general, had a huge impact that we're not going to see again, no matter who the players are.

Things like this are so dependent on having the right people, the right project, at the right time. Fortunately, it looks like the Larry proposal will do fine; not sure about Jensen's but there's still a lot of time left. If Autumn Moon goes forward with something, that could be a test of our competing hypotheses -- I don't think it will do any better than the Sierra projects no matter how cohesive the Lucasarts community is. Dunno, we'll see.

Regardless of any impact on current and future Kickstarters, I support what you're saying about how it would be to have a (cyber)home for the Sierra fan community. To be honest, I always thought there was one -- out there, somewhere -- that I never bothered to look for. I tend to like discussing meta-issues and trends in gaming more than the games themselves and somehow this forum has been kind of a home for that in a weird sort of way, LOL, with people I like talking and listening to. But I'd be interested in alternatives.

[Chyron8472]

Originally Posted by blueskirt

Why do I have to check a dozen different forums to keep up with Sierra related news when we could have a site dedicated to all thing Sierra, for both official and fan related news, gather every Sierra fans under in one forum, reach critical mass, get the machine running and discuss and create and celebrate Sierra games like we did in the good old days. Such project would have a tremendous impact on the Sierra community as a whole, and unlike a fan game, it's not something contributors and editors would work on for a decade in secret, it's something that would be updated constantly and fan reaction would be instantaneous.

If TTG has the courage, the intestinal fortitude (and, if I may, the intellectual wherewithal) to make a proper King's Quest game, worthy of inclusion with the traditional gameplay style of the KQ franchise, such a gathering may very well happen.

This is to say that I was drawn here when Tales of Monkey Island came out (having never spent any significant amount of time on other LucasArts-related forums previously) and I haven't left. Now, we still have to hold our breaths on this, because Telltale has been moving way over toward appeasing the casual market as of late, so there's no guarantee that they will target the hardcore old-school adventure gamer market with this.

[MusicallyInspired]

Blueskirt, Frans and Jess are seriously looking at mergine SQ.Net and the Virtual Broomcloset. The plan is to make one giant SQ themed website based around news. There will be content and whatnot, but it's mainly going to focus on news. There will be many site authors that will post news tidbits and reviews and whatnot. There will also be a heavy section for fan efforts as well, at least that's the way it's looking at the moment. But Frans is open and a lot of people are asking for it.

And the reason SQ.Net doesn't turn into a "Sierra.net" is because, honestly, most SQ fans (Frans included, I believe) simply do not care about the other Sierra series as much. Sierra had so many more games than LucasArts did (adventure-wise). I still also don't believe LucasArts' success was due to Mixnmojo. Mixnmojo was created BECAUSE of the following LucasArts had. Sierra's community is an entirely different animal and may never be the same way. In a way I'm kind of happy it's not the same. It'd be far different than it actually is now in that case. Although the idea of a super mega Sierra site is nice to think about. I remember a Sierra website someone sent me. It had so much content and information on every Sierra game ever it was a fantastic resource to get information from. Easter eggs, video trailers (if they existed), links to soundtracks, all the different versions, what compilation packs they were included in, you name it it was there. All the way from Mystery House to whatever the last game they published in 1999 was. However, it's not online anymore sadly.