Thank you for all the supportive responses for
“Why We Loved Sierra Games”  
& follow-up

I wanted to say thank you to all of you who have sent me supportive responses for Why We Loved Sierra Games.

A personal high point is that I got to correspond with some of the Sierra designers, who are like personal heroes to me. I won’t post any private correspondence here, but here are the public posts some of them did. (Order is random.)


The Guys from Andromeda

Guys From Andromeda: Dear classic Sierra fans,I highly recommend checking out these videos by @ewingfighter. "Why We Loved SierraGames"

Al Lowe

Al Lowe: Eric Wing just posted "Why We Loved Sierra Games" and, if you too enjoyed Sierra games back in the day, you should watch it. He compares all the old games to the 2015 King's Quest. He calls it "An Opinionated Review by a crotchety Sierra fan who remembers 1984." I call it great nostalgia and a fond look back at different time in gaming.


Josh Mandel

Josh Manel: For adventure game lovers, HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION for "Why We Loved Sierra Games". @ewingfighter reviews KQ 2015 through a lens of SOL's style!


Lori & Corey Cole

Hero-U: Eric Wing has create a great 3-part series on "Why We Loved Sierra Games". Lori and I are proud to take credit for introducing the "ask about" game mechanic, along with the first game character who lied to you. :)
Corey Cole: Great videos - thanks for all the work you put into them! I especially liked the idea of adventure games differing from others in allowing players to have "higher-level interactions" (or I might say "indirect consequences"). Also "sese of accomplish" (many game types) and "convince players that their actions matter". Great analysis!


Christy Marx

Christy Marx (yes, the creator of Jem and the Holograms...she did that too.)



I received so many great comments about the video, I didn’t know how to choose what to post here to represent them. So this was one of the earilest ones I received and one I felt really proud about.

refD: Great job, I gladly watched all 3 parts. As you discussed your intentions in your first episode I very much thought: * "It's just Nostalgia" * "He's wrong" * "There is very little merit in the game design of old Sierra games" I felt this as someone who thoroughly enjoyed Sierra games at the time (my favorite was also SQ3). I'd describe my current views as most strongly descended from Jonathan Blow + Keith Burgun. Anyway, you achieved what you set out to. You changed my opinion, I felt the best parts were definitely your concept of "higher order interaction" and the thorough coverage of the KQ1 example of the dwarf/giant.



And I’m glad people noticed and remembered Gary Owens in the video, even if it is sad. He’s an amazing talent that should be remembered.

RIP Gary OwensRoxi: Watching all three parts just made me sad remembering Gary Owens, especially the final few seconds. :(












Also, one of the things I hoped is people would build new discussions based on the ideas presented in the video. Joe Matar recently did that with his provacative & in-depth article, Day of the Tentacle is the Best-Designed Adventure Game Ever.

I Joe My Writes: Day of the Tentacle is the Best-Designed Adventure Game Ever



A slight tangent, Roland founder, Ikutaro Kakehashi, just passed away at age 87. Sierra’s history is deeply connected with Roland. Sierra was the first major company to push sound cards on PCs, starting with King’s Quest IV. And the Roland MT-32 was their flagship music card and what they composed for. Sierra and Roland helped shape the course of music in video games. Even Nintendo was touched by Roland starting with Super Nintendo.

Roland MT-32: Insert Buckazoid

It looks like my “article”, The History of PC Game MIDI is still up at MidiMusicAdventures.com. That was originally just a forum response I posted at Quest Studios, but was liked so much, it was preserved as an article.



Finally, I just made a “demo”, inspired from Quest for Glory. It was one of those many other things we loved about Sierra games that I couldn’t fit into the video. (It also doubles as a tribute to a friend who died this summer.)

So check out Dance of the Fairies. It is for Sierra fans everywhere. (And incidentally, it is built around The Magic Meadow/Erana’s Peace, a song written originally for the MT-32.)

Dance of the Fairies



Related entries

• Spring 2017 blog update summaries

• Dance of the Fairies / QFG inspired demo & RIP Carlos Icaza

• Summary of Swift on Android / try! Swift Tokyo

• Swift on Android full presentation (hosted by Realm)

• Why We Loved Sierra Games

• DuckTales 2017 & pics of McDuck’s at DisneySea (Tokyo)

• Blurrr SDK soft launch (PlayControl blog)

• Blurrr SDK (official site)


Copyright © PlayControl Software / Eric Wing