My Ars associates were settling back at the Orbital HQ water cooler recently, and– as with dignity aging players are wont to do– they started to recollect about traditional Sierra On-Line experience video games. I was a big fan of these video games in my youth, so I settled in for some hot buttered fond memories.

Would we keep in mind the limited-palette happiness of early King’s Quest, Space Quest, or Quest for Glory titles? Would we branch off beyond video games with “Quest” in their titles, looking for rarer fare like Freddy Pharkas: Frontier PharmacistWhat about the gothic stylings of The Colonel’s Bequest or the voodoo-curious Gabriel Knight

Nope. The talk was of acorns. [Bleeping] Acorns.

The scene in concern originated from King’s Quest IIIwhere our hero Gwydion should obtain some incredibly desiccated acorns to advance the plot. It sounds easy enough. As one walkthrough puts it, “Go east one screen and north one screen to the acorn tree. Try picking up acorns until you get some dry ones. Try various spots underneath the tree.” Easy! And clear!

Other than it wasn’t either one due to the fact that the video game rather infamously will not constantly provide you the acorns, even when you go into the ideal command. This led lots of players to think they remained in the incorrect area, when in truth, they simply needed to keep getting in the “get acorns” command while moving pixel by pixel around the tree up until the video game lastly provided them. Among our staffers confessed to having actually bought the King’s Quest III tip book exclusively since of this “puzzle.” (The tip book, which is now online, states that gamers must “move around” the specific oak tree in concern since “you can only find the right kind of acorns in one spot.”

This wasn’t rather the “fun” I had actually kept in mind from these video games, however as I cast my mind back, I poorly remembered comparable circumstances. Area Quest II: Vohaul’s Revenge had actually been my very first Sierra title. After my sibling and I invested weeks on the video game just to pass away consistently in some pitch-dark tunnels, we urged my papa to call Sierra’s 1-900 pay tip line. He thought of it. I might see it hurt him since he had never ever before (and never ever because!) called a 1-900 number. In this case, the call cost a piratical 75 cents for the very first minute and 50 cents for each extra minute. After listening to us grumble for numerous days directly, my father chose that his peace of mind deserved the cost, and he called.

Like the acorn example above, we had actually understood what to do– we had actually simply refrained from doing it to the video game’s rather exacting requirements. The secret was to utilize a radiant gem as a source of light, which my sibling and I had actually long comprehended. The issue was the text parser, which required that we “put gem in mouth” to utilize the gem’s light in the tunnels. There was no other location to put the gem, no other method to hold or connect it. (We attempted them all.) No other effort to utilize the light of this shining crystal, no matter how clear, well-intentioned, or succinctly revealed, would work. You put the gem in your mouth, or you passed away in the darkness.

Returning from my reveries to the discussion at hand, I captured Ars Senior Editor Lee Hutchinson’s negative remark that these sort of puzzles were “the only way to make 2–3 hours of ‘game’ last for months.” This appeared rather stunning, nearly offending. How could one state such a thing about the video games that colored my memories of youth?

I chose to replay Area Quest II for the very first time in 35 years in an effort to safeguard my own past.

Huge error.

Play it once again, Sam

In my memory, the Space Quest series was filled with greatly composed humor, creative puzzles, and charming art. When I fired up the initial variation of the video game, I discovered that just one of these was real. The art, regardless of its blockiness and minimal colors, stayed captivating.

When it comes to the gameplay, the puzzles were not a lot “clever” as “infuriating,” “obvious,” or( regularly) “rather obscure.”

Discovering the radiant gem talked about above needs you to swim into one little area of a multi-screen river, without any sign ahead of time that anything of value remains in that precise place. Attempting to “call” a hunter who has actually caught you not does anything … till you do it a 2nd time. And the less stated about attempting to toss a puzzle at a Labian Terror Beast, typing out numerous word permutations while death bears down upon you, the much better.

The entire video game was likewise filled with even more no-warning insta-deaths than I had actually kept in mind. On the opening screen, for example, after your janitorial space-broom drifts off into the cosmic ether, you can stroll your character straight off the edge of the orbital spaceport station he is cleaning up. The video game does not stop you; undoubtedly, it eliminates you and after that buffoons you for “an obvious lack of common sense.” It then calls you a “wing nut” with an “inability to sustain life.” Video game over.

The video game’s 3rd screen, which includes absolutely nothing more to do than merely walking, will likewise eliminate you in a minimum of 2 various methods. Stroll into the space still using your spacesuit and your employer will come by and chew you out. Video game over.

If you handle to prevent that fate by becoming your indoor uniform initially, it’s comically simple to tap the incorrect arrow secret and fall off the space’s entirely guardrail-free elevator platform. Video game over.

Get utilized to it since the video game will eliminate you in so, numerous methods: touching any single pixel of a root beast whose branches form a challenging labyrinth; strolling into a huge mushroom; stepping over an unnoticeable pit in the ground; getting shot by a guard who zips in on a hovercraft; drowning in an undersea tunnel; getting swiped at by some sort of huge ape; not putting the radiant gem in your mouth; falling under acid; and a lot more.

I utilized the word “insta-death” above, however the video game is not even content with this. At one bottom line late in the video game, a huge Aliens-design alien stalks the corridors, and if she discovers you, she “kisses” you. Then she leaves! You are safe! Naturally, if you have actually seen the movies, you will acknowledge that you are not safe, however the video game lets you go on for a bit before the alien’s child undoubtedly bursts from your chest, eliminating you. Video game over.

This is why the main tip book recommends that you “save your game a lot, especially when it seems that you’re entering a dangerous area. That way, if you die, you don’t have to retrace your steps much.” Probably, this was when thought about amusing.

When it concerns the humor, the majority of it is broad. (When you are informed to “say the word,” you need to state “the word.”In some cases it is condescending. (“You quickly glance around the room to see if anyone saw you blow it.”Or it may simply be toilet jokes. (Plungers, jock straps, bathroom tissue, alien restrooms, and fouling one’s pants all emerge.)

My overall gameplay time: a couple of hours.

“By Grabthar’s hammer!” I believed. “Lee was right!”

When I confessed this to him, Lee informed me that he had really hung around discovering to speedrun the Space Quest video games throughout the pandemic. “According to my notes, a clean run of SQ2 in ‘fast’ mode—assuming good typing skills—takes about 20 minutes straight-up,” he stated. Yikes.

And yet

The past was a various time. Computer system memory was little, graphics abilities were low, and video game had actually emerged from the “let them live just long enough to encourage spending another quarter” game design. Mouse adoption took a while; text parsers made good sense despite the fact that they developed lots of aggravation. Yes– some of these video games were a couple of hours of gameplay extended out with insta-death, unknown puzzles, and the large quantity of time it took simply to stroll throughout the video game’s different screens. (Seriously, “walking around” took an absurd quantity of the video game’s playtime, specifically when a puzzle made you backtrack 3 screens, type some command, and after that return.)