JDHJANUS

Ah, drama in the Sierra Community. Actually, Sierra Planet had quite a bit of drama back in the day, but 98% of it was kept off the message boards and reserved for Yahoo Messenger/AIM. :D Thankfully, all of that has been resolved. But then again, Sierra Planet is a shadow of what it once was, sadly. :( Even with the new King's Quest game out, Sierra Planet hasn't had tons of traffic like it once did. Talk to you later!!! JDHJANUS Josh

I actually generally prefer almost all of Sierra's remakes of their classic games, with the exception of the Quest for Glory I Remake (don't get me wrong, that game is beautiful in its own right, but I really enjoy the EGA original. This, though, is moreso due to my love of Sierra's SCI-0 design system). My main reason for preferring the remakes is my general dislike of Sierra's AGI system, though. I have only played the SQI remake once (whereas I have played the original several times), but I liked it a lot better, mainly due to Josh Mandel's terrific dialog, Ken Allen's soundtrack, and as Troels mentioned earlier, the seamless transition of a parser game into a point-and-click interface. I'm not going to lie. I don't generally have a much of an eye for art in games. I've recently learned to appreciate it, but I mainly play games for their story and character development, and since I haven't played through the Space Quest series as many times as the other people on this forum, it's difficult for me to really say whether or not that it fits the overall feel or vibe of the series. I know that for me, I was able to enjoy the game quite a bit while I played it, and it is one of my favorite Space Quest games (after Space Quest III and V). I took some time in composing this post to go online and really compare the artwork in this game to the rest of the series, and I do admit, it is quite different indeed! I didn't notice it when I was playing through the game myself last year, but seeing it in comparison to the others, it's quite surprising just how different it is. I can definitely still appreciate the artistic direction of this game, though. I've never seen any 1950's sci-fi, so I really have no basis for comparison except for what a Google search could show me, but I can definitely see the point that several people have brought up about that vibe. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, but I think that if it were to fit with the overall feel of the original series, it would need a lot more darker colors. Mark seems to favor a lot of blue, green, and purple in his games, which are mostly missing from the SQI Remake. Again, not a bad thing, but a definite stylistic difference nonetheless. So, in conclusion, while I totally understand several people's perspectives in preferring the originals, at the same time, I think that the remake in and of itself is a fun game, and one that I would definitely play again someday! Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

The information on that site is in error concerning the SQI Remake. I believe the last Sierra game released for the Apple II was King's Quest IV AGI. The Atari ST handled releases up through Sierra's SCI-0 releases, they stopped support after the move to VGA (although I suppose technically it wouldn't have been that hard to port the EGA version of the SQI Remake to the Atari ST). Nevertheless, Collector is correct in that the only versions that were released for the remake were DOS (both EGA and VGA), Macintosh, and Amiga. I *have* seen a KIXX box that uses the SQI Remake cover art for an Atari ST version, but my understanding is that it was the AGI version, and not the remake. Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

Stunt Flyer was not a Red Baron rip off, but actually a game that was released by Sierra in 1983. It didn't sell very well, though. http://www.sierragamers.com/Stunt-Flyer Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

I actually had the honor of speaking to Douglas Herring today concerning the Space Quest I Remake. According to him: "About two-thirds of the backgrounds for SQ1 VGA were indeed painted in Korea. It was a cost move that I did not personally like, but that is the way things were back in the day. I laid them all out, and they trickled out to Korea a few at a time, another reason there were some inconsistencies. They learned from SQ1 to send all of the layouts to a game at once, that way they got the same team of artists and there was more continuity. A few came out quite nice; others, not so much. I painted the nine screen scroller (on Kerona) as one painting. I did a couple of others around that area, but most of the rest were painted by others on my team and a few local contractors as well." So it seems that both Sierra and Korea had a hand in the artwork for the SQI Remake. Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

If you'll have me, I will be continuing my story on the Quest for the Two Guys from Andromeda, working up to the conclusion (approximately 6-7 chapters left in the story, so we'll see how things go down here!) Looking forward to season 3!!!! Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

You just very aptly summed up a lot of the problems that I have with King's Quest III. I hope you enjoy King's Quest IV! It's one of my favorites in the series, and it's a really fun game. As Tomimt mentioned, it definitely has the typical King's Quest dead ends, but it's much more forgiving than King's Quest III, and although the entire game is on a timer (you have to actually complete it in 24 real-time hours, I believe), it's fairly simple to do, even if you don't necessarily know what you're doing. And yes, you should definitely use Collector's installer! The sound effects along with the beautiful Munt emulation for the music really makes it worth it. King's Quest IV was Sierra's first game to have a real soundtrack, and William Goldstein did a fantastic job on it! Talk to you later! Josh

It's nice to hear overall general positive (or at the very least, less negative) perspectives of this trailer here than in a lot of places (some people have downright attacked the game based on the trailer in other locations on the web). I myself am actually looking forward to it, and I found the trailer to be really cool and exciting. Even if the game does have some action elements in it, I actually enjoy action-adventures, and I've played several that have been designed so well that they really shine out even moreso than some traditional adventure games (such as Ico or Okami for the PS2). I think, though, that this game will have even more adventure elements than either of those games, as I don't foresee this game having traditional battles/bosses like you would find in either of those games, or even Mask of Eternity. Another thing to point out is that adventure games have not always been absent of arcade/action elements in them either. Look at all of the Space Quest games. If you took a game like Space Quest III and only showed scenes of the space battle or Nukem-Dukem Robots, would you get the feel of a traditional adventure game from those two items alone? Sierra put arcade sequences into a lot of their games, so it doesn't seem all that strange to have action/arcade elements in a new King's Quest game (as long as it doesn't involve a painfully annoying beanstalk climb or a treacherous mountain path...) :D To me, what I'm most concerned about, is whether or not it has a strong story that pays homage to the series as a whole. From the trailer, it seems pretty awesome. I like the little references that they show to the first game, so I have hopes that the storyline will continue to stay true to the legacy that has been developed through the series over the past 30 years. Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

Loved the newest chapter!!! Thanks for sharing! I'm guessing more will be told in the following chapters, but am I to presume the Gritt incident happened sometime between Space Quest XI and XII? Looking forward to reading more!!! Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

JimmyTwoBucks, you can use a certain item and still end up on the pirate ship after it sets sail, but the item itself is not always the most reliable thing to use, and it can lead to some unusual situations (and most often, death). Still, you aren't completely in a dead end situation, if memory serves me correctly. Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

Yay!!! Glad that your kitty is back!!!! I've been meaning to ask about that. Hope that new kitty and old kitty end up becoming close friends!!! You don't think that Pete Toleman had anything to do with your kitty being returned to you, do you? ;) Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

Looking forward to reading this!!! Just read it, and I thought it was AMAZING! Looking forward to reading more chapters!!!! Thank you so much for sharing, Akril!!! Love your work! :D Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

I regret to inform everyone that my newest chapter will once again be delayed. I was really hoping to work on it during the holiday weekend; however, craziness + sickness + business prevented me from doing so. Sorry to drop the ball again! I promise I haven't given up on the story! Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

If the world had stopped in 1989, you'd only be 4 years old! :D Can you imagine what Pete Toleman was like as a 4 year old? Now that's scary to think of!!! :D Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

Congratulations on beating the first two games in the series!!! :D The sword merely exists as an optional puzzle solution. You never actually have to use it in the game, although you can use it as an alternate solution (for less points) for several puzzles. As far as the actual "best" solution, I have researched several times and haven't been able to find any evidence in my research of mythology or fairy tales that would suggest such an unusual puzzle solution. King's Quest III is my least favorite in the series, but a lot of people like it, so I hope you enjoy it as well! :) I feel that it's definitely longer than the first two, mainly due to numerous things at the beginning that must be done over a longer period of time when the wizard goes on his journeys/naps. And casting those spells is a pain in the rear end. O_o Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

I am not aware of any connection that Pegasus has to any snake or serpent in mythology. Do you know what specifically the idea came from? While I do understand that PQ and C:I have a lot of "real-life" simulation aspects to them, the games were still advertised (and often viewed) as adventure games. And they definitely have a lot of adventure game aspects that bring them closer to Sierra's other parser and point and click adventures, so you could argue that despite the simulator aspects, they still have a lot of adventure elements to them. As someone who dislikes simulation and action/arcade sequences in adventure games, though, I found them a bit annoying. I still have played the first PQ games and C:I (I'm trying to play through ALL of Sierra's adventure games, including the hybrid games that take aspects from other genres), but I didn't like a lot of the simulation stuff. Another puzzle that I thought of (if you consider it a puzzle at all) is the Coroner's Inquest at the end of The Dagger of Amon Ra. I felt a lot of those questions were unfair and a lot of the clues and evidence were misleading throughout the game as to who did what. Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

I will try to get pics up of my Space Quest collection this weekend. I would love to find the original black box Space Quest I complete (to include the grid background), as well as the Space Quest 15th Anniversary Collector's Edition. Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

Ack, now that I think about it, maybe we *did* get to the sewers. It's been years since I played it as a kid. I honestly don't remember how far we got. Thanks for sharing, PCJ! :D Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

Yeah, the King's Quest games don't really have arcade sequences, but they do have a lot of tricky footwork, especially in the first 4 games. Climbing the beanstalk in the original King's Quest I is a pain, as is navigating the stairs in Dracula's castle in King's Quest II. King's Quest III has the mountain path, and King's Quest IV has both Lolotte's Castle and the abandoned house. All of the King's Quest games have possible dead ends, although, as Brandon said, King's Quest V is by far the worst. I wasn't a big fan of King's Quest III, but then again, I'm not generally a fan of Sierra's AGI games (Space Quest II is a notable exception). I would recommend playing the fan remakes by ADGI, although they do add some stuff for King's Quest II and III (ah, who am I kidding? They totally overhauled King's Quest II, but for the better, I think). Infamous Adventures also has a remake of King's Quest III as well that added a few minor scenes. King's Quest VII has been criticized by a lot of adventure game fans, but I rather enjoyed it myself. It is a bit more kid-friendly then the rest of the series, and it does have a simplified interface. But the animation is rather well done, and I really liked the story overall. Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

Loved the newest episode! Frederik did a fantastic job of getting it recorded and up! :D I agree. Although I'm not generally a fan of death in gaming, I can see how it can definitely add a lot of tension to a serious situation, in games like Gabriel Knight. At the same time, I think that it can be really funny to see some of the deaths, if done in the vain of games like Space Quest VI or King's Quest VII, where you get to see some of the funny death scenes and allows you to start over from right before you died. VSB and Incinerations both do a great job with death, allowing it to be a part of the game, but not making you have to save every five minutes just to make sure you aren't going to die around every corner. To me saving a game is useful for being able to stop the game and come back to it, not as a fail-safe to make sure that you don't die. I also feel like it is becoming more common in games lately. The Kingdom Hearts games, for example, if you die, have a try again button, saving you the heartache of having to fight a long dungeon again from your last save point (although RPGs *usually* put save points right before boss battles, it is not always the case). And I definitely agree that if you ARE going to make the players work to stay alive, then it had better be a great game that makes you want ot keep playing. Codename: Iceman, for example, is a game I forced myself to finish simply because I want to play through all of Sierra's adventure games, although I'm pretty sure Jim Walls was inspired by Leisure Suit Larry 2 in trying to come up with deviously horrible dead-end situations and death looming around every possible corner... I guess in the end, if you are going to put death into an adventure game, at least put it in such a way that you don't have unwinnable states. I think unwinnable states in gaming are just pointlessly cruel and frustrating, especially if you save over that one crucial save, or you miss something easily missable at the VERY beginning of the game that isn't even used until the very END of the game. Having to start over the game from the very beginning and play through it all over again is incredibly annoying and frustrating. Hope you feel better soon, Troels!!! Any idea when you're going to get your computer back? Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

Despite how many people like this game, I found the puzzles in King's Quest III to be rather challenging. First, realizing that the wizard was on a timer, then actually figuring out how to get rid of the wizard....We played that game for years when I was a kid and we could never figure out how to get rid of Manannan. We cast all the spells, and we had the cookie, but the game never told you that you could actually get rid of the wizard, and the idea that you could hide things under the bed and they wouldn't be noticed was also never explicitly mentioned in the game. We literally thought that you had to get everything done while he was away (i.e., explore Llewdor, gather all of the items, cast all of the spells, somehow escape the country, and beat the game before the wizard ever came back), which is impossible to do in 25 minutes (even if you know what you're doing!) I didn't beat King's Quest III until many years later, and then only by following a walkthrough (the only King's Quest game that we weren't able to complete without using one, although we did have a friend who had beaten the game help us with the moldy cheese wand-powering machine in King's Quest V). Not necessarily illogical, but the unstable ordinance in Space Quest IV was particularly annoying as well. We never got anywhere in that game (i.e., we never even got off the surface of Xenon) for several years because we thought there was something that you had to do with that in order to escape (going into the sewers never occurred to us). That was another game that I had to use a walkthrough to complete (along with the original Space Quest I, although that was because we never realized that you were supposed to turn ON the translator to understand the alien in the underground section of Kerona...) The procedures that you MUST follow in Police Quest 1 and Codename: Iceman made them incredibly annoying games. I was thankful that PQ2 was much less focused on the procedures than its predecessor...Then again, I don't consider them necessarily poor puzzle design as I do poor gameplay design. As mentioned before, the tape-splicing in GK2 was ridiculously absurd, and don't even get me started on some of the Babel fish puzzle in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!!! Conversely, I started the game Space Quest: Incinerations this weekend, and have really enjoyed the puzzle design of that game. Fantastic job on that game, Chris!!!!! :D Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

Heart hat, huh, Brandon? :D Your music piece was fantastic! It sounds pretty awesome!! I look forward to hearing more! Gareth, Frederik, Jess, Serena, and Alan, it was great to hear your parts as well! Thanks for sharing! Sorry that I wasn't able to contribute to the most recent podcast. *Apparently* my story wasn't acceptable for Pete Toleman... ;) (Actually, I legitimately dropped the ball and have been crazy busy and wasn't able to get a recording in on time). That having been said, my story is continuing, and the next chapter should (barring any random problems that would delay it) be recorded for the next chapter! Darren, I hope for your sake that Pete Toleman doesn't read these forums as well. Then again, I'm not sure where Priapic would be without you! Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

Let us know when you're ready for submissions again! I've been laboring away on the story, and am ready to record more chapters whenever you want them! :) Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

An idea for an episode, although you may have already covered it to some extent. But it was something we were discussing at the Phoenix Online forums, and I thought it could make an interesting topic for your podcast. Trends of difficulty in adventure games. It seems that modern adventure games that have come out in the past 15 years are significantly easier than the games of the late 80's and early 90's, which in turn were considered to be significantly easier than the text adventure games of the 70's and early 80's. What do you think? Are games getting easier? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Are there current adventure games that are being released that rival the difficulty of the classic adventure game era, or does the new generation of gamers not have the patience to try to spend a few weeks figuring out a puzzle? Has the easy access of online walkthroughs and message boards made games less difficult? Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh

Would you be willing to pay one GOLD coin to play the LucasArts games on GOG? ;) Talk to you later! JDHJANUS Josh