King’s Quest

The Not-So Silver Lining

Martyn Zachary 1 Comment
Lost at the Sea

Fan games based on more or less commercially viable licenses have always faced the unenviable task of navigating the stormy, abbreviated seas of C&D and DMCA all the while keeping a low enough profile to avoid the aforementioned corporate shallows, at the same time maintaining a public enough face to attract necessary fan interest.

Some projects, like Indiana Jones & The Fountain of Youth and AGDInteractive’s remakes have surprisingly managed to stay afloat; others, like the very latest target of this type of license injustice, The Silver Lining, a King’s Quest fan game, are fish food:

In 2005, Phoenix Online Studios received a Cease & Desist letter from Vivendi Universal, the owners of the King’s Quest IP, in regards to our work on The Silver Lining. We complied with the request, and over the months that followed, we were able to work out a non-commercial fan license with Vivendi that allowed us to continue our work on the game.…

Recently, however, ownership of the Sierra IP changed hands and became the property of Activision. After talks and negotiations in the last few months between ourselves and Activision, they have reached the decision that they are not interested in granting a non-commercial license to The Silver Lining, and have asked that we cease production and take down all related materials on our website. 1)http://www.tsl-game.com/

Closed Due to Tragedy

The Silver Lining was eight years in the making, and while this final blow in a long uphill battle must be a massive, massive disappointment to the members of the development team, it is also exactly that to the most dedicated fans of Roberta Williams’ classic adventure series; is it not the most interested of fans, after all, that come to develop, find out about and care for these underground fan games?

(more…)

References   [ + ]

Read More

Coles, Williamses, Walls and Lowe…s

Martyn Zachary 1 Comment

Destructoid recently hooked up with esteemed Quest for Glory developers Lori and Corey Cole for an update in response to the recent announcement of the Special Edition version of Monkey Island. The interview mostly touches upon Sierra’s past reluctance to commit to remakes – past quite an admirable amount of EGA-VGA revisions, anyhow. However, as is evident from just a few straightforwarded questions, it also becomes clear that the Sierra we used to know has not existed for a long, long time.

Quest for Glory 3
Quest for Glory 3

Let’s look at the current state of the Sierra alumni: Al Lowe is forcibly retired, the Two Guys from Andromeda bitter and battered, the Williamses have not created a game in 10 years and the Coles have zero interest in the genre. Jim Walls worked on a game as recently as 2002, so this only leaves us with Jane Jensen, who is actually and really working on a game.

When an adventure game designer manage to bring up both Lord of the Rings and WoW over the span of a three-question interview, it’s obvious that the Coles – much like the Williamses – have intentionally and very purposely lost their touch with the adventure genre as well as game development overall. While this is a hard fact for an adventure fan to swallow, then again, it’s also utterly impossible to fault developers for doing what they want with their lives; we must remember that one person’s exciting childhood was effectively another’s daily chore.

To get back to the Destructoid interview, when the Coles are asked about playing adventure games, the answer is:

Actually, we don’t play them. The only game we both play regularly is World of Warcraft.  The last adventure games we played were LucasArt’s Monkey Island and Indiana Jones series. 1)http://www.destructoid.com/quest-for-glory-developers-only-approached-once-for-a-remake-135372.phtml

Roberta Williams, in a 2006 interview with Adventure Classic Gaming, has a similar stance:

I have not played any adventure games since then and really have no idea what today’s adventure games are like. 2)http://www.adventureclassicgaming.com/index.php/site/interviews/198/

Scott Murphy (the other guy from Andromeda), then, in response to being asked about developing adventure games:

I’ve never given it a thought since I know that world has come and gone. Adventure games have cult status. Companies don’t have interest in the kind of money cult work might bring. 3)http://www.adventureclassicgaming.com/index.php/site/interviews/234/

All the aforementioned developers seem to believe times have changed for good, with the last train finally departed. No going back, is there? :D To me, the last few years have felt like quite a bit of an adventure gaming renaissance, especially with great indie titiles coming out. What do you think?

References   [ + ]

Read More