Al Lowe is perhaps one of the most well-known game
designers in the industry--and, it is often joked, the oldest. He is
best known for his design efforts on the Leisure Suit Larry series.
These games,
[in]famous for its sexual innuendoes and off-color humor,
chronicle the misadventures of Larry Laffer, all-around
swinging guy, as he goes about his never-ending search for love.
Along with Larry, Mr. Lowe has also worked in some capacity on
a number of Sierra's "Quest games" and has done
successful side projects including
Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist and Torin's Passage,
a game aimed at a slightly younger crowd.
Be sure to check out the official
website for his
latest release, Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail, at
Sierra On-Line.
Verbosity recently got
a chance to talk with Mr. Lowe about computer gaming and just life in
general. Here's what he had to say...
I wrote some of the very first
"edutainment" products; games that were games
first, and educational second, in the pre-Apple IIe days. Ken and Roberta
Williams saw them at the last Applefest show. Since I was strongly
influenced
by Roberta's games (my son & I were big fans), my games looked a lot like
hers. So, of course, they liked them! Great marketing scheme, eh? Anyway,
Ken
bought the rights to my first 3 little education
games, and we've been together
ever
since.
I also felt the market was ready for a
game with a sense of humor. At the
time, there was almost NO humor in any game (there still isn't much, is
there?). The "adult" side of me just slipped in too. I've always made about
the same jokes, it's just now I have Larry to be the permanent butt of them.
We discussed doing a 3-D graphic adventure version
of this old game; I said
I'd take it home and play it. I was appalled. I went back to Ken and said,
"This game is so out of date, anybody who plays it would have to wear a
leisure suit." It got a big laugh, and we decided to follow through: do a
game
about a loser who thinks he's really with it but who really is out of it,
who
wants to be a ladies' man but never will be, naive, a little dumb, but still
likable.
When it shipped, Larry 1
had the worst first
month's sales of any title Sierra
ever sold! So I mentally "wrote it off" and went on to other projects (ie,
programming Police Quest I and
King's Quest IV. Fortunately, every month
Larry's
sales doubled, until after 8 months, it was in the top 10. In fact,
I'm very proud of a national top 10 best-sellers list that shows
three games I
programmed in the top 10 at the same time. I think that might still be a
record!
I don't think I've ever been censored, per se,
but we've "discussed" a few
things that could be considered "over the line" and I've agreed they were
and
should be "improved." Usually that means coming up with something funnier
instead of dirtier.
Verbosity:
You've been in the software business for a relatively long time. How did
you get involved with game design and how did you hook up with Sierra?
Al Lowe:
I was born a poor black child in Gumbo, Missouri....wait. Maybe I shouldn't
start THAT far back!
V:
Throughout your earlier years, your work was centered along Sierra's
children's games. What prompted the move over to the Leisure Suit
Larry
series and a somewhat...different direction?
AL:
Actually, I worked as lead programmer on Roberta's King's Quest III
first
and that made me realize there were many more adults buying computer games
than any specific age of children.
V:
Speaking of Larry, would you be willing to share his secret origin with
us? How did the little guy spring to mind? Any interesting anecdotes about
his creation?
V:
Your Leisure Suit Larry
games have a reputation as being somewhat
"off-color." Do you receive a great deal of negative feedback
about the nature of the series? Has there ever been a joke or scene that
Sierra totally refused to let you include?
AL:
In 1981, Sierra published its only text-only game, an adventure game named
Softporn.
You may have seen it; we included it on the Larry Collection
CD-ROM. It was a huge hit. At a time when Apple had only shipped 100,000
Apple
II's, Sierra had sold 25,000 copies of Softporn.
And since everyone I knew
had
a pirated copy, you can pretty much figure it had about 100% penetration (so
to speak).
V:
Just out of curiosity, should we expect to see Passionate Patti or Freddy
Pharkas anytime in the near future?
AL:
We received a few letters after Larry 1 came out, but nothing much
since...possibly three per game. On the other hand, I've received hundreds
of
letters from people who had great fun playing the games and encouraging me
to
write another. I think the free market seems to handle these things quite
well. People who don't want to see the kinds of situations Larry gets in
don't
spend 50 bucks to be offended. Thank God lots of highly intelligent people
DO!
AL:
Only in games they've already been in. I doubt Patti will return to haunt
Larry again. I'm sure there will be no sequel to Freddy Pharkas, even though
the game has sold well into six figures.
V:
In 1995, you made somewhat of a return to the genre of children's gaming
with Torin's Passage.
This was often touted as a "King's Quest game that
isn't set in Daventry." How do you feel about this description?
V:
A few years back, Sierra hyped a game by the name of
Capitol Punishment
that you were working on. Suddenly, it disappeared. What was the nature of
its removal from the product schedule? How was along was it in production
before being cancelled?
AL:
I'm proud of it! When Ken Williams and I discussed the type of game we
wanted
to do, the quick description was a "King's Quest-style
game with more humor.
When the first review hit and the headline read, "The Game That Would Be
KQ8."
I was really pleased. I think many people misunderstood
Torin's Passage,
however. It was designed for a parent to share with a child, because I
wanted
a game that Megan (my then 11-year-old daughter) and I could play together.
I
got the idea when I took her to see the movie Mrs. Doubtfire. I noticed
there
were times when the kids in the audience laughed, and other times when the
adults laughed. "Why are there no computer games like that?" I thought. I
think if you play the game with a child you'll see the same thing happen
with
Torin --
both the adult and the child will laugh, just not at the same times!
AL:
It got far enough along for me to realize it was a better premise than
game!
There were some clever ideas in it, but at the time, it was a new game
engine
that ran beautiful with a test-size set of data. But when we actually loaded
in enough characters, objects, graphics, sounds, etc to make a game...it
bogged down terribly. Of course, with today's Pentium-requirements it would
run just fine. Hey! Maybe...just maybe.... <G>
V:
Of all the games you've worked on, what is the one you're proudest of?
AL:
Easy: Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love For Sail! (Warning! Hype alert!!)
Seriously, it's everything I think an adventure game should be...because
everything I think a game should be, we put it in! I think the "no walking
around" map eliminates an old boring aspect of adventures. I think the "pop
up, context sensitive menu" interface gave me lots of flexibility in design
(if I came up with a funny line for some object, it was trivial just to add
a
new action to its verb list). The minimal typing lets you get all those
familiar old put downs you've missed in the years since our "type 'til you
bleed" games. The ship makes a rich environment for game play. The animation
is the greatest ever. The backgrounds are an interesting mix of cartoon,
wacky
textures and 3-D rendering. The voices are the funniest we've ever had in a
Sierra game. And no crappy MIDI sound card synthesizers here! The lounge
music and that authentic 70s soundtrack is real music by real musicians, and
it
streams smoothly from the CD. The Scratch 'n' Sniff card is silly, but used
just enough to make it important. Even the cursors are "Larry-esque!"
V:
What's your all-time favorite computer game?
AL:
(See previous answer.) Seriously, I must admit it's not a computer game at
all, it's Mario 64.
I think it's a wonderful mixture of fun and puzzles.
Yeah,
I know there's no babes, but....
V:
What can the public expect from you in the way of upcoming projects?
AL:
I have several proposals under discussion right now, but I think it's fair
to
say you probably won't see another adventure game like the other games I've
done. We're working on some things that will feel familiar to Larry fans,
but
will not be "just another Larry game." And that's about all I can say right
now!
V:
What's the one thing about Al Lowe that would shock everyone who has ever
played one of his games?
AL:
Assuming such a person still COULD be shocked, I'd guess it's probably this:
I'm not Larry, and I'm nothing like him! I've been happily married for 28
years to a wonderful (and obviously) understanding woman, I never hang out
in
bars, never pick up women, rarely trip over my own feet, etc. However, if
you
had the chance to spend some time with me, I think it would feel pretty much
like playing my games. I'm really the games' narrator, laughing AT Larry,
commenting on his foibles, giving him all the answers.
Thanks to Al Lowe for conducting this e-mail interview with
Jess Morrissette.
This article may not
be reproduced without the consent of Verbosity Magazine.