Sierra The curious case of Jim Walls

[Unkillable Cat]

I was talking with a friend of mine regarding the first Police Quest games, and the topic of Jim Walls as a designer came up. While he followed the 'standard' Sierra On-Line Adventure Game formula at the time, he also was a strict "by-the-book" kinda guy, making the first Police Quest game much more like a simulator than an adventure game, and his other games quite frustrating, to say the least.

At the end of our talk there were two questions left that we couldn't find a proper answer to.

The first one was about how Jim Walls inserted himself into the PQ games in a very personal way, especially PQ3. Watch the intro for the game and you'll know what I mean. He's the narrator, he's telling his story to us. What we wondered about, was if there were any other developers that did a similar thing to that. Daryl Gates made cameo appearances in his PQ games, and The Two Guys From Andromeda inserted themselves into Space Quest 3, but they did so under psuedonoses and played fictional characters, therefore keeping a vital distance between themselves and the game...but what about devs and their games? Anyone know of any examples?

The second question concerns the departure of Walls from Sierra On-Line and his game design career since then. Seems to me that he was bounced around between some studious before he tried to strike out on his own, with little luck. Now he's pushing for a Kickstarter title that doesn't seem to be getting much traction. Exactly what made Walls into this kind of pariah of the gaming industry? Did he refuse to play ball, or was he deemed unviable from a financial perspective?

 

[CryptRat]

In Ben There, Dan That and Time gentlemen, please you're literally playing as the developpers (in a fictional story).

 

[Infinitron]

Now he's pushing for a Kickstarter title that doesn't seem to be getting much traction.

? You're not talking about this, right? http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...quest-spiritual-successor-by-jim-walls.84785/

 

[commie]

I was talking with a friend of mine regarding the first Police Quest games, and the topic of Jim Walls as a designer came up. While he followed the 'standard' Sierra On-Line Adventure Game formula at the time, he also was a strict "by-the-book" kinda guy, making the first Police Quest game much more like a simulator than an adventure game, and his other games quite frustrating, to say the least.

At the end of our talk there were two questions left that we couldn't find a proper answer to.

The first one was about how Jim Walls inserted himself into the PQ games in a very personal way, especially PQ3. Watch the intro for the game and you'll know what I mean. He's the narrator, he's telling his story to us. What we wondered about, was if there were any other developers that did a similar thing to that. Daryl Gates made cameo appearances in his PQ games, and The Two Guys From Andromeda inserted themselves into Space Quest 3, but they did so under psuedonoses and played fictional characters, therefore keeping a vital distance between themselves and the game...but what about devs and their games? Anyone know of any examples?

The second question concerns the departure of Walls from Sierra On-Line and his game design career since then. Seems to me that he was bounced around between some studious before he tried to strike out on his own, with little luck. Now he's pushing for a Kickstarter title that doesn't seem to be getting much traction. Exactly what made Walls into this kind of pariah of the gaming industry? Did he refuse to play ball, or was he deemed unviable from a financial perspective?

Richard Garriott plays himself in the Ultima games which apparently are a documentary recollection of his time as Lord British in Britannia.

 

[ghostdog]

Also Warren Spector appears as a character in Ultima: Martian Dreams, but there shouldn't be any autobiographical stuff there.


As for Jim Walls, I'd say he is a special case. The guy was an actual police officer, who got involved in a shootout and was on leave, and he happened to become an acquaintance of Ken Williams, who then asked him to help him make a police game. Before that Jim knew very little about computers and nothing about developing video games.

Walls claims "When I first sat down in front of a computer to begin the design story of the original Police Quest I had to be shown where the on/off switch was. I typed the entire story with two fingers (after all, the only skills I had at the time were chasing people down and throwing them in jail).

It seems there was a fallout between him the the Williamses while working on PQ3 and he left Sierra right after. He was going to retire right away, but he got some job offerings so he continued working as a developer for a while. It's no wonder he didn't do much after he stopped working on PQ.

It definitely seems like he poured a lot of himself his own experiences into the PQ games and he must have had his own troubles, since after that shootout he couldn't continue working as a policeman.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I'm gonna admit something right here - I had forgotten about Garriott and Lord British.

But still, he put some distance between himself and his creation, like The Two Guys from Andromeda.

 

[Azrael the cat]

I'm gonna admit something right here - I had forgotten about Garriott and Lord British.

But still, he put some distance between himself and his creation, like The Two Guys from Andromeda.

And young Garriot had both the humility, and the forsight of what he would become, to make his character the 'all-powerful, yet bumbling, fool who could easily solve all the gameworld's problems, being the designer and all, but is such an ass-head that he leaves everything up to the player'.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Shortest post you've made in a while.

But while you raise a good point, I've always thought that LB was set up to be a powerful character in need of assistance from the player, instead of just going "I'm God but I'm too lazy to get shit done, you go do it."

 

[Boleskine]

Chris Pope (Spaceventure) interviewed Walls in early 2013 on a podcast. He talks about all his experiences with Sierra and Police Quest. At the end of the podcast is when Walls first announced he was going to do a Kickstarter which failed miserably the following summer.

http://guysfromandromeda.com/episod...s-host-chris-pope-guys-andromeda-fan-podcast/