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Video Leisure Suit Larry Comes Again (Video) 91

Posted by Roblimo from the everybody-loves-Larry dept.
Video no longer available.
In this exclusive video interview, Slashdot chats with Leisure Suit Larry creator Al Lowe, who is working with Replay Games and Kickstarter to bring Larry Laffer to a whole new generation of computers. They'll maintain the original Larry style of being naughty without crossing the line into porn, which is appropriate for an 80s game about a 70s dork who wears a (shudder) leisure suit. You can donate to this effort through Kickstarter if you like. (We aren't getting paid to say this, and it's a labor of love for Al, too, who is more recently famous for running the hokey daily comedy email newsletter, CyberJoke 3000.)
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Leisure Suit Larry Comes Again (Video) More

Leisure Suit Larry Comes Again (Video)

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  • Old Timers Ressurected? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Miltazar ( 1100457 ) on Thursday April 19, 2012 @09:12AM (#39733521) Homepage

    It seems like all the old designers of all the cool games from my youth are suddenly coming out with Kickstarters and/or new products. For old time Sierra it was Al Lowe, then Jane Jensen of Gariel Knight fame, and just recently the Two Men from Andromeda are back(Space Quest). Brian Fargo of Interplay fame is back with Wasteland 2, and Shadowrun is back with its original creator. Its an exciting development, but my hunch is its short lived.

    Liesure Suit Larry was never a big favorite of mine, mostly because I was too young to get any of the jokes. I still donated though just to show support for the old Sierra crew. Next we need to get Toys For Bob to work on Star Control 4.

    • Not just those either. They are rebuilding the entire Baldurs Gate series through Kickstarter, and a bunch of old school type games are being made, like Legend of Grimrock. Very old school, with new graphics. A sure sign that the original video game generation is getting older. Me, I would love to see the No One Lives Forever series with shiny new graphics, and the same gameplay
      • I'd love to see the old Lucasarts point&click brought back to life (other than with ScummVM on my phone, which is already great). I mean, Sam&Max and Monkey Island got a new life thanks to Telltale, but what about Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Zak McKracken ?

      • I would love to see a new entry in of the Bard Tale's series (and I'm not talking about that comedy RPG that happened to have the same name from a few years ago).

    • The big question for me is: Are the jokes still going to be funny?

      • Re:Old Timers Ressurected? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Thursday April 19, 2012 @11:34AM (#39735173) Homepage

        The big question for me is: Are the jokes still going to be funny?

        Were they funny back then? I seem to recall it was rather a lame video game.

        • You were too young to understand the humor.

          • You were too young to understand the humor.

            Well, Leisure Suit Larry came out in 1987 -- I was in high school. I also saw it again while I was in university.

            Maybe the jokes were old and dated even then? It wasn't that I didn't understand it, it just wasn't funny to me.

            Leonard Part 6 wasn't funny either.

            Maybe I needed to have actually snorted cocaine off someone's tits in Studio 54 to get the humor. But I should think if you were doing that, you wouldn't need Leisure Suit Larry.

      • Jokes about sex are always funny. they spur up the adolescent boy in each of us.

    • Kickstarter is starting to ruin me, I'm already funding five projects, included this one... and now you tell me the Guys From Andromeda are having one too. Damnit, it will be Ramen at the end of the month again...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I'm all for a proper sequel to Star Control 2. No, Star Control 3 never happened. Though I wonder how the current generation of gamers would handle this type of gameplay. Balance between ships in Star Control did not exist. Some ships were just plain better than others, some ships just sucked, and some ships were more about rock paper scisors versus other ships.

      Also, I'd like to thank the old Lesuire Suit Larry for teaching me much of my English. Never underestimate a kid who doesn't speak English, has a di

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Creepy ( 93888 )

      Brian Fargo isn't the only one - I noticed inXile and Obsidian are teaming up for Wasteland 2, and Obsidian hired Tim Cain late last year (the first employee working on and lead programmer for Fallout) so I have to wonder if he's involved as well.

      Strangely, Al Lowe didn't really create the game that is Leisure Suit Larry, which is also the one being remade, he took a text adventure game (Softporn Adventure by Charles Benton) and made it graphical and created the titular character, who was unnamed in the ori

      • If you can find the CD ROM boxed set of LSL games, it comes with Softporn Adventure. LSL was definitely inspired by it in terms of style and so on, but I don't recall much similarity in terms of story...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Next we need to get Toys For Bob to work on Star Control 4.

      Star Control 3 never existed. You're off by one.

    • Re:Old Timers Ressurected? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Thursday April 19, 2012 @11:54AM (#39735409)

      Lately I have been replaying the Quest for Glory games... I am not sure if it is just nostalgia. But I like the old Sierra games, they were not the high action games, even the Quest for Glory games which were the more action pact then the others, still had most of your time walking around and looking and trying to solve puzzles. That didn't require Top notch hand eye coordination. Back in the days Sierra Games were Top of the Line in graphics. Your reward for solving a puzzle was to be able to get to a new screen. In the days before internet these games were hard to go threw if you won it you felt like a hero, as you would play the game for months to try to win and solve the problems. Sometimes you are spending your time solving a problem that doesn't exist. I want to break into the Bakers shop, but I get arrested for making too much noise, I find ways to do it quieter and still I never got in... Well There isn't a way in. You don't know that, perhaps if you get in you can get something good.

      • That baker shop haunted my dreams. I was *sure* there were treasures galore inside. Got arrested way too many times trying to get in. Even accidentally killed my character with a lock pick trying to get that damn "gone fishing" door to open.

      • Back in the days Sierra Games were Top of the Line in graphics.

        Now I wont deny that the sierra games were fun, but graphically they were anything but top of the line. I do say this with Fond amiga memories though.

        1986 Defender of the crown Screenshot [wikimedia.org]

        1987 Leisure Suit Larry Screenshot [wikimedia.org]

    • Where's the Space Quest kickstarter/site? I see it mentioned in a few places but haven't seen anything official?

    • This is not the first time it's come back. Last time was in 2009. Got absolutely horrible reviews. [metacritic.com]That was clearly shovelware with the name slapped on it. This take sounds like someone is actually putting effort into it though.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by PlastikMissle ( 2498382 )
        Yeah, but that one didn't have Al Lowe's participation or blessing. He had nothing to do with any LL game after Love for Sail.

  • Great title! (Score:1, Insightful)

    by DogDude ( 805747 )
    Great title! And here I thought you guys had thrown out all of your fun-ness after the big corporate buyout!

  • We've got emulators for the platforms Leisure Suit Larry ran on. Why port the game?

    • So they can redo the graphics to modern standards.

      • Is that good? Surly the point is, old game looks old. The UI is awful and sound is dire; but somehow they are still better that today's games EVEN if you don't heap on a ton of nostalgia.
        It would be a shame/crime to change some of them. I loved the work by Team 17's artist Rico Holmes when I was playing their stuff year ago.
        Whilst looking for Rico's surname I found reference to a Leisure Suit Larry remake Team 17 made. Code masters touched it, so no shock it was awful. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leisure [wikipedia.org]
        • There are some amiga games (running on an amiga emulator) on the iPhone app store. Defender of the Crown, for example.

    • Re:What's the object, anyway? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by na1led ( 1030470 ) on Thursday April 19, 2012 @11:10AM (#39734881)
      We want High Resolution, and real voices. Have you played the new Monkey Island?
    • I think there even used to be an online version of it, but I can't seen to find it. I thought it was on sarien.net.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Hatta ( 162192 )

      By my understanding, it's to drum up interest in a new Larry game. I hope it works, but I think most people who are interested in old games are able to play them already through Dosbox or ScummVM.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by osu-neko ( 2604 )

      We've got emulators for the platforms Leisure Suit Larry ran on. Why port the game?

      They're not.

      Convincing Al Lowe himself to come out of retirement for this top-to-bottom re-imagining of his 25-year-old creation. DONE!

      Call it a "reboot" if you like, but it certainly isn't going to be a port.

  • I love the original LSL series, especially the first one. I'd love to see it in High Def with actual voice. Would also be fun to play on the iPad or Android tablet.

  • Age check (Score:5, Funny)

    by SoupGuru ( 723634 ) on Thursday April 19, 2012 @11:23AM (#39735033)
    As a horny adolescent, I think Leisure Suit Larry's age check did more to teach me about history than any classes I took.

  • I read those LSL Kickstarter pages some days ago, and they read exactly like some April Fools joke. It appears they are serious and I wish them luck, but just look at this piece from the FAQ, for example:

    Our good friends over at Tell Tale have licensed King's Quest from Activision. If we do our job right then maybe, just MAYBE we'll be able to partner with them and ruinite the Space Quest team, King's Quest team (go Roberta!!!!) and Police Quest team for re-makes or new versions of those (Space Quest 7 anybody?).

  • Ken Sent Me! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gordo_1 ( 256312 ) on Thursday April 19, 2012 @11:51AM (#39735361)

    Now that I pledged $15, I don't feel so bad about pirating it using the dual 5 1/4" floppy drives on my Tandy 1000.

    It's interesting that they measured piracy based on the difference between the number of actual copies of the software they sold versus game guides.

  • Kickstarter (Score:3)

    by JimboFBX ( 1097277 ) on Thursday April 19, 2012 @12:04PM (#39735539)

    I'm wondering how kickstarter is going to be long term. It seems like a lot of crappy games manage to get funding which amazes me. Kickstarter is for most projects a means of preselling the end result of the project and from what I can tell, the money put into it usually dwarfs what you would be paying if you were buying it retail. I have a cool game idea that I've been working with and its feasible, unique, and doable, but I don't have the free time. With kickstarter I could secure money that I would lose by reducing the hours I put into my job (or quitting if enough people donate) and dedicate my time to the project, then turn and make a good profit if it sells. Worst case, I at least get paid if I set my target threshold high enough, and based on what I'm seeing, I'll get paid more than I'm being paid right now.

    My only issue is that I hate top skimmers and there are two on these project donations. Kickstarter takes 3% and the credit card companies take another 3%. The economics of it always make it a win since there is no risk in putting your project up, but still, is there a kickstarter like website that takes a smaller cut?

    • Wow, you're worried about 6% of what is essentially free money? There might be places that take a lower cut, but you won't reach nearly as many people, which is kind of the point.

      That said, I do wonder how much Kickstarter will continue to grow. I think it was a brilliant idea and wish I'd come up with it myself. Instead, I'll just have to start a project of my own. Success is all about the incentives, though, which tend to be hard to come up with for software.

    • is there a kickstarter like website that takes a smaller cut

      Some, but not many.

      Keep in mind that at best, you can only drop the platform's take. If you need to accept credit cards, PayPal, or whatever - they have their own charges. You can try to accept BitCoins, I suppose.

      The exact takes per platform are sometimes difficult to decipher, depending on how you set up your project, whether or not it's successful, how people are paying (if a backer uses a throw-away credit card, the take is higher), etc. Plu

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      "Kickstarter takes 3% and the credit card companies take another 3%"

      So this is your issue? Let me tell you: YOU ARE A LOSER!!.

      As a looser with looser mindset you should try to use your own webpage, then you will get 100% of $0, witch is what you want, after all.

      Do not consider ever getting 94% of possible hundreds of thousands if you are good, because you will discover that you are not good enough, or that people do not trust you to deliver because "give me money so I could spend it what I want" only works

    • the money put into it usually dwarfs what you would be paying if you were buying it retail. I have a cool game idea that I've been working with and its feasible, unique, and doable, but I don't have the free time.

      The lowest donation request is typically a decent price (and usually less) for the game. All other levels usually come with a bonus (tshirt, face in game, lunch with designer)
      Good luck with a new project. You probably need to do some work before hand to show you are serious, and where you are headed, and to give people a reason to donate to your project.
      Sure Kickstarter takes their percent, but they also bring people to you. While you hate "top skimmers" they are offering a service. You won't get much m

      • Once kickstarter becomes overloaded with projects it won't be much of a service anymore. I think now is a good time to jump in, though.

        If you look at the donations compared to the money donated, almost all successful projects require someone or multiple people to shell out way more than a copy of the product would cost.

  • Editors coming back?!?!?!?! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bernywork ( 57298 ) <bstapleton.gmail@com> on Thursday April 19, 2012 @12:22PM (#39735725) Journal

    Rob, your editing again?

  • High time for an adventure game revival. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Touch devices are perfect for old school adventure gaming and I won't mind the update on my desktop either. Pledged.

    • Old school adventure games used a text interface. T Mid-school (high school?) adventure games had the click-action-bar/click-object interface which would seems designed for a touch interface. But what about a mix of old and new? A text-interface with voice commands instead of typing. You might not want to play LSL in public, though ("Ask the hooker to fuck me in the asshole with a dildo").

  • Well, used to rock. Let's hope he has a chance to relive his daze of glory! :)

  • I see what you did there...

  • Go all the way (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The first person with the ball to create a true real life graphical experience of a totally X rated game will become a billionaire in world record time. Why doesn't anybody do this?

    • Are you kidding me? Go to TPB and browse Porn>Games. All kinds of XXX rated games, most of them anime based, and lately all are 3D. The Sexy Beach games have some truly disturbing mods :/.

  • Transcript (Score:5, Informative)

    by QuasiSteve ( 2042606 ) on Thursday April 19, 2012 @02:58PM (#39737953)

    Title: Help Al Lowe Bring Back Leisure Suit Larry!"
    Description: 80s video game character Larry Laffer is stuck in the Land of the Lounge Lizards and needs your help to return.

    00:00) <TITLE>
    The SlashdotTV logo bar with "Leisure Suit Larry Comes Again!" scrolling from right to left appears over a title graphic in the style of the old Leisure Suit Larry games reading "Leisure Suit Larry in The Land of the Lounge Lizards" while in the background the Leisure Suit Larry theme tune plays.

    00:10) <TITLE>
    A picture-in-picture insert of Al Lowe giving his interview is shown in the bottom right corner over a view of a Leisure Suit Larry game setting.
    "Your Host: Al Lowe" scrolls into the SlashdotTV logo bar.
    Throughout the interview, the background changes between various Leisure Suit Larry game settings and the picture-in-picture view of Al Lowe disappears, re-appears, zooms in, zooms out, and other shenanigans appear.

    00:11) Al>
    About a year ago Paul Trowe gave me a call and said "I think I can obtain the rights to Leisure Suit Larry. [...]

    00:19) <TITLE>
    A static view of Paul Trowe fades in and out of the picture-in-picture view while the SlashdotTV logo bar reads "Paul Trowe is the primary instigator of ReplayGames.com"

    00:19) Al>
    [...] Would you be interested in helping me do a remake?" and I said "Absolutely!"
    In the last.. oh, gosh.. it took him probably a year to obtain the rights, and then a period of months to seek funding.
    When Tim Schafer [...]

    00:19) <TITLE>
    The SlashdotTV logo bar fades in and out of view, reading "Tim Shafer of Double Fine did an amazing KickStarter campaign".

    00:19) Al>
    [...] blazed a trail for the rest of us back in - when was it, February or March - he made it obvious that crowdsourcing was the way to go with this thing.
    So we jumped on KickStarter, we developed a.. I think a funny video, it's kind of pleasant.. and asked people for money and we've been absolutely astounded with the response we've gotten - a real kick.

    01:08) Al>
    I think we've done a lot of creative - shall I say - reward levels.
    We've got a bunch of interesting stuff, and in the true spirit of Leisure Suit Larry; a little on the naughty side, but not obscene.
    We're just havin' a ball with this.

    01:33) <TITLE>
    The background changes to a static screenshot of the "Make Leisure Suit Larry come again!" KickStarter project appears.
    The SlashdotTV logo bar fades in and out of view, reading "Donation figures as of Apr. 10, 2012".
    The figures* referred to are:
    5 updates
    6,411 backers
    872 comments
    $267,723 pledged of $500,00 goal.

    01:33) Al>
    The way KickStarter works is: you pledge money at whatever level you wish to contribute, and then if [...]

    01:40) <TITLE>
    The background changes to Leisure Suit Larry game settings again.

    01:40) Al>
    [...] the campaign doesn't make its goal, nobody gets charged anything; we get nothing, and you pay nothing.

    01:48) Al>
    We're giving people a chance to actually be in the game, to put an image of themselves in the game.
    In fact, if you remember Leisure Suit Larry, there was always a friendly dog that, if you stopped moving for too long, the dog would show up [...]

    02:06) <TITLE>
    The background changes to a view of the scene described.

    02:06) Al>
    [...] and humiliate you in yet another way; we're even giving you a chance to have your dog immortalized in the new version of the game *laughs*

    02:16) <TITLE>
    The background music changes to that of a live version of the Leisure Suit Larry theme tune, played by Axes Denied.

    02:26) Al>
    We need your support.
    If you ever played Larry and maybe didn't pay for it back then, now that you've got money, you've got a job, and you can afford it: come and help us - give a donation - give us a little donation on KickStarter.com [...]

    02:45) <TITL

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