One interesting fact: Leisure Suit Larry is pretty much directly based on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softporn_Adventure text adventure game. If you try it, you'll find the plot and the surroundings very familiar.

Personally I discovered this while reading http://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Computer-Revolution-Anniversar... which I recommend to anyone.

The game has no major female characters who aren't hookers.

No arguing that LSL has its place in gaming history, but it doesn't have a place in a future that is trying its hardest to remove objectification of women from society.

EDIT: The down voting button is not a disagree button. If you disagree, reply!

If you want to play King's Quest I, Police Quest I, Space Quest I or a few other Sierra games legally in your browser (HTML5) right now, go here: http://sarien.net/. The blog says that they used to also have Leisure Suit Larry but had to take it down since Activision had sold the IP.

This was posted on Hacker News a couple of months ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3591342

I wrote an iPhone game that's extremely like Leisure Suit Larry, about a year or two ago. Same spirit and game mechanics. Called "The Adventures of Khaki Pants Pete". Pretty much a nod to LSL, even the name was a tongue-in-cheek reference to it's name. I did it under contract for a dev shop that in turn did it for the company that owns the Klondike Bar. A lot of people said it was pretty fun. I thought it was fun. And I'm old enough to have played LSL version 1.

From the LSL Kickstarter project goals:

* The freedom to play on mobile devices * A modern point-and-click/touchscreen interface * Updated, ultra-high res graphics * Fully voiced characters * Even more of the humor that’s made Al Lowe a household name…like “Borders” and “Enron”!

Khaki Pants Pete did/does all of that, except the voiced characters. Has music and audio feedback effects, but only on-screen text dialogue bubbles. Though pretty funny.

I'm not sure if I like or dislike the fact that their KS project has set a goal of raising $500k to fund developing it. I know our/my budget for making Khaki Pants Pete was much much less than that. My slice was much smaller anyway. :)

clarification: I did not design the game play or script, but I did design and code the entire game engine from scratch, solo.

I remember asking my parents for the age verification questions to be able to run LSL when I was a kid. I would head downstairs and ask her random trivia questions because it was easier than asking the Encyclopedia Britannica or what passed for the internet in those days. Obviously this day and age this is not possible due to Wikipedia, but in it's time and place it made me more likely to play rogue and/or do something productive with my computer.

Not sure if anyone remembers that aspect of it, but I still do.

If there was a moral story, it was lost on me at that age, and not likely to revisit it. Certainly better than Custer's Revenge, which is a horrifying concept and makes me very sad.

If you think that LSL is a good and relevant example of misogyny and bad attitudes towards women, then apparently you never turn on your TV, watch movies or look at at advertisements around you. A rehash of LSL is the least of our problems in this space.

People feel better when you treat them as people, not objects. This goes for men and women. We're all human and deserve a lot of respect and understanding.

Some people probably like the cheap thrills that the game offers, some are nostalgic, some may be interested in social commentary. This is all quite all right and healthy.

// I got Neil Young's "Pochohontas" associated with that terrible game. AAAAAAAAHHH. :'(

I think the fact that this is primarily a PC port with iOS/Android merely a possibility is a deal-killer for me, thhe content notwithstanding. I'm not saying that PCs aren't technically the largest gaming platform by user base...I'm saying that the largest base of casual gamers with money to blow by far is iOS and Android. From what I remember, LSL and Kings Quest were largely casual in mechanic.

Secret of Monkey Island and several of the modern Capcom adventure games (Phantom Detective) have made successful transitions. If this is being built from scratch, why is this not focused on what is clearly becoming the biggest casual gaming platform?

Why stretch it out more? LSL was fun, but it's time is passed. Why not something new like "Skinny Tie Sam" or "Pleather Pants Paul"? Create the world from scratch and don't be beholden to what's come before.

edit in case anybody is interested, they should check out Matt Chat on Youtube, some of the most compelling interviews with adventure game designers of the past...

Here's Part 1 of "Al Lowe" (designer of LSL) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PGGEFQdZuw

Looks like they ran out of money or are just looking to pocket some free money, considering they announced the project last year : http://www.egmnow.com/articles/exclusive-leisure-suit-larry-...

If amazing adventure game developers of yesteryear continue to start Kickstarter projects, I am going to end up seriously broke.

Space Quest! Space Quest! Space! Quest! SPACE QUEST!!

I think this genre of games is ripe for a comeback on iOS. Just try to avoid having the keyboard pop up all the time and it should be great.. Although discovering the secret commands and hidden jokes by randomly trying words was half the fun of the old Quest titles.

Ever wish sometimes you could take money away from Kickstarter projects? LSL is one of those things that should be left in the '80s.

I'm thinking a film would be better as Larry hits the social networks and stumbles across a plot to spike drinks city-wide, something mixing American Pie, James Bond and Austin Powers - with/without CGI females?

Loved this game as a kid. My granddad had a computer with it installed. When he was downstairs talking to my parents I'd load it up. At the beginning of the game it had a bunch of questions to 'prove you were and adult'. I rarely got past those questions! That was half the fun, when I actually got in the game I didn't really know what to do but loved the way you could apparently do anything.

Someone please bring Starflight back. Hell, they could simply use the exact story of the original and its sequel and have two great games.

Well provided they don't make it first person :P

There are so many great games from the eighties. Many of them had to have original elements and wit because they were so constrained by the machines of that day.

How sad. A remake for 500k? Really?

The 8-bitness of the old-school games gave the old sierra games their magic. I would have loved to play a new larry game, but this just makes me sad.

What a waste...

I just pledged $25. I encourage others do to the same!

This brings back memories

I never played the LSL series but I'm a big fan of the classic adventure games (Space Quest and Full Throttle -- if you've never played them, you've been robbed). Maybe if this works out we'll see some more revivals. This genre in this style was completely lost in the rush to move everything to three dimensions. There are moments and feelings that simply can't be captured by other genres. The fact that they hold the rights and have Al Lowe on board makes this unbelievably cool. Good luck, guys!

now even kickstarters are going for the 'sequel' trap?

LSL is dated now. it was fresh when it was made.

how much more time they could have put into an ORIGINAL product if they haven't filled the pockets of big-game-studio?

hint: to people that actually likes games, a title that sports some well know adaptation is often associated with a bad experience to come. It's often the cheap game made to cater to parents buying xmas gifts without a clue.

Five hundred thousand dollars. Give me a fucking break.

Their justification is even more baffling:

"I (Paul) just got off the phone with Greg, the producer over at Double Fine and asked him how it was possible to make a full fledged adventure game for $400k when it's costing us $500k to re-make Leisure Suit Larry. He told me that they initially only planned on making a small iOS game with 3 people on the entire team: 1 artist, 1 programmer, and 1 producer. That, plus they already had a game engine they spent millions of dollars making for a previous game whereas we're using the Unity engine and we're starting with the PC English version, which is a huge, huge difference!! The only thing we can re-use is the original design. Everything else we need to create from scratch: characters, environments, animations, engineering, and even sound effects."

How is using Baby's First Crossplatform Engine harder than using an engine created from scratch, even if that engine is already finished? And the bit about creating their own assets is hollow rationalization, too. It's not like Double Fine is just porting a decades-old PC game too.