Sierra On-Line: The Continuing Adventures

Sierra On-Line legacy

Sierra On-Line wasn’t just an adventure game company from the 1980s. For millions of fans, it was the best game company by Ken and Roberta Williams! They found the best game designers to join them in creating "Sierra games": high quality, engaging, and cutting edge experiences, providing endless hours of entertainment. From slaying dragons, battling the Red Baron, zooming through space, to multiplayer online card and board games, Sierra had something for everyone.

AGS to Kickstarter

As companies like Software Etc closed up, the Sierra games disappeared, but the legacy of the games lived on!  Adventure Game Studio provided new tools to creat and remake adventures, and Anonymous Game Developers faithfully updated King’s Quest classics.

Noting fan's continued enthusiasm, Sierra’s legendary game designers have returned with crowd-sourced Kickstarter campaigns, exceeding $2 million in funds raised for a new variety of adventures!  New Sierra-style adventures from the original Sierra game designers are on the way!

Where are they now?

Starting with Leisure Suit Larry, Al Lowe is bringing the legend back with a stellar team! Check out what they have going on now! 

And there have been more Kickstarter fundraisers!  Jane Jensen is creating a new game called Moebius!   Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy, creators of Space Quest, provided a series of prototypes unveiled during their Kickstarter campaign! The Two Guys From Andromeda's funded game, SpaceVenture, starring Ace Hardway and Rooter, includes Cluck Y’Egger, a familiar feathered friend! Cluck needs your help in a new iPhone and iPad minigame, as fan anticipation builds for their new SpaceVenture adventure game series! 

Ken Allen has successfully funded a new CD called “Under the Half Dome”! And Lori and Corey Cole, game designers of Quest for Glory, have a new game on the horizon!

More great game designers and a series reboot?

Fan interest is building for games like Jim Wall’s Police Quest series! Also, could there be a reboot of the King’s Quest series?   

Ken and Roberta Williams are retired, cruising and enjoying it!  Roberta is writing and and made a special appearance to support the SpaceVenture Kickstarter campaign!  Ken has a blog platform that rivals WordPress, blogs about cruising and has a mobile app and game! Talkspot Connect is a convenient method of mobile blogging on multiple platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, using the power of Ken’s Talkspot platform.  Ken hasn’t totally given up games!  Ken designed the user interface for the new massively multiplayer online game World Trivia Champion. 

New Kickstarter projects funded to continue the Sierra tradition

Two new groups of developers have successfully funded new Sierra-style adventure games: Himalaya Studios and Infamous Quests! 

Sierra is definitely back!

New titles from the game designers of classic Sierra On-Line adventure games are scheduled to be released over the coming months! Fans are getting prepared to pore over every pixel! 

Creating a 3D Game for Mobile Devices

How to Make an Indie 3D Mobile Game

Infinity Blade and other great 3D games are out for iPhone and iPad, so I wanted to make a fun 3D game and see how far I could push the mobile hardware.  A lot of the games look they come from the Xbox, with polished and smooth animation.

I looked at Unity, Cocos3D and other solutions and decided on Cocos3D since it integrates nicely with Cocos2D and Objective-C.  Using the MashUp object test app, I created a 3D starting room, with a 2D floor, background and 3D objects moving back and forth, from the left to the right and back again.

The Plan

Turrets are a fun gameplay concept, with interesting game mechanics, collisions and controls.  But I needed a subject for the game and a story to go along with it.  The Two Guys From Andromeda had put together a new Spaceventure kickstarter, so I chatted with them a bit about using one of their characters in my game.

When their adventure game project was greenlit, I put together a proposal to star their new Cluck Y’Egger character in a 3D game.  They accepted!

Mark Crowe and I had been working on some 3D models during the kickstarter, and his team had a Cluck model ready to go.  During this time I was collecting other models for the game.  Also I had a high score table and menu ready with Cocos2D.

Putting it Together

As we put the game together, I would update 2D resources with new files and graphics, and 3D models as animations were updated.  I created transitions for levels, and set in motion the firing mechanism for the eggs.  As we played around with the alpha version, shooting eggs at squadrons as they flew by, we formulated a plan for the beta.

The models all worked great.  Cluck has a number of character animations, the eggs have a nice trajectory and collide nicely with enemy ships.  The target reticule is between Cluck and the background, but was then removed and remapped as a 2D sprite for better quality.

I created a couple scheduling models that would kick off events during the level, such as motions and missile firing.  After a couple successful hits, you get upgrades for your egg cannon!  It was fun to play, and we filled out 20 levels with different flight patterns and ship designs.

Music and sound effects were added and timed with events to give a full cartoon atmosphere in 3D. The game has a dramatic feel as you launch back into space and plays great with satisfying egg-splosions.  Upgrades are available to shoot 2 eggs at once, use extra large eggs for easier aiming or regenerate health.

Rolling it Out

After a few months of development and testing, it was polished and ready to ship as version 1.0.  We made a few adjustments and fixes for 1.1 since then.  Let us know what you think of Cluck Y’Egger!

You can download Cluck Y'Egger at http://appstore.com/cluckyegger or visit http://titanbase.wordpress.com/cluck-yegger for more information.

Fun new screensaver! Kaleidoscope Spirals

Here's a fun new app for the iPad: Kaleidoscope Spirals Screensaver HD!

Video demonstration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkXWsAVXKUo

Download the new one here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kaleidoscope-spiral-screensaver/id526945272?mt=8

HTML5 Audio on Safari iOS Browser

Safari on iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad now features good audio support, for web games and web apps, using HTML5.  Check out the details here:
http://developer.apple.com/library/safari/#documentation/AudioVideo/Conceptual/Using_HTML5_Audio_Video/Device-SpecificConsiderations/Device-SpecificConsiderations.html

For graphic and audio-intensive apps, it's probably better to download the app all in one go, but if the cell phone data plan is taken into consideration and caching is used, anything is possible!

iOS version 5 or above is required, so if the device is on iOS version 3 or 4, there will be no audio. Also, if you are on a cellphone data connection, the audio must be user-activated.

Prepare World Trivia Champion!

This is a fun one!  World Trivia Champion Lite is on the iTunes App Store for FREE!

Basically it's a slick trivia game interface, but it has some modern advancements.  There is live chat, a few leaderboards, plus challenging and fun trivia!  Always something new to learn about, even if I don't know the answer.

I upgraded my copy in the Options menu for more themes and in-game access to add my own trivia!  I know some interesting trivia about a few topics...

Best part: now I can challenge my friends and family wherever they are in the world!  Now let's see if I can hit another 10 question hot streak...