The founding of Sierra On-line

Ah, Sierra On-Line. I spent innumerable hours as a kid playing all the Kings Quest games. (My uncle also gave me a copy of Leisure Suit Larry but let's not dwell on that).<p>It makes me sad to consider that the old Sierra games don't seem to inspire modern game makers any more. Everything is so "instant revenue" focused. These old games referenced all kinds of interesting literature and movies.<p>Nowadays, it's all just blood and gore. I may be in a camp of one, but that makes me sorta sad.

Wow, don't recall <i>Mystery House</i> but definitely remember the era of small-self-publishers, diskettes-in-ziploc-bags.<p>And I recall being stuck in some later Sierra On-line game – by then with color hi-res graphics, but still vector drawn slowly on the screen as if retracing an artist's lines and texture-fills – where I had to throw a rock at some cobra.<p>And I recall a similar crude black-and-white hi-res mode game, Richard "Lord British" Garriott's <i>Akalabeth</i>, which begat Ultima and the Origin empire. Check out the screencaps:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akalabeth:_World_of_Doom#Gameplay_and_technology" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akalabeth:_World_of_Doom#Gamepl...</a>

Ken Williams actually runs a Sierra nostalgia website (<a href="http://www.sierragamers.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.sierragamers.com</a>) and has posted some interesting background about Sierra's founding and early years on his profile there (<a href="http://www.sierragamers.com/aspx/m/669573" rel="nofollow">http://www.sierragamers.com/aspx/m/669573</a>).

I'm nerdly (and old?) enough to have played many of those games, and appreciate the history lesson. Thanks for sharing!

My personal favorites were Space Quest and Police Quest. Gold Rush was also fun.