Edward Love

Leisure Suit Larry, three words synonymous with smutty jokes, sexual shenanigans and Larry Laffer, a videogame character who was never blessed with a strutting figure or particularly good looks. Yet, the balding anti-hero – as Al Lowe (creator of Larry and instigator behind all the games, except Magna Cum Laude) himself so aptly describes – had no shortage of optimism and desire for a good-looking young lass, regardless of whether she liked the looks of Larry or not. As the Leisure Suit Larry games went, Larry rarely found a woman that accepted his countenance with open arms. Consequently, the aging Larry, imbedded with enough youthful zestfulness to make a randy teenager look up from his pornography with surprise, often had to look for ways to decisively persuade the female(s) in question to like him and his err… features.

The Leisure Suit Larry games were jovial, light-hearted affairs and could be classified as the first game series to try to induce bouts of humor. In fact, Lowe’s undeniable wit is a large reason for the series’ continued popularity. I recently had a chance to speak to Lowe himself about the series and specifically the inspiration behind Larry.

Inside Gamer Online: What was your role on the Larry games?

Al Lowe: When I started the Larry games, I did nearly everything. In Larry 1, I did everything but the graphics and the game engine. But, as the games went along I had less and less responsibilities.� Al laughs at this point and then continues, “Soon I lost the job of composer and then programming and soon, I was “merely� the visionary, designer and director, writing the plots, puzzles and dialogue. In all the games, I was responsible for all the content.

IGO: Tell me about the 1998 saga in which you were sacked from Sierra.

AL: I wasn’t really sacked. They couldn’t fire me because I never was an employee. Actually, that’s not true: I was fired in on Black Friday in 1984 when Sierra went from 120 employees to 40. Ken Williams called us each in and said that he wanted us to work from home and…no longer be employees, but ‘outside contractors.’ When we discussed the number of games he wanted me to do and how much I’d get paid, I realized that I’d be making more money than my salary! When we finished, I asked him, ‘So have I just been fired?’ and he said, ‘Yep.’ I replied, ‘Okay, thanks!’ And for the next fifteen years I worked as an outside contractor. I was under contract to design and program the games and did all the design and writing but never got another salary from Sierra, no paycheck, no advances, nothing. The only money I got was a percentage of the sales of the game. If a game didn’t sell, I got no money.

And that’s why the debut of Larry 1 was so disturbing to me. At the time, it was the worst selling game in the history of the company! I figured I’d just wasted six months of my life. But once word of mouth got out, the game became one of the best-selling Sierra games of all time.

In 1998, the market changed. Adventure games stopped selling. Or rather, adventure gamers stopped buying,� he says in a definite tone. “The games became more expensive to produce while their sales went down. My leaving was a mutual decision because, remember: I only got paid from sales and I wasn’t sure I wanted to waste a year of my life in the vain hope that my adventure game would sell when no others were. In the end, I think it was a good decision. The adventure game market hasn’t really come back and right now is still a wounded shadow of its former self.

IGO: Do you think there ever will be a time when adventure games are popular or do you think the genre is dead and a rebirth is unlikely?

AL: If the genre is defined by the strict point-and-click games that we used to do, then yeah, it is gone. But what’s really happened is that it has been absorbed by other genres. Games once were straightforward in category, for example, this game on this shelf, that game on that shelf. But the lines have become blurred. Action games, for example, now have adventure-type puzzles, dialogue, and many of the features adventures once had. But the ‘find this object, mix it with that object, take it to that person who wants it,’ those puzzles have gone away for good. The other part of adventure gaming that deserved to go away was ‘pixel hunting.’ I tried not to do that in my games, but many games did. Wave the cursor around the screen watching for it to change its shape and then click. Also, many adventure game puzzles were truly illogical. Those, too, deserve to die. But two aspects that won’t die� – at this point I sit up with bated breath – “is storytelling and character development. People love good stories and successful action and role-playing games will learn to integrate story. And I think great characters will always be popular. The game that can mix all these together will be a hit.

IGO: Do you play any games nowadays?

AL: The games I do play are mostly racing games. The problem with being in the industry is that you can’t look at games the same way as you did before. Now instead of ‘play,’ it’s ‘market research!’� He laughs. “I look at a lot of games but play very few through to the end. I do love platforming games, like Mario. I remember when Sierra got a hold of a ‘Japanese family computer,’ which wasn’t a family computer at all, but rather, Nintendo’s first game machine. When we started playing Mario on that we were all blown away. I’ve been in love with platforming ever since. As the game genres merge, we’ll see story-based games in all of these fields.

IGO: Since you once obviously worked for Sierra, you would have had an excellent opportunity to play the likes of Jim Walls’ Police Quest line of games, as well as Roberta Williams’ Kings Quest line of games, and many others. Have you played any of these recently?

AL: I usually don’t go back to play older games. Sometimes people write me with questions about my own games and I’m totally at a loss. I can’t honestly remember what I wrote 15 years ago! But when I was actively designing, of course I played all the games. That was one of the best parts of the job! I’ve played all the Quests, King’s, Space, Police, etc. and all the Monkey Island games. Of course, my favorites are the comedies.

Stay tuned for part two as we learn of Al's favorite Larry game and what happened to Larry 4!