What Simon the Sorcerer says about game design at point and click's creative peak

[@brocka.6479]

I have no idea why I never had this channel recommended before, found it through the QBasic videos, binged since then (yesterday), and of course subbed. Everything feels right up my alley. Obsolete programming languages, graphic adventure games, retro PC info. The delivery is excellent, entertaining, and hits that perfect level of self-deprecating dry humor.

[@TimberwolfK]

Thanks! I think KZbin struggles a bit to figure out what to do with channels which cover a variety of stuff at the point they're still small, glad you're enjoying it.

[@NsxXsn-tf6vc]

Thanks. I am now weirdly obsessed with your channel.

[@UrsaFrank]

Commenting to boost the channel in the youtube algorithm, because this channel deserves so much more recognition than it gets. Even as someone who wasn't there for retro computer games and point and click adventures, this is still great to watch

[@AreWeLearningYet77]

*Video starts on a frame of confused looking british man* Me: Yep, this is definitely a video about a point and click adventure game.

[@RemnantCult]

Yours is an underrated yet high quality channel. May success come your way!

[@frankb5728]

I grew up on Lucasarts, Sierra and some of the Coktel Vision games but I never got to experience Simon the Sorcerer. I'll have to give this a proper shot.

[@GwydionAE]

Was randomly recommended this video, decided to give it a watch, and found it informative and amusing! Thanks for sharing!

[@andersdenkend]

Oh I LOVED Simon back then. The gorgeous art, the music, the humour, Chris Barry, it was the total package. I don't think I ever completed it, but damned if I didn't try. The follow up featured gorgeous art as well, but somehow lost its magic.

[@liukang85]

hmmmm yeah the follow up was different, although I also think it was a good game. But I still remember playing the talkie demo from one of those demo CDs back when and I was just blown away.

[@liukang85]

btw. I remember that Simon 2 actually had one of the best parts of both games, too... the role playing attic idle dialog was something else 😊

[@poppers7317]

The second one was way better. I really love the atmosphere.

[@AnOnlyThird]

The music and the voice from the cd32 version of simon was really a gem of my childhood

[@curtisnewton895]

underrated gem

[@111455]

agreed, the 90's was 20 years ago and the zoomers won't convince us otherwise!

[@poppers7317]

Right, I'm totally in my early 30s.

[@dilbertfish]

Some rather charming nostalgia. ❤️

[@Saturos02]

Really wish I got to explore more of this genre back in the day. The one point and click adventure game that defined my childhood was Polish-developed "Teenagent" from early 1994 - a real gem, full of humor, atmosphere, and great music. It did have plenty of inventory puzzles though. I remember at one point you had to scare a security guard drinking on duty into dropping his vodka bottle. The vodka could be used as chainsaw fuel, enabling you to cut off a branch to make into an oar, etc, etc. Small hitboxes could also be an issue, making some items easy to miss. Still, I feel all the frustration of being stuck for weeks and months made the rush of finally stumbling upon the solution so much greater!

[@poppers7317]

The second one was surprisingly popular here in Germany. It's also one of my favorite adventure games.

[@MagmaRiver]

@@poppers7317 so popular that a German studio made a fourth and fifth game! Never played past the second myself though...

[@CYON4D]

Nice review. Definitely one of my favorite DOS games. Also I really like the CRT glow effect you used here. Is it a shader or an effect you applied while editing? If it's a shader I would love to know which one it is.

[@TimberwolfK]

It's a shader - Mega Bezel. There are a few options to emulate various vintage CRTs and masks, and a couple big community packs of vintage monitor graphics (although the licence usually precludes using them for KZbin, they're fine for playing at home)

[@CYON4D]

​@@TimberwolfKThanks for the info.

[@Yesterzine]

It’s funny you mention both me and liking punishment. Because next month I have an adventure game where the last line of the original magazine review is “only for people who enjoy punishment…”

[@ScandalUK]

Just discovered the MT-32 music for this, which pairs beautifully with Chris Barrie’s voice on the mister

[@TimberwolfK]

It's been an absolute joy going back to all the games I played with an Aztech Sound Galaxy SB clone and finding how many of them had great MT-32 soundtracks. LucasArts in particular seemed to be geniuses with it.

[@_oBSOLEte_]

I think most of the old games in the pre-internet era were also meant to be played with friends. Of course that concept is uterly ridiculous nowadays. Nonetheless I still enjoy my old point and clicks a lot with UHS-hints open in a browser on my phone, to get hints drip fed and spoiler free. Even those I completed at the time and forgot the solutions and don't have the time to bruteforce again.

[@thejoin4687]

And in the pre-speech era, you'd have fun voicing the characters.

[@austinreed7343]

I wonder what you would call that extinct concept of non-direct co-op gameplay?

[@poppers7317]

I listened to a podcast where two guys played the first Discworld adventure game. Every week they met up and compared their progress and somehow they completed it after two months. They wouldn't have been able to do it on their own.

[@JediMB]

I think I got the Simon games for free on GOG, way back. Gonna have to actually give them a try at some point. 😅

[@TimberwolfK]

My "GOG gave it to me free, or it was in a sale for 79p" list of unplayed games is embarrassingly long...

[@WhatHoSnorkers]

Wonderful stuff Mister Wolf!

[@RetroBytesUK]

I'm here for the diversions, and the hardware details. Very entertaining video, I did like Simon the sorcerer. I did not realise the engine was based on abbermud, I did alot of tinkering with the source of that and circle mud when I was at uni

[@RetroBytesUK]

I should say I don't mean the engine to Simon the sorcerer. See I was paying attention.

[@TimberwolfK]

There's still a part of me that thinks "they WHAT?", but I guess there's a lot of useful code for managing state and actors which takes time and effort to write and debug, whereas building an interface to something you know already does that reliably is less effort. I messed around a bit with PennMUSH in the late '90s, never got as far as hosting anything but I did get a simple game running with HSpace and some fun character customisation code.

[@RetroBytesUK]

@@TimberwolfK I was a bit of a fan of MUDs in the 90s, I did start writing a web based MUD a while ago, that would load up the room definitions from circle mud, mostly as an exercise on how to use message services like RabbitMQ. I should probably revisit it at some point when I have some time, as I never did finish it, but there is alot of code that could be salvaged form it and brought up todate.

[@Lorfarius]

One thing that still sticks out in my memory is the excessive disk swapping. As a kid I had a big square table I would line them all up and have to keep flicking around the lot, used to drive me mad. Was a bit of a god send when I went and bought a second drive. Quite a few of the big graphic adventures were riddled with the same problem.

[@TimberwolfK]

Oh gosh, yes. I was spoilt always playing these on a computer with a hard drive, although the installs for Monkey 2 and Atlantis were quite chunky when you only had 40MB total to play with. A couple of the older Sierra ones had a deliberate progression where you'd play through everything on Disk 1, then everything on Disk 2, and so on... Al Lowe mentions designing Larry 2 with that in mind.

[@RetroSegaDev]

Ooo 20 years doh I loved this game!

[@MidlifeCrisisJoe]

This is such a British video that I believe that as an American, it's mandatory that I rebel against it in some way related to destroying tea.

[@benholroyd5221]

So if 94 is 20 years ago, does that mean im still in my 20s? Ill take that.

[@Apanblod]

Who could tell really? 🤷‍♂️

[@adamvancleave9200]

... Did the part where you need to repeat get patched out then?

[@vfigplays]

building a ladder out of a cat, a teapot, and a pair of binoculars? i wonder what you would do with a trombone, a terrapin, and a half-pint of lard?

[@vidarlystadjohansen9829]

I liked Simon the Sorcerer 1 and 2 , funny and great atmosphere

[@DigitalConfusion]

I really liked the game. Played it on the Amiga.

[@UlyssesCrab]

Ow! My age 😂 Gah I LOVED Simon The Sorcerer when I was young! I never got very far due to being too young to really understand what was going on… but I loved it either way! :D

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

I've nevr played this, but I now hate it.

[@TimberwolfK]

It's FINE.

[@JStryker47]

I watched playthroughs of the first three games and I don't blame you. First of all, the only "magic" that self-serving clod ever seems capable of doing is conjuring up opening credits, changing the color of his robe, and stuffing things into his hat. Plus, he's often making things much worse off than they were before. And the 3D game playthrough was so unbelievably long and incredibly boring, the loading screen noise was incredibly annoying, and the character models and animations made the original King's Quest 1 game look like Baldur's Gate 3. So yeah, I'm with you.