Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust Comments by Ellie Gibson

"it's not fun to play and it's less erotic than psoriasis"

Oh yeah, let's have a go at psoriasis sufferers now, coz they haven't suffered enough!

Bastards.

"no"

most epic caption ever.

"This review is a bit useless because it doesn't tell me the main thing I want to know:

How does it compare to Magna Cum Laude, considering that I enjoyed the script, voice acting, and general tone of Magna Cum Laude?"

I was equally annoyed when Bed Monthly reviewed the "Mystic Meditation Bed O'Nails" and gave it their worst score ever - 62%.
The review did not even consider the question: "if you are a fan of sleeping fitfully and painfully, will this bed deliver the luxury you deserve?"

I mean, is no-one but me stupid enough to like hateful and unpleasant experiences designed purely for the lowest common denominator? Does no-one want to see Rise of the Robots 2???

I can't help but wonder when the next classic Sierra series will be brutally, err, brutalized.

GamesAsylum.com have reviewed this now too -

They thought it was a load of crud as well

After reading Spadge's defense of his apparantly terrible game, I was curious to see what this Studio Director at Team 17 had discussed in other posts. Sadly all that stuck out was this tirade:

spadge:

"Very brave young smelly. Takes guts to type such cutting remarks from the relative safety of your keyboard, I'm surprised you're up so late - however it's the weekend so mum probably doesn't mind eh. If you're ever in Wakefield and wish to relay your lovely comments to any of our actually rather fine people (not that you'd know) then you'd be welcome.

Congratulations on becoming 'ignored'. Perhaps there's a scouts badge for it, mummy will be pleased eh."

What terrible cutting remarks you may ask??

smelly:

">Hmmm... Team 17, eh? Could be good...

Nah, they cant even get something as simple as worms on the wii right... "

.... wtf?

And classic last words leading up to production:

spadge:

"It's not mini-games.

Actually, I think Al Lowe might actually enjoy the script and voice-acting, its really rather funny."

Could send him a copy?

Tiberianus, I think anyone who has invested a lot of time into something, then hearing your work sucks, will eventually snap sometime. I think he has had enough negativity aimed towards him when Team17 clearly haven't been given liberties to do what they want with the game?

Team 17 are legends and has done a lot of great games. Worms is still going strong on our lunchbreaks..

I wonder how 'spadge' would react if they actually released a good game again and commenters were heaping praise on them. Would he still call them out for being cowardly internet commenters, and take potshots at them? Or are commenters only idiots when they don't like what you've made?

"Tiberianus, I think anyone who has invested a lot of time into something, then hearing your work sucks, will eventually snap sometime."

Anyone who has memories that stretch back to Amiga Power's reign of terror will recall that Team17 were, at that time, very unforgiving to magazines that rated their games truthfully.



"Team 17 are legends and has done a lot of great games. Worms is still going strong on our lunchbreaks."

Worms is a 'humourous' copy of a free game. I don't think that making an inexplicably popular game, that's just like a free game, but has worms with silly voices instead of tanks makes you a legend. (Also, Worms was programmed by an Amiga owner, and Team17 took interest in it and published it, IIRC).
If anything, Alien Breed is their main claim to legendary status, along with Body Blows. Body Blows was better than the Amiga version of SFII. Worms was not even as good as the free game which it copied. Which achievement would you want on your tombstone?

"One of the downfalls of this LSL title compared to the previous ones is that you cannot talk to anyone besides the characters that you have to talk to for or during a mission. You can't just doodle your way up to some random npc and start chatting with them. Another major downfall is the much toned down adult humor of the franchise. Yeah, you see chicks with big boobs and tight clothes on. That's about it. And I really miss the wacky dildo character from the past LSL titles."

...exactly how many Larry games have you played?

Here is Jonathan Davies reviewing Worms for Amiga Power:

6. It turns out that speeded-up samples are used to provide the worms with amusingly squeaky voices, with which they can say things like "Hiee-ya!", "Oof!" and "Stupid!" Do you:
a) Cry "HA ha ha ha ha! Brilliant! Did you hear that? Excellent! And certainly not, for example, a feeble rip-off of one of Lemmings' more irritating aspects"
b) Turn the volume down
c) Curse the day you were born

7. Having had your go, while waiting up to quarter of an hour for the fifteen other players to have their go, do you:
a) Peer over their shoulders, spluttering lines like "How hard's your worm?", "I bet I have a bigger worm than you" and, "Leave my worm alone" until your cheeks begin to ache
b) Shout encouragement to the rest of your team
c) Die of old age

8. Your friends all leave, and you find yourself playing Worms on your own. Do you:
a) Entertain yourself by compiling a mental list of further hilarious 'worm' jokes with which to amuse your friends next time
b) Grimace as the computer-controlled worms first jump about to no obvious effect for several seconds, then either blow themselves up unconvincingly or fire a bazooka across two screens against a 90mph wind hitting their target with pinpoint accuracy
c) Knock yourself unconscious by running head-first at the wall in the hope that you'll wake up several years later to find the Worms disks have degraded to the point where they are no longer readable

Actually we've had the odd good/positive review over the years. I'll obviously defend my company and it's people to the hilt, as anyone would do surely? We do thank people when nice things are said - and this happens often.

I'm certainly not perfect and yes, I can snap from time to time, mostly getting annoyed when I deem things unjust. The Amiga Power stuff was regrettable in hindsight, but we were very passionate and very naive back then, not the greatest of combo's.

Games, like tv, film, music and art are massively subjective. These days the most important thing is that you can download/demo/trial a game and then make your own mind up rather than hear what someone else thinks/says.

Bang on about Worms being this and that all you like, but millions of people around the world really enjoy it. If it's not for you, then move on. I really don't get the venom people spout about something they don't like, I just don't see the point - it's not like everything we produce will be universally appealing.

With regards to Larry, it was a case of us producing to a client brief, simple as that. In these cases we generally have a strict time/budget to work with. You'll see the difference in Alien Breed simply because we've had no 3rd party interference, same goes for the next Worms on XBLA. We've also got new stuff up our sleeves but that won't be revealed for ages yet.

Stompy: Worms Armageddon meta-critic'd around 86% (the recent Open Warfare 2 around 81%) that's a pretty high rating for something that according to you is a "simple copy of something that's free". Your mindset is exactly what makes coming onto these boards a treat. What's your contribution to popular entertainment or do you just sit there decrying everything else as it's so much easier to do that? Stop whining, get creating.

Fair enough, but you must have known Leisure Suit Larry series was a poisoned chalice - there's not been one that hasn't been awful since EGA graphics. It's not so much a problem of it being "off the beaten track" - there's plenty of quality "off the beaten track" Sierra titles like Quest for Glory and Police Quest - the premises haven't been too good, and there's a tendancy to use cheesy sexual innuendo and half baked titliation where good puzzles and amusing dialog should be.

And also why did you have to make Project-X so bastard hard?

The thing is, I still love Worms to this day. That's why I, and presumably a lot of people, think it's such a shame that you guys managed to produce something like Box Office Bust. Next time Team 17 comes out with something, instead of thinking "Oh awesome, that's from the guys who made Worms", I'll think "Oh, that's from those guys who used to know what they were doing but then made that godawful Larry game."

"there's not been one that hasn't been awful since EGA graphics. "

Actually Love for Sail was pretty decent. But yeah, was it ever really a good idea to attempt a new Larry game? Even without the benefit of hindsight?

We were aware that it was somewhat of a challenge, certainly, but that shouldn't stop you.

Project-X, Alien Breed and other early games of ours were not always particularly well balanced since we were pretty raw and only tested the games amongst ourselves. Of course that's all done very differently these days. The new Alien Breed has 3 difficulty levels for a start :-)

Funnily enough, when we did X2 (on PlayStation, not Amiga) we let Ocean's QA dept. balance the game (it had a built in editor) and they made it too hard too. We later did a version for the Japanese market (published by Capcom) which was a ton better because it was a lot easier. Half of the time it's about having good quality time to balance and iteratively tweak the games and it's a shame that it happens so seldom - the difference is usually clear between a game running to very strict deadlines and one which has had a lot of TLC.

Domovoi - point taken, but in a few months you'll be saying "that's by the guys who made Alien Breed" - i promise. Why did we do it? Well, there are wages to pay and whilst we knew it would be difficult, we gave it a go. It wasn't a smooth experience but our people tried hard to deliver something that Sierra really wanted.

"We were aware that it was somewhat of a challenge, certainly, but that shouldn't stop you."

Because if you had let it stop you, you wouldn't have a terrible game in your repertoire, you wouldn't have had it taint your company, and you wouldn't be having arguments with review commenters?

"What's your contribution to popular entertainment or do you just sit there decrying everything else as it's so much easier to do that? Stop whining, get creating."

Yeah, I was thinking of making a copy of Windows Solitaire, but the cards aren't cards, they're endangered animals, and the animals have funny voices, and when you move 'em around they squabble and tell jokes, and within about 5 minutes you've heard everything they have to say.

But then I stopped because I realised you would buy it off me for loads of money and that people would end up buying it. And I'm just not that immoral.

Wages needing to be paid: fair point. But really, wasn't there a more low profile King's Quest minigame collection or something that Sierra would've wanted instead? Why burn yourself on something so obvious like a new Larry game?

Anyway, all this arguing actually made me kind of interested in Alien Breed. OMG, what if Box Office Bust was a clever marketing ploy for Alien Breed?

There was a lot of conversations about a lot of older Sierra stuff. In the end, Larry is what Sierra wanted. I don't regret it and it's helped put us in a good place, funnily enough. I've had contact with Al Lowe recently too and there was no interest from the publisher(s) to work with him, but I think he'd be better doing his original style games on maybe iPhone or something.

For us, Larry represented all kinds of opportunities at a time when things were tough for a lot of indie developers, we certainly weren't in a position back then to turn down the work nor go into self-publishing (which we've done since). We were aware of the 'baggage' certainly, but we thought we'd give it a go. It's a very different type of game, it's purely about delivering the script, which people will choose to hate or love, it's that kind of thing.

Larry will be one of the last 3rd party publisher things we release and in future most of our stuff will be digital with 1st parties (Microsoft, Sony, Apple etc) or self-published.

For the record, we're in a position now where we can freely choose what we want to work on, which is really nice. That hasn't always been the case but I'm very confident of the things we've got going on now, it'll surprise a few people - in a good way!

"Al Lowe recently too and there was no interest from the publisher(s) to work with him, but I think he'd be better doing his original style games on maybe iPhone or something. "

See, I also think it'd be better if Al Lowe sticks to his original style games. It's just that I think that Larry games should be sticking to their original style too.

"For the record, we're in a position now where we can freely choose what we want to work on, which is really nice. That hasn't always been the case but I'm very confident of the things we've got going on now."

I hope that means "more confident than I was about Box Office Bust when we were making it." :)

Anyway, good to hear things are working out. I could do with a T17 success again.

If I might make a tiny suggestion for Alien Breed - a right stick aim, left stick move control method is really the way to go. I don't know if you've had a go at Burn Zombie Burn (out on the PSN) - it's a pretty cool top down shooter, but a combination of "aim which way you're facing" and a not enitrely intelligent lock on system make the game a bit of a pain in the arse, especially when you're trying to pick out a paricular bad guy in the midst of a horde that's chasing you. Just my 2c.

^^^ Agreed. Independant UK game houses are most definately a good thing. Now if we could only resurrect Sensible Software...

Evil Bob - that's how it works (so you can walk backwards, strafe, all sorts).

Domovoi - there's a different mindset when you're doing your own stuff (own IP) and that of a 3rd party IP. In the latter, we're about giving the customer/client what they want. For Larry they wanted an open world game and a pastiche of Hollywood, using a more 'Superbad' style script. They hired a writer (Alan Covert, Adam Sandler's writer) and we based the game around delivering that script. In publishing circles, point & click adventures are viewed as old-hat unfortunately (I loved the Monkey Island and Indiana Jones ones, btw) so that was never going to happen. I'm watching what happens to Broken Sword on Wii/DS closely, it'll be interesting if the genre breaks out again (and Charles Cecil, who's IP it is, is a pal).

"there's a different mindset when you're doing your own stuff (own IP) and that of a 3rd party IP. In the latter, we're about giving the customer/client what they want. For Larry they wanted an open world game and a pastiche of Hollywood, using a more 'Superbad' style script. They hired a writer (Alan Covert, Adam Sandler's writer) and we based the game around delivering that script. "

Oh, I know that Sierra are long past wanting to do something good with their classic IP's, and are only trying to make awful games based on them nowadays, but I had hoped that established developers like Team 17 would be in the position to turn those down.

But apparently not, due to economics. Maybe that's what saddens me the most.

By the way, there's heaps of P&C adventure games being developed in Europe.. probably all on a really small budget, but still.

Times and opportunities have transitioned since late 2005 (when we first discussed this with Sierra) and we're pretty much doing our own thing again. I wouldn't suggest we never work on 3rd party IP again, but we're definately in a good place to pick or choose what it is.

So in summary:

It was just a pay check to you. The client wanted shit and you delivered?

At least Dennis Dyack believed in his game.

I don't want Team 17 to believe in Box Office Bust. That'd mean they'd think it's actually a good idea.

Tiberanus - The team who worked on the game expended a lot of energy and enthusiasm for the project. No-one sets off to 'deliver shit' and people at Sierra were very happy with how things were going.

Things went awry when Sierra were wound down and all their projects suffered as a result, some more so than others. Sierra had a pretty specific demographic in mind and a certain way they wanted to address it.

@Stompy: "Worms is a 'humourous' copy of a free game. I don't think that making an inexplicably popular game, that's just like a free game, but has worms with silly voices instead of tanks makes you a legend."

Doesn't really matter if it's a copy, in that case it's a copy done right, with much more improved gameplay.
Speaking of which, in 99.999% of all cases, which game isn't a copy of something else nowadays?
And regarding the legend status, doesn't matter if they bought it off anyone else, it would like hiring someone into your team. At the end of the day, it said "Team 17" on the box, and that makes the game belong to them. Seriously, which amiga gamer doesn't know of Team 17? That makes them a legend, yes?

lowenergy- don't dress like a retard on spliff, then you will look at least half decent.

LOL dreadlocks on a white guy, hahaha what a tool.

spadge- does alien breed have a decent, proper story or not?

Single player yes, multiplayer less so.

well dont care bout mp, so you have my attention. will be looking forward to seeing it.

I wonder when Team 17 will start suing over the bad reviews. You see, I still remember the Amiga Power getting that nice lawsuit from them.....
The thing is, Team 17 can't get the excuse they didn't know in what hornets nest they get in when they've acepted to do this. After a rather disappointing Magna cum laudae, the fans were expecting something to blow their minds. And Larry wasn't exactly mainstream.
Someone wanted to attract the console crowd throwing a bone to the old fans. Instead the results were rather something else: the old fans were totally alienated and the console crowd has really seen a lot of infinitely better titles (and i don't berate the console owners here, as I do own a few myself). This new Larry tried to attract even casual gamers, but the casual gamers are looking in games where swearing and bad jokes don't appear. It's like someone couldn't decide which market should go for. You see the market is very fragmented right now. And playing your cards right, a niche game can make profit if you know exactly which part of the market will buy the game. But it looks like the companies are cutting corners by cutting the market studies. The tremendous fun of the corporate world...
And let's leave Sierra out of this. Because even before Magna cum Laudae was released, Sierra was merely a brand in Vivendi's portofolio. Sierra died as a company in 1999 and the oldtimers know that. We can talk Vivendi or Activision/Blizzard or Codemasters, but not Sierra.

After a pretty spectacular 1790 words from the studio director (spadge) at Team17, I have concluded a few things.

1: He loves the sound of his own typing.

1790 words on the comments page of a damning review of an obviously terrible game? If you'd spent this amount of energy on Box Office Bust....

2: It was NOT all Sierra's fault.

You seem determined to let us know that it was Sierra's IP, and they got you to make it to a brief (shocking?), and therefore it's their fault it sucks? No. As a developer you should ensure that the product you create is up to the standards you *should* be aiming for (especially as the studio director). You are showcasing your work to the industry after all. Or you could create a shitty game to make a few quid to finance your own projects. Saying boo hoo it wasn't our IP is .. pathetic.

3: Saying it was the script's fault is laughable.

Fine the script might have been terrible. Lots of game scripts are terrible. What proper game developers do is make a GOOD game regardless.

4: Don't blame the "subjective nature of comedy..(especially mature comedy)".

It's just a poor way of trying to cover your own arse. A 2/10 on one of the most respected game review sites in the world is still a 2/10.

5: Blaming "the way the hard-core attack anything slightly off the beaten path".

This just made me chuckle.

6: Not once have you actually said you are proud of this game.

And it's not even on the Team 17 website. Or the forum.

7: spadge seems to think that saying "Wait and see Alien Breed!" makes me forget this review/game.

I don't care about Alien Breed. I've never heard of it. I'm here to discuss Box Office Flop.

8: You wrote on your blog in 2008 that your development team was "painfully aware of the critique of the last Larry game (Magna Cum Laude)"

Not really sure what to say about this one. Good work?

@Tiberianus

After a pretty spectacular 1790 words from the studio director (spadge) at Team17, I have concluded a few things.

You counted the amount of words he typed? Don't you have a life?

I don't care about Alien Breed. I've never heard of it.

In other words next to having no life you're also 16 years old and game-illiterate.

Spadge, while I won't be buying BOB I'm definitely looking forward to the new Alien Breed.
Now how about Superfrog for the DS?

@Tiberanus - For the record - and most of my text has come in response to questions and probing from other people - I've attempted to be clear, concise and honest.

How it works in work for hire contracts is that the publishers pays the developer on monthly development milestones. If the publisher isn't happy, then you don't get paid. Sierra/Vivendi were more than happy with what was going on, that includes our efforts on the design and direction of the game itself.

If you actually read what I wrote, I do say this. Problems with the title occurred after the merger and there was a lot of fallout, which we had to deal with. The title had a fixed budget for development - with 40-50 people on the title, you simply can't afford to not ensure that you're delivering satisfying deliverables or you go out of business, there's a hefty graveyard out in development land. Quality is achieved from iterative design balances and improvements, as developers it's not often you get that time and the ones that do, stand out. If you're saying that the studio should have done what it could to make the game as good as possible taking the cost of those changes on it's own chin, then that's why I'm running the studio and you're in a whimsical nirvana-based non-reality. It's not as easy as you elude.

I haven't blamed the script, I merely underlined Team17 didn't produce it or were responsible for it. The script is certainly subject to what people find amusing or not. How can it not be? We actually liked the script (which ended up being very late, along with the voices) and the game was always about delivering the script. Continuing delays on that aspect of the project meant we were always on the back foot for a myriad of reasons, that coupled with the merger issues did present a ton of production problems.

With regards promoting the title on our own site, we tend to do this for our own IP only. Any mention of 3rd party IP and we have to get approval on all assets, what is said, etc. That's clearly not practical.

If you don't like us, our products, what we say, then fine, move on - there's plenty more out there.

@dascius - Vivendi/Sierra really wanted to produce a specific kind of title, in a specific time-frame. That's what they wanted. The new game is related to the old games in name only.

@ Daikon, thanks for that and your kind words. Not sure if/when we'll ever come back to Superfrog, but we'll see.

@Daikon

No, I don't know every game every created, and yes pasting some words into MS word taking about 10 seconds means I have no life.

@Spadge

I'm pretty sure that game developers who don't compromise on quality also don't live in a "whimsical nirvana-based non-reality." You're running a studio who produces 2/10 games. Then making shitloads of excuses for them on review sites. So you know, congrats?

Who exactly do you blame for this low quality joke of a game?

Excuses excuses excuses. I guess spaedge never learns!

Actually reading the part with " there are salaries to pay", you can understand that Team 17 might have some financial difficulties and they 've had to take a project to survive. At least that's how someone can read from that statement. Team 17 it's still an independent studio, but that might not last. Don't forget that their tile catalogue it's not big at all. But they do have one very popular IP. Which it's not exactly enough to survive.
Why I can't forgive Larry that easily?! Because I know that they can do way better. You see, I do remember Nightlong Union City. So I know that they can do better. But if an independent studio is in financial trouble, it's pretty much forced to take whatever it can in order to survive. Though in the actual economic climate, independent studios aren't exactly the main candidates of survival...

I've actually quite enjoyed reading spadge's explinations in this comments thread. It's rare to see a developer act with a little maturity under the circumstances, and spadge's honesty is quite refreshing. I'm also pleased to hear of Alien Breed's control method. The mear mention of it's name makes me wish I still had my old Amiga.

@CountFuckwit
Shouldn't you be hanging around GameSpot or something? That's normally where I'd expect to see such illiterate sibling-lusters.

omg, cool score :D.
I really liked LSL:Magna cum laude and i thought this will be better.
Well, maybe next time ;).

Ellie, you did not mention the part where you drive fast toward a tree or a wall and your car gets vertical and stuck, you can't move forward, backward or turn in any way. The only way to continue somehow is to hope a cop will stop you if you are being pursuited by one or just restart the mission - second option is the "funnest".

And the part where you press a button to open the door, Larry keeps walking on ONE SPOT until the door closes

Seriously, it looks like they wasted all the budget on making the models (which by the way came out scary) and they got left none for the testing of the game.

And if we mention testing, the game did give me an "unhanded memory" window twice - or to describe in one word: BUGS!

Sergey Berengard
Designer & Programmer
http://en.berense.org