>GET GRAPHICS
The graphics glow and vibrate when you pick them up. A voice booms in your head.
“It wasn’t long before computer technology advanced sufficiently to bring graphics into videogames. Early images were crude vector drawings, such as those present in On-Line Systems’ 1979 technological marvel known as Mystery House (punted as the first graphical adventure around), and didn’t really do much aside from showing people where they were in the game world.
“Later on, graphics took more precedence over text, and the visual game world became more important. This paradigm shift was once again spearheaded by the On-Line crew – who had since renamed themselves to the much more familiar Sierra On-Line. Ken and Roberta Williams (the young couple at the head of the company) did what any self-respecting young couple would do: act sappy while revolutionising the face of the gaming industry as a side project.
“They went about this by making a third-person adventure where players could actually see their character move and interact with objects on the screen, instead of just passively looking at an environment via the classic first person perspective. This trend began with the release of the original King’s Quest in 1984, and quickly expanded into the hugely successful Space Quest , Police Quest, and insert-name-of-quest-here series after receiving a reaction along the lines of “Holy crap!” from a vast majority of the adventure gaming population.
“For the first time, people could not only read about adventures, but explore a fleshed-out visual world using environmental cues to help them solve puzzles and figure out how to unlock the next cool area. The Sierra games soon became poster children for the adventure gaming genre, usurping Infocom’s control and spawning countless numbers of lookalikes games from other developers.
“It was nearly a decade before their control would eventually be usurped by a guy with a Commodore 64 and an idea for a script writing system called SCUMM. His name: Ron Gilbert. His job: ushering in a new era of adventure gaming.”
The graphics stop glowing, and the voice falls silent. A mouse scuttles out of a hollow log.
>WAIT FOR PART 2
You decide to lie down for a bit and wait for the second part of this column to be released.
The mouse nervously skitters about nearby.