Sunday, October 05, 2003
The October issue of PC Gamer UK featured a list over the top one hundred PC games ever. The Longest Journey was on it:
[The above image is used entirely without permission, but then again it's a screenshot from our game, buster, so who you gonna sue? Thought so.]
Why am I making a big deal out of this? Thirty-sixth place is not exactly the cream of the crop, is it? It's not like we've won anything.
You're right. But let me tell you a little story.
Long before I ever played my first adventure game, I made my own. I'd read about adventures (which back then were text only) in a magazine article, and the concept fascinated me. Being able to live inside and interact with a story like a character in a novel was simply the Greatest Idea Ever - especially to a voracious reader like myself. Without any notion of how to go about it, I wrote my first adventure.
That must have been twenty years ago, perhaps more, and I was much smarter back then because I actually made it work. Sort of. Of course, it wasn't a very complex adventure, and there were technical glitches. As I remember it, anything you picked up was still there afterwards - I hadn't a clue how to handle dynamic objects. And I don't think there were any real puzzles either, just a bit of walking around.
But it was glorious, like a book come to life.
Eventually I got to play the real thing, starting with the Zork games, and moving onto other classic Infocom games, all of which I adored...and none of which I actually completed, because they were frighteningly difficult and the language-barrier was extremely high. But I enjoyed them all immensely, and when I found out that there was a program called "The Quill" for the Commodore 64 - a toolkit and script language for creating adventures - I had to have it. It made life much easier, because it didn't require any actual programming.
And so began my most productive period of adventure game development. My crowning achievement, as I remember it, was a game called "The Peasant's Quest", which was intended as a parody of King's Quest, a game I hadn't actually played (we didn't have a PC) but which I'd read about.
As time went on, I played more games and made less. Adventures were still my favourite genre, and I was excited to see how the genre began to evolved into a more cinematic experience, with pictures and sound, and, eventually, animation.
When Loom came along, I was entranced - the story and the gameplay were groundbreaking. And then there was Monkey Island, with its stunning visuals, amazing writing, and funnies. And then came Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, with even better graphics, and two playable character. And then, in 1993, Day of the Tentacle arrived on CD-ROM, with voices. And it was followed by Gabriel Knight, which had a mature storyline and famous actors. And suddenly adventure games were like movies that you could act in, living worlds that spoke and sang and which looked absolutely beautiful.
This, I knew, was something I would love to try my hands on again. Now, of course, adventure games required more than a writer-slash-designer. You needed artists and programmers and musicians and actors. You needed lots and lots of money. I never thought for a second that I would actually get to make an adventure - and certainly not one that would measure up to all those wonderful games I had played for so many years, made by such talented and creative people.
And then along came a little project called The Longest Journey, and with it a whole bunch of extremely talented artists, programmers, and musicians.
Bliss.
To have received recognition that places The Longest Journey amongst such illustrious company, therefore, means the world to me. Thirty-sixth place may not be something that secures us a spot in the limelight, but there are only a few adventures ahead of us on the list, all of them deservingly so. And just to be recognised as one of them, as a classic, that's absolutely wonderful.
From first reading about adventure games, and then playing them, and then reading about the people who make them - and then, finally, writing and designing one myself; from adventure fanboy to adventure creator...but still the fanboy at heart. There's my own personal longest journey.
(And hopefully it won't end for a good while yet.)
Here's to thirty-sixth place! Yay!
[The above image is used entirely without permission, but then again it's a screenshot from our game, buster, so who you gonna sue? Thought so.]
Why am I making a big deal out of this? Thirty-sixth place is not exactly the cream of the crop, is it? It's not like we've won anything.
You're right. But let me tell you a little story.
Long before I ever played my first adventure game, I made my own. I'd read about adventures (which back then were text only) in a magazine article, and the concept fascinated me. Being able to live inside and interact with a story like a character in a novel was simply the Greatest Idea Ever - especially to a voracious reader like myself. Without any notion of how to go about it, I wrote my first adventure.
That must have been twenty years ago, perhaps more, and I was much smarter back then because I actually made it work. Sort of. Of course, it wasn't a very complex adventure, and there were technical glitches. As I remember it, anything you picked up was still there afterwards - I hadn't a clue how to handle dynamic objects. And I don't think there were any real puzzles either, just a bit of walking around.
But it was glorious, like a book come to life.
Eventually I got to play the real thing, starting with the Zork games, and moving onto other classic Infocom games, all of which I adored...and none of which I actually completed, because they were frighteningly difficult and the language-barrier was extremely high. But I enjoyed them all immensely, and when I found out that there was a program called "The Quill" for the Commodore 64 - a toolkit and script language for creating adventures - I had to have it. It made life much easier, because it didn't require any actual programming.
And so began my most productive period of adventure game development. My crowning achievement, as I remember it, was a game called "The Peasant's Quest", which was intended as a parody of King's Quest, a game I hadn't actually played (we didn't have a PC) but which I'd read about.
As time went on, I played more games and made less. Adventures were still my favourite genre, and I was excited to see how the genre began to evolved into a more cinematic experience, with pictures and sound, and, eventually, animation.
When Loom came along, I was entranced - the story and the gameplay were groundbreaking. And then there was Monkey Island, with its stunning visuals, amazing writing, and funnies. And then came Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, with even better graphics, and two playable character. And then, in 1993, Day of the Tentacle arrived on CD-ROM, with voices. And it was followed by Gabriel Knight, which had a mature storyline and famous actors. And suddenly adventure games were like movies that you could act in, living worlds that spoke and sang and which looked absolutely beautiful.
This, I knew, was something I would love to try my hands on again. Now, of course, adventure games required more than a writer-slash-designer. You needed artists and programmers and musicians and actors. You needed lots and lots of money. I never thought for a second that I would actually get to make an adventure - and certainly not one that would measure up to all those wonderful games I had played for so many years, made by such talented and creative people.
And then along came a little project called The Longest Journey, and with it a whole bunch of extremely talented artists, programmers, and musicians.
Bliss.
To have received recognition that places The Longest Journey amongst such illustrious company, therefore, means the world to me. Thirty-sixth place may not be something that secures us a spot in the limelight, but there are only a few adventures ahead of us on the list, all of them deservingly so. And just to be recognised as one of them, as a classic, that's absolutely wonderful.
From first reading about adventure games, and then playing them, and then reading about the people who make them - and then, finally, writing and designing one myself; from adventure fanboy to adventure creator...but still the fanboy at heart. There's my own personal longest journey.
(And hopefully it won't end for a good while yet.)
Here's to thirty-sixth place! Yay!
