I loved the idea, but didn't think that Scott and Mark would actually be able to do a good game.
The two of them did a demo that had me rolling. I didn't really support the project prior to seeing it - they did it on their own time and made me look at it. I knew as soon as I looked at the screen that we had a winner.
I liked the first couple of games a lot - but then actually didn't like the games which followed, especially the most recent much at all. Scott and Mark had a personal falling out after the first couple of games, and disagreed openly during the third. The last two were done by Scott alone. Scott is awesome, as is Mark - but together they move into a whole new dimension. Their best work was as a team, but they are unlikely to ever work together again.
I have played Phantasmagoria (the original) at least five times end to end. There is something magic about the game that has never been repeated.
I am a fan of the Space Quest series. The last few games haven't given me the thrill I wanted, but I just know there is a great Space Quest game out there somewhere just waiting to be born. Lots of people around here keep trying to kill the series, because the last one bombed. I'm in the camp that says it was the games fault, not the series. We can't blame customers for not buying a game that wasn't great - and we can't go launching a whole new series every time we make a mistake. Sometimes you need to try to figure out what went wrong and try again. It's like a golfer who hits a bad shot - the right answer isn't to switch to football, the right answer is to keep swinging til you get it right. We need to study what was right about the early games in the series and recapture that feeling. I'm cramming through a new Space Quest, but at the same time I'm telling everyone that I am going to shoot it and start over again if I don't see what I'm looking for. If the game isn't awesome, no one will see it but me. I will not ship another mediocre game under the Space Quest name. They know I'm serious and that's why they are trying to get it perfect before I see it.
I was looking for some way to earn a living with computers outside LA. In those days only the big cities had jobs for programmers, and that's what I was. I really wanted to move to the mountains - and live in a small town. Roberta and I wanted our children to grown up like the Waltons. It was our dream and Sierra allowed it to occur.
Like all things, by accident. Roberta played a text adventure game on a mainframe computer that I was using. She loved it and asked if I could program a game like that for personal computers. The rest is history.
© 1997-1998 Sterling Jones