Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.adventure (
More info?)
Jenny100 wrote:
> The early Sierra adventures all seem to kill you off
> occasionally.
An understatement, to be sure! (Did their later adventures ever soften
this brutal tendancy? Not to the best of my recollection... their
Manhunter games, at least, would let you reverse lethal mistakes
without having to endlessly dance the "Save / Restore" pas-a-deux.)
> What was the first adventure game that didn't kill you
> off? Was it a text-only adventure that preceded the
> Sierra King's Quest games?
I can't vouch for runners-up Magnetic Scrolls, Level 9 or
Adventuresoft, but games by the biggest text adventure company,
Infocom, appear to be Sierra's bloody-minded inspiration, often
featuring hunger, thirst and light (and encumbrance, ugh) limits
further complicating dungeons full of deathtraps and ravenous grues.
One of them, "Infidel", even contains a controversial end sequence
culminating in the player's death -- as part of "winning" the game!
> What was the first graphic adventure that didn't kill you?
> It wasn't Secret of Monkey Island, was it?
That looks like the right year (1990), if not necessarily the right
game. Earlier Lucasfilm graphical adventure games like Labyrinth and
Maniac Mansion featured industry-standard deaths; I can't vouch for Zak
McCracken ('88) or Indy's Last Crusade ('89 -- given the hero's endless
escapades, I suspect death is on the agenda somewhere), but Loom at
least (also released in '90) appears to be player-deathless. (If
careful notes aren't kept, it can be got into an unwinnable state, but
that is what your Book of Patterns is for after all.)
(The Secret of Monkey Island, on the other hand, contains two player
deaths -- though one is actually a Sierra-parodying false death, and
the other demands some due diligence and dedication to testing
Guybrush's breath-holding title.)
I must say that after being introduced to the elegant Lucasarts
deathless adventure design it was hard going back to endless series of
punishing and often arbitrary-seeming deaths in Sierra's and
Microprose's graphical adventure games. (Westwood's Legend of Kyrandia
games at least would often give you an "I don't think I should do
that..." warning before going ahead and letting you shoot yourself in
the foot anyhow.) The Simon the Sorcerer games seemed the only ones
that took the Lucasfilm deathlessness revolution to heart, and I like
to think that it has helped contribute to the longevity of their
popularity where other contemporary games of theirs have been
forgotten.
I only intended to share two cents, but I seem to have emptied my
wallet entirely. Keep the change.
Uehe.591$Ri4.32@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
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