Al Lowe and Josh Mandel Quit Replay Games

Leisure Suit Larry creator Al Lowe and co-writer Josh Mandel have left Replay Games due to the abusive and destructive behavior of Replay founder and CEO Paul Trowe.

As you know, last year he sabotaged fellow Kickstarter campaigns with false press releases and hurtful and deceitful comments (both under his own name and possibly under an assumed name).

Unfortunately, that behavior hasn't stopped, as he posted some hurtful words and unfounded claims at the SpaceVenture Kickstarter page in October. That behavior caused several Replay volunteers to criticize Paul's behavior publicly, leading Paul to fire them and ban them from the Replay forums. Worse, he insulted and publicly outed one volunteer as a transsexual woman (her name has been omitted from the twitter post to save her from any more emotional duress).

Additionally, Kotaku has posted an article that details Paul Trowe's arrest in October 2012 for showing a sex video to an underage teenage girl.

Al Lowe has stated that his leaving the company had to do with these and other reasons. Replay Games still owns the rights to make Leisure Suit Larry games for now, but if they do decide to make more, it will be without Al Lowe or Josh Mandel.

I would like to wish Al and Josh (as well as the Replay volunteers and employees who were affected by this) the best of luck in the future.

Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded Is Out Now

Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded, the remake of Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, is out now. Those who didn't pre-order the game through a kickstarter pledge can purchase the game for $20 USD from many retailers including the store of game's co-developer (N-Fusion developed the engine) and publisher, Replay Games. It's also available from online retailers such as GOG.com and Steam.

Fester Mudd Episode 1 Is Now Available For iOS

iTunes now has a Fester Mudd Episode 1 universal app available for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

The best news is that it's available for only $0.99 USD for a limited time! At that price, every adventure game fan should pick it up.

Telltale Cancels King's Quest

In a statement released to Digital Trends, Steve Allison, Telltale's senior vice president of marketing, has confirmed that Telltale's King's Quest series has been cancelled.

“While we deeply love King’s Quest here at Telltale, we can confirm that we are no longer working on the franchise. There was a time last year that we investigated partnering with third party developers to produce the game as a partnership but decided against outsourcing. We are not privy to what plans Activision has for the franchise, if any.”

In the same article, Paul Trowe of Replay Games states that Activision is planning on doing something with the King's Quest license. However, it's unknown just exactly what Activision has planned.

Fester Mudd: The Curse of the Gold Episode 1 Review

Paavo Härkönen of Prank, together with Josh Mandel of Replay Games (and formerly Sierra fame), have released the first episode of a three episode comedy adventure series set in the American Old West. The game is self-described as a tribute to classic adventure games. Does it live up to the predecessors it emulates?

This episode opens up with Fester Mudd receiving a letter from his brother claiming that he found gold and asking Fester to come to see him in the town of Loamsmouth. When he gets there, he discovers that finding his brother is not as easy as he thought it would be, and that many of the townsfolk stand in the way of his discovery. The game is similar to game series such as Monkey Island, in that it doesn't accurately represent the time period that it's set in. The game contains many anachronistic items that are used as visual jokes, such as electrical lights and bottle machines. The first puzzle you encounter is an anachronistic one on it's own, which is familiar to our time but not the 1800's in which the game is set. This is all done for comedy value, and like The Secret of Monkey Island before it, works quite nicely.

The humor is done well. There aren't any laugh out loud moments, but there are times that will make you smile. Like Josh Mandel's classics, a lot of the jokes come from the description of objects in the game. There are also a lot of funny references to the classics that inspired the game, such as the aforementioned Monkey Island series as well as the Josh Mandel (and Al Lowe) Sierra western adventure Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist. The story itself is interesting, but it's more of a set-up for what's to come as not much is revealed yet.

The game is definitely classic in its aesthetics. The interface contains a verb bar and inventory at the bottom of the screen in the style of the classic LucasArts adventures from the early 1990's. The graphic style is also reminiscent of those games, drawn in a low-resolution pixelized style that is reminiscent of that time period. Like those games, the characters themselves aren't very detailed, but the backgrounds are. The background art manages to be pleasing, showing just enough detail without being over crowded. The game does feature the occasional close-up, which allows for a more detailed view of the characters (mostly the main character, Fester Mudd). The character portraits are done in a cartoon style which fit the backgrounds and the general tone of the game just fine.

The puzzles in this game also more closely resemble the classics than games of today. The puzzles aren't quite as hard as the games of the past, but they aren't easy either. The game does have some puzzles that can only be opened up after an event is triggered and you re-enter the area later. This is all done logically, and fit well within the game's story. There aren't any dead ends, and thankfully there are no small inventory items that require pixel hunting. There aren't any deaths either, so you are free to experiment at your leisure. This was nice, as there were a few puzzles that I left for a while, explored the other areas of the game, and came back later to solve with a fresh mind.

The game's music is done well, also in a classic style. There aren't any pieces of music that stuck in my mind after playing, but they fit the atmosphere of the game nicely. The game doesn't have any voice acting, however. The dialog is all displayed as pure text. There are some moments where some of the game's dialog is presented as sound effects though, such as dogs barking. I never found myself missing the lack of voice however, since it went with the classic theme the game was presenting. The humor more than made up for the lack of voice in my opinion.

The first episode of Fester Mudd is a great start to what is shaping up to be a very entertaining adventure game series. The art style is in a well-done classic pixelized style, the game is funny, and the puzzles are fun and challenging (without being too much so). There's not much revealed of the story yet in this episode, as it's all a set up for future episodes, but what is there is well done and interesting. The game's music fits the atmosphere well. The lack of voice work may put off some, but the humor makes up for the lack of voice in my opinion. I recommend this game to any one who is a fan of the classic adventure games from the early 1990's.  

Final Verdict:

4 out of 5

Fester Mudd: Curse of the Gold Episode 1 Is Out Now

The first episode of the three part western adventure game by Prank ltd. and published by Replay (the company that is also publishing the upcoming Leisure Suit Larry 1 remake) is out now for Windows, Mac, and Linux. You can get Fester Mudd: Curse of the Gold - Episode 1: A Fistful of Pocket Lint at Replay's store for $9.99 USD.

Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded Postponed Until April

Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded, the crowd funded high definition remake of Leisure Suit Larry by N-Fusion and Replay Games which is being lead by series creator Al Lowe and writer Josh Mandel, has been postponed from March to April. In that post, Al Lowe assures fans that the game is coming along smoothly, and announces that a playable alpha will be released (for people who pledged at tiers high enough to get that perk) on the 16th of February.

Replay Games' Paul Trowe Sabotaging Kickstarters?

If you're not aware, Paul Trowe of Replay Games (the company who started the Leisure Suit Larry kickstarter) sent out a message to the press that he wanted to sue Wisecrack games for using Al Lowe's name and the Leisure Suit Larry name on their kickstarter. Al Lowe reponded to the message saying that he didn't intend to sue and that he gave his permission to use his name and wishes Wisecrack Games luck on Sam Suede.

However, some posters on the Adventure Gamers forums have dug up something rather concerning. According to this post by Adventure Gamers poster supaplex, a person called "gamespygeek" has been trolling the Sierra related kickstarters. There is a profile on Myspace also under the name gamespygeek that looks like Paul Trowe. Additionally, the name on the Myspace page "Jiminy Drambuie" is friends with Paul Trowe on Facebook, and both Paul Trowe and Jiminy Drambuie are listed as living in Austin, TX.

Also, an Adventure Gamers forum user by the name of Siddhi noted some similarites between Gamespygeek's trolls and Paul Trowe's own posts.

Gamespygeek wrote on SpaceVenture kickstarter:

I don’t know who the heck this guy Chris Pope is, but I believe in Scott & Mark and their ability to make a game after all these years. I originally dropped my pledge to $1.00 because of the technical screw ups but I don’t think that’s The Two Guys’s fault…I blame that on the Chris guy…he’s leading this effort.

Paul Trowe wrote:

Ask them why they didn’t join up with the folks at Replay Games to create Sierra 2.0 and instead chose some guy they’ve never heard of, Chris Pope, to run a company they don’t own.

All of this evidence does seem like Paul Trowe, or a friend of Paul Trowe, is trying to sabotage other Sierra related kickstarters. And if that is indeed the case, it's incredibly poor sportsmanship and reflects poorly upon Replay Games.

Leisure Suit Larry Remake Will Have New Material

The Leisure Suit Larry HD Remake Kickstarter is now over $650,000, which means that the game will feature new material, plus a whole new scene with a new woman.

The material will be written by Al Lowe, with the original Larry 1 team. Additionally, Replay Games itself is made up of former Sierra employees, so this is a big deal for Sierra fans. There is still just under an hour left at the time of this writing if you still want to pre-order the game by picking one of the tiers available at the Leisure Suit Larry HD Remake Kickstarter page.

EDIT 5/3/12: It's now over, but you can still help the total amount raised increase by pre-ordering the game for $20US through Paypal.

Leisure Suit Larry 1 HD Remake on Kickstarter

The Leisure Suit Larry 1 high definition remake is now on kickstarter. The project is officially licensed, and the original team that created Leisure Suit Larry (Al Lowe, Josh Mandel, Sabine Duvall, and Leslie Balfour) has been re-assembled to create the remake. If the remake is successful, they plan on remaking Leisure Suit Larry 1-7 and hint towards making the non-existent Leisure Suit Larry 4: The Case of the Missing Floppies (the missing game was the main plot of Leisure Suit Larry 5, and was used as plot device in Space Quest IV).

They have multiple pledge tiers, and like the Double Fine Adventure include everything from the game, a soundtrack, an art book, and physical versions of the game and soundtrack at higher levels. Also like the Double Fine Adventure, there are even higher levels, which let you be in the game, eat dinner with Al Lowe and Scott Murphy, and more.

HD Remake of Leisure Suit Larry Out Next Year

Leisure Suit Larry HD is an upcoming high definition remake of the original Leisure Suit Larry by Replay Games. The game is being designed with creative input from Leisure Suit Larry creator Al Lowe. It is scheduled to come out next year for PC, Mac, XBLA, PSN, iOS, and Android.