I’m a big fan of games, no matter their stripe, but I have a particular fondness for point-and-click adventure games such as the Monkey Island series, Grim Fandango, the Gabriel Knight trilogy, and others. And as much as I’m not into world or political history, I am very much into the history of games, often losing hours of my life in the serpentine jungles of Wikipedia and Google, digging up information on whatever game or company is currently occupying the obsessive cycles of my brain.
One of my current interests is the long and tentacular history of one of adventure gaming’s pillars, Sierra On-Line, from its founding in 1979 to the infamous Chainsaw Monday 20 years later. It’s a heckuva history to untangle but it’s been fascinating.
Downloadable games site GOG.com is helping to fill in some of the lacunae in my mental database with these articles about the history of Sierra’s signature games series, King’s Quest.
The second article was just posted and I’ll be digging into it this afternoon.
While you’re at GOG.com, be sure to pick up some of the great games they have in their catalogue. I especially recommend Syberia I and Syberia II, the Tex Murphy games, and the absolutely free Beneath a Steel Sky (and they have the previously mentioned Gabriel Knight trilogy which is a top series). If the articles piqued your interest, you can pick up the King’s Quest 4, 5, and 6 bundle for just $9.99.
And those are just some of the point-and-click adventure titles, they have plenty of other great games and game genres as well (including the criminally-overlooked Beyond Good & Evil).
In other news, work continues apace on the current gig. I am truly blessed to be working with such great people. I love the job and the studio and I’ll say more when I can (which will likely be very soon). Until then, take care.
