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Sierra Syllabus
133 Plays8 hours ago
Class is in session and professor Jess is flying solo this week as he walks you through his syllabus for a class on Sierra On-Line. Be sure to show up to class on time, Dr. M will glance at you witheringly if you come in late!
Read his syllabus here:
https://tinyurl.com/sierrasyllabus
Quest Quest podcast is Ben Vigeant and Jess Morrissette.
Editing by Jess Morrissette.
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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https://discord.gg/ve9fqjgPp2
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Transcript
Introduction and Co-host's Predicament
00:00:19
Speaker
Hey, everyone. Welcome to Quest Quest, the adventure game podcast. I'm Jess. I'm your host. I'm also Decaf Jedi on Twitch, on YouTube, pretty much everywhere online. And this week, I am flying solo.
00:00:32
Speaker
Ben can't be here because, well, frankly, he's trapped in the pages of a book. Now listen, I'm not happy about this either, but his excesses, his constant overstepping, the fact that he didn't laugh at a couple of my jokes last week, left me no choice but to imprison him within the pages of a magical book.
00:00:51
Speaker
Now in the spirit of fairness, I've scattered pages from that book in a number of different locations. And should someone gather them all, solving the various puzzles I've laid out before them in the process, perhaps they'll choose to free Ben.
00:01:05
Speaker
And he'll be back here next week joining me as my co-host, as always. But for now, I'm flying solo this week, and I think I have a fun episode planned for you on this solo quest.
Nostalgia and Gaming Origins
00:01:14
Speaker
So welcome in. you know, a couple of weeks ago,
00:01:18
Speaker
We did an episode about game collecting. And as I mentioned that episode, this is a hobby that I've really gotten into quite deep in the in the last few years. so I thought maybe before we jumped into our topic this week, I might share an update, the latest addition to my game collection.
00:01:37
Speaker
I just managed to pick up a copy of the original Bard's Tale from 1985, which And I'm very excited to add this to my game collection. hey it's It's a beautiful packaging. It's one of the folio style album sleeve packaging deals that Electronic Arts was doing back in the mid 80s. I love that style of packaging. i think it makes for a really attractive sort of yeah classy looking way to package a video game. So that's awesome.
00:02:04
Speaker
But also Bard's Tale is a game that is near and dear to my heart. It's one of the earliest games that I owned as a kid. It was sort of in that first year or two probably of owning my Tandy 1000 EX back in the day. Bard's Tale was definitely one those games that that I played early on.
00:02:23
Speaker
And i don't think I'm exaggerating when I guess that I must have put at least 100 hours into the original Bard's Tale as a kid. And it's worth noting that that 100 hours led me absolutely nowhere. I don't think I ever made any progress in the game.
00:02:42
Speaker
I don't know for sure if I understood that progress was possible. I don't know if I knew there was a a goal or an end of the game so much as I kind of just thought it was like a a sandbox fantasy role-playing simulator.
00:02:57
Speaker
For me, it was just like, I want to wander around this town aimlessly. I want to fight groups of berserkers and goblins and other monsters like that. I want to level up my characters. I want to see their numbers go up.
00:03:10
Speaker
I got into a few dungeons along the way. I remember, oh, one dungeon, I think it was underneath one of the taverns, had this level that was in complete darkness.
00:03:20
Speaker
And it was a maze. So you kind of had to map it out by just walking forward a couple of steps, you know, bumping into a wall, ah figuring out it's time to turn and figure out which way I can go.
00:03:34
Speaker
It was a brutal experience. I don't know if I ever, as I said, really accomplished much of anything. But boy, did i love that game. As a kid who grew up on D&D, who loved fantasy role-playing stuff, it was it was the game I'd kind of always dreamed of. I couldn't imagine a computer role-playing game getting any better than that. So i was able to pick up a copy of that, and I'm really excited.
Influential Childhood Games
00:03:59
Speaker
you know It was...
00:04:00
Speaker
One of three games ah from that era of electronic arts that were really important to me as a kid. All of them that I got within the first couple of years that I owned a computer.
00:04:12
Speaker
There was Bard's Tale, which I now have in my collection, and two others which I picked up previously. Bill Budges' pinball construction set. Oh, man, what a game. I think I've talked about this before, maybe on the podcast, but... Boy, did I love pinball construction set. It's exactly what it sounds like. You can drag and drop pieces of a pinball table to build your own pinball game and and then play it. I think you'd even share those if you knew someone else with a copy of the game. Fantastic game. And again, that album sleeve cover for that one is like the... I think in some ways like the quintessential version of 1980s synthwave. I love it.
00:04:52
Speaker
Just gorgeous. Like this hand rising out of a grid, holding a pinball, a shiny silver pinball. Just what a gorgeous, uh, cover. And the other one was seven cities of gold, which is another game. I must've poured countless hours into. I was ah I was a real history nerd as a kid and seven cities of gold, which was essentially, know, a colonization simulator um just really captured my imagination. This idea of getting to explore and map the Western hemisphere of of searching for gold ashore. um
00:05:33
Speaker
All of that. Yeah, really those three games were different. huge parts of my early computer gaming experience. me On the other hand, yeah I'm also playing around this exact same time. but you know It's when I'm playing King's Quest 2 and Space Quest and some of the first adventure games I was playing. But yeah, Bard's Tale and those other electronic arts games were really important to me back then. I'm excited to finally have completed that mini collection.
00:06:04
Speaker
Now, I haven't gone back and played this the original Bards Tell in a long time. Maybe I should
Tales of Monkey Island Review
00:06:09
Speaker
do that. Maybe I should stream the original Bards Tell. It might be fun to go back and see. Now that I understand that games usually have like a series of steps you go through to eventually reach the end of that game and defeat it, maybe I would have a slightly different experience with it here 2026 than i did in like But for now, you know, in the spirit of like, you know, doing this maybe Carrie Bradshaw style, I couldn't help but wonder, Jess, what have you been playing?
00:06:45
Speaker
Well, Jess, thank you for asking. What I've been playing lately, and a lot of people who maybe me follow my stream already know this, I've been going back and playing Tales of Monkey Island for the first time in a really long time, maybe for the first time since the game was originally released.
00:07:01
Speaker
Now, I'm guessing most people listening to know Tales of Monkey Island is, of course, Telltale's episodic Monkey Island game. um It's one that, you know, i think originally released on WiiWare.
00:07:15
Speaker
We like to say WiiWare here at Quest Quest. It was originally ah a WiiWare game, and as well as coming out PC and a few other platforms. But... i um I played this one back in the day. i didn't play all the episodes. I think I maybe played the first three and then got distracted and never came back and finished the last couple.
00:07:35
Speaker
So it's been fun revisiting it. It's a it's a really fascinating game to me, something that as I've gone back to replay it, some of the things that surprised me a bit is on the one hand, the first episode, which is currently where I'm at in in my playthrough, is a little breezier than I remembered.
00:07:59
Speaker
And that's not meant to be a joke. I know it's a game a game that's about the idea of Guybrush being trapped on Flotsam Island and the winds are trapping him there so that he can't can't escape or anything.
00:08:13
Speaker
But it's breezier than I remembered in the sense that it's really flying by for me. As I recall from when I played it years and years and years ago, I kind of felt like, ah these first few episodes were really a slog. And it hasn't felt like that going back and revisiting it now. Maybe I've adjusted my expectations a bit.
00:08:34
Speaker
Maybe I'm just making it through the puzzles a little more quickly since some of them are semi-familiar to me, still kicking around in my brain at least a little. um But the big part of it too is there's some really outstanding writing. The game really gets the tone of Monkey Island dead on.
00:08:53
Speaker
This is something that I thought that you know you also see in the Sam and Max games that Telltale produced. They really, they got that vibe, which goes a long way. And along with that, it's supported by some outstanding voice work. As always, friend of the pod, Dominic Armato is is just perfect as Guybrush Threep would, but the entire cast really really brings it home pretty beautifully. out of The 3D looks much better than I remembered.
00:09:21
Speaker
Certainly better than Escape from Monkey Island. Now, and I want to be clear here. I am a tiny bit of an Escape from Monkey Island defender. I'm not going to say it's the best Monkey Island game.
00:09:37
Speaker
Not by a long shot. I think Escape from Monkey Island probably rightfully ranks as maybe yeah the the bottom of the pile. The bottom of the barrel monkeys when it comes to Monkey Island games.
00:09:52
Speaker
I'm not trying to suggest... that Escape from Monkey Island is some kind of lost classic. But I don't think it's as terrible as people make it out to be.
00:10:04
Speaker
I think the worst Monkey Island game is still better than a pretty large percentage of adventure games out there. I think Escape from Monkey Island has some real charm to it. Monkey combat is frustrating and it totally breaks the pacing of the third act of the game.
00:10:23
Speaker
But it's not as bad as people remember. But as I was saying before I got on this tangent, um Tails is really a return to form. It it looks better than than Escape. I think it's a little more tightly designed. they They really do a great job with with bringing Guybrush and company back back into action. So I'm looking forward to Continuing on with that and especially getting to the episodes that I've never played before. There isn't a lot of Monkey Island content out there that I haven't experienced. You know, there are those last couple of episodes of Tales of Monkey Island. And then I guess like the Monkey Island content from Sea of Thieves, which I don't know, I've tried to play Sea of Thieves a few times and boy, that game didn't click for me. But maybe if you add some Monkey Island to it,
00:11:17
Speaker
Maybe all of a sudden i see the see the magic that so many people love about that game. But yeah, so I've been playing Tales Monkey Island. Looking forward to seeing where it goes next All right, enough stalling. Let's get into this week's topic that I'm calling the Sierra Syllabus.
00:11:35
Speaker
Now, a lot of you listeners may know that my day job is working as a
Sierra Online Games Course Concept
00:11:41
Speaker
professor. I work as a professor at a university. um My formal background and training is in political science and international affairs. I study stuff like like conflict and foreign policy and all that sort of stuff. But in recent years,
00:12:00
Speaker
I've been doing more and more teaching and research on popular culture and especially video games, sort of trying to look at video games and understanding what sorts of political and social values may be embedded in not just the games that are produced, but also the culture that's arisen around gaming throughout its history. So it's sort of a weird turn. This is something that after years of doing more traditional political science, I kind of decided just to to go off down this strange road. And I've had a lot of fun with it. and I thought it might be, since I'm flying solo this week, a good time to maybe try to take that idea of, you know, thinking about,
00:12:53
Speaker
a closer look at the meaning behind games and imagine a course. I was thinking if I had total freedom,
00:13:05
Speaker
to teach a course for just absolute adventure game sickos, what would I teach? Now, of course, my university would never let me do this. This is why this is a podcast right now. It's not on my schedule for the fall semester. But if I had to teach a course for absolute adventure game sickos, what I came up with is what I'm calling the Sierra Syllabus.
00:13:31
Speaker
I've designed an eight-week course. exploring the history, design, and cultural legacy of Sierra Online that's going to try to emphasize what I think of as critical analysis of adventure games, not just taking them in terms of the story and puzzles they present, but trying to think more deeply about what sorts of meanings and themes and values are embedded in those games. So that's what I have in mind when I talk about this Sierra syllabus. It's sort of an imaginary eight-week course that I've drawn up. And when I say drawn up, I mean that literally, if you'll check out the show notes or the YouTube description on this episode, you'll see. You can find a link to this actual syllabus. It's a 10-page document with weekly assignments and a list of required readings and kind of the whole thing. I've tried to take this as seriously as I can. So you can go follow that link and download a copy of the Sierra syllabus and follow along with it.
00:14:34
Speaker
But what's in there? As someone who teaches about pop culture, as someone who teaches about video games, How would I design a course about Sierra online and its adventure games?
00:14:48
Speaker
And I started out by thinking, as we do oftentimes in course design, what are my learning objectives? What do I want students to come away from a course like this with?
00:15:00
Speaker
What do I hope by the end of the course they'll be able to do? um One of the big things, you know, assuming maybe someone might somehow end up following this curriculum without knowing a lot about Sierra at a very basic level, I would hope that upon completion of this material, that someone would be able to explain Sierra's historical significance in the gaming industry, i understand what its contributions to the adventure game genre are, just sort of properly place Sierra in its historical context.
00:15:31
Speaker
Another thing that I'd want to do if I was teaching a course like this is introduce some of the basic concepts from the discipline of game studies. Game studies is the academic discipline that studies interactive games. um I would want to introduce students to some of the concepts that we use in game studies to analyze games and help them learn to apply those to better understand adventure games.
00:16:00
Speaker
I think a big part of it for me is looking at the games themselves as well, learning how to interpret them as texts. This is oftentimes the the term we use in media studies is we treat a piece of media, whether it's a film, whether it's a television show, a piece of music, or in this case, a video game.
00:16:20
Speaker
Treat it as a text, ah the same way that if you were taking a literature course, you might yeah treat a copy of Jane Eyre as a text and engage in critical analysis with that with that text, asking questions again about what sorts of values, what sorts of assumptions, what sorts of themes are embedded within that work.
00:16:45
Speaker
So that's another goal that I would have as part of this. um I would also like to work toward producing some kind of analytical or creative project about Sierra's legacy.
00:17:00
Speaker
And I'll talk more about that in a minute, what sort of final project I would plan for ah for a class like this. But along the way, learning how to use games, manuals, interviews, walkthroughs, fan-created materials as primary sources,
00:17:13
Speaker
All of those are important skills in in game studies. I think this is the kind of course where practicing and reinforcing and assessing those skills can be pretty valuable.
00:17:25
Speaker
So that's like the big picture thing of what I would want to accomplish if I taught a course about Sierra Onlines games. Now, what kind of required texts would I use? um You got to give that bookstore money. That's the most important thing. If you're taking yeah college course, that bookstore needs money. ah So you got to got to gotta adopt a few textbooks for something like this. um I think for required texts, ah there are two that leap out immediately that I think I would use for a course like this. Um, I think that I would, um, go with Sean Mills, uh, the Sierra adventure, the story of Sierra online from 2018. That's a, um, a great book. I recommend that to everyone. I think it's ah a really wonderful fan perspective on Sierra's history, uh, that incorporates a lot of interviews with, uh, with Sierra designers and, and other, uh, important figures in Sierra's history.
00:18:27
Speaker
Um, It's a it's a really thorough look at at Sierra's history. I think especially, you know, if we imagine there's a world where someone's taking this class that isn't already aware of Sierra's games, I think it would be a good way to get it up to speed.
00:18:42
Speaker
The other book that I think I would adopt would be Ken Williams' Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings of the Rise and Fall of Sierra Online from 2020. Now, Ken Williams, of course, the CEO and co-founder of of Sierra Online, his book is definitely less from the perspective of a fan. It is very much sort of a corporate history of Sierra, which is fascinating in its own way, particularly seeing Ken Williams' sort of understanding of Sierra's place in the industry. I think those two in tandem give you a nicely rounded idea of what Sierra was all about and give you some behind the scenes insights that you might not necessarily have otherwise. And then I would supplement that with a bunch of additional readings on a weekly basis, excerpts from other books, articles, things of that sort. But I think those would be my two required texts.
00:19:37
Speaker
But maybe the toughest part of this for me when I was drawing up the syllabus was trying to figure out what games I wanted to require.
00:19:49
Speaker
Because ultimately in a class like this, I would want to ask students to play certain games. So they can experience these, not just read about them or watch a watch a Let's Play video of them. But also so we have some common ground to talk about the material when only a couple of people have played some game and other people have played a different game and and nobody's quite on the same page. It can be difficult to teach a class like this when everyone has a different point of reference.
00:20:18
Speaker
So I would want to assign a core group of games that I would ask everyone to play. And I really agonized over this, and I'm still not sure from this syllabus if I'm completely happy with the games I chose. But for the course I want to teach and give me a nice broad introduction to Sierra, here's what I came up with.
00:20:38
Speaker
So I have seven games that I'm going to ask students in this course to play over the course of eight weeks. What are the seven games?
00:20:49
Speaker
um First, Mystery House.
00:20:55
Speaker
King's Quest. This next one, I'm giving them a choice. Space Quest 1 or Space Quest 3? Pick your poison. Either one's a great game. You'll do fine.
00:21:06
Speaker
ah Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards. There are a thousand different versions of it. Pick your favorite. Police Quest. In Pursuit of the Death Angel. That's Police Quest 1.
00:21:17
Speaker
Quest for Glory 2, Trial by Fire. and Gabriel Knight Sins of the Fathers. Now that's a weird list, right? That, uh, that's an odd one.
00:21:29
Speaker
Uh, don't know if it's the most representative sample of what Sierra is all about. It's certainly not necessarily what I would consider Sierra's very best games. The original King's Quest isn't the best King's Quest. Uh, the original Larry probably isn't the best Larry. Uh,
00:21:46
Speaker
But I've chosen all these for a reason to to get at certain themes I want to talk about for this message. They're kind of doing two things there. They're again giving someone a broad introduction to several of the franchises that really define Sierra as a company.
00:21:59
Speaker
I've kind of got a representative from most of the major Sierra adventure game series most. Couldn't get Manhunter in there. I'm sorry, Manhunter fans. We didn't get that one this week. um But it's representative of of Sears catalog.
00:22:19
Speaker
And also, these games I've chosen to address... Some those course objectives of pushing people toward thinking critically about some of these games, hopefully in some ways that give them some insight and takeaways they might not have had otherwise. So that's my list. I'm not sure I love it yet, but I've built the course around it. So that's what we're going with.
00:22:42
Speaker
So Mystery House, King's Quest, Space Quest 1 or Space Quest 3, Leisure Suit Larry 1, Police Quest 1, Quest for Glory 2, and Gabriel Knight, Sins of the Fathers.
00:22:54
Speaker
So those two textbooks and those seven required games.
00:23:04
Speaker
and Now, of course, this is ah course, even though it's an imaginary course, it's a course. There are going to be assignments. um What kind of assignments would I use for an eight-week course like this?
Course Assignments and Critical Analysis
00:23:17
Speaker
I think the the starting point for a course like this, what would be important for me, would be Weekly play journals. If I'm going to sign one of these games each week, ideally, I would like to see students maintain some kind of weekly play journal that documents their experiences with playing these games.
00:23:36
Speaker
Whether it's reflecting on the puzzles, the interface, the character, the genre conventions that the game dips into. i would particularly be interested in reading about students' moments of confusion or surprise. especially students who maybe have never played these games before.
00:23:52
Speaker
And especially ones that might be more accustomed to modern games. I would be really curious what sort of friction they encountered playing some of these retro adventure games, especially earlier ones that don't always play fair with you.
00:24:07
Speaker
um I think these journals are a great place to ask questions like how does interface shape player action? Uh, What kind of knowledge or play does the game reward and how does it punish you? Where does things like failure and death play into these games? What kinds of narrative and gameplay techniques does it use to tell its story?
00:24:27
Speaker
How does it represent identity, place, genre, all these sorts of things? I think that these kind of journals, which are what we call... Typically ah and in higher ed, we think of them as low stakes assignments, right? You know this would be something that's informal, ask students to maybe write just a few paragraphs reflecting on their experience. It's not necessarily about deep analysis here. It's more just like, well, you know, what did you feel and what questions popped into mind and what was your experience like when you're playing these games?
00:24:59
Speaker
So I would include those sorts of weekly play journals. and I'd probably do one for each week of the eight week course. From there... My next sort of maybe more rigorous assignment, at some point in the semester, I would want to have what I would call a close play essay. Close play suggesting really you know not just playing through a game, but slowing down to really think critically about the game you're playing and what sorts of messages it's trying to convey and how it conveys those. um
00:25:33
Speaker
So for this close play play essay, i would ask students to choose Any Sierra online adventure they want to. It can be one of the assigned ones. It can be a completely ah different one that's not on the syllabus. Pick a Sierra online adventure game and write maybe about a five-page essay analyzing a specific gameplay narrative element from that game.
00:25:55
Speaker
I drew up some special topics or some sample topics in the syllabus. Some of what I came up with. yeah How does death function as comedy in Space Quest? I think that could be a fun essay. Procedure and realism in Police Quest.
00:26:08
Speaker
Gendered humor in Leisure Suit Larry. Tactical submarine simulation in Codename Iceman. When's someone going to write that article? I want to read all about that. Edutainment and activism in EcoQuest.
00:26:22
Speaker
um Again, just sort breaking down some element of either the gameplay or the narrative and really digging more deeply into it, looking at how the game engages with that, what sorts of techniques it uses to explore these themes. Yeah, a five-page close play essay would be the the next part of of the design.
00:26:44
Speaker
From there, another essay that i think would be fun during the semester, another assignment that would point us towards some different directions, would be asking students to engage in what I'm calling paratextual analysis.
00:26:57
Speaker
A paratext in this context is going to be part of... a work of pop culture, in this case, part of the game, that's not the game itself. Something that surrounds that text of the game. So in this case, it would be everything from the manuals they're packaged, the box it's packaged in, advertisements for the game, hint books, magazine articles, catalog descriptions, walkthroughs, fan sites, remakes, all those things that surround the text, that surround the game, that aren't the game itself.
00:27:32
Speaker
So that's what I would focus on for this next assignment, the paratextual analysis. An essay, maybe around three pages or so, analyzing um a manual or a game box or a hint book or an advertisement or ah or a fan remake or something like that.
00:27:50
Speaker
um that analyzes one of those pieces of paratext that explains what it reveals about Sierra's games, about its creators, about the intended audience, about the legacy of Sierra. Yeah, just sort of digging into one of those and thinking a little bit more closely about because that's an important part of thinking critically about games. You know, in my classes, I sometimes tell students, know, it's like we can think about and analyze pop culture and video games at sort of three points. We can look at the work itself. I think that's the most obvious option. We can look at the work itself. We can analyze the themes and the values and the techniques used in a video game to accomplish its creative and artistic goals.
00:28:37
Speaker
But also, it's worth considering, um not just the the work itself, but the environment in which it was created, and ultimately, how it's consumed by its audience, ultimately, the culture that surrounds that. And this paratextual analysis, I hope, will push students toward thinking not just about the games themselves, but the things that surround those games.
00:28:59
Speaker
So, that's the paratextual analysis. Then the last thing i had ah for for the eight-week course was a final project. A final project, and I've given students some options here in the syllabus. um They can choose to complete a research paper, frame it. research question about a Sierra-related topic, um and write approximately a 10-page research paper on that, focused on a specific game, a series, a genre, a designer, a fan project, Sierra Online as a company, comparing a couple of games, maybe tracking a single theme across multiple games. i There are lots of different ways you could approach this.
00:29:41
Speaker
But the goal is to come up with a clear argument supported by thoughtful analysis and relevant sources, all that sort of thing. Really dig deep to ask a question and then present a compelling answer to that question. So that's option one for the final project, sort of a traditional research paper.
00:30:00
Speaker
Option two would be to replace that with a video essay. To take the same sort of approach, choose a Sierra-related topic, and then submit maybe around a 12 to 15 minute video that does the same thing, poses an original research question, um and then answers it, addresses it, using the kind of visual and audio evidence that's possible in a video essay that's a little bit harder to pull off in a traditional written essay. So a video essay doing the same sort of thing.
00:30:31
Speaker
The final option for the final exam, the last of the three, is a game design. Students can design a short adventure game prototype. They can use Twine. They could use, they're a little bit more familiar, AGS or any other engine you can get your hands on. There are a ton of these engines out there nowadays that that don't necessarily require a ton of coding experience.
00:30:55
Speaker
I'll take click and play if that's what i have to if that's what I have to get. But the goal here is to summarize the game. I'm sorry, to submit this game that you've designed. um a short adventure game, and then submit along with that a two-page designer statement that talks about what your creative goals for the prototype were, and then discuss how it draws on or diverges from Sierra's approach to adventure game design. Did you choose to do something that's very reminiscent of a Sierra approach to this?
00:31:28
Speaker
Or did you purposefully take a different route in designing this game? Reflecting on that, I think, is part of bringing this last option home. I mean, it's fun to design a game, but in a course like this, I would also want students to reflect on that and talk a little bit about their creative intent behind the design choices they made and how they link back to the sorts of topics we've been talking about involving Sierra all semester.
00:31:54
Speaker
So that's what I had in mind for assignments. Now, from there, the next part of my Sierra syllabus, and again, you can download this and look at it yourself down in the show description. I'm sure I'll probably post it on social media as well and on the Discord. ah But The last thing remaining is the course schedule, actually laying out how we'll tackle this topic of of looking at Sierra's history and its legacy on a week-to-week basis.
Course Schedule and Early Adventure Games
00:32:23
Speaker
And what other kinds of readings would we bring to bear? What sorts of themes would we talk about each week?
00:32:28
Speaker
So I want to talk a little bit about the course schedule. And I go into a lot more detail on this in the syllabus itself. So I'll try to just hit the highlights of how I'm going about this and and maybe give a sense of why I've chosen some of these games. what What I want to do with each of these other than just introduce students to some games that I love.
00:32:48
Speaker
So... Week one of the course, ah I would treat as an introduction to game studies, learning how to study video games and maybe just pop culture in general in a thoughtful way and an introduction to the adventure genre. Yeah. With the assumption that maybe some people are encountering this for the first time. The kind of topics I'd want to talk about, you know, what is game studies? What theories and methodologies does it use to study games?
00:33:17
Speaker
What do we mean when say an adventure game? Where do quests, puzzles, um exploration, things like that fit into it? um And for that week, I would require students to play Mystery House. I think that's the the entry point I want. A very rudimentary adventure game. It gives a sense of where Sierra's history began, what the early conventions of this genre look like. And if nothing else, I think Mystery House will help people maybe appreciate some of the better games they'll play later in the semester.
00:33:50
Speaker
um Some of the things I would ask students to read ah this week. um Anastasia Salter has a terrific book. Uh, what is your quest about adventure games? Highly, uh, highly recommend this. Uh, chapter two gives a great introduction to the genre. I think I would do that as an excerpt, uh, from, from Salter's what is your quest?
00:34:12
Speaker
Um, also, Lane Nooney, um, has uh, a ah terrific article where they focus on, a little bit the history of mystery house, mystery, history, house, history, mystery, house, history, mysteries. Um,
00:34:28
Speaker
titled Let's Begin Again, Sierra Online and the Origins of the Graphical Adventure Game. I would definitely use that Noonie piece here as well. I might also throw in Ron Gilbert's Why Adventure Games Suck, that essay that he published back in the 1980s that sort of was part of this broader discussion of the LucasArts adventure game design philosophy. I might throw that in there too as maybe a critical take on why some of these early adventures it could be a little frustrating. sometimes. So that'd be week one, introducing game studies and adventure games, having them play Mystery House.
00:35:03
Speaker
Week two, I think the second week I would use to really dig into the history of Sierra Online, look at ah Ken and Roberta Williams and why they're such important ah figures in this industry. you know Ken from the business side of things and certainly Roberta as one of the you know most important and dynamic creators of this early era of computer gaming. Look at how the company went from online and systems to evolve to Sierra online, the rise of the graphic adventure game, how things like the development of the AGI engine was an important part of that story. Look at the technological evolution from text parsers to point and click to CD-ROM to FMV, all that sort of good stuff.
00:35:47
Speaker
um And that week I would have them play King's Quest, ah the original King's Quest. I'd i'd like them to tackle ah the first King's Quest and get a sense of, A, what a leap beyond Mystery House that was, and B, just sort of give them a sense of what the formula for this Sierra Quest-style adventure is going to look like in the years ahead. So, yeah, we'd play King's Quest that week.
00:36:12
Speaker
um Most of the readings, I think, would come from... ah Sean Mills and Ken Williams's books, both of them give a lot of this history really well. I think that I would rely on them to do some of the heavy lifting for the readings.
Comedy and Realism in Sierra Games
00:36:26
Speaker
Week three, the topic I had in mind was comedy and parody. We've talked a lot on this podcast about how oftentimes the adventure genre is very closely interconnected with comedy. There certainly, I think, more funny adventure games maybe than there are serious ones. Certainly, yeah the the games that loom large in our industry, games like a Monkey Island, for instance, rely extensively on comedy. Most of the LucasArts games do.
00:36:54
Speaker
But I think week three, I'd like to talk about comedy and parody, and I would draw on Space Quest as my starting point for that. I would assign students to play either Space Quest 1 or Space Quest 3. Give them an option here. I think both do a nice job with with this concept. um Some of the topics I would want to get into... um science fiction parody, how Space Quest functions as sort of ah a workplace comedy and also a story of reluctant heroism. I really want to talk about death as form of both slapstick and gameplay mechanic. To me, that's the most interesting thing about the Space Quest series from an academic standpoint, I think. yeah I love these as a fan, but as someone trying to figure out what makes Space Quest unique, I think its use of death
00:37:46
Speaker
Is Maybe not necessarily unique, but one of the defining features of this series and something I'd like to dig into. Also, the use of meta humor as a storytelling technique, I think, would be interesting. You know, Space Quest isn't afraid ah to to get pretty meta in its humor. I mean, there's ah there's a game, and we don't usually talk about it much here on the podcast, Space Quest 4, where Roger's traveling, ah you know, through his own sequels. think that'd be fun to break down.
00:38:16
Speaker
Some of the readings I'd pick out for this week, Angela Cox, another outstanding scholar with a real interest in Sierra work, has a great piece called Look in Hole, Gameplay Parody in Sierra's Space Quest. It's a short essay that i think would be really interesting here. um Giappone, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, um has an article I'd like to look at called Self-Reflexivity and Humor in Adventure Games. I think it's ah a great way to to sort start breaking down how these games use humor and how oftentimes it's built into the gameplay logic of the puzzles themselves. I think both of those will provide a good starting point to talk about comedy and parody and where Space Quest fits into that. So that's week three.
00:39:02
Speaker
Week four. Police Quest and Procedural Play. We're going to play Police Quest 1. And I want to talk about what an important part procedure plays in this game. And think Jim Wiles would appreciate that. He cares about procedure maybe be more than anyone. I want to talk about how procedure functions as gameplay in Police Quest. I want to talk about...
00:39:22
Speaker
The limits of realism. Police Quest presents itself as ah based on a true story, realistic police simulator. And I think there are some real limitations maybe holding it back there. I want to talk about the limits of realism in video games in general.
00:39:38
Speaker
I want to talk about police training and professional fantasy. i mean, Sierra liked to talk about how there were actual police departments using Police Quest 1 as a training tool. Which is ludicrous. That's upsetting to think about, but that's out there. But also something Ben and I have talked about before and we've discussed Police Quest is how it functions as a form of professional fantasy.
00:40:00
Speaker
um This idea that as a kid... Doing things like driving around a police car and having a job have a certain appeal to them in and of themselves. you're It's almost like an adult simulator. I think we've referred to it before. Not in the way that Leisure Suit Larry is an adult simulator. ah But this idea professional fantasy I think would be fun to explore. um Also...
00:40:28
Speaker
Police Quest, I think, asking questions about the politics of simulated authority, um talking about how the game does and doesn't maybe function as propaganda at some points. Lots of things to tackle with with Police Quest. And I think a piece I would have... um students read here um I might recommend an excerpt from Ian Bogost's Persuasive Games, The Expressive Power of Video Games. He writes about what he calls procedural rhetoric and frames it as an important part of how video games work.
00:41:02
Speaker
tell stories and share values and communicate ideas. The idea that ultimately all games are just sets of rules that you have to function within. Even the most you know loose sandbox of games is ultimately constrained by certain rules. And Police Quest is a game constrained quite a bit by procedure. I'd like to maybe use that as a jumping off point to think about how procedure shapes the kind of stories that we tell, the kinds of values we embed these works, the kind themes that we develop.
00:41:32
Speaker
Um, I'd probably send people, uh, over to, uh, read a great essay by a friend of the pod, Richard Cobbett, uh, police quest pretended to be serious, but was really a nonsensical fever dream. think it's a good starting point to really think about the limits of realism and simulation in a game like this. Um, I would recommend, uh, the digital antiquarians, uh, piece on, uh,
00:41:57
Speaker
Police Quest 4, Chief Gates comes to Oakhurst, a cop drama, thinking a little bit about the broader politics of bringing disgraced LAPD police chief Daryl Gates in to serve as a designer, but probably more of a consultant more accurately on Police Quest 4. Yeah, there's a lot of things in this in police quest that I think are worth exploring. So I'll have students play the first police quest and then we'll talk little bit about procedure, the limits of realism and sort of the challenges of, you know, of the politics of simulated law enforcement.
Cultural Themes and Critiques in Gaming
00:42:34
Speaker
That brings us to week five leisure suit, Larry, gender and sexuality. Um, so this is going to be, uh, it's going to fun week. Um, some of the topics that I'd want to get into first, I'll have them play leisure suit Larry in the land of the lounge lizards. They're welcome to do the original EGA. They're welcome to do, ah the VGA remake or reloaded. I think all of them function about the same for my purposes.
00:43:00
Speaker
Uh, I'd want to talk a bit about adult games and moral panic. ah Moral panic being this idea of sort of outrage over cultural works that are perceived as some sort of corrupting force or a threat to our values.
00:43:14
Speaker
um I'd like to talk about sexism, parody and critique, ah masculinity and sexuality in video games. But maybe you one of the themes I would... like to engage with along with that is how do we critically engage with outdated or problematic games? um Yeah, I think that it's safe to say there's some problematic elements in all the Leisure Suit Larry games. Some are maybe a little bit edgier or more outdated than others, but learning how to engage with these, to think critically about them, to draw away meaning,
00:43:55
Speaker
From games like this without necessarily giving them a pass, not saying it's like, oh, all this is fine because in, you know, 1990, this is how everyone thought or this is how everyone talked. That's not what you want to do when you look at a piece of work like this. But that doesn't mean there isn't meaning you could derive from ah looking at older games like this that have some problematic elements. So we talk about Leisure Suit Larry. Yeah, I think it's a great place to, a great site to explore questions of gender and sexuality and some of the some of the problems of you know sexism and objectification that may that may be part of this as well. um Some of the readings I would do this week. Another... ah
00:44:39
Speaker
um Another piece of the Digital Antiquarian, his background on Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards is really strong. I would i would revisit that. Jimmy Mayer's piece is is is really strong there. um Adrian Shaw um has a nice...
00:44:56
Speaker
ah short essay LGBTQ representation in Leisure Suit Larry, which spoiler alert, a lot of it's not so great. Um, that essay was in the book, how to play video games. Um, I think I would, I would assign that, um, I've written a piece that I talked about, I think in my last solo quest, uh, called passionate Patty and the politics of patriarchal play.
00:45:19
Speaker
I might, uh, selfishly and self-indulgently ask students to read that. Um, And there's another article about Angela Cox, who I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I think might be fun here. She wrote an essay titled Women by Women, a Gender Analysis of Sierra Titles by Women Designers. That originally appeared in the book Feminism in Play.
00:45:42
Speaker
um It doesn't engage as directly the Leisure Suit Larry, but it does engage with how gender may be shaped design choices in other Sierra titles. um So I would like to Maybe talk about that to broaden the discussion beyond just the Leisure Suit Larry games. So that's week five, Leisure Suit Larry, gender and sexuality.
00:46:02
Speaker
That brings us to week six. And this is actually a topic that I've thought about writing an essay of my own about at some point, but i decided just to make it a week of this make-believe course instead.
00:46:12
Speaker
I'm calling it Sierra Visits the Middle East. And It grows out of something that I find kind of fascinating. And it's the fact that in a short period of time, like in a year and a half or so of the company's history,
00:46:29
Speaker
Sierra produced three games where players would visit some version of the Middle East and North Africa. um You have Quest for Glory 2, Trial by Fire. That's the game that students will be playing here in week six.
00:46:44
Speaker
That, of course, takes you to this fantasy version of the Middle East. That's going to take you to like your Arabian Nights style, fantastical, magical version of the Middle East, or the fairytale version of what we imagine the Middle East to be. um Also, we have a game like Conquest of Camelot, which also ah takes King Arthur to the Middle East as part of his search for the Holy Grail. There we have what's played as a little bit more of a historically informed version of the Middle East, but certainly there's still some mystical elements involved it. It plays it a little more straight than Quest for Glory 2, but still maybe a little fantastical in and of itself.
00:47:33
Speaker
And then finally, we have Codename Iceman, where again, if we think about the larger Middle East, North Africa region, at the end of Codename Iceman, of course, Johnny Westland travels to Tunisia.
00:47:47
Speaker
There we have what was then a modern day take on the Middle East. And this one is wrapped up in a plot line that involves the politics of oil, terrorism, things like that. It's trying to be sort of a real life thriller. ah But we all know that Codename Iceman is not entirely ah successful with a lot of its artistic endeavors.
00:48:12
Speaker
And I think that it's safe to say this Tunisia section, while it's better than the submarine simulator, still ain't great. ah But this fascinates me that Sierra's story gives us these three different versions of of the Middle East and North Africa in this very short period of time. So this week, I want to explore that. And the lens that I think I would use to explore it is the concept of Orientalism.
00:48:36
Speaker
And this idea of Orientalism originates with a scholar named Edward Said, who wrote a book by that title in the 1970s. um And in this in this book, Said lays out an idea about how Western writers, painters, filmmakers, the people who've created works of Western culture, um don't really look at the cultures of the Middle East and Asia for who they really were. Instead, they treated them more like a blank canvas to paint their own fantasies on.
00:49:11
Speaker
um To the West, ah these regions that Said calls the Orient, the eastern parts of the world, became a mystical place full of ancient curses and exotic belly dancers and cruel tyrants and magical secrets. It wasn't a real history, it was closer to a caricature.
00:49:30
Speaker
And we see that repeated not only in other works of culture, but of course in video games as well. you know Desert levels um you know aren't bad in of themselves, they're usually pretty fun, ah but they tend to rely on a certain set of tropes that flatten real diverse living cultures. into something more of an exotic playground for Western heroes to explore, to conquer, to rescue, whatever.
00:50:01
Speaker
um And of course, Saeed frames this as part of a cultural tradition that plays into um the West's efforts to dominate um these regions of the world. So it's about this larger power dynamic that arrives out of This imagined version of of who and what the East is.
00:50:26
Speaker
Desert cities, bazaars, palaces, ah you know, this ah this exoticism that is seen throughout a lot of these cultural products. So that's something I would like to explore in the context, as silly as it sounds, of Quest for Glory 2, which gives us, again, very much this fairytale version of a fictionalized Middle East in the form of Shapir, through Conquest of Camelot, which presents itself as a more historically informed story.
00:50:55
Speaker
version of the Middle East, but still has a toe in ah in fantasy. And then finally, again, if we expand this to the Middle East and North Africa, Johnny Westland's trip to ah to Tunisia and his, this sort being framed now as a ah techno-political thriller, whatever it is that Codename Iceman's supposed to be.
00:51:19
Speaker
So that would be Week six. and I think I would have students read the introduction to Saeed's Orientalism. I've got a couple of other articles picked out about video game representations of the Middle East and what sorts of tropes seem to be repeated there.
00:51:35
Speaker
um I might have students take a look at the Conquest of Camelot game manual this week. I think it's an interesting game manual that tries to infuse elements of history. I think it'd be a good jumping off point for that paratextual analysis that that I mentioned before. But yeah, week six, Sierra visits the Middle East, have them play Quest for Glory 2 Trial by Fire, which is a fantastic game, right?
00:51:59
Speaker
Week seven. What I've titled it in the syllabus because I couldn't resist week seven. What can Gabriel Knight tell us about voodoo? um So in this week, students, as you might guess, going be playing Gabriel Knight Sins of the Father and Some of the themes that I want to talk about here, I think this one's going to cover a lot of things. I want to talk about Jane Jensen and what I think of as the literary adventure game, a game that is trying to maybe take a more mature approach.
00:52:34
Speaker
approach to this genre that's trying to focus a bit more on storytelling in a more literary sense than maybe some of Sierra's earlier games. I think that's a fascinating part of this.
00:52:46
Speaker
um New Orleans is the setting um and how games create a sense Of place and space. Uh, to me, that's fascinating. And it sort of ties into the themes from week six with Sierra's versions of the Middle East as well. For me, one of the most compelling things that I played Gabriel Knight for the first time was, uh,
00:53:07
Speaker
the city of New Orleans as it's represented in the game. I'd never traveled to New Orleans when I first played Sins of the Fathers. um I didn't, I don't think I had a really great sense of anything about New Orleans culture other than what little I knew about like Mardi Gras ah from having seen bits on TV about it or something. um And the game,
00:53:30
Speaker
even with its very limited depiction of New Orleans, at least for me, was fascinating enough that it made me want to travel there. And eventually I did, and I sort did the Gabriel Knot walking tour of New Orleans in the French Quarter, which I know a lot of other Sierra fans have done as well. But i want to talk about how games create that sense of place and space, and especially this...
00:53:52
Speaker
You know, sort of version of New Orleans that has this undercurrent of, you know, sort of ah voodoo playing out. And and I want to talk about that as well. How the how the game depicts race, religion, ah those sorts of questions of representation. Yeah.
00:54:10
Speaker
So that's what I had in mind for this week is looking at Gabriel Knight, not just as a more mature approach to adventure game storytelling, but also exploring, yeah, this world of New Orleans and then how race and religion, ah fit into this story.
00:54:26
Speaker
So some of the pieces I have scheduled for this week, um, there's a great piece by McGee, um, titled Haitian Voodoo and Voodoo, Imagined Religion and Popular Culture, that sort of looks at how real-world traditional practices of Haitian voodoo may differ from the kinds of fictionalized versions that we see in a lot of pop culture um and what the what the broader dynamics and repercussions of that might be. um Again, you know, I've already assigned one piece I wrote. I might throw in another this week of my own works. Werewolves of Bavaria that I wrote um a ah few years ago ah for for the website Waypoint on Gabriel Knight 2 and some of the interesting themes we see there. The Digital Antiquarian has a great piece on Gabriel Knight as well. But yeah, week seven, what can Gabriel Knight tell us about voodoo? I think there's some fun stuff to explore there.
Fan Culture and Course Reflection
00:55:24
Speaker
And then finally, week eight, um what I've called in my syllabus, Sierra fandom preservation and legacy. Here I want to really focus in on nostalgia and fan memory. What happens when game becomes retro? Where do fan sites, fan communities, game preservation, fan games, unofficial remakes, where does all of that fit into the story of Sierra? Um,
00:55:53
Speaker
I think that could be an interesting topic to explore because I think for me here in 2026, that's a huge part of the Sierra story. I mean, there are lots of games out there that have vibrant fan communities that have fan games and remakes and things like that. But I think that Sierra um is really a standout in that regard. You really see a lot more of this sort of fan activity around Sierra games. that You do a lot of games from the 80s and 90s. I think that's fascinating, looking at how these games have been kept alive by you amateur game designers, by ah content creators, by preservationists, archivists, etc. So yeah, that's what I'd like to talk about in this final week. And for required play...
00:56:38
Speaker
I left it open, in the syllabus, asking students to choose any fan remake or original fan game that they can, that they want to tackle inspired by Sierra. So they can go back and play like the King's Quest remakes. They can grab a fan game of some sort. They can grab something. ah I mean, you know I wouldn't want plug StairQuest here, but boy, that'd be a fascinating one to play, wouldn't it? um But yeah, choose your own fan game related to Sierra and and play through that and write a little journal on it. Required readings. um
00:57:13
Speaker
I've got a few here that I think are interesting. um An excerpt from the book Textual Poachers by Jenkins. A chapter titled Get a Life, Fans, Poachers, Nomads. That looks at how fan culture and fandom functions a little bit sort It doesn't deal with video games directly, but it's a great starting point to think about fan studies, which is its own whole academic discipline that I think is relevant here. Another piece by Anastasia Salter. I mentioned Salter earlier. um
00:57:47
Speaker
Once more, a kingly quest, fan games in the classic adventure genre. It's a great essay by Salter that I think would give us a good starting point here as well. And then both Ken Williams and Sean Mills' books talk a little bit about this longer legacy of Sierra as well. I would i would have students look at those chapters um for this final week, too, on fandom preservation and legacy.
00:58:14
Speaker
So that brings us to the end of of the eight-week syllabus. Normally in my classes, I'd be like, any questions? And student would raise their hand. They'd be is the final exam comprehensive? And I'd be we'll talk about that closer to the final. I don't want to talk about that. now ah But again, something I like doing, um like something that's really fulfilling to me creatively is taking a really silly idea, like a class dedicated to studying Sierra online, and then taking that silly idea very seriously and trying to think about, well, if I were really going to do this, what would this look like? And that's what I tried to do with the syllabus. This isn't.
00:58:56
Speaker
Far off from what one of my real courses might look like. um And again, know, of course, this would be way too idiosyncratic and narrow casted to be something I could ever teach as part of my real job. But, you know...
00:59:12
Speaker
It was a fun exercise to think through what a class like this would look like. And, you know, I hope, again, yeah you can find a copy of this syllabus. There's going to be a link in the in the description, the show notes. So you should be able to to access it there if you're curious. But, yeah. You know, if it's something that kind of grabbed your attention or sparked your curiosity, um you'll have a list of all those readings. If you have any trouble getting your hands on any of them, I might be able to point you in the right direction. Feel free to to reach out to me. But yeah, I think that's one way you could tackle a course on what I've called Sierra Online, a critical history. That's one way you could go about it. You know, one way among students.
00:59:54
Speaker
Countless ways, because I think that there are any number of approaches one could take. This is just sort of what I thought would be an interesting way of cracking open this topic based on my areas of interest. So, yeah, that's the that's the Sierra syllabus. I hope you enjoyed that. I'd love to hear your feedback, thoughts. If there are, you know.
01:00:15
Speaker
articles or or essays or websites that you've come across that you think would be, uh, would be great for one of these topics or a topic that you feel like absolutely need to be covered that I didn't get to, uh, please let me know. You can email the podcast at quest quest podcast at gmail.com. We would love to hear from you. Uh, we would also love if you could go on and give us five star reviews. It helps people find the podcast. ah It helps us reach a larger audience. Um,
01:00:43
Speaker
It really makes a difference for us If you can review ah your viewers, that's even better. Leave us a written review. Those comments make all the difference in the world, and we appreciate it deeply. um But that's it for me this week. That brings this solo quest to a close. I have a couple of more pages from Ben's prison book that I need to hide away, ah so I should get to get back to work on that. But be sure...
01:01:10
Speaker
to join us next week. ah When our topic, let's see, Ben left a note somewhere on this. Let me, yeah, here it is. Our topic next week, it looks like it's going to be Space Quest 4.