A Leisurely Interview with Gaming Legend Al Lowe

Posted By: Dave Bast In: Gaming News, PC On: 10 Apr

It’s become the custom – in only a few months I might add – to have those responsible for resurrecting a game through Kickstarter to give an interview talking about where the game came from and where it is now going. Al Lowe, former Sierra programmer and creator of the original Leisure Suit Larry, and Paul Trowe, Al’s former Sierra Colleague, sat down with Rock, Paper, Shotgun this week to talk about the recreation of yet another old-school gaming franchise.

The team at Replay Games Started working on this back in October, getting all their “ducks in a row” according to Paul Trowe. As they began looking for investors they realized that no one wanted to be involved with another Leisure Suit Larry game. Al Lowe thinks that this is a reaction to the last two games created in the franchise; Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude & Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust. Both games, made without Al Lowe, were blasted by critics. So they turned to Kickstarter, and it looks like they’re going to get the funding they need. With 21 days left to go, Al Lowe and the people at Replay Games have raised more than half of the $500,000 they are asking for to reboot the franchise.

When asked how long it took them to decide to turn to Kickstarter, Al Lowe replied “Tim Schafer made the decision for us didn’t he?” Apparently the two bumped into each other at DICE and Schafer flat out told Al he thought Kickstarter was the place to go for Leisure Suit Larry Funding.

While this all might have been made possible by Kickstarter, Paul says he’s been trying to remake the Sierra classics since they were bought and sold to other companies years ago. Kickstarter has just given them the opportunity to do so. If it were up to them (and it might be soon) they would acquire the rights to not only Leisure Suit Larry, but to King’s Quest, Police Quest, and Space Quest as well. They believe in these games, not only does Lowe feel that the games are “solid” and “funny,” but there also isn’t anything like them in the current market.

They promise more from the franchise this time around. Although Lowe won’t go into the details, they’ve already got some ideas the wish to improve on – ideas they had almost immediately after the original was released. Suffice it to say they will have more room to work with at least. The original was confined to two 360k floppy discs which forced them to use certain areas over and over. This time around however, smaller tech issues like this shouldn’t be a problem.

So get excited not only does it look like one of our favorite anti-heroes is going to be back for another adventure, but success here could lead to remakes of some other classic Sierra adventure games. Here’s hoping!