Leisure Suit Larry in "gimme your money"

[mikemariano]

OFF TOPIC: I'm disappointed to discover that I am now old enough to know the answers to ALL the Leisure Suit Larry 1 Age Check Questions without looking them up.

I always did good enough to pass when I was eleven, but now it's just depressing that I have the pop culture IQ of a 50-something American male.

Is this software pirated?

a. Yes.

b. I'm not talking.

c. No. (How could you even ask!)

d. No, just borrowed.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I don't know most of them, but this is total BS:

Johnny Carson is

a. a singer.

b. David Letterman's sidekick.

c. Ed McMahon's sidekick.

d. an actor.

Correct answer: c.

Ed McMahon was Johnny Carson's sidekick.

[elmuerte]

(Seriously, the last one was so terrible it was actually funny!)

Actually... no, it wasn't.

[lobotomy42]

Well, the sketchiness factor increases:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/04/10/replay-trying-to-bring-back-space-quest-kings-quest/

AFAIK, Telltale already signed a deal with Activision to produce King's Quest games, although I suppose it could be non-exclusive and/or not cover remakes. (But why on Earth would Telltale have signed such a deal? And even if they hadn't, why would Activision want two competing products on the market around the same time?) Talking to Roberta Williams is great, except for the fact that she has absolutely no control over this.

Does anyone have better information than me?

[mikemariano]

(But why on Earth would Telltale have signed such a deal? And even if they hadn't, why would Activision want two competing products on the market around the same time?)

Tales from Monkey Island and the Monkey Island 1 and 2 remakes came out around the same time. These titles might not be seen as competing with each other.

Did Serious Sam Double D eat into Serious Sam 3?

[syntheticgerbil]

I'm just more concerned with how nuts this guy is on starting tons of projects that they will not have the staff for. Just finish one game first! What the hell?

Edited April 11, 2012 by syntheticgerbil

[lobotomy42]

Tales from Monkey Island and the Monkey Island 1 and 2 remakes came out around the same time. These titles might not be seen as competing with each other.

Did Serious Sam Double D eat into Serious Sam 3?

Is it possible? Sure, it's possible. But it still comes across like he's just throwing in more and more unsubstantiated promises in the hopes of grabbing the kickstarter cash.

[Tanukitsune]

I wonder if Replay is going to ask us fans to fund all of their bloody games?

[ThunderPeel2001]

So this happened...

http://mixnmojo.com/news/Is-Paul-Trowe-of-Replay-Sabotaging-Other-Kickstarters

[syntheticgerbil]

Yeah I saw all of that, such a weird mess. I gave way too much for this project anyway even though I was all grumpy and skeptical as detailed earilier. It's really just the Al Lowe factor as well as Josh Mandel who I think does a solid job when he doesn't overwrite.

Going by your comments on that news page, Thunderpeel, I don't think you can get your money back on an already funded project?

I really wish this came out after the Two Guys from Andromeda Kickstarter, because going from their extensive amount of commentary and interviews, it seems they have more passion out of all of the old Sierra guys to get back in and achieve the same dynamic. Out of all of the former Sierra employees, it looks like they will be the only ones who don't meet their goal.

[Lechimp]

I think the Andromeda guys will make their goal. They made about 60,000 in the past day since pledges always seem to pick up near the end of kickstarters and it will probably continue to increase.

I hope they make it anyway. Out of all of the Sierra people, they seemed the furthest along before they even got the funding. Or at least they've had a couple of playable prototypes.

As for Paul Trowe, I can sort of understand how he acted towards the Sam Suede kickstarter. They originally worded it so it sounded like Al Lowe was working with them and used Leisure Suit Larry images in the kickstarter page. Plus he apologized about being an asshole. Doesn't really excuse that he did it but I guess it's good he apologized.

http://www.spacequest.net/index.php/topic/286-controversy-paul-trowe-on-the-two-guys/page__st__20__p__2266#entry2266

[syntheticgerbil]

Yeah I just played the Andromeda guys' little mini adventure thing. Rough, but it's nice I already have something to mess with with little dialogue quips, very neat.

On Paul Trowe, outside of his original apology (where he never actually apologizes to Chris Pope), I think it's more concerning that he's running around with troll accounts disparaging all of these projects back and forth, if that is indeed him (looks like Mixnmojo confirmed at least one troll account). Honestly, maybe Mandel and Lowe would do better without Replay Games in the picture at all. If I'm not mistaken Replay Games is most likely Paul Trowe in an office alone in Austin (I checked, there is an address in an office building), but the production is all going to be done by Adventure Mob and Al Lowe, Leslie Balfour, and Josh Mandel are working remotely.

Furthermore on the Chris Pope vs. Paul Trowe drama, while I find Pope to be more dry and stuttery in the developer interviews and commentary than Trowe, he is a huge Space Quest fan and knows it inside and out and understands the proper questions to ask on what fans would already want to know more about that they don't already. So now I've got a wealth of useless trivia on how Sierra operated and conflicted on the inside plus the personal junk between the Two Guys that goes beyond Murphy's infamous recent interview. With Paul Trowe, he had those three fireside chats with Al Lowe where the guy did not seem to have much of an inkling of back story or making of Larry, but kept proclaiming, "You heard it hear first guys!" In reality almost everything Al Lowe has said about Larry is not new, it's all been in either in that book that came with the old collection, all of the game manuals, or Al Lowe's website. Just really not impressed.

It's funny on the Space Quest 6 commentary, you get more filled in about Mandel and Lowe's work on the Larry remake than anything Replay Games announces on its own. Apparently many puzzles are going to be rewritten and remade for modern adventure players, which is nice.

Anyway yeah, I just get miffed when people get kind of a dream job and let it go to their head or make it about themselves. None of the fans of any of these designers actually care about Paul Trowe or Chris Pope, sorry to say. Both of their jobs consist of marketing as professionally as they can and delivering in a knowledgeable manner.

[BigJKO]

Yeah, I kind of feel bad about the Two Guys getting so close and not meeting the goal..

But what's been bothering me is how spammy and rushed all the Sierra kickstarter have been.. Of course it might just feel that way because Double Fine's kickstarter was so well-planned, almost no big changes made to the reward list. Contrast that to the Two Guys kickstarter's reward Excel sheet, with endless amounts of pointless rewards, or Jane Jensens confusing "pay for a years worth of games!" rewards. And the Two Guys have more updates than there are days in their kickstarter. It all makes it feel a bit unprofessional, IMO.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yeah, I kind of feel bad about the Two Guys getting so close and not meeting the goal.

Huh? They've still got 30 hours to go, don't they?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spaceventure/two-guys-spaceventure-by-the-creators-of-space-que

Thanks for posting the Paul Trowe apology.

[BigJKO]

Yeah, I meant that it doesn't seem like they'll meet their goal in 30 hours.. But it could get a boost in these last hours. I hope so.

[lobotomy42]

The pace has definitely improved dramatically in the last few days. It'll be close, but I think they'll still make it.

With regards to DF Kickstarter vs Sierra: Doublefine had the advantages of being first, having an established company/brand, and Tim Schafer being a well-loved personality among a certain class of gamers generally, as opposed to just among adventure gamers. The Sierra designers were never as well known, and all ended up competing with each other for the crumbs left behind in the wake of DF. Also, a lot of other kickstarters have updated their reward tiers, not just the Sierra ones. I think it's a natural consequence of people thinking of the projects as purchases/pre-orders, rather than getting thousands of people to say "Damn the man! I'm giving to Tim Schafer to give my finger to traditional publishers!" People want EXACTLY THIS but NOT THAT THING, etc.

I agree that the Space Quest one has been particularly spammy (although as I recall, the LSL kickstarter was also pretty spammy.) But they're also putting out a lot of content among that spam to demonstrate what they can do - the demos, and the surprisingly-interesting developer commentaries.

[ThunderPeel2001]

They'll make it. For sure. America is just waking up.

[syntheticgerbil]

http://www.facebook....ps/55276414674/

Check out Paul Trowe getting mad that he can't market on the Austin IGDA page. He calls the chapter head "Hitler," for not allowing him to spam with Kickstarter stuff.

Not sure if everyone can see the link. This guy just doesn't stop going guns blazing everywhere lately.

[toblix]

It would probably be a smart to always try to not call people "Hitler." Even in the cases where it should be appropriate, it always backfires. This Trowe character seems like he has problems controlling himself – he's probably just super-into video games.

[syntheticgerbil]

Also John Henderson, who runs the chapter, was just trying to say to hold off on the Kickstarter links before the Austin IGDA figures out how to display them, so Paul Trowe apparently just wanted it all right away and called him Mr. Dictator.

[lobotomy42]

Well that makes this the first kickstarter pledge I'm starting to regret.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Ditto.

[lobotomy42]

So this is a thing that exists now.  I've played maybe an hour's worth.

 

It's, um, dated.

[Tanukitsune]

Dang, how dated? Does it feel like playing an old Siera game with better graphics?

[syntheticgerbil]

I tried the alpha a few months back. I like the backgrounds, but the animations are somewhat iffy and the line work is a bit strange. I really don't like the look of the girls here, but it's not like they looked all that great in the VGA version (outside of Fawn).

 

I'll probably give it a shot when I get the boxed copy (Yeah even after all my bitching and moaning I caved in and gave). No rush for me, since this is a game I've already played more than enough times.