| Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards | |
|---|---|
Amiga cover art for Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards |
|
| Developer(s) | Sierra On-Line Replay Games(HD remake) |
| Publisher(s) | Sierra On-Line Replay Games(HD remake) |
| Designer(s) | Al Lowe |
| Series | Leisure Suit Larry |
| Platform(s) | DOS, Amiga, Apple II, Atari, Apple IIGS, TRS-80, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, iOS, Android |
| Release date(s) |
|
| Genre(s) | Adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
| Rating(s) |
|
Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards is the alliterative title to an adventure computer game first released in 1987, the first part of the Leisure Suit Larry series.[1] It was a completely graphical adventure game with 16 color EGA graphics. It utilizes the Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) engine made famous by King's Quest: Quest for the Crown.[1] Originally developed for DOS and the Apple II, it was later ported to other platforms such as the Amiga, Atari ST, Apple IIGS and the TRS-80 Color Computer. In 1991, Sierra released a remake that used the Sierra's Creative Interpreter (SCI) engine with 256 colors and icon-driven (as opposed to text-based) interface.[1][2] A second, high-definition remake is currently under development by Replay Games (working with series creator Al Lowe) for planned release on Windows (via Steam and On-Live), Mac OS X, iOS, Android, Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network.[3]
Set in the fictional city of Lost Wages, the story follows middle-aged salesman Larry Laffer as he tries to "get lucky" (more alliteration). "Land of the Lounge Lizards" establishes several elements which recur in later games, including Larry's campy attire, perpetual bad luck with women,[4] and penchant for double-entendres. The story and basic structure of the game are lifted from Softporn Adventure, an 1981 Apple II text adventure.[1][2]
Contents |
The game begins outside a bar in Lost Wages (a parody of Las Vegas, Nevada). Players are given two real-time hours to complete the game, at which point a despairing Larry commits suicide, resulting in game over.[1] The time limit can be circumvented by speaking to a prostitute (see below). Players control Larry's movements with the directional keys and by inputing commands into a text parser (ex: "talk to man", "open window", etc.). If Larry is too far away from a person or object to comply, or if the command is invalid, a caution message appears with hints on what to do.
The city consists of five areas: Lefty's Bar, a hotel casino, a 24-hour wedding chapel, a discothèque, and a convenience store.[2] The player can walk between areas that are next to each other (like The casino and the 24-hour wedding chapel and the discothèque and convenience store), but the only method of travel between areas which are not next to each other is by hailing a taxi, which costs the player money; failure to do so results in Larry being mugged or hit by oncoming traffic.[1] During the early stages of the game, Larry can survive most premature "deaths": In the original release, a compartment opens beneath Larry's body and takes him to a laboratory where heroes from Sierra's computer games — such as King's Quest — are re-assembled; in the remake, Larry's remains are instead thrown inside a blender and reformed.[1]
A prostitute is available as soon as the game starts. Should Larry have intercourse with her, he will contract a venereal disease and die shortly thereafter.[1][2] This fate may be avoided by buying a condom at the convenience store; however, Larry questions the validity of losing his virginity to a hooker, and the game resumes[1] (though the time limit is removed, nonetheless).
Larry's interactions with key women are accompanied by a detailed image of whomever he is speaking with,[1] unlike other non-player characters. Each of the women (with the exception of the prostitute) shun Larry at first, but respond favourably to gifts of varying sorts. Although it is not possible to woo all of the women, giving gifts is needed to advance to the game's final area, the hotel penthouse.[1] To this end, money is essential to advance through the game, as it is needed for taxi fare and buying gifts. The only available method of augmenting Larry's funds is to gamble in the casino, playing blackjack and slots,[1] which is obligatory at least twice over the course of the game.
Larry Laffer is a 40-year old man who lives in a basement and has not yet lost his virginity. Having grown weary of his lonely existence, he decides to visit the resort city of Lost Wages to experience what he has not lived before, and find the woman of his dreams. Larry's quest involves four possible women: a nameless, seedy-looking prostitute; Fawn, a club-goer of low moral fibre; Faith, a receptionist who (true to her name) is faithful to her boyfriend; and Eve, a bathing beauty and Larry's ultimate goal.
EGA (1987) |
VGA (1991) |
Al Lowe, a former high school teacher, had carved a niche for himself at Sierra with his work on such Disney-licensed edutainment titles as Donald Duck's Playground, Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood, and The Black Cauldron, which he wrote, designed and programmed.[4] Early in the company's history, Sierra had published a text-only game called Softporn Adventure. Years later, with the success of King's Quest and increasing demand for adventure games, company founder Ken Williams asked Lowe to begin programming a full-color, animated game based on a similar adult theme.[2]
Lowe, who considered the original Softporn Adventure "a primitive, early effort", borrowed its basic structure and added a new 2D graphic engine, improvised humor, and an on-screen protagonist, Larry Laffer.[1][2] Chuck Benton, creator of Softporn Adventure, is included in the Leisure Suit Larry's end credits, as the layout and puzzles of the game are identical to those found in the earlier title.[2] An accomplished jazz musician, Lowe also wrote the main theme music called "For Your Thighs Only", and some of his compositions appear in later entries of the Leisure Suit Larry series.[1]
Due to the adult nature of the game, the EGA version includes an age verification system consisting of questions to which the authors reasoned only adults would know the answer.[1][5] As many of the questions are U.S.-centric, they risked frustrating non-American gamers.[6] If played today, the questions are also out of date and refer to events or people that younger adults might not know about. (One question begins "OJ Simpson is..." and one wrong answer is "under indictment.") In the 1987 re-release, the age verification screen may be skipped by pressing Alt-X (or in the 1991 SCI remake, by pressing Ctrl-Alt-X).[1]
"My initial reaction was that I had wasted six months of my life."
Unsure of how the game would be received, Sierra's management chose to release the game with no publicity or advertising budget. Unsurprisingly, its first-month sales were lower than any new Sierra product launch in years;[2] many large computer chain stores refused to sell it, finding the adult content unacceptable.[2] However, word-of-mouth spread quickly; by year’s end, Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards became a critical and commercial success,[2][4] being named the Software Publishers Association’s "Best Fantasy, Role Playing or Adventure Game of 1987" and selling over 250,000 copies. According to marketing director John Williams, "Obviously lots of retailers were selling lots of Leisure Suit Larry, but no one wanted to admit it."[7]
For the IBM Personal Computer and IBM PCjr running IBM PC DOS or MS-DOS, the game was originally distributed on two 360 kB 5.25-inch floppy diskettes and one 720 kB 3.5-inch floppy diskette; both diskette sizes were included in the package. The game can be run in systems with a single floppy drive, two floppy drives, or a floppy drive and a hard disk. When the files are copied from the floppy diskette(s) to a hard drive, the original installation floppy diskette is still needed as a "key disk": The program asks the user to insert the original diskette into a floppy drive before proceeding to game play. This copy protection scheme was soon circumvented and unauthorized versions were created that did not need the key disk with a hard drive.
During the game, motion control is effected by the numeric keypad for vertical, horizontal and diagonal movements. A joystick is optional.
The game, as originally released by Sierra On-Line, supports EGA, CGA, MCGA, VGA and Hercules monochrome graphics cards.
|
||||||||