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Old Sierra Games Breathe Anew
Cow_With_Gun writes: "A small group named Tierra has taken it upon themself to resurrect the classic Sierra anthologies. So far they have brough King's Quest 1 up into the world of VGA and are working on other titles such as Quest for Glory 2 and King's Quest 2."
The Incredible Machine is cool!
I didnt think it was that long ago that Space Quest or LSL was out, but I suppose it has been, damn Im getting old.
Thexder was great, revolutionary popularity in Japan during the time. Hopefully they resurrect Thexder.
Can't this have possible legal reprocussions?
This is not the greatest sig in the world, no. This is just a tribute.
...and put each game onto thirty disks. :)
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Free Mac Mini
If only they remake this game..... this was awesome.... haven't seen it anywhere available online.... What about Star Control 2? Accolade I know, but it was awesome too...
I just want Leisure Suit Larry. In 32 bit color. Antialiased would be nice too, but now I'm being picky.
There's an emulator for old LucasArts games that use the SCUMM scripting system.
http://scummvm.sourceforge.net/
There's also a port for Pocket PC. I've been playing Day of the Tentacle on my iPAQ with full speech. Runs great.
I have little doubt that these folks will be sued by Sierra for infringing on their "intellectual property" much as I would be sued by Disney if I made a game starring Mickey Mouse.
The question, of course, is the outcome!
... are belong to us!
...will they bring back Softporn, the precursor to Leisure Suit Larry.
:)
For that matter, when are we going to see an OSS release of all of this stuff?
I used to play KQV on the mac, and it was only 5 disks, but this thing is 20 meg!
is it all the directx/windows crap?
*confuzzled little quaker*
This might be a little OT, but I found this link which has all the Sierra games and when they were released. Just in case anyone else was interested.
Rumpelstiltskin backwards in a reversed alphabet.... do you know how many times that little dwarf on the big stairway stole items from me until I figured that out!!!!
Check out my podcast: DreamStation.cc Video Game Show
I have a CD collection of KQ 1-6, and unless I mistake it for another collection, it has an enhanced version for KQ 1 on it. I prefer the original... for people who played the original, we want to remember the original. New players however will probably find it impossible to play with the graphics of yesteryear.... :)
Excited because I love these games.
Sad, because as a general rule, despite all of our graphics and sound advances, todays games just don't have the greatness that could be found a decade ago in EGA.
The Internet is generally stupid
I want an updated Betrayal at Krondor. That is one of the greatest RPGs ever :o. I'd sell my first born (Like I'll ever have one ^_-) to have that game in all its updated glory. I can dream, can't I?
If I wasn't so lazy, I'd have a sig.
http://www.officebase.de/cgi-bin/ias?Template=Exte rn/Main/Frameset.html&aktGruppe=3044
Ultima 1: A Legend is Reborn - http://www.peroxide.dk/ultima/
Ultima 4: The Dawn of Virtue - http://www.hut.fi/~jtpelto2/ultima4/
Ultima 5: Lazarus - http://www.u5lazarus.com
Ultima 6: Prophecy - www.laymeduck.com/u6
Ultima 9: Eriadain - http://eriadain.multimania.com
Ultima 9: Redemption - http://icdweb.cc.purdue.edu/~fountain
Also, Bard's Tale is being remade into Devil Whiskey (Bard's Tale 4). It can be seen at http://www.bardslegacy.com
Nah, I beg to differ about the ressurection of old games. Look at the NetHack article. That game's still text based and it has hordes of players. I myself just started playing and am loving it. I would definitly go back and play some of these old games. Nice to be back with them.
If I wasn't so lazy, I'd have a sig.
I played KQ II many years ago. I was stunned by the state of the art fine work of pages-after-pages high-res scenes which totally immersed me into fantasy world, running on the newly bought Apple IIe with 128K extended memory and a EGA card on a monochrome monitor....oh wait, what was I so excited about?
You have to admit, they give their games better titles than the originals. (see sidebar at http://www.qknowledge.net/royalquest/kqdownload.cf m)
Why play "Kings Quest I: Quest for the Crown" when you can play "Royal Quest 1: Retrieving Lost Shit"?
(yes, I'm serious, they really named it that...)
slashdot!=valid HTML
Before they went under, they made a 256-color VGA remake of KQ1 for sure, probably other early games too.
Then I have two words for you: Sarien and FreeSCI (uhh ok so FreeSCI is an acronym). Both of them are GPL, both of them run in Linux, and both of them seem pretty polished.
I have this site bookmarked that links to many different "Abandonware" websites that let you download those old PC games (i.e. Sierra, Broderbund, etc..) for free. Just playing Police Quest 1/2/3 gave me old memories of how I used to spend my days on the computer trying to solve the game. :-)
"The ones who dont do anything are always the ones who try to pull you down" -- Henry Rollins
> pick up mouse
>> Ok.
> move mouse to reply
>> Why don't you just walk there yourself?
> click reply
>> You suddenly notice a gust of wind through the room, after which you are greeted by an object with the strange words "Subject" and "Comment" on it.
> type shit
>> If only your mother heard you say that!*
> type comment
>> Ok.
> click submit
>> You suddenly feel sick and nauseous, ready to pass out. The next thing you know, the room goes black and you are whisked to an unknown location.
I have to say that the MUD-style EGA versions of the games kicked ass. I was actually disappointed the other day when they weren't listed on the "favorite game" poll.
* It always made me chuckle how Sierra always programmed in some quip in response to foul language typed in at the prompt.
Since we're on the subject of old 286-era video games, I thought I'd mention that I run a LORD system under Linux via DOSemu.
The player list is currently maxed out, but if you log in just after midnight EST, you might get a spot just after old players are deleted.
yes it cant get any better than this
Speaking of old games, I've have been dying to play "Weird Dreams" for a decade. Being the weirdo I am, I think I'd get a real kick out of it.
Was it released on the PC?
Can anyone help me find such a beast?
Ok, so when will they get to porting Half-Life to the Mac?
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
Yeah, Ultima 7 too. Check out the Exult project. It's quite playable, and work is progressing on Exult Studio which will allow people to make new games using that engine.
-Karl
It is very much worth pointing out:
Tierra is kinda an off-shoot of the Hero6 team, which is working on a sequel to Quest fFor Glory.
Is this Win only? I don't see a single mention of any platform / system requirements on their site......
Has anyone tried running it within dosemu or something similar? Does it work? If so, please reply!
Why play Kings Quest when you could play Ultima, Bard's Tale, Defender of the Crown, Temple of Apshai, or even text adventures like Zork and Planetfall? Although the early Sierra adventures pushed the graphic envelope in the EGA era, their gameplay was repetitive and tired. I remember in King's Quest I you had to get an item by providing a password -- the password was discovered by reversing the alphabet, transposing it with the normal 26 letter placement, and then spelling "Rumplestilskin". If it wasn't for FIDONet I never would have finished. Kings Quest blended into Space Quest blended into Heros Quest...blah blah blah. Although Rebecca Williams was key in forming the company, shortly after her sabatical Half-Life came out I believe...and the gaming world is better off for it.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Does anyone remember the elegant simplicity of Scorched Earth?? How I miss the pre-programmed quips...
Many happy hours were spent on Mixed Up Mother Goose....Anyone else remember that classic? I've got a paper to write, but I feel somehow it is more important to search for that one.
Well, the site is currently /.ed, but I'll still throw in my $0.02.
What I am waiting for is for someone to rebuild or restart the Sierra Network/the Imagination Network (whichever nomenclature you preffer). Does anyone else remember this?
I remember TSN as having a nice little email feature (text only and only within TSN), a completely graphical interface, nice chatting, fairly customizable avatars, good games, and somehow the lag seemed nonexistant (and I was on a 2400 baud at the time).
Nothing yet has come close to it, and nothing yet has seemed to have the same magic.
Your sig: If IE's Windows integration is a monopoly, then I'm all for the removal of Konqueror from KDE.
I see you don't undestand the meaning of monopoly at all. It doesn't mean that integrating browser with OS (KDE is a not an OS, by the way) is a monopoly. What is important is that if Microsoft has a monopoly on OS market, then integrating browser with OS is using their existing monopoly on one market (OS market) to get monopoly on the other one (browser market), which is illegal. So please don't use words which obviously don't understand in your sig, it doesn't make you look any smarter. Thank you. Man, I think that your "fist prost" comments are less stupid than you sig!
I hope they can recycle Betrayal at Krondor and up the graphics. That would be awesome. That game was RPG of Year 1994! Then again, it was great to play that game the way it was (it seemed so revolutionary back then). Too bad Sierra took it off their site (they used to give it away for free to promote "Betrayal at Antara".
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
duck hunt 2k2
I think the idea is that they recreated the entire game, but with better gfx, sound etc. Kind of like the Ultima 1 3d project or the Ultima Underworld remakes. I've never even played Kings Quest though, so what the hell do I know.
Such an awesome game. My friend had it for some DOS-based system. I rememebr trying to copy it, but not having enough RAM to get it running on my system. I think it required 256 KB vs. the piddly 128 KB of our family's IBM PCjr. Oh, how many games of Crossfire and Agent USA did I sleepwalk through, dreaming of space planes that could transform into gun-wielding robots.
The only thing that kept me sane was the Bruce Lee action game with Green Yamo and the Ninja!
It is clear to me that the gaming industry and its reviewers are in bed together; the fact Sierra's Arcanum won an award (pc-gamer) from anyone is incomprehensible.
I am very frustrated with the obviously biased reviews and stuffed ballots out there. Here is a list of games I have played, or tried to play recently, and a simple review. While these are just my opinions, I don't think they are too far off mainstream sensibilities...
1)Arcanum -- good idea, horrible implementation. The screen is zoomed in at low resolution and doesnt scroll. The characters track apparently using bresenham's algorithm, and actually get aliasing in their path when the walk at angles! The graphics are horrible, the gameplay subpar.
2)Pool of Radiance -- Should be called Pool of Doo Doo. Nuff said. Worst game I ever paid for.
3) Wizardry 8 -- 3d version of Pool of Doo Doo.
4) Dark Age of Camelot -- Everquest and just as pointless.
5) Gorasul -- You drink potions from the commode because the German english translation is so poor. Low resolution.
6) Gothic -- A great game with a bit of a learning curve. Panned by american reviewers who it is clear never actually played the game.
7) Baldur's Gate II, et al -- the standard for RPGs today. Can get boring for the less... enthusiastic.
8) Icewind Dale et al--Like Baldurs Gate II (with Heart of Winter), more accessable storyline, but more linear as well.
9) Anarchy Online -- even more boring (and buggy!) than everquest.
10)Harry Potter -- Hey, not bad for a kids game. None to exciting though.
11)Emperor of Dune -- great graphics, interesting RTS. Looses steam over time, largely due to too few too small maps. Fairly slow paced. Great graphics..did I mention that?
12) Black & White -- Best game of the year? What are they smoking? Its nearly unplayable because of the user interface that has you clawing the ground to move. The graphics arent even that good.
I found a game called Space Quest - The Lost Adventures. Someone has programmed this game based off the Space Quest series. I was curious so I downloaded the game and couldn't stop playing it.
These games can be made either using AGI (KQ1 etc) or the new SCI engine (KQ4 etc). There are 2 complete engines that I found where it shows you how to create your own. They seem pretty easy to use. I found you can use the Above mentioned game to create your own. Sounds like fun. Anyway here are the links:
SQ Lost adventure: http://frostbytei.com/space/download.html
AGI and SCI engines and other info:
http://frostbytei.com/space/download.html
Have fun!
My friend Brian develops SCI Studio which is a Win32 application that allows you to develop games similar to those mentioned in the story above.
In fact, you can also edit those existing games and make them run in Windows. You may also want to take a look at his other site as he is a big AGI/SCI fantatic.
whats good about this is you CANNOT get most of those games anymore. and you canot get em for free cause sierra is a member os the IDSA... LONG LIVE ABANDONWARE!
One Shell Script To Rule Them All
I found a copy of the core game - speed is pretty good (for now!).
Master of Magic. Man, that game kicks ass. I know it was Microprose not Sierra, but still...
Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...
The source for a replacement binary for Frontier: First Encounters (Unix/Linux, DOS/Windows 98/2000/XP) can is here, and you can get the complete data files here(shareware, meaning you should send 5 British Pounds to Frontier Developments if you continue to use it after 30 days).
Doesn't this violate the GPL?
Getting this game has been one of the most convoluted downloads I've ever done.. one of the sites is in German, and the download rate is stuck at 2.5KB per sec, despite the 100MB ethernet I have to my desktop :(
Webmaster: Ohhh crap slashdotters are coming. Quick, close down the site!
lol, i actually went on e-bay, bought an old 3do system and downloaded star control 2 for 3do. if you look around, you can find irc servers with 3do games. that thing is so much fun. i finally broke down and bought the console to play the game, i was having a hell of a time getting it to run on my hardware.
I got 50% of it before it slowed to a crawl and finally stopped alltogether. If only I got it all, I'd host a mirror.
*sigh*
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Like the subject says... screw the remake! I want the original! All of my 5 1/4" Kings Quest 1 disks went bad looong before CD burners were around, so I never got a chance to make a lasting copy of it. Anyone know where I can get the ORIGINAL?
Woo-hoo! I'm an anonymous coward!
Yes, Royal Quest has been cancelled by the Tierra team.
~BF~
If they ever get around to the spacequest series I'll be a very happy man. You've gotta respect a company that put Bill "Pug" Gates in a video game.
Scumsoft. heh. Man, they were ahead of their time.
Triv
I remember King's Quest I and bought it when it first came out. The very first version was for the IBM PCjr to show off its graphics and sound capability (it could do 320x200 with 16 colors! and had 3 channel sound+noise support) Remember at this time most PCs with color could only do 320x200 4 colors (CGA). What was amazing was that they could fit the entire game on a 360K floppy! The graphics were actually rendered at 160x200 so they could store the coordinates in a single byte to save space. As I recall, when entering a new screen the game would draw outlines of everything and fill them in.
Sierra also came out with the PC version which looked like crap by comparison (4 dithered colors in CGA).
I also remember the later Sierra games where you could get them into interesting modes for script debugging and so forth.
After I upgraded to an 8 MHz 8088 XT with EGA with a hard drive I wrote a program to get around the copy protection of all of the Sierra games so I didn't have to keep inserting the floppies every time I wanted to play. It would intercept the disk requests and simulate floppy accesses for the copy protection. Things have sure changed since then.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
1) Only the King's Quest I VGA remake has been posted; the team is currently working on three other projects, a King's Quest II-based project (more on that in a minute), a Quest for Glory II project, and a secret project. There are no plans to remake any other games at this time, just a lot of ideas floating around and only a few people doing all of the work.
2) Why King's Quest I? The team originally produced the VGA remake to hone their skills and spur interest in another (now-discontinued) project they called "Royal Quest I". KQ1VGA and RQ1 are not the same project, and never were. However, the original 3 AGDs (Anonymous Game Developers) had a disagreement over the path that Royal Quest I was going to take (the spoof was not going to be quite as "family-oriented" as the real King's Quest series) and Royal Quest I was cancelled. Another answer to the question is: King's Quest I may not be the best adventure game made, but it was one of the first of its kind on many platforms (from the Apple II through to the PCjr); it's historically significant, well known and remembered.
3) The KQ1 VGA remake has been available for download since last fall. Around the end of August/start of September, a speech pack was posted for the game, featuring dialog from Josh Mandel, the original voice of King Graham. The AGDs have also received help from sources they will not name to break the format of the Quest for Glory save-character file, so they can import QfG1 characters, and write out QfG2 characters for use in QfG3.
4) The above having been said, the current Sierra company has so not really said anything against the project. Even so, the AGDs continue to remain Anonymous, just in case. Strictly unofficially, Sierra seems uninterested in pursuing fan projects based on their games, but will of course still send out the typical legal boilerplate saying "No" if you bother to ask them if you can make a project using their intellectual property. Unfortunately, this approach suggests that it is only a matter of time before some of these fan projects become "too popular", in which case Sierra may HAVE to stop the projects in order to protect their rights, if they care about them. So far, this has not yet happened.
5) The games only run under Windows. I do not know of any plans for ports to other platforms, sorry.
6) The project is not related to the Hero6 project, nor is it related to the Space Quest: The Lost Chapter project (another good fan project in which Josh Mandel has gotten involved!).
7) A bit more history on King's Quest: The SCI remake of King's Quest I made by Sierra in 1990 was still 16 colors (EGA) and used a completely text-based parser interface, just like the original AGI version. The Tierra remake is in full 256 color VGA. Much of the artwork is recycled from the Sierra EGA SCI version, but you will find new artwork in various places, and a cleaned up score from Tom and of course the voice pack featuring Josh Mandel as Graham. The remake uses the icon interface introduced by Sierra in later games, and applies it to the classic game. No more frustration mistyping "push witch"; click the hand icon, click the witch. The only time you need to type is to answer the Gnome's question, where there is no time limit, or to name your saved game. (BTW - The other official Sierra remakes were Mixed-Up Mother Goose, Space Quest I, Quest for Glory I (aka "Hero's Quest", Leisure Suit Larry I, and Police Quest I. Yes, all of these were redone in VGA, with icon interfaces. Only the King's Quest I remake was in kept EGA with a parser interface.)
8) The King's Quest II project is NOT a remake. Officially, the project is called "KQ2+" and features new locations and an expanded plot, and an all-new soundtrack (by Tom, of course). The project is nearing completion and the AGDs expect to release it later this year. You can find two samples of the new KQ2 soundtrack on Tom's site on the "What's New" page. OK, that's everything I can tell you about it!
*Sigh*
Hero6 is inspired by QFG, but is not a sequel. And it's success has inspired other fan-made games, some of which are closer to QFG than others.
~BF~
Being an anonymous coward yet again... No, please no, don't make me have to remember yet ANOTHER password for a site I hardly ever visit!!!
I've found some of Sierra's "abandonware" games like Space Quest III, Police Quest 2, King's Quest 4, The Colonel's Bequest on the net and tried to replay them. SQ3 and CB worked, but I had to use my PC's internal speaker for sound. PQ2 had no sound, and i could not get KQ4 (either of the versions that i found)to run. Sure, you can easily find these classic games if you try, but it would be nice to have them fully functioning with manuals and such. I'd pay a good 20 dollars or so for a cd-rom that had one of the full series.
:P
I stopped playing Sierra games when they switched form command line style play to mouse icons. I just didn't like it as much. Thats how I learned to type.
Not all the games are on that list, I know as I own one that's not listed there.
Which one? Why the official 'improved graphics' King's Quest I of course. There was an improved graphics one, it used the same type of engine found in Space Quest 2 or 3 IIRC, but was still in good ol' 16 colour.
The main improvement in the graphics that I could tell was that Graham was taller and skinnier, and now sort of resembled a person instead of looking like a walking block. They were sold in a gold-coloured box, and had a nice sticker announcing that the graphics had been upgraded. The game itself came on both the 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" disks.
There's one other thing I don't like about that page, Quest for Glory I is listed under it's current name, rather than it's original Hero's Quest name. I think they should have at least included that in there, but then I'm picky about these things.
"I won't mod you down - I feel the need to call you a twit explicitly, rather than by implication."
> Ask officer where the body is
Huh?
> Ask policeman where the body is
Huh?
>Ask cop where the victim is
Huh?
>Ask where the god damn fucking piece of shit body is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Your mother would be ashamed of that language!
> FUCK OFF!!
Your mother would be ashamed of that language!
Then, you pay 4 bucks to call the tipline and find it you need to type "ask the second class sergeant of the county sherriff's department where the body is" or something similar but strangely different from what you were trying.
Crap, now I'm getting lameness filtered....this is just random complaining to bring up my average length per line. My favorite games were police quest, personally, but I also liked space quest. I never really played kings quest, though I'm sure I would have liked it.
Star Control/
/ timewarp/
http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol
Star Control: TimeWarp (fan sequel)
http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol
These system requirements are INSANE!
System Requirements
*Pentium or higher processor, at least 233 Mhz
*SVGA display with VESA driver
*1 MB Video RAM required, 2 Mb recommended
*16 MB RAM
*MS-DOS 5.00 or higher, Windows 95/98/ME or Windows 2000
*Games made for Windows require DirectX 7 or higher
*About 50 Mb free disk space
*Sound card optional (supports Adlib, Sound Blaster and General MIDI for music; Sound Blaster and ESS Audiodrive for digital sound).
50 Megs of disk space! Why? Direct X 7! This is a 2D game! Why not the Allegro library, SDL, or DirectX 3? I cannot even run it on any of my machines, since they dont have Win 98, ME, 95 or something that supports that version of Direct X. This should be able to run on a 386 with a VGA card, instead they have done some TOTAL code bloat! How complex is this remake? More complex than even Quake or Doom II or TuxRacer? That is nuts!
I sure as hell wont d'l it. I have a PC gamer cd from a few years back that has kings quest 1[original] on it. If I want to download something that needs 50 megs, it wont be this!
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I archived everything from the old days that I ever had. I didn't get a CD burner right away. I used QIC for quite awhile, those dear vulnerable 2120 data tapes. I remember when I got my first CD burner (a 2x6) that I transcribed all the Tapes to CD and was finally free of them.
So, I have all my old downloaded Windows 2 apps, even. For what they're worth. Yikes.
Dogcow isn't much good on Windows 95 and later. The icon doesn't sit down there and wag it's tail. Evile task bar, spoiling all our fun....
Try Silpheed that was there best action game at the time.
Veramocor
I'm getting nostalgia thinking about playing King's Quest again and thinking back to Leisure Suit Larry. I'm also reminiscing to my dial-up connection looking at my 0.8KB/sec download. Stop slashdotting the site and let me download!!
I stole this Sig
You do know Ian Bell released the source, don't you :)
:( maybe archie would be better.
http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/
Although beeb emu is too hardcore for my taste
you shoulod have gotten the beans chump, then you wouldnt need to climb the stairs and could have taken the beanstalk, more points as well.
I can't believe how many hours I spent sitting in front of my 8088 playing that damned game. To this day, I could navigate the Catacombs with my freakin' eyes closed. I shudder to think how much of the useful storage in my brain is consumed with Bards Tale, and how many more useful things I could have been doing while I was obsessing about intoducing Mangar to DEST (amazing how that little bitch never could make a saving throw).
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
SarienDC
Ganksoft has done a port of Sarien to the Dreamcast. Haven't tried it out yet because I don't have a Dreamcast keyboard or mouse.
Whatever happened to lunatic fringe??? It was an
after dark screensaver / game and it was perty darn
cool.. they were even supposed to be releasing a
retail version of it. It seems to have faded away
somewhere... not even abandonware. Hmmmmm If only
I didn't use all my floppies as ninja stars.
edge
These games were incredible. I have yet to play a game that really is able to draw me in and fascinate me as much as these old sierra games. Sure the FF games are beautiful and interesting, sure Metal Gear Solid 2 was fantastic, breathtaking even, sure Quake 3 makes my heart pound, The Sims leave me feeling happily frustrated, and Never Winter Nights will no doubt provide me with a lifetime of entertainment... But still, there is something missing...
Only the sierra games of yore were really able to bring my imagination to life. I could play those games for hours, find myself stuck, and spend the next few days puzzing over the answer. And, amazingly, the answers were never the "try random things until it works" variety, nor were they the Riven-style "huge leaps in hyperbolic logic and transdimensional linguistics to recreate the language of a forgotton species to translate the secret message that must them be decoded using the phases of the moon and the atomic weight of Rivenium". They were creative, funny, intriuging, disturbing, silly, and most importantly FUN.
If you are a game designer, do youself a favor... Go find those ancient rotting 5.25" disks from your attic and play those old sierra games, every one of them.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Both officebase.de and justadventure.com appear to be slashdotted. Even once allowed a connection to download from officebase.de, I'm receiving only 0.5-0.6kb/s max on the 20 megabyte executable.
e appears to be a good mirror (20.3kb/s), albeit the old version (1.0) that they host. (beware, however, the fact that the older version can't use the voice pack.)
ftp://ftp.megagames.com/pub/freegames/KQ1VGA.ex
Anyone else happen to host a mirror or know of a site that hosts the most current version of KQ1VGA?
- roy from cellblock 16
What was that game from a long time ago where you could fly really fast on a seemingly endless path and have to jump over gaps and avoid other things while out somewhere in the universe with colorful backgrounds of stars and planets? I remember it being really fun but now I can't find it :-( Any help??
I'm a minister!
Meanwhile, for a nice mix of new and old visit my homepage for Star Wars Episode 1 and Pokemon data sets for text-mode (DOS) Monopoly.
Yo. Waddsa paddwoid ?
laugh - anyone else remember the 'boss key' for when your boss/coworkers walk in on you un-announced? One F10 later (or was it Alt-B or something? I forget) and you're staring at possibly the worst representation of a spreadsheet application i've seen. Which LSL was it that they faked the boss key and pressing it resulted in you dying and having to restore a previous saved game?
ahh, those were the days.
instead of rewritting the same old games, they continued the series with new stories?
Jason
my favorite was definately KQ6. That game was totally awesome. Had a great storyline, awesome puzzles....ahh those were the days. In KQ7 they totally screwed it up though. They switched from the usual mouse cursors to having only ONE! And worst of all, it went sparkly whenever it was moved ontop of something that did something important. Plus it automatically saved your game for you and you could never get yourself into a place where you needed to restore an old game. Basically, a 2 year old could have beaten that game. The graphics were all disney looking too.
But KQ6, ahh that was awesome...
----
All of whose base are belong to the what-now?
Download at GamesDomain
Ultimuh; The ultimate role-playing game includes scanned in digitized actors, emotion tearing sound track, and dramatic sequences! This is the best example of role-playing ever made in the history of man-kind. 8 Levels of digitally scanned in graphics... Each one more complicated than the one before. Can you make it.......?
This one beats the pants off anything in the Ultima series.
I immediately walked right into the moat and got eaten by alligators when I started the game! Just like the old times! Damn I miss this game :)
Second thing which happened was pushing the rock from the wrong side... ouch!
I've seen this tread alot, and aslong as people don't try to profit from these actions then they are unlikly to be foxed, in this case by Activison who I think owns the intellectual Property to serria. Altough, I also thought that about mod's
Anyway the point I whated to make was, I hope that the people who untake these projects spend some time insuring that these games remain timeless, or rather they still look good and play reasonably well five years down the track. Somthing that the orginal creators of the game often overlooked.
For example, insure that an internal clock is used making sure that the game still plays well on ever faster processors,
Use vector graphics, so that the game looks good at higher resolutions,
Perhaps, write the thing in java, since the java vm, will still be around 5 years down the track. or in a API which is still going to be around in the future.
ETCETC,
Anymore surrgestions??
Oh shit... I hated the Ultima series (well 7 was pretty damn good anyway) once they went all isometric... They should never have messed with perfection.... :(
:)
Ultima 4 was an amazing game... I've still got all those maps/towels somewhere.... and a silver ankh I believe...
i don't read slashdot anymore.
I could have sworn that I (let's just say) "reviewed" a newer, VGA version of Leisure Suit Larry I only a few years back.
Does anyone have any information about the Sierra VGA re-releases?
Taken from Mo'Slo website. Hopefully the remakes will run under DirectX :-)
Sierra support technicians have suggested Mo'Slo for slowing too-fast character movement in Space Quest 1-5, stopping 'error 47' in Space Quest 6, stopping a lock-up at Bert's Park in Police Quest 1, slowing an uncontrollably-fast car in Police Quest 3, and correcting runway overruns during take-off in A-10 Tank Killer when DOS versions of these games are played on fast systems. Also, a user reports that Mo'Slo solves a problem with events (such as dying of thirst) happening too quickly in the VGA version of Space Quest 1 when running at 233MHz. In our own tests, Mo'Slo stops events (such as being zapped by the cyborg) from happening too quickly in the DOS version of Space Quest IV. A user of the 16-color Red Baron flight sim reports that Mo'Slo is needed for realistic play on fast systems (slow the game until the demos run at the right speed -- about 15% on a PII-233MHz). We have found that (!broken link!) Mo'Slo 4BIZ , using the alternate slowdown method, gives more predictable slowdown of Space Quest games on CPUs faster than 200MHz.That's awesome, i tried to play through King's Quest 1 when i came out on that PC Gamer disc, but after about an hour of playing i started to feel sick cause of the grfx and had to stop playing. But with this i shouldbe able to get through the game without throwing up.
At least my name's not Jerry.
[sarcasm]Maybe because it was the first post anyway[/sarcasm]
Everybody have nostalgia with old games, thus why even trolls show some sign of respect.
I played several Sierra games for years, although I prefer Hunter Hunted, which is more recent. Sierra was one of the first game developers that have built very smart enemies and full-blown resource management into games.
Would be good if they remake games Civilization-like with even more complex management but inject more battle action into KQ-like games.
I have been thinking of getting my PC4i up and running again just to be able to play KingsQuest 1. It runs in machine mode right from boot, no dos there to meddle with. I never did finish the game. Kings Quest was my first encounter with the foreign language english and i learned much by trial and error. "put lard in bowl" "jump tree" "hump watermelon" My english teacher newer liked my strange arrangement of english words, i wonder why?
HTTP/1.1 400
I praise him. The site has a dawn good feel.
In the past had who guessed that a website may look better than top-notch pc game menu screens?
I had Silpheed, but I could never beat the last ship. Never. Personally, I preferred Xenon 2 for the Amiga.
But and about their revolutionary strategy games like Outpost and gems like Caesar. Don't you mind remaking games based on those olders?
For a matter of curiosity.
I personally believe the Quest-series was good because of lack of fighting and braindead action. Instead the creators thought up creative ways of solving problems, which can be more fun.
The Quest series were much older than some of the great Sierra strategy games as Outpost. Isn't that hard and costly to make the KQ engine up and running, even with some modifications.
Actually I remember that at every release of KQ I guessed what mods had been made for KQ.
One of the most addictive trek games.
This could be a really cool game to reverse engineer.
There was only one re-make of Leisure Suit Larry, and that was the first only. (Lnad of the Lounge Lizards.' Since then they have not done any thing regarding the old quest series. (Kings, Space or Police)
This is a Parody of the Kings quest series. I for one would like to see this genre come back. I had them all.
make Linux, not Microsoft. sin(beast) = -0.809016994374947424102293417182819
GREAT! now i don't have to use bochs to play these! (btw, old title players should check bochs out too http://bochs.sourceforge.net/ , x86 cpu & system emulator, good enough to run old games too, and runs on non x86 systems..)
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
ftp://ftp.megagames.com/pub/freegames/KQ1VGA.exe
i was getting 120k from it.
I stumbled across Quest Studios a couple of weeks ago. It contains mostly MIDI, but some MP3s of Sierra games music. After downloading a few songs, I remembered how great the music was. The songs were catchy and fun to listen to, even though they were MIDI. And now I actually have a decent sound card rather than my PC speaker!
Imagine LSL as a first person? :)
..the enhanced Leisure Suit Larry 1 will support the FU-FME protocol..
You do not exist. Go away.
Anyone remember this one?? The guy reminds me so much of myself :)
It's Hero's Quest damn it, and don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. BTW, did you know you could build the thief's lockpicking skill by typing 'pick nose'? Try doing it over and over... (-;
I just tried this new KQ1 remake and it's awesome! Very good graphics and animation, just as good as Sierra could have ever done. I can't wait for their QFG2 remake. Did you guys see the screenshots of the qfg remake on their page? Beatuful! Ah, I'm getting that old tingly feeling back again.
IMHO, Those games were better with the blocky graphics.
Sir_haxalot
stuff |
I'm quite glad the games are being redone by a separate entity. Sierra is now little more than a corporate whore, releasing incomplete titles, then dropping support within a year. They're the MTV of gaming.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
(1) get magic mirror
Go west 2 screen. Push the rock and get the dagger. Go to the well and use the dagger on the bucket. Climb down the well and dive into the water. You'll see an underground cave. Swim to the underground cave and get out, then fill the bucket with water. Walk west and you'll see a dragon guarding the magic mirror. Pour the bucket of water on the dragon, when the dragon leave, get the magic mirror and exit.
(2) get magic chest
Get carrot from the carrot garden, use carrot on goat so that it follows you. Bring the goat to the bridge guarded by the troll, the goat will kill the troll. Walk over the bridge, guess that little guy name (nikstlitselpmur). He'll give you beanstalk. Walk east 2 screen to plant the beanstalk and climb up the beanstalk. Here you'll find the giant, walk around the tree, the giant is slow so he cannot catch you. Soon he'll fall asleep, get the magic chest.
NOTE: walk south then east of the giant to get the slingshot to earn extra 2 points
(3) get magic shield
Get the bowl, look at the bowl, use the bowl on yourself to fill the bowl with stew. Then give the bowl full of stew to the woodcutter. He'll offer you his fiddle, get the fiddle. Go to the witch house and open the cabinet, then get the cheese. Go to the cave entrance (south, east of the witch house). Grab the condor, the condor will drop you near a hole. Don't jump into the hole first, go west to get the mushroom. No go east and jump down the hole.
Give cheese to rat. Play fiddle by using fiddle on those guards. Get magic mirror. Walk west and eat mushroom. Exit and return to castle to end the game.
NOTE: In the witch house, you can kill the witch to earn 7 extra points, get the note in the witch house to earn 1 extra point, read the note to earn 2 extra point.
NOTE: Near the magic shield is a sceptre, get it to earn 6 extra points.
(4) EXTRA POINTS
- golden egg
Go west 2 times and north one time, you'll see a big tree. Climb the tree and get the golden egg.
- golden walnut
Find the place where there is a squirrel running. Get the walnut on the ground. Use the walnut on yourself.
- pebble
Go west 3 times and get the pebble to earn extra 1 point.
- invisible ring
Talk to the elf to get invisible ring, the elf is north of the carrot garden.
- pouch of diamonds
Go east 4 times, look at the tree, you'll find a pouch. Get the pouch and use the pouch on yourself.
- clover
Go east 2 times and north 2 times, get clover to earn 2 extra points.
(5) easter egg
Sometime when you read the note (from witch house) you'll get the message "all your base are belong to us".
by 31337 h4x0r
Make sure you get that larry vales policeman adventure game made using the same engine as king quest 1 remake from Tierra, funny as hell.
Also you can find a Leisure Suit Larry flash game in www.newsground.com.
My bet is that it was first post that caused it. It wasn't meant as a troll.
Anyone remember Shadow of Yserbius (it has 2 sequels too). It was fun little on-line adventure game that you were supposed to play on the old Sierra Netowrk (later the ImagiNation), but now unless I'm mistaken you can't play it multiplayer since the distributed program was only a client. I've been waiting for the chance to try to play it online for ages (I was young when it came out and couldn't afford to pay the fee for TSN with the money from my lemonade stand :-p).
While the original Sierra games were all low-res games they redid a bunch of them (including King's Quest and Quest for Glory) a few years back in 256 color VGA mode. These guys said they made their version in 320X200 so people would have the feeling of playing the old games, but since Sierra already did that I really don't see the point, other than doing it as an excercise.
The ad had a buxom beauty in her underwear striking a pose (in bed?), and ran in full color in mainstream computer magazines. THe caption was something like, "How's your love life?"
At one point, Jerry Pournelle ran a review. All I recall is that he and Mrs. Pournelle set out to try it "in the interests of science," were unimpressed,and that it ended asking if anyone had a use for a "sheepskin rug with jam stains" or some such . .
hawk
of the "New Apple" is that I have to run Virtual PC running an Apple][ emulator in order to run some of my favorite old games (Wizardry, Ultima, Bards Tale, Etc.)
It had better games, also had 16 colors, and had a great 3-channel music synthesizer. It also tended to be better with sprite animation.
It also came out like 3 years before the Pcjr.
If you like Sierra's adventure games and you liked their Quest for glory series, a bunch of fans are in the process of making their own QuestForGlory-like adventure game called "Hero6" Check it out here: http://www.hero6.com It will be completely free.
I think the idea that there was a "golden age" in the 80's where games had great stories and great gameplay really ignores the great games of the 90's. Here are 5 games that had fantastic writing and/or craftsmanship that were released after 1995:
Fallout
Planescape:Torment
Baldur's Gate 2
StarCraft
Half-Life
If nothing else, the games of today have much better potential because there is more potential for improving the stability/gameplay through patches and mods and games also have less annoying copy protection than those classics of old. (I know I'm not the only one who hated looking up things on a codewheel or rifling through a manual to find the unlocking code on page 46, not to mention some of those Infocom classics that because of their copy protection would lock up occasionally on my Apple 2 -- despite that everything else worked fine on that disk drive...)
That it would be a cool idea to remake some of the Sierra Classics using a FPS engine?
Take the same great old story and build it into the engine. You could end up with the best of both world. A really cool game and yummy, shiny eye candy!
the above is my personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect that of the little voices in my head
So you claim to be a game reviewer and at the same time proves that you can't really tell a great game from an "outstanding computer graphics achievement".
I am not blaming you. You are probably a perfect instance of the sad state of game reviewing today, people who can't understand what a game is about, who probably never played a good TEXT adventure and if presented to one would keep moving the mouse frantically, trying to make that blinking cursor move.
Under your line of thought, movies like "Citizen Kane" suck, because we all know black and white "sucked". "2001" sucks also, because we all know pre-computer special effects "sucked".
You should learn more about what games are about before saying you are a game reviewer. You are embarassing yourself and your employer.
That would suck! The whole fun of those old Sierra adventure games is that they were 2D. Every other game is 3D these days. Boring! Leave the adventure games 2D as they always were I say.
The coolest thing from my childhood that I remember was actually going to California on vacation and visiting the Sierra Headquarters. My family was cool like that. At that time they were giving us, as a tour group, a preview of Space Quest 4, with its (oh my God) VGA graphics and fully voiced dialogue! I was blown away. Then the presenter went on to show us all the various creative ways you could die in the first few screens of the game.
I kinda doubt that I'd have the same experience going to visit id Software headquarters so they could show us their incredibly cool graphics engine and wax poetic about the GeForce 4.
Head down, go to sleep to the rhythm of the war drums...
Push the rock to find the dagger.
Reading this about KQ & SQ (some of my favorite old games) reminds
me of another game.
Does anyone remember a text based game where you
were Gawain of the knights of the round table and
you wandered around aimlessly trying to get back home.
It was really complicated and took many years for me to finish
(mainly cause there was no way to get hints). I'm trying to
remember the name of the game so I can find it again. Any help?
Wow - I used to LOVE Sierra games... I think "Hero's Quest" (originally what QFG1 was called for you youngins) was the first computer game I ever played. If anybody out there still has QFG2 loaded try "pick nose" as a thief for a good laugh ;) hahaha
I was able to access Al Lowe's site for a while, but then 15 minutes later, trying to get different pages (and the same using shift-reload), I got this:
This account has been disabled..
To have the account restored, contact Customer Service.
Sorry Al, I didn't mean it...
I'm playing Gabriel Knight (1) at the moment. Great story, gameplay, and sound, with voice-acting by Tim Curry and Mark Hamill. Other games I've played recently are Privateer (1), Wing Commander 3, and Ultima7/Serpent Isle. Sure, many games from the 80's, like KQ1, are fairly primitive and lacking in plot; but once 486's and CD's became common, the games became quite entertaining.
Many new games simply lack depth, but have stunning graphics.
~ sager
EA sports games have come a long way, but your standard adventure game just turned into point and click since Myst.
Doom and Dune2 were just new genre cutters... But everything since seems like Street Fighter 2 turbo galactic ass monkey version alpha.
Its not nostalgia, there were more possibilities for fun to choose from back in the day when corporations weren't needed to do the art overhead. Its sad, and you won't see me with a job either even though I'm one of the most die hard video game designers.
www.ebayrp.bizland.com
www.contrib.andrew.cmu/
God spoke to me
For whatever it's worth, when I moved a few months ago, I found an old copy of Space Quest III. I got it up and running with no problem on a K6 II 450. I might be the only one around who still thinks that Sierra's Space Quest, Police Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry games were the best games invented because they used imagination to wow you, not graphics.
You can still buy Solar Winds for $25 on 3.5" floppies. Epic Classics
The King's Quest II project Tierra is putting together isn't 100% a new game, but it is a lot larger than the original KQ2. Enhancements and changes are planned for the QfG2 remake as well.
Hmm; I don't think that was really Al Lowe's website...
"This account has been disabled.. To have the account restored, contact Customer Service."
I'm a musician with a good bit of experience with electronic music (including MIDI) and I remember playing a LOT of those old Sierra games as a kid. If they need any extra help, let me know.
The demos and screenshots for this game were amazing...