By Alec Meer on April 21st, 2009 at 8:55 pm.
Found via the redoubtable GameSetWatch, this excellent project combines two disparate arms of PC gaming – retro point’n'click adventuring, and the massed peopleage of MMOs. Plus it runs in a browser, so it’s all things to all PC gamers, really. Rejoice!
The idea is this – a bunch of old Sierra adventures games, currently comprising Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel, and the original Space Quest. They’re hosted on the site, and are free to play in all their charming 64some-colour ancientness. Ideal free lunchtime fodder, then – but that’s not all. They’re also massively multi – as you play, you’ll see other chaps currently in the same game wandering around your screen, with their input commands expressed as speech bubbles. Hell, you could even chat to them, but who does that in games, right? Plus, as the above screenshot suggests, unfortunately some people are hideous cretins.
There is something incredibly surreal to arrive at a screen filled with clones of yourself, randomly shouting ‘OPEN DOOR’ and ‘PICK UP DOG.’ The possibilities for experimental play are fascinating, however – picture three dozen Leisure Suit Larries solving puzzles in perfect synchronicity.
Very much a project to keep an eye on – hopefully more games will be added to the roster, and as more players arrive the experience should become ever more beautifully strange.
Wibble around it now right here.
21/04/2009 at 21:03 Scandalon says:
Awesomesauce.
21/04/2009 at 21:11 Heliocentric says:
Ooh… Playing persistent neverwinter nights servers can have the same feeling post server reset. 40 people running to the bar tend to buy beer for the quest giver dwarf (drunk npc’s reward better). But if he gets too many beers in too short a time he passes out. Making the reward temporarilly unavailable.
Also liche who upon death (quest) will leave as a spirit and possess anyone without protection from evil, walk back to his lair and turn back into a liche in the new body.
21/04/2009 at 21:21 Okami says:
I just had to look up the meaning of the word “redoutable”, thus adding another delightful word to my english vocabulary. Just one of the many reasons why I love RPS.
21/04/2009 at 21:24 Thirith says:
64 colours? Try a quarter of that and you may be right.
21/04/2009 at 21:31 clovus says:
64 colors? Back in my day we played Sierra Adventure games in 4 colors!
Now get off my lawn!!
21/04/2009 at 21:34 Serondal says:
Try 8 colors :P
I loved this game when my dad got it years ago. He assumed that the questions that the game asks in the start would stop me from playing it so he left it out
Of course I guess he never expected my younger self to try every question until I got it right, then writing down the correct answer until I could get past it ;P I beat the game before he did and never told him lol. I can still remember laughing when I died from an STD in the street because I forgot to wear a rubber (At the time I didn’t even know what a rubber was so of course my imagination went wild trying to figure out wtf just happened)
21/04/2009 at 21:41 Dave Gates says:
Very cool, yet very odd. We need to get some Lucasarts game up.
21/04/2009 at 22:04 Flappybat says:
Stop censorsh*p now!
21/04/2009 at 22:19 Pstonie says:
We played a forum version of something like this a while back. The guy who starts the story does some quick artwork and the responses, and everyone else submits the commands.
http://www.boxofmystery.com/?p=475
21/04/2009 at 22:27 Markoff Chaney says:
This makes me hope they have that Space Quest (was it 3?) where if you didn’t pick up the whatsamacallit at the beginning you didn’t know you could ever not finish the game since you didn’t need the whosamajigger until you were at the end and you got to replay the whole thing from wherever your earliest save was.
I’d just stand right by that doololly all day and remind people to pick it up. That was one of my angriest gaming memories ever and I would love to save others of that exasperating “Seriously?” moment. Other than that, I still love you Sierra. Even you, Urban Runner…
My first box only had CGA. I was grateful for those 4 colors, I tells ya. Now get off my propertah!
21/04/2009 at 22:33 Helm says:
The actual palette is 16 colors standard EGA.
21/04/2009 at 23:20 Flyspeck says:
I want Kings Quest!
21/04/2009 at 23:30 Cycle says:
I find the LSL one most interesting because they actually planned a Larry MMO way back in the day.
21/04/2009 at 23:33 Anarki says:
Wow that is unbelievable the amount of effort the guy went to making all those pictures and doing everyones commands. I wanna play.
21/04/2009 at 23:50 Nutkins Victory Otter says:
Spiro Agnew was a venereal disease.
22/04/2009 at 02:41 postx says:
http://www.boxofmystery.com/?p=475 pure brilliance
22/04/2009 at 11:02 ILR says:
This… has… got… to… be… the most impressive/hilarious idea I’ve seen in gaming world this year. Shame that my arrow keys enter erroneous characters into the parser, and backspace goes back one screen so it’s not exactly playable.
Awesome nevertheless. I’m speechless.
22/04/2009 at 14:19 C0nt1nu1ty says:
yeah interesting idea once they get the bugs out
22/04/2009 at 15:21 Cooper says:
You can still type when dead. A lot of fun can be had writhing near the janitor’s closest after being gunned down by a Sarien, screaming for help…
22/04/2009 at 17:38 mashakos says:
why did they have to port the crap CGA versions? Why??
22/04/2009 at 17:44 Serondal says:
I think my favorite LL Game has to be the one with Larry and Passionate Patty where you can play as both of them and in the end Larry is sitting in a lawn chair on his baloncy coding LL 1 (I believe you find some way into the real world where Larry doesn’t exist and he gets rich making games about himself lol)