Not an adventure game, but it is Sierra related. It's an action-adventure game at least.

I saw a Youtube video mentioning you'd done some work on the English language version of Zeliard? Zeliard was my jam when i was 7 years old, and I just wanted to say thanks. Its a game I had on the first PC that ever entered my house, and is probably among the first games I ever played. As I'm sure a lot of the titles you worked on were that for kids. And I just happened to stumble into some deep cut. Anyway, the point is, cheers for that.

That's also not a question. Oh well.

Hiya, Zweisy1!

First, I want to thank you for saying such nice things about Callahan's. All the qualities you ascribe to the game were exactly what attracted me to the source material, Spider's books, in the first place. And I found the majority of other ga m especially at the time to be basically depressing. But I also knew that a game that was very affirming, and about friendship, was swimming against the tide.

It has been a revelation, to a lot of developers, how much of an influence these old games have turned out to be for so many people. 

I have always enjoyed the writing side more. It runs in the family; my father, Loring, was a Golden Age TV writer (primaily, although he had movies and plays as well) and we so m times wrote dialogue together...sometimes inadvertently! In the mid-70s, he actually spent a few years "relaxing" by writing for a soap opera ("Love of Life"), and occasionally real-life dialogue we had -- including arguments! -- would turn up verbatim on Lhe show.

My favorite puzzle...YOWCH, that's a tough one. Although it's simple, the one puzzle I developed for Heart of China is sort of near and dear to my heart because I was trying to illustrate to them the concept of combining inventory objects (in this case, the boy's wagon) to make something creative but strictly logical.

In Callahan's, I have several favorites, but a very soft spot for opening Pyotr's front door.

At Sierra, I adored working with a lot of people, too many to name. Standouts were probably Lorelei Shannon, Bruce Balfour, Ken Allen, Mark Hood, and of course AL Lowe (gotta use all caps for his first name now, otherwise it looks like AI). Al and I started collaborating in 1990, on LSL1-VGA and LSL5, and went on to work together on Freddy Pharkas, The Laffer Utilities, LSL6, Larry Reloaded, and even NOW we're collaborating on a non-software project! I was extremely lucky to find a kindred soul there. Also special love to Neal Grandstaff, Bob Ballew, Bob Heitman, Gano Haine, and even more. 

What did I forget to answer?

Josh

Thank you for detailed and interesting answers to my questions. Especially interesting to hear writing runs in the family. 

I wouldn't feel too bad about Digital Antiquarians critique of Callahan's.. Jimmy Maher is a brilliant writer and I love reading through his articles, but I do semi-often find myself disagreeing with him about games too. He admits he's not a fan of the source material as well which makes a big difference. 
Personally, I loved your game so much it made me read the books too. Top 5 adventure game of all time for me. 

I had one or two more questions if Im  allowed:

Did you play through the later Sierra adventure games after you'd left such as the amazing LSL7 Love for Sail? Did you have a particular favourite among them? 

How different was it working for Legend Entertainment compared to working for Sierra?

Not an adventure game, but it is Sierra related. It's an action-adventure game at least.

I saw a Youtube video mentioning you'd done some work on the English language version of Zeliard? Zeliard was my jam when i was 7 years old, and I just wanted to say thanks. Its a game I had on the first PC that ever entered my house, and is probably among the first games I ever played. As I'm sure a lot of the titles you worked on were that for kids. And I just happened to stumble into some deep cut. Anyway, the point is, cheers for that.

That's also not a question. Oh well.

Hi, Gary,

Thank YOU for enjoying Zeliard! I readily admit that, from a creative standpoint, all credit goes to Bridget and Marti McKenna, the mother-daughter writing and editing team that handled the actual Game Arts translations, as well as LOADS of in-box documentation (some of the funniest and most famous came from them), InterAction articles, and other assorted projects. So while I was the Producer, everything that made Zeliard memorable was the McKennas -- and Game Arts, I suppose!

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Josh

Thank you for detailed and interesting answers to my questions. Especially interesting to hear writing runs in the family. 

I wouldn't feel too bad about Digital Antiquarians critique of Callahan's.. Jimmy Maher is a brilliant writer and I love reading through his articles, but I do semi-often find myself disagreeing with him about games too. He admits he's not a fan of the source material as well which makes a big difference. 
Personally, I loved your game so much it made me read the books too. Top 5 adventure game of all time for me. 

I had one or two more questions if Im  allowed:

Did you play through the later Sierra adventure games after you'd left such as the amazing LSL7 Love for Sail? Did you have a particular favourite among them? 

How different was it working for Legend Entertainment compared to working for Sierra? 
 

Hi, Zweisy1. I think you're allowed all the questions you want (unless the BBS software has a limit)!

I played a few Sierra games after I left. I really wanted to see what Al Lowe and Don Munsil had done for LSL7, and of course I was still a big fan of the QfG games and continued those. But for quite a few years, I was still smarting about the circumstances around my leaving, so I wasn't thrilled about being a frequent customer.

Working at Legend was radically different from working at Sierra. For one thing, almost everyone at Legend -- everyone except the support staff and the marketing department (which was Peggy) -- was a programmer! So their game designs were written in pseudocode, which was totally foreign to me, and I think they all had to make concessions to understand my Callahan's documents. Another major difference: you would have to present your design periodically to the entire staff for their comments and concerns, and you had to be prepared to defend your decisions or change them. They were, perhaps by dint of being programmers, extremely detail-oriented and rigorous about the whole design process. This was also new for me, since, at Sierra, the designers were pretty much free to do anything they wanted -- as long as they had the budget and staff for it...and as long as Ken didn't happen to catch anything he didn't like.

Also, budgets were necessarily much tighter at Legend, which is why, technologically, they were always a step or two behind the competition. But what they lacked in graphic sophistication, I think they more than made up for with the sophistication and tightness of their designs and writing.

Josh

I must say that I'm surprised that you are so complementary re: your time at Legend. Perhaps things look better in hindsight. Or maybe Legend and Take2 are indelibly paired together in my mind. And it was the Take2 entity that so horribly screwed (insert stronger word if you wish) the advertising/marketing/packaging/rollout/etc. of Callahan's.

I must say that I'm surprised that you are so complementary re: your time at Legend. Perhaps things look better in hindsight. Or maybe Legend and Take2 are indelibly paired together in my mind. And it was the Take2 entity that so horribly screwed (insert stronger word if you wish) the advertising/marketing/packaging/rollout/etc. of Callahan's.

I think, once I got over my initial shock and outrage that the game had shipped, so no editing pass -- and that it was the wrong version as well! -- I stopped blaming Legend and lay that fully on Take Two, where I firmly think it more properly belongs. I think that Mike and Bob did the best they could under very difficult circumstances, and I can't say that their decisions were based on anything other than what was best for the survival of the company. I know they did everything they could to support the game, but I think it was a matter of ship it, or shutter the company. Maybe it wasn't quite that dire, but I know it must've been dire enough. Mike and Bob, and indeed pretty much the rest of the company, had very high standards, and I believe they would never ship an unfinished game if they could possibly help it.

Unfortunately it didn't do them much good. ....paved with good intentions, and all that.

Hi, Zweisy1. I think you're allowed all the questions you want (unless the BBS software has a limit)!

I played a few Sierra games after I left. I really wanted to see what Al Lowe and Don Munsil had done for LSL7, and of course I was still a big fan of the QfG games and continued those. But for quite a few years, I was still smarting about the circumstances around my leaving, so I wasn't thrilled about being a frequent customer.

Working at Legend was radically different from working at Sierra. For one thing, almost everyone at Legend -- everyone except the support staff and the marketing department (which was Peggy) -- was a programmer! So their game designs were written in pseudocode, which was totally foreign to me, and I think they all had to make concessions to understand my Callahan's documents. Another major difference: you would have to present your design periodically to the entire staff for their comments and concerns, and you had to be prepared to defend your decisions or change them. They were, perhaps by dint of being programmers, extremely detail-oriented and rigorous about the whole design process. This was also new for me, since, at Sierra, the designers were pretty much free to do anything they wanted -- as long as they had the budget and staff for it...and as long as Ken didn't happen to catch anything he didn't like.

Also, budgets were necessarily much tighter at Legend, which is why, technologically, they were always a step or two behind the competition. But what they lacked in graphic sophistication, I think they more than made up for with the sophistication and tightness of their designs and writing.

Josh

Thank you again, Josh. Sorry to hear about how you were treated in your last days at Sierra.

I can imagine working at Legend being a stark contrast to Sierra especially who were always at forefront of technology wether if was sound, new graphics technology, full motion video etc etc..
Sierra also had a massive team of inhouse artist and musicians.

Hell, Legend was still doing text adventures with still images till like 1993, but I suppose thats the whole idea of why the company was founded was to cater to people who did like text based/parser games. That's certainly why I got into them, getting Steve Meretzky on board didn't hurt either.

It's intereting to hear about how the design process differed with Legend and Sierra. Makes sense actually looking at the output.

Personally, I think Legend never did a bad adventure game, everything from Timequest to Blackstone Chronicles is well designed with good writing and puzzles. They were also a lot more conservative than Sierra tho, never straying too far from their core strenghts until their late days of FPS developement.

That adventurous spirit and wildly rich output with many different designer voices is one of my favourite things about Sierra, even if the output isnt quite as consistent as say, Lucasarts or Legend.