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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."
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.
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
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
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.
Black Cauldron is freely released! It's on Al Lowe's website, http://www.allowe.com/
Scott
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!
Star Control/
/ timewarp/
http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol
Star Control: TimeWarp (fan sequel)
http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol
As a former CoinOp game developer I have to say the game developers do still care strongly about game play (er, they use to when I did it), but management didn't. More over the users frequently didn't, and since they pay the bills, well, frequently you follow their wishes.
Or you quit and program something else for a living.