Season V, Episode 6: Sierra 404

Explicit content warning

04/09/18 • 71 min

We’re nothing if not self-referential on this show. And this show harkens back to the very first episode we ever did, all the way back in August 2014, where Fred and I talked about the impending revival of Sierra as “Sierra Games.”

When we did the original episode, we were quite hopeful that this might mean a resurgence in popularity for our beloved franchises of old — perhaps with a new veneer, a new sheen, a new coat of paint. Something to bring them out of the funk of nostalgia and into the bright modern age.

Fast forward to 2016 and the rebooted King’s Quest episodic series has thunderously failed to set the world alight. Neo-Sierra’s other offerings are mostly forgettable: to date, their only other games are a rebooted Geometry Wars game that I don’t recall anyone asking for, a puzzle platformer, and a run-and-gun game.

Guess we’re back to this again.

But what was it about Sierra that made us so giddy with anticipation? Why are there still so many vocal and die-hard Sierra fans? What did this magical company even do apart from puzzles about cat moustaches and yeti pies?

Our guest today, Shawn Mills (whom you remember as the co-founder of Infamous Quests, but he is also, in fact, a journalist), has written a 5-part retrospective on Sierra (for your convenience: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5) that had us all intrigued. We all thought we knew the history of Sierra pretty well ourselves, but Shawn went above and beyond for those articles. For one, he talked to a lot of the people that worked there.

Sierra is mostly remembered as a magical wonder-factory in the late 80s, as a trailblazing industry leader in the early 90s, and as a cautionary tale of the stifling realities of suit-and-tie corporate management (not to mention what it does to your reputation to be involved, even if not directly, in one of the world’s the largest corporate fraud scandals) in the mid-to-late 90s.

Shawn covers all the bases with us as we reminisce about ye olden days, speculate about the future to come, and libel our way through a handful of cocaine jokes.

And we will, of course, also find out the answer to that all-important question that’s been on everyone’s mind since Shawn last visited us: Do thieving cunts still owe him money?

It’s all here on the YubTubs:

Or below as audio (where you can also subscribe).

Guess we’re back to this again.

Shawn covers all the bases with us as we reminisce about ye olden days, speculate about the future to come, and libel our way through a handful of cocaine jokes.

And we will, of course, also find out the answer to that all-important question that’s been on everyone’s mind since Shawn last visited us: Do thieving cunts still owe him money?

It’s all here on the YubTubs:

Or below as audio (where you can also subscribe).

Previous Episode

Season V, Episode 5: I Think You Like It

Worldbuilding in any work of fiction is not something to be trifled with. It takes a lot of effort to construct a believable world that you can immerse yourself in, but it takes almost zero effort to yank you out of that illusion.

Consider a science fiction work in which an entire planet is covered by one urbane society entirely populated by individuals of one race, for instance. Every nook and cranny in this behemoth of a city is streamlined to such an extent that everything appears to have mapped out from the very start. I can think of several examples myself, but what I’m trying to get at is: is such a world really a believable scenario?

It’d better be, cause I just described Milton Keynes, the UK.

Weird Brexit townships aside, our guest this week, Konstantinos Dimopoulos, says no. Konstantinos comes from a background of urban and regional planning, and he’s using his experience to inject some life and believability into game worlds. He has also published enough articles and papers on the subject to make Gareth cry big, fat PhD-tears.

As Konstantinos says himself, cities are messy from a planning standpoint, and something in the cityscape that may appear to have been planned may just be a happy accident. How can we avoid the situation outlined in the first paragraphs and add this “human” touch to our urban environments in gaming? Of course, while keeping an eye on the technology that brings our visions to life.

“There it is. The Citadel. Too bad most of it is closed off for repairs come the next game.”

That is the big question we try to tackle in this episode, adding just a dash of Dutch pornography sound bites as we go along. The Patreon gang will get more than they bargained for in regards to the latter, and the rest of you can listen to the episode below this post, or on YouTube.

On behalf of my fellow co-hosts and per the episode title: I think you’ll like it. May God have mercy on our souls.

Next Episode

Season V, Episode 7: Not the Footballer

First off, we must apologize to all the fans of Alexander Mejia, the Colombian soccer star who was in the squad for the FIFA World Cup in 2014.

“The fuck am I doing here?”

We have an entirely different Alexander Mejia on the show. One who is working on some truly trailblazing shit.

Alexander’s company, Human Interact, is working on a VR title called Starship Commander. It’s not your average VR game, though.

In this game, you are thrust into a story-rich world where your primary means of interaction involves literally conversing with the game. There’s some powerful machine learning and AI stuff going on underneath which understands what you’re saying with your filthy word-spewing face flaps and has the game respond in kind.

Alexander isn’t afraid to dream big, and neither are we when we ask people to sift through the idiocy of your three hosts to get to Alexander’s juicy goodness of future dreams. There’s some YubTub joy down below, and the audio version (along with subscribe links) at the bottom of this post.

You may also be interested to check out Alexander’s weekly streams of adventure games over on Twitch.

To be honest, I think this is just how he drives to work every day.

And you lovely Patreon people will be treated to an exclusive 10 minute exploration of the wonders of Danish pop music, among other random shit.