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InterAction Magazine
86 Plays3 hours ago
Ben and Jess discuss Sierra's 90s magazine, and how it functioned as not only a promotion for the games, but for the image of Sierra as a whole.
You can read the two issues that we discuss here:
https://archive.org/details/Sierra-Dynamix_News_Magazine_Volume_4_Number_2_Summer_1991_1991_Sierra_On-Line_US
https://archive.org/details/InterAction_Magazine_Vol._V_Number_2_Summer_1992_1992_Sierra_On-Line_US
Quest Quest podcast is Ben Vigeant and Jess Morrissette.
Editing by Ben Vigeant
Show art by Kevin "WilcoWeb" Wallace
Watch us on Twitch!
Ben: https://www.twitch.tv/ps_garak
Jess: https://www.twitch.tv/decafjedi
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Transcript
The Energy of Live Recording on Big Game Sunday
00:00:32
Speaker
I always have to figure out what energy entering with, and I don't always know. who's now Are you ready for some big game? That's my energy I'm bringing in. You realize that this is coming out two hours, two days after we were, two days, two weeks. There we go. After we record, two years after we record. Shout to live listeners, the patrons who are here with us live on Big Game Sunday. That's right. As we record, the National Football League is playing its annual Big Game. And then I've dipped out of the Big Game after the Big Game halftime show.
00:01:09
Speaker
to come here and record quest quest and by the time you hear this year in a row yeah second year in a row uh no regrets i mean for us this is the big game yeah the the the big game is ah recording a podcast on a sunday night uh Yeah.
Timing and Relevance of Podcast Content
00:01:26
Speaker
Yeah. So, I mean, and people will probably still be talking about this exciting football contest by the time they listen to this a week plus later. Yes.
00:01:35
Speaker
So you listen to other podcasts. Isn't that frustrating when they they record ahead and they're so caught like someone and they're like, yes, I know it's this is coming out later, but. Surely people will still care about this specific sport game that no one cares about two months later. Yeah, no, absolutely. No. And I mean, think about the people who listened to this in the archives, you know, months and years down the road, and we're all getting into the details of the big game.
00:02:04
Speaker
You know, that I've been thinking about that a lot lately with ah my previous podcast, The Last Best Babylon 5 podcast.
Nostalgia for Early Internet Culture
00:02:14
Speaker
Like, every now and again, I'll i'll think back to, you like, we're just talking about, like, some meme of the moment or some political news of that exact moment. And I'm just like...
00:02:25
Speaker
Well, it was weird that you guys had like a peanut butter jelly time breakdown in the middle of every episode. And it's like, mean I don't know how old the podcast was, but even that seemed a little outdated by the time you were recording. Our big thing was we loved those ah freaks with the mouths that ah they ended up using in the Quiznos ads. Oh, yeah. The little sandwich rats. We love ah the moon. Those guys. Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:51
Speaker
They got a pepper bar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, we loved that bit of early Web 2 question mark. That's Web 2, right? o Does Web 2 count as Flash?
00:03:04
Speaker
Web 2, I thought, was just it had comments under it. So probably. ah that When we were saying this web, it's a web portal. Oh, man. I remember that was that was the big talk. Stepping about web portal. When I was in college, Jess, in in the mid-aughts, that was something that our website people were really, like, the word portal to them was as exciting as, you know, someone saying AI in a business meeting today. Like, it was just like, oh the...
00:03:42
Speaker
where That person knows what they're talking about. that person That person has their eyes on the future. They know where things are headed. web Web portal is constant. Like people just think like, oh, and we get a web If a web portal isn't some sort of glowing door that I walk through and when I come out on the other side, I've been fully troned.
00:04:07
Speaker
I want nothing to do with this web portal. You're not going to do a quest quest style reference and say you you step out on onto an island where you'll you'll meet your princess wife.
00:04:19
Speaker
No, no, I don't want that. I want something, know, that's like an old fashioned door. I want like, that's true. But yeah, you know, it what is a door, but a portal?
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah. Maybe I could get like a, like a holodeck arch, like computer arch. And there it is. Yeah. Well, this is a quest quest.
Hosts' Social Media Handles and Usernames
00:04:41
Speaker
The adventure game podcast. I'm Ben. I'm Jess. PS underscore Garrick on Twitch. decaf Jedi on Twitch and everywhere else.
00:04:52
Speaker
Yeah. And me, the PS underscore here some places. i don't know. Jess, I just, you know, i rotated through like you have such...
00:05:04
Speaker
ah a long relationship with decaf jedi and for a time decaffeinated jedi and ps underscore garrick i think is like 10 i you got 10 years on me or so maybe a little more like i don't want to like dox your steam account but i really like that username but it's far too long to use in most places No, yeah, it's it's it's way too it's way too long. that's No, I mean, it is weird. I've been decaf Jedi long enough now that like when I walk into like a coffee shop and I see they have a big pot brewed and it has a little like cyanide that says like decaf. I immediately think like, that's me. That's my name. Like I literally, i have that reaction just to just the word decaf at this point in my life. So yeah, i don't know what to make of that.
00:05:56
Speaker
That is, you know, Because what you've been decaffeinated Jedi since, ah a uh, uh, 96, 97. Yeah. Like a long time. And then like, I think when I got my Xbox three 60, I shortened it to decaf Jedi for my, uh, my gamer tag there. Uh, and have been, I've been decaf Jedi ever since.
00:06:20
Speaker
Jess, have you, ah so since we're recording, uh, on, on the day of a, a large sports event, uh, did, uh, did you, avail yourself of any sports snacks?
00:06:37
Speaker
No big game snacks this year. We had, though, a ah homemade chicken pot pie. So it was pretty satisfying. But no big snacks this year. How about you? Did you get into
Super Bowl Snack Traditions
00:06:49
Speaker
the snack game? You know, I didn't i didn't go to a party this year because my friend who normally throws the party was out of town. And I don't ah didn't care enough.
00:06:59
Speaker
tend to to really sniff around to find another one like just like i like to go to that super bowl party because i like that friend and he makes good wings you know like it's um and so ah yesterday i made a savory like a vegetable pancakes with a little red chicken in them like the okay korean yeah style uh pancake and oof that was great sounds pretty good i had uh one of your generation's favorite uh for breakfast tomorrow
00:07:38
Speaker
what what there's you know there's a there's a stereotype about well i love our listeners may have assumed i was about to say avocado toast and they were correct You know, that was, uh, sometimes you try to shoot the moon, you know? Oh. Oh.
00:08:04
Speaker
ah but but see about wow but
00:08:22
Speaker
We like to have fun here at Quest Quest, the adventure game podcast. All right. So you had some avocado toast. Did you say about it anymore? It was just like some a bacon on it or something. Yeah. And then like I used some really coarse grain salt um and it was just like a really good, like a kosher salt or yeah even, even a finishing sauce. Like, yeah, like finishing salt or rather finishing salt. Yeah. Finishing salt from a local um place called Dickinson's salt works here in West Virginia. Yeah.
00:08:53
Speaker
Wow. but We have a salt. You have a salt guy. yeah yeah i have a salt guy. Yeah. I mean, I don't. Yeah. His name? Morton. Hill and well met. And then like you see the little window and it has like three different salts with little like ah GP values next to it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't you have a salt guy? i mean, you seem pretty fancy. Yeah.
00:09:20
Speaker
Ben, if you ever come here to West Virginia, I'll take you to Dickinson's Salt Works. You can see how they farm the salt. It is, it's really remarkable. How do you, you know, just a little, or were you know, soil, hoeing the soil.
00:09:38
Speaker
uh watering it when that there's it's kind of a marshy situation they actually sink down like have like salt wells at one place uh it's pretty salt well yeah um it's uh it's really great salt i couldn't recommend it strongly enough but wow that's my because don't even know why i brought it up because now for some reason i'm had a full mental reset after uh after after bringing it up yeah uh But, ah you know, speaking of mental resets, what have you been
Streaming Breaks and Personal Improvement
00:10:10
Speaker
playing?
00:10:10
Speaker
Oh, man. Well, if you mean by reset, play it again, I am...
00:10:20
Speaker
going to talk about a game. out yeah I haven't been streaming. I'm taking a month off from streaming to reset my brain. So I haven't been playing as many games. I've been i've been reading books and stuff, which that's a bummer. I don't want read books. boo So instead, most of my gaming time, I'm back on my Overwatch bullshit. Yeah, I knew it. It's it's the most exciting time in Overwatch history. We've been hearing what's about to happen.
00:10:48
Speaker
Uh, they're renaming it to Overwatch. That's the most exciting part. Overwatch 2 is dead. I thought Overwatch 2 already was just Overwatch. No, it's been Overwatch 2 inexplicably this whole time, and now it's just gonna be Overwatch again.
00:11:03
Speaker
They are introducing, next week we're starting a new season. They're resetting back to Season 1.
Overwatch Updates and Game Mechanics
00:11:08
Speaker
It's gonna be a new Season 1 of Overwatch, and we are getting five new heroes all at once. And Ben, I have to tell you, normally they introduce a hero every four to five months. Five at once is going to break this game so badly.
00:11:24
Speaker
It is going to throw balance in into absolute chaos. It is going to crash their servers beyond belief because several of these characters are quite sexy. So just like the fan artists in general getting on there so they can start drawing their dirty pictures alone will be enough to crash these servers. But there are new cosmetics, new opportunities to buy battle passes, Ben. This has it all. Do you have any battle passes? Do you have any any cosmetics? This is a safe space, you can say. Oh, Ben. Ben, I am deep into battle passes. You're deep in.
00:11:58
Speaker
Let me just tell you. The battle pass runs to 100
00:12:03
Speaker
After 100 levels, you can ride up to 200 levels to get some custom titles to go along with your name card. So it goes up to 200 levels. Well, it doesn't really go to 100. It goes to 100 and it says Battle Pass Complete. And then it gives you 100 more. you have to do it again.
00:12:20
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. And it's slower this time. um the The second time, like yeah like on the original Battle Pass, like levels one through 20 are like really low XP, but you need a lot of XP to go from like 100 to 101. Anyway, I'm level 246 this season. so You know what happens after you get past 200? It's 200, you get a thing that says you're really done for real this time. This is absolutely the end.
00:12:49
Speaker
It says nothing at that point. And you get nothing else. It's just like, well, here's your title. And just kind of marching out the cold infinity, just a long, unending void. There's just a bright light that that just stays in the middle distance.
00:13:05
Speaker
Yes, but I do want to say I'm getting better. I am really focusing in on improvement. I'm using aim trainers. I am taking time to read strategy.
00:13:18
Speaker
I am going to emerge from this bin. Are you watching? videos? I'm watching videos. I'm going to the subreddit Overwatch University. right um I'm reading up on all these characters. I am using special custom game modes that just give me bots to do headshots on.
00:13:35
Speaker
wow ah yeah um this practice started to pay off? where It has. I am steadily app improving and wow I think someday soon i could be an average Overwatch player if I keep at it. i don't format you dont This is why I don't play... because i feel like so many other games I was not i was not allowed to play.
00:13:59
Speaker
ah like like I wasn't allowed to play Doom or any of those when I was a kid. And then finally started to play them a little bit like Counter-Strike Source in college.
00:14:11
Speaker
And... Because it just wasn't something I played all the time when I was 13, it's never imprinted on me. It just mostly makes me anxious.
00:14:22
Speaker
Yeah, you see, there are fully three quarters of the characters in Overwatch, which is now like a cast of like 40 characters or something. right There are fully three fourths of them that I can't play because my brain and or hands can't operate at the speed they would need to to play those characters. Like just... Literally, it would be impossible. Like, I can't even process what they're doing. So that does give me a much easier subset to work with. So for me, I have this very narrow. like If I can perfect out of the ten characters that I have the physical and mental capability to attempt, if I can, like, master three or four of those, I should be capable of not sticking out as the worst player on any given team, which is my main, like, level of success I'm looking for.
00:15:07
Speaker
That would be my dream too. Yes. Is because in those games, in multiplayer games in in general online, I'm usually the worst player.
00:15:18
Speaker
And so...
00:15:21
Speaker
Yeah, I don't want that. That's my main goal. And so what I start doing throughout the games is I use voice comms to really start trying to make sure that it's clear who the worst player on the team is so no one throws it to me. Like just subtle hints. It's like, boy, you checking out this this DPS over here? What's up with him? That's four deaths. That's twice as many as anyone else on the team. Yeah, it's pathetic.
00:15:44
Speaker
Yeah, I just got you. I mean, it's like, I mean, look at mine, I'm at one. mean, I guess maybe I'm just like more locked in or something. Not ideal, but also not the worst. Yeah, that's right. So, I mean, you're going to point to someone's fault for this loss, just like in a few minutes, if we do lose, I mean, just think about some of the groundwork that's being laid here now. So, you know. I love it as a team player. Yeah, it's impression management. I'm a team player in the sense that I will tell you on our team who you should hate most, which every team needs that. Everyone needs, you know, in case you aren't paying attention to who's messing up your group effort. It's important that someone is there to tell you whose fault things are. But Ben, don't want to get too deep into that. What?
00:16:28
Speaker
have you been playing?
Pepper Grinder Game Experience
00:16:29
Speaker
So Jess on a ah recent to this recording stream, I started a game that had just been sitting in my Steam library, which I hadn't played ah that I purchased a couple months ago.
00:16:44
Speaker
i started to play Pepper Grinder. Have you ever heard of this? Pepper Grinder? Pepper Grinder. Pepper Grinder is a kind of a 16-bit style ah platformer. I believe it came out a year or two ago. ah I'd heard a lot of really positive chatter about it, and that's sort of aesthetic and, you know, style of platformer I really enjoy. So I went and i ah you know, I purchased it and then finally got to play it this past week.
00:17:19
Speaker
And I really enjoyed I played the first world up to the the first boss who I figured out how to beat, but I haven't beaten yet. You know how that is. And what the gimmick, Pepper Grinder, know, these games...
00:17:39
Speaker
like a ah good platform today really kind of lives and dies on the the quality of the game field. Yeah. The quality, like if you're if you're gonna make a platform in this decade,
00:17:54
Speaker
or even in the 21st century, or even in any century, people are going to be like, oh you know, the the game feel. Arrow the Acrobat doesn't have good game feel. His jumps don't feel good.
00:18:06
Speaker
Yeah, hate Super Mario Brothers 1. Mario has good game feel. And so this has a ah big movement gimmick that feels really good, which is that you have this drill hand Uh, like you can drill through like, so you can walk around like kind of normal and in jump normal platform stuff. But you have this drill hand where you can drill into dirt, uh, dig dug style, except that instead of just kind of walking, it's ah in a drill motion. So you're, you're in constant movement and you're always moving forward. So you have, you can, uh, like, you know, steer the drill. You can't like just turn around on a dime.
00:18:53
Speaker
and like there's some technique to the movement and how you glide from dirt to dirt and it it feels really good and I'm not particularly good at it but I really like it it really pulls me in both with how it looks, but just how how entertaining like the kind of general movement style of the game is. Looking at gameplay footage, it feels like it has like a very nice rhythmic element to the way that the drill sort of seems to pull you forward and dip you into the ground. Yeah. It has a little bit of a, like when you're playing
00:19:39
Speaker
like a 2D Sonic and there's kind of a, like ah a speed element, like a very fast reaction. And did make me think a little bit of, of playing those, those Sonic games, the the parts about parts of them that i enjoy.
00:19:56
Speaker
But yeah, I really, I'm like, I was very pleasantly surprised. It was just one of those, oh yeah, this thing I fucking bought. I don't even know why I bought it. And then trying it out and being like, oh, I bought it because I heard it was good. And as it turns out, it's,
00:20:08
Speaker
Yeah. Well, Ben, if if you liked this game, ah the Overwatch character for you is Venture. Venture is an archaeologist with a drill that allows them to burrow under the ground, popping out behind enemies and surprising them and then drilling through them in what I imagine must be just a horrific physical experience. um So, yeah, if if you're thinking, how can I chase the high a Pepper Grinder in a first-person team-based hero shooter, Venture's to be your character.
00:20:43
Speaker
Great. Well, I'll check that out then.
00:20:47
Speaker
You'll love it. It's almost exactly the same. All right.
Interaction Magazine and Sierra's Marketing Strategies
00:20:52
Speaker
Well, folks, this a week... ah We are going to talk about Interaction Magazine.
00:21:03
Speaker
yes we are. I cannot be more excited either. no Boy, i love me some interaction. Jess, you're you're not only are you as like a ah fan of Interaction, but you're you're literally a scholar of gaming magazines.
00:21:21
Speaker
li am This is true. Yeah. I mean, published a couple of pieces in journals now about, about old video game magazines and some stuff in on websites here and there as well, looking at old advertisements and and old video game magazines. So this is very much an area of not just sort of personal interest from a kid who grew up absolutely loving video game magazines and just reading them cover to cover and then reading them cover to cover again and again until the next issue came out.
00:21:59
Speaker
There's that element of it, but I'm also deeply curious about it as someone who researches pop culture in my day job. Mm hmm. And for for anyone that's unfamiliar, you and i both got Interaction Magazine.
00:22:16
Speaker
But for anyone who's unfamiliar, what is Interaction Magazine? Interaction Magazine was Sierra's in-house magazine. It started out as a simple newsletter that dates back to the 1980s.
00:22:30
Speaker
It would eventually evolve into a full magazine format, first under the title Sierra Dynamics News Magazine. And actually, one of the issues we'll be talking about today is under that title.
00:22:42
Speaker
And then eventually settled on Interaction as as the final title. So this is going to be an in-house magazine. It's going to have, uh, you know, previews of upcoming games. It's going to have hints. It's going to have, it's going have advertisements, including advertisements for non Sierra games. Yes, which is wild to me. It's wild to me too. And I mean, I guess you have to underwrite the cost of producing this magazine. You're going to away for free because most people who get this, I mean, the way that I got interaction as a kid was I filled out my Sierra registration cards, which put me on their mailing list and they simply sent me interaction magazines. And some months they would send me four or five copies of it. Because I think their mailing list must have been a huge mess. And I think about how much money that must have wasted if they did that to a lot of kids. So it's it's really interesting.
00:23:38
Speaker
I'm really thinking about. so So today for this, you picked... two issues of interaction or or rather like Sierra dynamics magazine, and then also interaction, ah the summer of 1991. So was it quarterly? Like, was it it? was quarterly. It was quarterly. And I think they dropped in a couple of holiday issues in addition to a winter issue here and there.
00:24:04
Speaker
And, um, so we read 1991 summer and, summer And we also read 1992 Summer. And we we got them from, there was an archive of these on, what it, Sierra Gamer?
00:24:17
Speaker
Yeah, CRGamers.com. I think they're also on the internet archive, RetroMags.com. You can find these lots of places. So they're easily accessible out there. I picked these couple because they're two that kind of loomed large in my memory. i also feel like this is sort of the heyday. This is this is this is the peak, especially in 1992 because they they preview what's coming out that fall. And I was like, big year.
00:24:42
Speaker
Yeah, and I mean, what you've got out of these two is I think also the last time when Sierra was a company that was overwhelmingly focused on adventure games. As you start to get into 93, you begin to see edutainment products creep in as more and more of it You start to see home productivity products start to creep in here. You start to see more of the flight sims and some of that other stuff.
00:25:05
Speaker
At this point, Sierra certainly wasn't exclusively a adventure game company but they were still clearly predominantly an adventure game company so that this period for me when I think of interaction this 91 92 over into 93 a bit uh is what I really think of it's it's really interesting to me looking at these magazines what I found because I read both of these cover to cover And what was so interesting to me was the dedication this like magazine that was designed to sell Sierra games had to creating this idea that it was like just straight legitimate magazine.
00:25:56
Speaker
Yes, like it it wasn't, it took great pains to not be like a brochure, but to be, and this is a very 90s idea, right? Like to be this big glossy magazine is is a very kind of,
00:26:12
Speaker
like glamorous, like night business thing. Like you can see in both issues, there's like a full masthead ah on the first, like one of the first couple pages where like Ken Williams, ah like is listed as publisher. Like it's like publisher, editor, like it it is completely like in it is extremely interested in presenting this vision of
00:26:46
Speaker
not only being a real magazine, but also being kind of adult a little bit. Like it's like in comparison to something like something similar, like a Nintendo power, which, um, that was the, that was more specifically aimed towards kids. Definitely. And this, this has a more adult audience,
00:27:09
Speaker
in mind like teenagers and adults um and you can tell that teenagers are the audience because there's a lot of teen fan art yes in both issues yes uh like including like i think like a 12 year old draws like leisure suit larry and i was just like hey Yeah, that's a lot of cool kid. You know, I think that's one big difference. Like when you compare this to something like Nintendo Power, you know, that clearly they're trying to split the difference and appeal to kind of an audience that is going to include some adults. I mean, there's I mean, when Ken Williams is busy giving out like computer upgrade and how to succeed at business advice.
00:27:52
Speaker
We're going to talk about that. I mean, clearly that's not for your average, like 10 year old kid, but something else that sort of leaps out at me that I find fascinated about these, and I'm sure this is something we'll talk about.
00:28:03
Speaker
It is not just trying to sell you Sierra games. It is really trying to sell you on Sierra, the company as well. oh there's a That's a, that's a very wonderful observation. Yeah, I mean, there is a lot of work here to make you sort of get a sense of who are the people creating these games? yeah What is life like at Sierra Online? yeah who We're trying to stick faces to this company all the way down to like customer service folks are getting a chance to like yeah seem human and in these pages. So it's it's wonderful in terms of like...
00:28:38
Speaker
giving that little bit of a peek behind the curtain, but also just sort of, i mean, I know as a kid, I think we may have made this comparison before, you know, um it reminds me a little bit of, i imagine, you know Bart's visit to the Mad Magazine offices yeah on The Simpsons, know, because like I have this idea. It's like, I think I know the company culture at Sierra from reading- They're all best friends and they hang out and they all make really games. And they would probably be best friends with me and they yeah if I were there. Yeah, no. there is But the magazine is working overtime to sell you on this idea of what Sierra is as a company. And I'm sure we're getting, you know, again, the company newsletter may not be the most unbiased source to go for that information. Yeah. I think it's in the second one that we were looking at.
00:29:25
Speaker
There's a, like, you know, get to know Sierra, like get to know Oakhurst. And there's this drawing, like this caricature of California that shows...
00:29:37
Speaker
like San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, like all the, like, you know, kind of notable San Diego, I think is in there notable cities of California. And, you know, kind of draws there like a little, little doodle of um like, you know, you see the golden gate bridge with San Francisco and then Oakhurst, it draws as this mighty gold castle.
00:30:02
Speaker
Yeah, that's in the first issue. That's in the 91 issue. I'm looking at it now. Yeah, it's like, yeah. And Oakhurst, by this map, is larger than San Francisco or um i mean it's just true Which is true. It is a bigger city.
00:30:18
Speaker
Yeah. But, yeah I mean, this is, you know, very much so. mean, it walks you sort through, like, What goes on at CRHQ and then for information, if you want to make reservations to visit, ah here's how you do it. I mean, I've mentioned on the podcast before, clearly this worked on me because I would have done this too.
00:30:37
Speaker
When I took my honeymoon to San Francisco in 2003, we planned a couple of days in Yosemite. And a big part of that was because I wanted to go. and This is after Sierra had already shut down in 2003. just wanted to see the city. I wanted to see the talking bear. I wanted to see the building.
00:30:58
Speaker
um So clearly... you know I don't know if these things were narrow casted at me. It certainly worked because I'm still talking about Sierra today and yeah the um well what i keep my i have a lot of questions the main one is was it like kind of this beautiful outdoor like kind of like beautiful place to live like that's the main pitch because otherwise it's like oh shit i'm in the middle of nowhere yeah no i mean it was i mean if you've ever like spent much time
00:31:31
Speaker
like in the towns that are at the foothills of whatever sort of adventure sports opportunities are around, you like the town you go to, to rent your mountain bike or to get the shuttle up to where you're going to whitewater raft or, you know, kind of all of those mountain towns where you get the sense that it's there to serve that outdoor tourist sort of vibe. It's very much that. which is a charming vibe. I mean, the locale is gorgeous. i mean, it literally is just right on the outskirts of Yosemite national park, uh, surrounded by mountains, just a gorgeous little town just nestled there in the Hills.
00:32:10
Speaker
That's it. I mean, what, ah that that is a very interesting thing to, especially imagining living there before like, uh, real internet and trying to run like a, uh, like a publicly traded company. yeah No, yeah absolutely. yeah I mean, the challenges of doing anything there, like it's the sort city where I imagine if you had like a big truck full of game boxes, you need to ship.
00:32:39
Speaker
Um, you'd have to really think carefully about what roads could handle an 18 wheeler around town. know And like, who are you going to hire? What company, what company, like what warehouses, are you building the warehouses? Are you leasing? Like whose warehouses? Like, yeah.
00:32:54
Speaker
It is kind of warehouses? Who's warehouses? How's warehouses? So the the first thing I noticed with both of these issues, yes and I wrote down the fucking nerve in my notes here, is that these have ah costs on on the cover. ah And there's no way anyone has ever paid any money for these other than exorbitant prices on eBay, which I was looking at. Yeah, I don't think...
00:33:21
Speaker
these were ever on a newsstand anywhere yeah the first issue has 175 dollar 75 the second issue is up to 295 295 yeah 295 and grand it's a beefier issue it is they they have like 20 there's 20 more pages but and honestly the production value in this is quite good i mean it looks as good as any real magazine gaming magazine it looks like a real magazine it's very impressive it doesn't feel like in-house slot yeah it's not a ton of like cheap clip art that you got uh from some you corral print shop or something like that so so the first thing in both issues is a lengthy editorial from ken williams oh these are amazing they persist up until he sells the company and they're so good they're so good every one of them and
00:34:14
Speaker
I'm going to be honest with you, Jess. I kind of tapped out on the second one. The first one, he kind of had me. I was kind of like, oh, this is interesting. the The second one, I was just like, shut the fuck up. Jesus Christ. He's a man with a philosophy, which I kind of love. um He's a man with a like a that has a philosophy that writes like he is writing an intro to business textbook.
00:34:36
Speaker
the So the first one is about um like the how quickly PC ah computer technology is it advancing at this moment.
00:34:50
Speaker
And it's a lot of like, ah you know, we've been getting a lot of. letters from people who are mad like our games don't support their computer like we they can't run our games on their computer anymore and like this that and the other and um it like he just goes like yeah it sucks don't know what to tell you. Yeah. well like It really does. I mean, it sounds pretty sucky. I mean, and it's funny because he does a lot of this through like his personal lens. He's talking about like last Christmas, I bought my parents a Tandy HX and then I bought my son this 386 or 286 computer that I just spent $1,500 to upgrade to a 386 SX, but it's not running very well. It's flaky.
00:35:36
Speaker
I can't afford to buy a new computer every two years now, Ken.
00:35:41
Speaker
yeah what do you mean what kind and do you mean kenneth williams yeah every two years you can't afford to buy a new computer I think you could use a computer like in disposable form like you could use it once and throw it away and be fine do you think ah Do you think Ken wrote these? Or do you think that an executive like comms decision assistant wrote these? Or maybe like he said, like this this month, or this this is what I'm going to write about. You take care of it.
00:36:18
Speaker
I am 1000% sure he wrote these. yeah this is These are the the words, the real words of Ken. Yes. Just having read all of them over the course of his run and having read his stuff, he used to publish in magazines about programming for the Apple too and stuff like that. Because for a while there, he was doing this sort of stuff in early industry magazines too.
00:36:44
Speaker
um he, it feels very consistent. If he is having them written by someone else, I think he's having them written by the same other person. Uh, but this really feels like,
00:36:57
Speaker
I think this is Ken. Ken's never been shy about sharing his view of the world as his view of the industry. That was a leading question. I also believe that it was. Yeah. I mean, it is so idiosyncratic.
00:37:10
Speaker
I just, I mean, just like one of the pull quotes in this summer, 1991, which i love that you'd use this as a pull quote product, which is does not take advantage of the latest technology will not get stocked on retail shelves.
00:37:25
Speaker
All right, assholes. So that's why we're not going to do black and white Macintosh anymore. Yeah, but that's why Ken, like, throughout his history, I mean, like, that sort of look at how technology and gaming intersect with one another he's consistent about that from the earliest days just this idea that you know we have to push the boundaries we have to push the boundaries and there's a reason like a lot of these editorials come down to him just like trying to sell people hardware it's like oh this how how do i get you into a sound card how do i get you into a cd-rom that's a yeah a big part of the project like of the interaction project just even looking at these two is that like they're constantly pushing like especially
00:38:11
Speaker
You know, a thing that ended up being ah a loser for Sierra, but it was really cool, was the
Sierra's Technological and Cultural Endeavors
00:38:19
Speaker
Sierra Network. um And like in like ah the the article about the Sierra Network that they have in there, which was just for context, if you're unfamiliar, was their attempt at this big thing.
00:38:35
Speaker
uh, online game world in the early nineties. Um, yeah, like a copy of serve, but really more graphically driven. Yeah. Checkers and stuff. Boogers. Oh, boogers is great. Um, but, uh, uh,
00:38:49
Speaker
like there's a big banner at the top where it's just like need, you know, interested in buying a modem, go to the back pages for more information. Like in the 91 issue, there's like a ah guide in the back on how to install stuff into like new hardware into your computer.
00:39:08
Speaker
Like yeah it is a sincere effort because it's just like, you know i'm I'm going to assume that like the the thought here is that the the the the bigger markets will come when there's more kind of flash in computers.
00:39:31
Speaker
And so everybody has to get on the same page and we all need CD-ROMs and we all need sound cards and we all need modems. Yeah. I mean, like later on, Ken spends at least one entire editorial in a future issue, just talking about the need for like a multimedia PC standard, which eventually the industry would adopt that lasted.
00:39:50
Speaker
God, how long did that brief standard of this is what every computer should have to be multimedia approved. Um, but he's really banging that drum because I think he realizes, you know, we can't, uh,
00:40:03
Speaker
We can't, you know, push the envelope here with our technology if our user base has ah thousand different platforms with all kinds of different hardware capabilities.
00:40:15
Speaker
There's in one of these issues, like there's a hilarious bit about running the games on Amiga. I don't know if you happen to see that. Yes. Yes. Yeah. It's in the 92 and there's a little grid. Yeah.
00:40:26
Speaker
it's yeah ninety two and there's a little grid ah yeah that So that's really interesting. So this is in the 1992 one. And the next article on the the the the page after it is about ah like how to troubleshoot problems with your Mac. Yeah.
00:40:46
Speaker
Yes. And it's interesting. You have the two like kind of side platforms that Sierra doesn't really care that much about in the back, specifically about the problems that they have. And there isn't a ah thing about like troubleshooting DOS question mark. Like... Now, and it's great, too, because like the Amiga one that like the title of the the the little feature is changing face of Amiga games. game New technology is leaving some Amigas behind. And then the bottom, it has the chart and of games and compatibility. But it literally just says games that work OK on older amed Amiga setups. Like these are the games that work OK. Yeah. Yeah. They work okay. I wouldn't say they're great, but they work okay. And then one column is runs okay, AGI.
00:41:31
Speaker
Then the other column is runs slow and requires disk swapping. so i mean, they really do. They seem to be, if anything, like the subtext here seems to be like, do you really want Amiga kid? i don't know. But they yeah, this this marriage of technology and and the games is such a big part of both of these issues. and it will be throughout interactions history.
00:41:53
Speaker
Yeah. um that And so Ken's other editorial I found way less interesting because it was just kind of him tooting his horn, which is just like a lot of, it begins with him just being like a lot of people come up to me everywhere.
00:42:11
Speaker
Could be a scout function at a school event. at re they they they want me to They want me to talk everywhere like about success. And I'm just like... What do I know about success? You know, you might think I'm an extremely successful person, but, you know, I don't think I'm a successful person.
00:42:29
Speaker
And then he lists like, what, 10 things? Yeah. And they're all just like the dumbest, you know, dumbest. It's like day by day calendar advice or stuff like success is possible. There's only a question of whether or not you're willing to pay the price. And it's like, all right, sure. Oh, here's a failure. Failure is predictable, controllable and a natural byproduct of success.
00:42:53
Speaker
Yeah, man. Cool, bro. Yeah, I know. I mean, but again, it is him. Just let all of this feels so much like his philosophy to business for better or worse. I mean, he's the one selling around the world on a yacht right now while I'm recording a podcast with no sponsors. So... who am i to to save the time you still have time we'll sell this podcast and then we'll get our own yachts oh man then we'll make our own ah tribute to uh like a vr tribute to a game that we loved when we were a small like much younger do you think like the smart list guys would maybe buy our podcast do you think maybe we could like reach out to them
00:43:36
Speaker
Yeah, this is, it's going some good news situation where we just sell it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like fucking peace. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm hoping like EA looks at it and they're like, oh man, we'd love to have like an in-house podcast about retro games. And then they buy and just shut us down. Perfect.
00:43:54
Speaker
Yeah. EA, we're available. Yeah. QuestQuestPodcast at gmail.com. Yeah. That could yours. Or if you want to just like buy out one of us and not the other, DecafJedi at gmail.com.
00:44:06
Speaker
So... Going on on the 91 one. The 91 one. The 91 one. one we We also have a story about simultaneously ah the remake of Larry 1 and Larry 5 has this very interesting little tidbit, which is that Al Lowe's original idea for the remake of Larry 1 was FMV. he wanted yes something FMV and Bill Davis talked him out of it.
00:44:36
Speaker
And I'm just kind of like,
00:44:39
Speaker
i'm i Bill Davis was right. Bill Davis was like, it says specifically, he says, like, Larry was ah is a cartoon character. He's not.
00:44:49
Speaker
and But I do want to i do want to see i want to see what the FMV Larry would have been. Oh, my God. It's made, like, you know, the the one that started production. and it be when it proud It sounds like they what they probably would have done was do the digital actors like they do in Kron Dore and Police Quest.
00:45:10
Speaker
But even that would have still been pretty funny. You know what? Actually, I think could work. I do think Bill Davis is right here. ah Like Larry... like the sort of cute innocence that arguably is supposed to be there at the core of Larry goes away very quickly. I think if this is live action, now it becomes a much more salacious in nature. It's either salacious or very sad. or very sad. Yeah. where the One of the two Yeah. That's, that's where I would, you know, that's, that's the, the FMV Larry I want is I want one that is existentially upsetting.
00:45:47
Speaker
Now here's my pitch for 2026 reboot of Larry. Can we reboot Larry again? Is it too soon? i mean, i did are they even stopped with the most recent, like the, I'm not sure if that's a going concern.
00:46:02
Speaker
don't know. Like the last one, like what? Like, Three, four years ago. Okay. Yeah. So pretty recent. I don't know. Yeah. so So they might, they might have another one in them. If the license is out there and I acquire it and I want to do just like something that's bad. Stare Larry.
00:46:17
Speaker
Stare Larry. But he's constantly staring at women. Yeah. um no what the larry No. If you wanted to like tackle this FMV version, how fun would a Roger Rabbit style play?
00:46:32
Speaker
where you have live actors all around a cartoon Larry B.
00:46:40
Speaker
Maybe. It's still a bad idea. It's still a bad, you're still making soft core porn if you aren't careful. Yeah. You know, it's... i Bill Davis is right. yeah That's why That's why everyone that's why he made the Big Bucks. That's why every time he showed up and in both of these magazines, he had a hilarious glamour shot with his long, luxurious hair. It's so good. It was in one shot sumptuously.
00:47:08
Speaker
like yeah Yeah, real, real Kenny G album cover vibes going on. Yeah, he's he's got the the photos of Bill Davis. Those are really funny. They made me laugh every time he shows up.
00:47:22
Speaker
All right. So I have to ask you about this. This talks about I'd heard of, but I didn't, I didn't ever, I've never messed around with this. The Laffer Utilities. Have you yeah ever the Laffer, the Leisure Suit Larry themed office parody stuff?
00:47:39
Speaker
Yeah, I've loaded it up a few times. It doesn't work great on modern computers. Weirdly, it doesn't, like in DOSBox, it doesn't run great. I've yet to find a good way to emulate it. but yeah, it's like... So it's not a, it can't be run in ScumVM?
00:47:56
Speaker
No, it's not SCI, I don't think. um So I think it's like its own weird thing, but it's like an office utility. Like if you need something like printing out fax cover sheets. That was the first thing that my my eye went to, which was yeah you can make funny fax cover sheets. And I'm just like...
00:48:15
Speaker
Or office bedding pools if you need to like print something like that out or you need to decide where to go to lunch. Or it's all just Larry themed office silly doodads. It's such a throwaway product. I mean, they even marketed it at $34.95. So i think this is budget range right for Sierra at the time. I really want to know what it was like to.
00:48:40
Speaker
I've never worked at an office before the internet. Yeah. um And, and I would love, or, or, you know, like before the internet was the entire job of it.
00:48:50
Speaker
um Yeah. And, and so I would, I would, I'm, I'm, I'm deeply curious about the, the nineties office experience as someone that my entire adult career is, is just doesn't have any of that where the idea of a funny facts cover sheet ah you know, might be something that could sell as a program.
00:49:14
Speaker
Yeah. Like my early, my early office work career was at the tail end of the fax era. And you would occasionally see something like someone would send you just like a silly little fax cover, like their cover sheet would have a Ziggy on it or something like that. And you're like, Oh, that's really charming.
00:49:34
Speaker
I can't believe faxes still exist. um But yeah, Laffer Utilities is fascinating to me. you know, this preview also, i mean, this is a theme that I think comes up in both these issues that's worth mentioning.
00:49:45
Speaker
This little Larry preview of Larry's new look is written by Lorelai Shannon. Yeah. Who would go on to create. Lorelai shows up all over the atlas. Yeah. Josh a little bit too. She's busy in here. Yeah, i mean, she would, of course, later design King's Quest VII, Phantasmagoria Did she work on... i think she worked on Peppers. She did work on Peppers. Or as it's called in the 1992 interaction, Twisty History.
00:50:11
Speaker
Twisty History. Twisty History. History that's so twisty. Twist... we it it was still The twist toys in this history. um So, i i they you know, ah it's it's so tempting. the i'm I'm going to be honest here.
00:50:32
Speaker
These magazines are very rich. they there's There's a lot. And I took... Like little notes on every... And I'm like, we can't go out through every single article. No, no. I want to, but but we can't. There's good stuff everywhere. but There's good stuff everywhere. So I'm going to hop to... So we have um in this issue...
00:50:56
Speaker
It really ah talks up, and he's also on the cover. The cover has a lot of the the upcoming stars of the the next, like, fall Christmas season. They have a whole sequence, like, little spread on Wally Beamish.
00:51:11
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And ah it has like, you know, the the big thing, and I fell for this. I fell for this at the time. As a kid, I so desperately wanted Wally Beamish because like of how they advertised it because they're like, it has artists from The Little Mermaid, Johnny Quest and The Simpsons and quote, ah Computer Gaming World said that Wally Beamish may well be the benchmark in computer animation that Snow White was for cinematic animation. yeah now man just to clarify if i can interrupt ben ah for those you who are listening if you played this game in the north american release it was of course uh known here as the adventures of willie beamish but elsewhere around the world in europe in australia uh japan this character was called wally beamish it's only in north america that we get willie and since
00:52:06
Speaker
It's kind one those things like you release it three or four regions under this name and one region is Willie. I think like most historians tend to call this Wally. When we say Wally, you know, we're talking about what you might know as Willie Jamesh.
00:52:18
Speaker
so so So it's just very funny that they they haven't. it This may well be the benchmark in computer animation that Snow White was for Cine. No, no one no one ever talked about Wally Beamish like that at all. I am going to note, and I think we'll we'll talk about this. This is in in both.
00:52:38
Speaker
But in the rumor mill section, which again, we we could we could talk more about the rumor mill section, but it says... ah that a Wally Beamish sequel is already in development even before they release the adventures of Wally Beamish.
00:52:56
Speaker
Like they're, that's how high on Wally Beamish they are confident that this game is going to be the biggest, like there is such a swinging dick ah confidence that,
00:53:11
Speaker
to ah like how excited they are about Wally Beamish that when you get to interaction of summer 1992 and they have a feature on Jeff Tunnell who was ah the designer of Wally Beamish of course it calls out how incredible that game was and how expensive it was and how wonderful it was.
Development Insights for Sierra's Games
00:53:36
Speaker
And then ah Jeff, tunnel and then it goes, Jeff Tunnel has spun off into Jeff Tunnel productions, like the first independent studio within dynamics. Yeah. And he says he wants to work on games that aren't huge productions like Wally Beamish.
00:53:52
Speaker
So i that they pre in like that that sequel that was in production already is dead in the like dead in the dirt.
00:54:04
Speaker
like This is fascinating to me, though because, you know, you mentioned that, you know, the sequel to Wally Beamish first comes up in the rumor mill column. And this rumor mill column there is wonderful. It's a fixture of the magazine. It's written by Johnny Magpie, who I can reveal here is John Williams. Wow. I believe Kim's chems ke brother. Williams.
00:54:29
Speaker
ki ken will william miiums kim williams all right yeah uh this is i believe ken's brother and i believe it was like head of sierra legal but as a kid i would read this rumor mill you like this one reveals like one guy from andromeda becomes the guy from eugene oregon and sort of the story of mark crowe leaving sierra for dynamics and i would remember reading this stuff and being like or you know when it promises a wally beamish too And then it's like, oh, i wonder where he's getting this information. and it's just like, he is an employee at this company. high up employee. Yes. Who is being asked to produce, you know, teases that will get fans excited for this. So, yeah, I don't think as a kid, I fully realized like, well, these aren't exactly rumors. these ah These clearly are something rumor adjacent, rather. But yeah I mean, I i would flip right to that when I got an issue of of interaction, I had to see what was going on in the in in the rumor mill. the The rumor mill is more interesting in 91 than it is in 92. I didn't... yeah The 91 one has a couple... So, so yeah. It has Mark Crowe leaving to Dynamics. it has that there's a Wally Beamish sequel.
00:55:52
Speaker
um It says that... Jim Walls has another police quest and another codename, like ah another Johnny Westlake.
00:56:02
Speaker
Yeah. Codename Phoenix. um And then it also says that Quest for Glory 3 is not canceled. It's just postponed. Don't worry, everybody who did come in.
00:56:13
Speaker
You know, before we move on from the 91 issue, there is a fantastic Q&A with the Jim Walls, designer of Police Quest. and Oh, yeah. And Codename Iceman. I just love this short excerpt ah where he says, speaking about Codename Iceman, I'll never put a submarine in another game. the same quote down. I didn't know anything about submarines to begin with.
00:56:39
Speaker
Well, what what's what's really interesting is that when he, so I wrote down the same quote. I'm glad that this, the screen dead to both of you. He's like, I'll never, I'll never have a have a do the submarine again. And I'm like, Oh, he knows it was bad.
00:56:54
Speaker
yeah And then this game came out like a year ago and he's already at one huge mistake, but no, it's, it's that he's complaining about how much research Like, because he goes on, he's like, oh, well, you know, I had to get like these nuclear submarine experts in and and do all this reading and stuff. And it's like, yeah, man, that was the most exciting part was like how well researched it was. yeah i read Hunt for Red October.
00:57:19
Speaker
the end. That's the extent of my research. Yeah, the the the gym, I will note that the interview also has an advertisement for codename Iceman t-shirt.
00:57:35
Speaker
Oh my God. What would you do to get one of those Ben? oof There's another, there was another ah piece of merchandise that I saw in here that I was like, I wonder how many, like if, if this exists anywhere, anywhere, which was ah earlier in the leisure suit Larry section there, they were selling leisure suit Larry auto shades Yes.
00:57:59
Speaker
And I was like, they can't have sold that man Like there can't be that many. I would love to see a leisure suit, Larry auto shade on somebody's car.
00:58:11
Speaker
Yes. No, absolutely. No, that, that is the, does it ah what is it? It has like a hard drive is good to find or so it has some sort of like innuendo. I'd, I believe doesn't, I can't remember. I'm thinking of a different product.
00:58:26
Speaker
What was it? Oh, a yeah. A hard drive is good to find. Yeah. the yeah oh um I will know. Yeah, I know you were starting to move on, but there was one more thing I wanted you to talk about. i think I've got one more thing in this issue, too. Okay. Well, might be the same one, which is the the game of the month.
00:58:43
Speaker
yeah just shit shit shit Yes, yes, yes, yes, The game of the note month is Space Quest 4. and then there's a feature, which it says is an external review that they're reprinting, which I don't know It is. It's from Game Players Magazine. This was their game of the month.
00:59:00
Speaker
And um what it is is screenshots of what appears to be, like, I would say maybe 75% of the game Space Quest 4. Spoiled completely. like Like, from the beginning to the end, pretty much everything, it just totally spells out everything.
00:59:21
Speaker
is Every story beat. Space Quest 4 not very long, so Yeah. Well, let me tell you, I saw this feature. Yeah. I think you've talked before I played space quest four and on the one hand it hyped me for it. Like this is where I first, I think saw it might've been this very issue where I first saw Roger back in space quest one, like the, the shot of him in Yuland's flats and that got me super hyped, but also like looking back.
00:59:48
Speaker
Yeah. I knew exactly what was going to happen. i mean this is every story beat. I mean, it is. It also says that you can visit space quest two. Yeah. Oh, does it? Space Quest 2? It does. It says you can go to Vohal's Revenge. That's a lie.
01:00:01
Speaker
That part's a lie. it's I hate those people. Yeah, but now this is such a weird feature because that's literally, I think there are like 25 screenshots here and it's like going to the Moby Games page for Space Quest 4 and just go, it's like yeah, you know, you don't need to play Space Quest 4 anymore. We've just told you every single thing that happens. What a weird choice. And then to run it in your own magazine. It's like,
01:00:24
Speaker
Here's spoilers. like don't Don't buy your game. Yeah. All right. so So moving on to the 92 one. Okay. okay Now we are officially Interaction Magazine, your guide to interactive excitement. The 92 one already has more ads in it. It opens with an ad for the Lost Treasures Infocom, which ah the last tragedy movie of that of infocom not only like is also notable for being like a much needed hit for Activision at that moment. yes Um, which, so actually it's, it was, it it turned out that it was only, it only caused evil.
01:01:12
Speaker
What I love here. Sorry. Yeah. Oops. Like if they didn't do that, Activision might not have existed today. Think about that.
01:01:24
Speaker
How lovely. way I don't think I ever put this timeline together in my head completely, but the lost treasures of Infocom, you know, which again is like,
01:01:35
Speaker
framing this as the infocom games in a in like a compilation box a handsome box yeah like some of these like later titles are like four and five years old at this time yeah they are so lost that there's a decent chance you might still find like beyond zork in the bargain bin your local software i mean I think, i look but back then that was like a lifetime, a game that came out five years ago back then. yes You know, if you had a computer that could play it and discs that would still function, anything else that did feel like a lost treasure at some level. Yeah. That's what I was going to say is like, also it's like, you know, not to say that this doesn't happen because obviously games get pulled from stores or like, you know, the licenses will, will lapse or whatever. But yeah,
01:02:22
Speaker
It is generally like, you know, games don't have limited runs and become discontinued. um And it's also, it's like a game from 10 years ago that worked on Windows, which probably works on Windows now.
01:02:37
Speaker
Probably. Like, you know, it might not, but it probably will. um and and that just wasn't like the lost treasures of infocom like you you know you might they might be lost treasures to you because you don't use your commodore 64 anymore you know yeah that's right like um but anyway yeah so that was really cool there's um The letters section is pretty interesting because one of the letters which I wrote real question mark, question mark, question mark next to is that somebody's sending in an email. ah Their kid loves Bill Davis.
01:03:16
Speaker
Like he does the voice of the old man in, uh, his quest five. And I think he shows up in something else. And like, it's like my kid loves bill Davis. And, and I'm like, that doesn't seem real.
01:03:32
Speaker
Um, Then there was definitely a real ah letter though of 16 year old who reminds them that they're a Sierra stockholder here which is back get a wedgie furious about ah how easy the point and click interface has made adventure games.
01:03:53
Speaker
which that one's real. That one's real. Yeah. Yeah. And they, yeah, they refer Keith Holliman of Leonard town, Maryland. That's right. To put you on um im blast. Keith, if you're a listener, reach out to us. It's quest quest podcast at gmail.com. They refer him to Roberta Williams's interview later in the issue where she's going to assure him that these point in click games are about to get better.
01:04:19
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, King's Quest V is a pile of shit. And we all know it. i So we we also have in in this one ah so in the the previous issue, they were they they talked about like,
01:04:39
Speaker
Leisure Suit Larry 1 and Space Quest 1 VGA ah and King's Quest 1 the SEI Zero remake and then in this one the two new ones Police Quest 1 and Quest for Glory 1 And so you know, those of you who are longtime listeners know my affection for Quest for Glory 1 VGA. You also know my affection for the fucked up clay faces.
01:05:07
Speaker
and this tells us all about those. they may It talks about the process. You get to see photos of some of the the just the clay like features, including ah Toro. And he looks sexy.
01:05:23
Speaker
Oh, sexy as hell. yeah they they they They make Toro very ripped in clay form. They make Toro very sexy. You know, something, though, that really leaps out at you as you look at this article that has lots of great photos of some of these models and and talks about their development and everything is you may, like, play Quest for Glory 1 VGA and think, wow, when they digitized these clay models, it really distorted them and made them look kind of crummy. Mm-hmm.
01:05:53
Speaker
But then you see some of the clay models. And in fact, the models themselves are quite crummy. Yeah. It's like, it turns out it's going to be a modeling situation. i digit We part ways on this. I think there's, I think both the models and the the digital, I think it all looks perfect. It is. No, let me say, i love it. I wouldn't change a pixel about that game. There's nothing wrong with this, but like the bizarreness of it, because everything is just,
01:06:21
Speaker
yeah Some of these character models are so wild. It gives that game such a unique and weird look. yeah Especially because there's no... like Obviously, there are games um that have like a clay aesthetic that have been made, but... um This isn't exactly that. It's It's like...
01:06:42
Speaker
it's an adventure game and then all the closeup models and the the battle animations are like these kind of painted over clay models. So they don't have a clay look, but they do have a weird like uncanny Valley look. Yes.
01:06:59
Speaker
And i think something I love about it is for a company that really leaned into a house style throughout most of its history. Mm-hmm.
01:07:10
Speaker
this looks nothing like these clay models in quest for glory one look nothing like anything else sierra ever did and i do love that tragedy yeah know why yeah they're out here saying what if we had a live action leisure suit larry why is nobody asking what if we had a claymation leisure suit larry that would have been credible can you imagine how good those models were yeah yeah yeah um then ah Then there's some stuff on the Police Quest 1 VGA, which is considerably less interesting. ah Like, Ben, can I call your attention to something that grabbed my eye back on page 12 of the summer? now Please, please, please.
01:07:52
Speaker
This is the order form for Sierra's great games at great prices. ah So you can order your games directly from Sierra. Ben, did you notice the price on Aces of the Pacific?
01:08:08
Speaker
No. Sierra's flight simulator. I remember playing Aces of the Pacific at the time. but Did you pay $79.95 on floppy? i I'm pretty sure I bought a remainder to seventy nine dollars and ninety five cents for aces of the pacific Aces is the Pacific. A10 Tank Killer is sitting there for $35.95. Wow. That's old news. a is That's old news. Yeah. is the Pacific curve. You know, that's the $79.95. I thought that was like a price point reserve for the new multimedia King's Quest games. And here it is.
01:08:52
Speaker
sitting there for a floppy disk version of aces of the pacific 79.95 that's over nine thousand dollars in today's dollars roughly i haven't looked that up they so there's a ah preview of what's coming up that fall huge fall as that king's quest six ah Quest for Glory 3.
01:09:17
Speaker
it was It was delayed, but you know not really that long. just ah Space Quest 5, great game. I think that top screenshot for Space Quest 5 does not appear in the game. Am I correct on that?
01:09:29
Speaker
I didn't think it's probably like a rough version of the intro scene. Let me, ah i don't i don't have it open. Let me take a look here. It's loading. Interaction, number volume five, number two Volume five. what ah What page is this on? We're on page 25.
01:09:48
Speaker
Page 25. Let's take a look here. um Oh, I don't think that appears in game, does it? Yeah, it's probably it looks like it's something from ah the... Like, yeah, so in in the the issue, for those of you who aren't going to... but page twenty five And you should follow along with this. Yeah, pull your car over.
01:10:08
Speaker
ah But age is Roger, as he appears in, like, the cutscene at the start of the game, like, sitting at a trackpad, but there's, like, a nebula in front of him.
01:10:21
Speaker
Like, kind of a targeting computer thing on the top left. And it, yeah, no, you don't see that in the game. Yeah, I was like, I looked at that and thought, am I just, am I going bonkers over here?
01:10:36
Speaker
Um, yeah. Uh, then... uh uh echo quest eco quest echo quest i say eco but both i think are acceptable uh two echo quest not a great game twisty history excellent that's a great also known as peppers adventures in time Or Wally Beamish 2.
01:11:01
Speaker
no Pepper's Adventures in Time. and then Well, in the Jeff Tunnel ah piece where he says he's not working on Wally Beamish 2, he does mention that he's working on, it does mention The Incredible Machine oh alongside two other games that I also had, which were also good, but not not The Incredible Machine.
01:11:21
Speaker
Just Johnny Cast Away. the incredible trapped on a desert Island screensaver and quirky and quasi's turbo science, which was just a science quiz game. That was really fun. It had that like Jeff tunnel style too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah yeah Um,
01:11:42
Speaker
I'll note there's a there's a feature here on Roberta Williams, and like there's a lot on like King's Quest Laura Bow, but then she talks a little bit about Scary Tales.
01:11:54
Speaker
Scary Tales. It's coming up as a high-resolution 640x400 game. It may be Sierra's first CD-only game. um Of course, this wouldn't be released under the title Scary Tales. it would eventually be released under the title the adventures of Wally Beamish 2.
01:12:13
Speaker
Uh...
01:12:17
Speaker
the The adventure continues. Isn't it weird that they titled that the adventures of Wally Beamish to the adventure continues like adventure twice in the title really very weird. There's a quote here that says I'm interested there. There's two actually I'm interested in this project.
01:12:33
Speaker
I'm really interested in this project about what would become Phantasmagoria. And then also she says serious horror, not just haunted houses and ghosts.
01:12:45
Speaker
Now I do want to know.
01:12:48
Speaker
Phantasmagoria is a game about a haunted toas a haunted house haunted by a ghost. yes yes yes um well not but not just haunted houses and ghosts there are also some people living in your barn yeah and there's a there's a fortune telling machine i mean it's not all ghosts and uh but yeah scary i kind of love this title scary tales that she kicked around for a few years before it settled on phantasmagoria i admit phantasmagoria is a more way better time i mean scary tales makes it sound very goose bumpy it doesn't go on a ermagerd uh you remember that man do you remember or no i don't remember that oh
01:13:35
Speaker
i thought that would like be like a no no no oh well well never mind there's only one thing i remember which is the millennials eat ass that's what your bumper sticker says
01:13:48
Speaker
It's not on your car. um um um But yeah. Yeah, the um um the Scary Tales, yeah, definitely gives it like young adult vibes. So I think it's smart that they shifted away from it. But I mean, she's invested in this idea for a long time. And I feel like, you know, honestly, then it kind of feels funny to me. If anything, Sierra, of course, will later also released the Shivers games, Shivers 1 and 2. I feel like Shivers almost evokes that same vibe for me that Scary Tales does of feeling a little bit more.
01:14:26
Speaker
young adult even though I don't think those games are I think they are I've never played the Shivers games you don't have it either should I play or what about um Lighthouse has a soda machine in it oh what about Lighthouse the dark being well you like played that one yeah yeah yeah yeah I want your opinion though Yeah, i mean, I've never played Lighthouse. I mean, what we i mean famously, we end up, I think, talking about like Space Quest 2 instead of Lighthouse. So what were your opinions on Lighthouse? Well, I'm going to save those. I'm going to save those. That's private.
01:14:58
Speaker
That's private until we do the episode on Lighthouse, the dark being. Were you actually like... worked for two weeks as an apprentice lighthouse keeper prep for that episode. And I also watched the, uh, the movie, the lighthouse.
01:15:13
Speaker
Yeah. and you played all the Bioshock games because there's always a man in a lighthouse. Don't get me fucking started on that. Those are the best games, Ben. did i would say the i to be derailed i think i feel I refuse to be derailed. to talk about. Remember Booker DeWitt? What a fun guy. He was like to talk about Bioshock. I will not be pulled down this path. I will not be pulled down and the primrose path of a Bioshock rant quickly. What's the best Bioshock?
01:15:51
Speaker
That be two. Yeah, that's correct. That would be two. I was playing a few a little bit recently. ah had a good time. a ah But this, yeah, I mean, this Roberta piece, I mean, there's a point in here. Oh, what is her, ah her quote? Doesn't she say that like she's feeling underutilized or something that at Sierra says she feels the need to, to make a different game. I mean, it is interesting hearing how Roberta sort sees her place in the company as like on the one hand, I'm the King's Quest and,
01:16:38
Speaker
you know, mixed up mother goose person. And then of course, touching in on the Laura bow games, which I think it's probably fair to say she was probably realistically closer to maybe like a producer on those games, maybe more so than designer writer, certainly by the second one. That's the case. But well she talks about it. Like she says, she's like, yeah, I came up with like the the characters and the ideas and Bruce be Balfour came in and and like put it like did all the ratings.
01:17:06
Speaker
you know yeah like put it all together um yeah no and it also does seem that she's very engaged and also like she doesn't want to be like the king's quest person she wants to yeah do something capital a adult um no haunted houses i'll speed through this because i know there's something you really want to talk about um But there is a feature on voice work at Sierra, which has information at the end on how you can audition to be a voice actor for Sierra. Mm-hmm.
01:17:39
Speaker
Jess, did you send a tape? I didn't. i I was not prepared to do that. I would have loved to have. um That was just very funny to me. Like, it's like, I'm not going have an end.
01:17:53
Speaker
to send a tape to Sierra. But this is okay. So this is the thing that you were, you were really excited. And and I'll say This is, I did enjoy reading this. This is a a comedy of errors, ah like this this a customer support exchange between somebody sending, these were real letters, right? Like handwritten letters or printed letters with somebody with ah the the who who did like tech support at Sierra.
01:18:27
Speaker
Yeah. So a customer writes in with ah a gentle and quite friendly complaint. They had received a Wally Beamish watch, which I'm guessing was that included in Wally Beamish? or Was that a mail away? I don't recall there being it, but it's an Adventures of Wally Beamish watch.
01:18:46
Speaker
ah You can apparently get it for $5.95 if you just call their number. But his Wally Beamish watch did not work arrival. Sounds like it fell apart in transit. Yeah.
01:18:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's so it's garbage when you get So you're at San and kind of jokingly says, you know, i thought about throwing it out just to see time fly. Ha ha ha. You know, if it come from any other company, I would have just ditched it. My new Sierra cares about customer service.
01:19:13
Speaker
Uh, so I'm sending it back. I don't need another one, but, uh, just, uh, just send it back to you guys. And he mentions at one point, you know he's like stuck at one point in, uh, in Wally Beama. She can't find Wally's dad.
01:19:25
Speaker
Uh, it just, you know, it kind of friendly. It ends with stick to making the best games on the market. And thanks for your time. Uh, it's, it's, it's someone writing like kind of, I'm giving you a hard time, but I just want you to know, like, you know, I don't really care.
01:19:39
Speaker
Like, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So the customer service rep, a Larry Buchanan writes back and has a really pleasant response about how much he enjoyed this, this customer's sense of humor and for his trouble and for his non-functioning watch, he's going to send him a copy of the Willie Beamish
Sierra's Customer Service and Nostalgia
01:19:58
Speaker
hint book.
01:19:58
Speaker
And he says in his response, I'm half tempted to send the hint book without the viewer. So you'll write back and share some more of your great sense of humor. At which point we get the next exchange in this in this back and forth. And these these letters are flying like every four to five days. there's out know the They're like overnighting these things back and forth or what's going on here.
01:20:20
Speaker
But in the next response, the customer says, you know, you mentioned you were tempted to not send the hitbook viewer, but guess what? ah You actually forgot to enclose the hitbook viewer. And some my old hint books are also no good because the markers have gone dry on them.
01:20:36
Speaker
So I don't really have a way to do this. like i'm I'm really stuck now. um At which point the customer service rep fires off. This was my favorite part of the exchange. Then you take this one. Yeah. Enclosed you should find, among many other things, at least 10 hint book viewers. Yeah.
01:20:54
Speaker
A new Gold Rush hint book, a new marker for your old hint book, and one pair of Sierra Online rose-colored glasses. And that just made me, does he bring up Gold Rush, or did he, like, is the CS rep...
01:21:09
Speaker
Just being like, and I threw in a gold rush. i dont Oh, wait, no, wait. He says, let's see. Until I looked at the book, the envelope behind the stamp, remembering that move paid off for Jared and gold rush. Yeah. So he mentions just gold rush in passing and passing in his previous message. So he's like, here's, here's a bunch of hint book viewers. Yeah. devilre chat book I just assume that hint for gold rush and hint book viewers were like, you know,
01:21:36
Speaker
There was probably a big yeah pile of them somewhere. So it's just like, yeah, whatever. Here you go. A gold Russian book. Yeah. Yeah. So, and I would love to know what Sierra online rose colored glasses look like, but I kind of love, i love that idea.
01:21:51
Speaker
So this, this goes on and on. Like they send each other t-shirts. They make fun of l low It goes on. yeah You could, what. He jokes about the customer service rep, but yeah he's like, I expected you'd be some sort of faceless corporate entity.
01:22:06
Speaker
ah but you you seem like such a nice real person. Then they start joking back and forth and calling each other like Mr. Faceless consuming entity. And I believe it ends with them like being like, well, if you're ever in town, I'll buy you lunch. Like, um,
01:22:21
Speaker
But it so I've worked customer support. I used to answer phones and answer emails and that sort of thing. And um every now and again, like it's it's mostly kind of like a very straightforward thing. Like this this thing doesn't work. And then you like fix it or refund it or whatever.
01:22:45
Speaker
Yeah. And, but like every once in a while, there's somebody who's being like kind of an amusing smart ass, like, and indicating like it's like, you know, i'm I'm game for this.
01:22:58
Speaker
and and And you could, if if if your office is cool with this and you have free time and Sierra obviously was encouraging us, then you could do that. um Like as long as, as you you know, you don't like piss anyone off. yeah And so like, that's what it reminded me of. It was just like, yeah, I remember when I like doing CS and then every once in a while you could like be kind of like cool CS. Like you'd have little fun.
01:23:25
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, this really, to me as a kid, loved this. This may be the single piece from all of Interaction that I thought about the most as a kid. And I think it's the one that, again, you know, we started off, I talked about how this magazine is also like selling Sierra's corporate yeah culture and Sierra's the brand and Sierra's a cool company, you know, like the way that maybe... be yeah A few other companies sell themselves. yeah I think that like Disney is a company that's always wanted to sell it. Which Ken is a company. Modeling.
01:23:58
Speaker
Absolutely. And you later, I think Blizzard had a period where they would do this really effectively until you know some of the realities of Blizzard yeah came came to light along the way. you read that book?
Book Discussion: Jason Schreier's Works
01:24:10
Speaker
Did you read the Playhouse book? How was that? was thinking about getting that.
01:24:14
Speaker
i mean It's good. I didn't enjoy it as much as Blood, Sweat, and Pixels. We're talking about Jason Schreier's book yeah about the development of... Blizzard. b blue Yeah, Blizzard over time. It's good. i think that it reads a little bit more like a...
01:24:31
Speaker
straightforward history and less like the kind of investigative journalism vibe that maybe blood sweat and pixels have but it's worth it if you if you've liked some of blizzard's games um kind of you'll enjoy yeah yeah what's that i'm kind of mid on blizzard like yeah yeah you know i don't there's not one of those games that was like ever you're like like do you have addiction you know i like warcraft uh but you know never got they were never my thing Gotcha. No, no. i my god you You know, yeah. Who's your guy?
01:25:01
Speaker
<unk>s Yeah. And Lauren didn't talk to me. That's a shame. But no, love this piece. Like, I was just obsessed with this because, again, it made me, like, think Sierra's just the coolest place in the world. Why couldn't I? Like, I could think of nothing better than opening up a box of junk from Sierra. and you know, eventually I did get that 8x10 from Ken Williams that one time. So I kind of got my version of this that came true. And it's the exact same photo that was featured in his article in the 1991 issue. He was still using that, like, five or six years later. So...
01:25:34
Speaker
it's It's very funny. I'm not going to linger on this. So, Ken, I also had a note in the, especially in the second editorial, that was so boring that, you know, I didn't even finish it.
01:25:47
Speaker
But it's like some of the features here, like there's a feature in the first one about like Quest for Glory, are and there's one about Robin Hood in the first one that is like a page, half a page.
01:25:59
Speaker
Ken gets so many column inches. Oh yeah. On and on and on and on. You know, small grant, like he's like, they're cramming as many words for him as possible. And, and then in the second one, so we have this endless fucking editorial. It just goes on and on and on the secrets of success, whatever. And then another thing that is like this, like,
01:26:23
Speaker
dramatic like photo of him and then it's excerpts from an interview with ken and i was just like god damn it i read your inner like i read your editorial the start of this i don't need to have like it is so it is very ken centric it is you know it's it's interesting he's the publisher Yeah. As a well, yeah, he's, he's one the sides, what goes in you know, um as a kid though, like I shouldn't know the CEO of the company that's making games. I'm playing like, there's no reason for a kid to know the guy who owns the company's name or his son's name, who also eventually will start getting called or his brother's name.
01:27:09
Speaker
Or his brother's name. Or or his wife's name. Yeah, that's right. But like, I knew, I felt like I knew Ken Williams, you know, which is weird. I guess his wife actually, like she, you know, yeah, no, that's, you should know her. Yeah, you probably shouldn't know anyone else in the family. Yeah. No, because they're not like game designers.
01:27:29
Speaker
No, there are a couple other things in this issue I wanted to mention before we leave it behind. The 1992
Sierra's Commercials and Cultural Impact
01:27:34
Speaker
issue. Are we going to talk about Josh on BBS speak? Let's talk about that one first because it's fantastic. Josh Mandel, friend of the pod, a designer of Freddy Farkas, writer on a ton of Sierra games, co-designer on Space Quest 6, Callahan's Crosstown. You know who Josh Mandel is.
01:27:52
Speaker
He has this very 1992 story. article teaching people about bbs speak if you are what and these were huge and it doesn't have lot of josh jokes in it it's pretty straightforward this one's fairly straightforward i mean there are a few snuck in here and there but mean this sort of article was all over the place in the early to mid more and more people were getting online like every magazine had to run How do you understand the abbreviations and the emoticons that everyone is going to be using once you get on the end? I love it. I love these articles because they always have like some stuff. It's like, yeah, someone had to explain like what LOL meant.
01:28:32
Speaker
You know, what I like about on online the, the, the, ah what i I, love the, about the acronyms whenever I see these lists is that there's always like half of them are ones that are still in the use and half of them have like, you're like, no one uses this.
01:28:49
Speaker
So it's like, I looked at, um, like RSN real soon now. I don't think I've ever seen that my entire life. I don't think I've ever seen GMTA great minds think alike. And you think that one, that would be something that would come up often enough that it may have stuck around, right? Like, yeah, it's just funny. Some of these, so like there's OIC that stuck around, you know, in my humble opinion that stuck around, but it's just like ROF comma L. Yeah. For rolling on the floor.
01:29:22
Speaker
Laughing. Laughing. That's that's fun. then he has a bunch of emoticons, some of which are like you're straightforward. This is what a smile is. You just have to tilt your head the side and that will form ah a smile. But then there are some wacky ones like here's a Superman that uses an ampersand to try to capture his spit curl. What ah what was the the other one that you wanted to look at The other thing that I find really interesting is this
01:29:54
Speaker
Feature on commercials you may have missed. Oh, I hated this. Okay, why'd you hate about it? I'm curious. It was just terrible. Okay, so it's a summary of Sierra's commercials that they made for a series of games around this time. These commercials were contained on their Sierra video catalog. Oh, those were real commercials. I thought was joke. Those were real commercials.
01:30:19
Speaker
Those are real commercials. These are are those pieces from the Sierra video catalogs. I thought that was like a a ah like a little joke that they made. no so these are all real. and These are screenshots from those commercials. Oh, wow. You can find them on YouTube. What they were was like, these commercials sound terrible. that were They are. They were sent out to you know, game stores so they could play them on a loop in the store and advertise Sierra products. But what's, so these are real. They do exist on the video catalog, but it says here at the beginning of this, and this is relevant to the big game.
01:30:56
Speaker
If you stepped out for a snack during Super Bowl halftime or tuned out of CNN during the commercial breaks, you may have missed Sierra's massive ad campaign.
01:31:07
Speaker
Do you believe for a moment? I thought that was a joke. See, I thought that was, see, that was where I was like, oh, that's clearly a joke. Because, it's oh I mean, no i know, again, i know for a fact that these are real commercials.
01:31:26
Speaker
I don't think there's any chance they ever aired certain on television. First of all, i want say, think there's any chance they aired on television. They may have aired on a television, but not over the television waves. um The second thing I question is if there's some remote chance they did. Sierra never paid for a Superbowl ad.
01:31:47
Speaker
I watched every Superbowl every year. I would have remembered this would have been one most defining moments of my life. Um, Maybe they bought local time and Oakhurst or something for those local ads that played during the Super Bowl. I doubt that. I think this is just Sierra either a flat out line or it's meant to be a joke, but i need to get to the bottom of this because these commercials are real, but i don't believe for a second they ever aired on television.
01:32:13
Speaker
Yeah. No, I don't, I don't think so. Impossible. no I mean, the idea of a commercial for a video game back then, it was so rare. i mean, you would get like Saturday morning commercials for the occasional Nintendo game. Like, yeah, I remember Zelda commercials, ah but it's not very often. And certainly i don't think Sierra was paying for commercials. And you know, if i were the publisher of this magazine,
01:32:38
Speaker
I think I would try to offer, um you know, a ah truthful look at the world. i wouldn't I wouldn't turn it into just a bunch of lies.
01:32:49
Speaker
So, Jess, there was before we close the book here, there was one thing I caught. It's probably nothing, but this did make me laugh. Which was, so there's an article, this is ah page 69 in the back. It's CD-ROM drives, what to look for before you ah buy, right? Before you die. Before you pass away.
01:33:13
Speaker
Yeah. um so So, Jess, is there anything, like, take a look at this article. Is there anything interesting? about about this article are you seeing anything just take just take a look just take a ah peek see if there's anything in there okay and i mean if not uh i will and and again this this could be nothing you know i mean it's not that it's possibly written by bean dad is it yeah that's it Is it though? Is this, it's written by a John Roderick. John is written by John Roderick of the, the, the, the guy that ah was disgraced as bean dad online, who ah like he used to do the, the theme.
01:34:01
Speaker
to my brother my brother and me and fellow west virginia podcasters ah shout out to the mcelroys if you ever need a fourth mcelroy brother i'm available and i like i just saw that name and i double taked like because i was just like i know he's a little older like yeah yeah And it's probably like a, like, you know, like, it's probably just a common name, but what if, what Bean wrote about CD-ROM drives and in the next issue wrote about how to pick a sound card?
01:34:43
Speaker
ah Okay. Let's see here. So Bean Dad, let's, he was in Harvey, he was in Harvey Danger? i move if it's this Google bean dad.
01:34:54
Speaker
No, I mean, I'm reading about bean. But wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So he's born in 1968. So age wise, it could work. He would be an adult.
01:35:06
Speaker
He's born in Seattle, Washington. See, this is all, see, this is all saying to me that John Roderick, the disgraced,
01:35:18
Speaker
a guy that, uh, musician and podcast host and podcast theme song man might've written for interaction magazine.
01:35:30
Speaker
Yes. Let's see here. Uh, how can we, how can we figure this out? Cause now this is all i care about. Um, Um, but if you could just email us at quest quest podcast.com and just like in the subject line, like use, use being dad. So we're sure not to let it get caught in our spam filter.
01:35:51
Speaker
Um, we'll, we'll whitelist anything that has the phrase being dad in it. Um, so if you could just being dad, reach out to us and let us know if you wrote for interaction magazine. Um, how many John Rodericks are there in America? Let's see.
01:36:05
Speaker
Um, How many John Rodericks are in America? There's bound to be a website. Okay. Let's see. We'll just find how many people are named Roderick. Well, it's the 4,852nd most popular family name.
01:36:21
Speaker
But there are... Okay. Ben, are you ready for this? This website, mynamestats.com, says there are only Rodericks in America.
01:36:34
Speaker
So all of a sudden, now granted, you know, a high percentage of the male Rodericks are probably named John. There's a good chance that's one of the higher percentage first names. But we're dealing with, right from the start, like a one in 8,000 chance this is bean dad.
01:36:54
Speaker
When he was just a bean man. Yeah. This is before he became a bean dad. Yeah. All right. Well, you know, we're going to leave you with that mystery. Ben, what was your overall takeaway from revisiting these old issues of interaction? Because for me, yeah i mean, I can close my eyes and just flip through the pages of these already. I've practically memorized these things. So I didn't, I didn't, uh, like we got these and I liked these, but it's very clear to me that I did not have like a stronger relationship. Like i don't remember. There's only like little things I remember from these yeah full articles. Um,
01:37:30
Speaker
But, you know, i think my main takeaway is that they're very, like, it's it's what I said at the start, which is that there's, it's so strange that this company had, like, a full magazine Maybe it's not
Sierra's Magazine Ambitions
01:37:51
Speaker
that strange. Maybe that was more common.
01:37:53
Speaker
you know know i don't think it was. Like even the LucasArts Adventurer, which was their counterpart to this. Yeah. Like it would have a couple of features about upcoming games, but it was mostly a catalog to buy merch for at least half and half. And if it was much less ambitious.
01:38:10
Speaker
Codes and stuff. Yeah, exactly. i mean, it was it was not an attempt to put together a full-on magazine with a lot of editorial content in it. Um, and so like, yeah, like it was, it was just kind of a interesting, um, like how it's, it's, it's interesting to see what the project of interaction was, which was, as you said, it's both like trying to sell product, but it's also selling the company.
01:38:42
Speaker
and what the company is and like kind of this dream of what uh sierra was and like it worked certainly worked for me but that was also like it was you know that that was part of the whole package like because they would tell that story also on the back of every box where to have the photo of the designer They would to have it in like the manuals where you like you meet and in the games where it described the designers like it was always something where that was a very um that was a specific project.
01:39:21
Speaker
Yes, that they had carrying over on like the tradition of early EA games where they're like the first company to really put designers and soft. I think they called them what software artists at the time, put their names front and center on a lot of the packages. That's how you get like ah a bill budges pinball construction set. Right. I mean, that was EA was one of the first companies to really embrace this auteur idea.
01:39:45
Speaker
And Sierra picks up with that. But then again, yeah, sort of forming this company culture. You know, Infocom, I think, did a lot this in their advertisements. Well, Infocom had a ah newsletter too. They did. Was it the Newsork Times? Yeah. Was that the name of theirs? Yes.
01:39:58
Speaker
ah So, yeah, lots of companies were doing the newsletter thing. But I think Sierra really takes this to sort of ah ah much and much further down this road. And, you know, there's an earlier magazine.
01:40:15
Speaker
that I also find interesting. Are you familiar with Softline magazine at all? No. So this one's fascinating to me too. This began publishing in 1981. Softline magazine.
01:40:27
Speaker
um softlined magazine And it's a magazine about... um about, uh, you know, early video games. Uh, but they're like already Ken Williams was writing articles about Apple two graphics for that in 1991. He's also listed as a publishing associate in their masthead and a contributing editor, which makes me wonder at some level, like, and nearly all the ads in the first issue are for, uh, Sierra games. Um,
01:41:03
Speaker
It makes me wonder, like, had Sierra been trying to get into the magazine business in one way or another, like, way back at the earliest parts of their history? I've never seen anyone talk about what Sierra's relationship with Softline was like, like, what what that looks like. But I have to think that, know, if he's listed as an editor and a publishing associate and things like that, that Sierra had some kind of vested interest interest in what was going on there i'd love to know more about that yeah i may be the only person on earth who would love to know more about soft line magazine yeah no i'm sure there's someone over at like the you know like there i'm sure there's a video game historian that that that has very strong opinions and is after out those magazines
01:41:49
Speaker
Yeah, I will say if you ever wanted to like read up on Ken Williams' thoughts on Apple II graphics, it is kind of fascinating to see someone who's like trying to explain how you coax graphics out of a machine that doesn't really want to. And also, once again, I have to say like it literally has a chart in the middle of this first one, like telling which bits to have on and off to get the color effects you want to work with.
01:42:15
Speaker
And like how to how to really work with this in a very in a very technical way. But also it's written exactly like those editorials. And the interaction would be years later. So someone out there, a listener who knows anything about this, ah reach out to us at questquestpodcast at gmail.com. Was Sierra trying to get into the magazine business throughout its history? And interaction is what popped up and stuck around for a while.
01:42:41
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Any final thoughts on interaction before we close? We might come back, you know, depending on how people read react. because There's a lot of, there's a lot of these. And this was a lot. I want to be clear. It was a lot fun to read these.
01:42:56
Speaker
had lot of There's some really fun stuff as you get further into Sierra's multimedia era too. Like the following few issues are when you're going to start hearing, you know, a lot more talk about their CD-ROM games. It's when you're going to start hearing a lot more talk about like the lead up their hype.
01:43:11
Speaker
for Gabriel Knight is really fascinating stuff. Like I love how high they were on it clearly. Yeah. It's a very interesting portrait of how, how they wanted people to perceive them.
01:43:24
Speaker
And as you go on, there's more and more Josh content and Josh rats, some really hilarious stuff. Yeah, Josh Mandel content. just He writes some really funny stuff down the road. We'll have to do another interaction episode at some point
Podcast Sign-Off and Next Episode Tease
01:43:37
Speaker
in the future. But I know we've already locked in on next week's topic.
01:43:41
Speaker
Yeah. ah Well... Folks, thank you so much for joining us for another incredible Quest Quest. You can send us an email at questquestpodcast at gmail.com. You can also give us a five-star review wherever you listen or a thumbs up or whatever. i don't know.
01:43:59
Speaker
Whatever it is on what you use. I don't know. i don't know what you're using. okay Give us a re-truth. Yeah, give us a re-truth, please. All right. We'll see you next week when we discuss Space Quest 4.
01:44:29
Speaker
So in Space Quest 4, they i like on the first screen, you can you can be killed like right away. There's just a guy walking around that. Yeah, the zombie guy. yeah Yeah. How do you feel about that? That there's like that literally like on the first screen, there's just a like an instant kill monster.
01:44:58
Speaker
You know, i don't love it from the standpoint of a player. Like, I like the idea that it's establishing the stakes that this is a scary post-apocalyptic world that you've that you've time-ripped into. so i The time-rippers are the good guys, right?