Hero-U - Kickstarter Update #17, Interviews

In this update for Hero-U (237K/400K, 7 days to go) thew focus is on some testimonials and two interviews.

The first interview is at Alternative Magazine:

Is it an adventure game, an RPG, or a mixture of the two?

Corey:  Hero-U is a hybrid adventure/RPG in the same vein as our Quest for Glory games. That means it has a real story, and puzzles to solve, but your character also changes during the course of the game.

Who is the main character and how would you describe them?

Lori: Shawn O’Conner is a young man from a poor family. He’s cocky, and not afraid to take chances. But that’s just a template. Hero-U puts the player in control. Each player will decide whether Shawn is more of a Hero or a Scoundrel, whether he likes to make friends or stay aloof, and so on. Shawn’s personality develops throughout the game based on the player’s actions.

Will the game be a serious affair or more comedic in tone?

Lori: It’s a serious story, with mysteries to solve and some really dark events happening in the catacombs.

Corey: But as in most good dramas, humour is an important part of it. The students tend to make fun of their all-too-serious Rogue instructor. There are some very strange characters.

And the second at Gaming on Linux:

Any interesting stories from when you worked for Sierra?

By my definition of interesting? I expect all the readers fell asleep during my last answer.

One of the most exciting moments was seeing my first intentionally-drawn rectangle appear on the Atari ST screen, but anyone but a programmer would say, "Yeah, so what?"

Having Hero's Quest (our original name for Quest for Glory 1) become an immediate success and win Adventure Game of the Year in Computer Gaming World was amazing.

The best parts of game development are when someone on the team comes up with a crazy idea, someone else picks up on it, and pretty soon it just has to go into the game. Silly Clowns mode in QfG2: Trial By Fire was one of those. A programmer commented that the early productivity software always had greyed-out menu items that did nothing, because they intended to support the feature in a later patch. So we added a meaningless menu item, but it eventually morphed into only "mostly meaningless," since we had it affect Harpo Marx and some death messages.

What's your favorite game or series of games by your co-workers at Sierra (other than the ones that you and Lori built).

Wait! Sierra made other games? We rarely had time to play them. I playtested King's Quest IV, Leisure Suit Larry 2, Police Quest 2, and Space Quest 3 as part of my work on the Atari ST SCI interpreter. They were all pretty fun, but I was mostly looking for bugs while I played. I didn't see much of the later games.

Lori and I liked some LucasArts games, particularly Monkey Island 1 and 2, LOOM, and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Ron Gilbert said he picked up some ideas from Hero's Quest for Monkey Island, and we took a few from him for Quest for Glory 2. (I've forgotten the details.)