The game's story follows its player character of a middle-aged male virgin named Larry Laffer as he desperately tries to "get lucky" in the fictional American city of Lost Wages. Land of the Lounge Lizards establishes several elements which recur in the later Leisure Suit Larry games, including Larry's campy attire, perpetual bad luck with women, and penchant for double-entendres. The game's overall plot and basic structure follow that of Softporn Adventure, Sierra's own 1981 Apple II text adventure that did not feature Larry.
Despite a lack of advertising, the game was a sleeper hit and a commercial and critical success. It was followed by a long series of sequels and spin-offs over decades, beginning with Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places) in 1988. A second, high-definition remake, titled Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded, was developed by N-Fusion Interactive working with the Larry series' creator Al Lowe and published by Replay Games in 2013.
Plot
The protagonist, Larry Laffer, is a 38-year-old (40-year-old in the 1991 remake) "loser" who lives in his mother's basement and has not yet lost his virginity. Having grown weary of his lonely existence, he decides to visit the resort city of Lost Wages (a parody of "Las Vegas") hoping to experience what he has not lived before and to finally find the woman of his dreams. Larry starts with nothing but an out-of-style 1970s disco-era leisure suit and $94 in his pocket. His quest involves four possible women: a nameless, seedy-looking sex worker; Fawn, a club-goer of low moral fiber; Faith, a receptionist who (true to her name) is faithful to her boyfriend; and Eve, a bathing beauty and Larry's ultimate goal.
Gameplay
Players control Larry's movements with the directional keys and by inputting commands into a text parser (e.g. "talk to man", "open window", etc.). If Larry is too far away from a person or object to comply, or if the command is invalid, a caution message appears with hints on what to do.
The game begins outside a bar in Lost Wages. The city consists of five areas: Lefty's Bar, a hotel-casino, a 24-hour wedding chapel, a disco, and a convenience store.[2] The player can walk between areas that are next to each other, but other areas can only be accessed by hailing a taxi, which costs the player money; failure to do so results in Larry's being mugged or hit by oncoming traffic. During the early stages of the game, Larry can survive most premature deaths. In the original release, a compartment opens beneath Larry's body and takes him to a laboratory where heroes from Sierra's computer games—such as King's Quest—are re-assembled; in the remake, Larry's remains are instead thrown inside a blender and reformed.[3]
Larry's interactions with key women are accompanied by a detailed image of whomever he is speaking with, unlike other non-player characters. With the exception of the prostitute, each of the women shuns Larry at first but responds favorably to gifts of varying sorts. Although it is not possible to woo all of the women, giving gifts is needed to advance to the game's final area, the hotel penthouse. To this end, money is essential to advance through the game. The only available method of augmenting Larry's funds is to gamble in the casino, playing blackjack and slots.[3]
Players are given seven real-time hours (eight in the 1991 remake) to complete the game, at which point a despairing Larry commits suicide, resulting in game over.[3] A prostitute is available as soon as the game starts. Should Larry have unprotected intercourse with her, he will contract a sexually transmitted disease and die shortly thereafter.[2][3] This fate may be avoided by buying a condom at the convenience store. Larry questions the validity of losing his virginity to a prostitute, but the game resumes without a time limit.[3]
Development and release
Al Lowe, a former high school teacher, had carved a niche for himself at Sierra with his work on such Disney-licensed edutainment titles as Donald Duck's Playground, Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood, and The Black Cauldron, which he wrote, designed and programmed.[4] In 1982, Sierra had released a text-only game on the Apple II titled Softporn Adventure (it was the only text adventure that was released by a company which had established its name on providing a graphical alternative to such games). In 1986, after Sierra lost a Disney license,[5] Al Lowe suggested that Sierra should remakeSoftporn Adventure with the improved tools now at their disposal, and Ken Williams agreed.[2]
Lowe, who considered the original Softporn Adventure "a primitive, early effort", borrowed its basic structure and added a graphic game engine (Sierra's Adventure Game Interpreter made famous by 1984's King's Quest: Quest for the Crown), improvised humor, and an on-screen protagonist, Larry Laffer.[3][2] Chuck Benton, creator of Softporn Adventure, is included in the Leisure Suit Larry's end credits, as the game's layout and puzzles are identical to those found in the earlier title.[2] However, Lowe said that in Softporn Adventure "there were no characters in the game. There was no central character at all. There were almost no characters to the women. And so it was a real role-over. I think there's one line of dialogue that I kept of the original game and all the rest was fresh."[5] The game was co-designed and illustrated by Mark Crowe, creator of the Space Quest series, and co-programmed by Ken Williams. An accomplished jazz musician (The Lounge Lizards being a jazz band's name), Lowe also wrote the main theme music (called "For Your Thighs Only"), and some of his compositions appear in later entries of the series.[3] The theme, inspired by Irving Berlin's 1929 song "Alexander's Ragtime Band", was composed within 20 minutes. Lowe said it "sounded so unusual, so different, so fresh compared to most computer game music, that I decided to write something with the same pep, simplicity, humor, and out-of-sync attitude."[6]
Unsure of how the 1987 game would be received, Sierra's management chose to release it with no publicity or advertising budget. Due to its adult nature, the game includes an age verification system consisting of trivia questions that Al Lowe assumed children would not know the answers to.[3][7] As many of the questions are U.S.-centric, they risked frustrating non-American players.[8] If played today, the questions also include out-of-date cultural references. (One question begins "OJ Simpson is..." and one wrong answer is "under indictment.") In the original AGI version, the age verification screen may be skipped by pressing Alt-X (in the 1991 remake, it is done by pressing Ctrl-Alt-X).[7]
A version of the game with VGA graphics and sound card audio appeared in 1991.[9] Re-titled Leisure Suit Larry 1: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards[10] and using the new game engine Sierra's Creative Interpreter, it was released in 1991 for the Amiga, DOS, and Macintosh platforms. For the first remake, Al Lowe served as director and designer, also helping to program the game, and Ken Williams became executive producer. Other key people included Stuart Moulder (producer), William R. Davis Sr. (creative director), William D. Skirvin (art designer), Mark Seibert (music director), Oliver Brelsford (lead programmer), and the music other than the theme song was composed by Chris Braymen. The suggested standard retail price of the 1991 version was $59.95, but Sierra offered owners of the original game an upgrade to the new game for $25.[9]
Best Fantasy, Role Playing or Adventure Game of 1987[16]
Sierra received what Williams described as a "deluge" of mail opposing its release of Larry after he wrote a series of articles for Computer Gaming World discussing his company and the industry's views on adult software.[17] Sales were very poor at first, with only 4,000 copies sold upon its release.[12] Many stores refused to stock the game because of its adult content. Some resellers refused to handle the game, while others refused to advertise it, and one refused to list the game on its list of best sellers. In effect, its first-month sales were lower than any new Sierra product launch in years.[2] A Sierra employee quit and a potential employee refused to work on Larry.[17] Lowe stated, "My initial reaction was that I had wasted six months of my life". Word-of-mouth spread quickly, however, and by the year's end, the game became a commercial success,[2][4] selling over 250,000 copies.[18] It sold over 300,000 units in total.[19] A significant number of players were female.[18]
According to Sierra's marketing director John Williams, "Obviously lots of retailers were selling lots of Leisure Suit Larry, but no one wanted to admit it".[17] It also became widely pirated, including in the Soviet Union.[20] According to Lowe, a film adaptation was considered and he was flown to Hollywood to demonstrate the game in person.[21] Footage from the game was used in the 1990 music video for Sailor's song "The Secretary".[22]Leisure Suit Larry's success resulted in a line of sequels and spin-off titles. Combined sales of the Larry series surpassed 1.4 million units by March 1996.[23]
Macworld reviewed the Macintosh version of Land of the Lounge Lizards in 1987, stating that "At its best, Leisure Suit Larry surprises you with clever animations that make you laugh ... And at its worst, the game is offensive ... Larry's idea of an ideal mate is shallow even for a parody ... There are many examples of a fifties mentality that are meant to be satirical but just seem lame". Macworld criticises Leisure Suit Larry's portrayal of women further, stating that it "contributes nothing to enlightened male attitudes towards women". Macworld compares Leisure Suit Larry to Leather Goddesses of Phobos, expressing that Leather Goddesses is "raunchy and humorous" without Leisure Suit Larry's "retrograde" portrayal of women.[24]
Computer Gaming World's reviewer Roy Wagner ("a wholesome family man") stated that Larry "is a lot of fun to play and is very humorous ... with good graphics, good design, and good fun provided, who needs 'good taste'?"[25] According to the review by Rob Steele of The Games Machine, the Atari ST version was entertaining and very enjoyable, even if "wholeheartedly sexist".[15] Jason Simmons from Amiga Action opined that the 1991 remake's "advanced graphics and new control system have improved the game by a huge degree", but "without a hard drive it is slow and almost a chore to play" and those who played the original "will probably find the new edition a waste of time and little more than an exercise in pretty pictures."[14] In 2004, Adventure Gamers' Rob Michaud wrote: "Despite its weaknesses, it's a bona fide gaming classic, a must-play for adventure history buffs as well as those who just like risqué humor."[12]
In 1988, Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards was given an award for the Best Adventure, or Fantasy/Role-Playing Program of 1987 by the Software Publishers Association.[16][26] In 1991, PC Format placed the first three Leisure Suit Larry titles on its list of the 50 best computer games of all time. The editors wrote, "The three Larry games so far plumb new depths in computer entertainment — they're crude, suggestive, full of innuendo and double entendres and designed to appeal to the worst aspects of human nature — you'll love 'em."[27] In 1996, Computer Gaming World ranked it as the 69th best game of all time,[28] also ranking it as the fifth most funny computer game, and stating: "Base, sexist, sometimes scatological humor, with no concessions made to taste or sensibilities, this was the best of a funny series."[29]FHM included it on its 2011 list of six games "that shamelessly used sex to sell" but adding that it was actually "funny, well-crafted, and well-written" and "has become kind of like a cult classic among gaming fans."[30] In 2012, Time named it one of the 100 greatest video games of all time, commenting: "A humor-filled adventure game that wasn't bashful about showing some skin? The world hadn't seen anything like it."[16]
Developer N-Fusion Interactive and publisher Replay Games created a modern point-and-click remake of the original game with updated HD graphics, fully vocalized audio, and various enhancements to the original like new puzzles and new characters.[31] The game was developed for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, Android, and Linux, and released on June 27, 2013.
Related Research Articles
Leisure Suit Larry is an adult-themed sex comedy video game series created by Al Lowe. It was published by Sierra from 1987 to 2009, then by Codemasters starting in 2009. The first six Leisure Suit Larry titles, along with Magna Cum Laude and Love for Sail Mobile, were distributed by Vivendi Games, while Box Office Bust and Reloaded were distributed by Codemasters. Currently, the games are being published and distributed by Assemble Entertainment.
Sierra Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genre, including the first such game, Mystery House. It is known for its graphical adventure game series King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, Gabriel Knight, Leisure Suit Larry, and Quest for Glory, and as the original publisher of Valve's Half-Life series.
Mark Seibert is an American musician, composer, and producer best known for his work on various video games from Sierra Entertainment.
Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail! is an adventure game originally developed and published by Sierra On-Line in 1996. It was the last Leisure Suit Larry game written by series creator Al Lowe, and the last to feature original protagonist Larry Laffer as the main character until the release of Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don't Dry in 2018. It followed the 1993 Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out!. Despite being known as Leisure Suit Larry 7 during its development, Love for Sail! was actually the sixth installment in the Leisure Suit Larry series due to the (intentional) nonexistence of a fourth game.
Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist is a comic Old West adventure computer game created by Al Lowe and Josh Mandel and published by Sierra On-Line in 1993. It was dubbed "the Blazing Saddles of computer games" by Computer Gaming World.
Albert William Lowe is an American video game designer who developed several adventure games, mostly for Sierra On-Line. He created the Leisure Suit Larry series. He has also worked as a casting director, voice director, writer, director, producer, background photographer, actor and executive producer.
Softporn Adventure is a comedic, adult-oriented text adventure game produced for the Apple II in 1981. The game was created by Charles Benton and released by On-Line Systems, later renamed Sierra On-Line. Years later, Softporn Adventure was remade and expanded as Leisure Suit Larry series of adult-oriented video games, and the first entry in that series, 1987's Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, was a nearly direct graphical adaptation of Softporn Adventure. Another graphical version was released as Las Vegas for various Japanese computers in 1986 by Starcraft.
Video games featuring sexual content has been found since the early days of the industry and can be found on most platforms and can be of any video game genre.
Lawrence Laffer is a player character and the protagonist in the Leisure Suit Larry series of adventure video games, created by Al Lowe and Mark Crowe for Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards in 1987 and later voiced by Jan Rabson. A man approaching middle-age, Larry is a balding nerd who, following a lifelong virginity, has suddenly become obsessed with sex and now lives a new life, awkwardly trying and usually badly failing to seduce attractive women. Due to the popularity of the series in the later 1980s and early 1990s, Larry was one of the well known video game characters during that era.
Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places) is the second game in the Leisure Suit Larry series of graphical adventure games, designed by Al Lowe and published by Sierra On-Line in 1988. Like its predecessor, Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, it was developed for multiple platforms, including MS-DOS, Atari ST and Amiga. It utilizes Sierra's Creative Interpreter (SCI0) engine, featuring 16-color EGA graphics and a mouse-based interface for movement. The story continues the exploits of Larry Laffer, who becomes stranded on a tropical island during an ill-fated vacation.
Leisure Suit Larry III: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals is a graphical adventure game designed by Al Lowe and published by Sierra On-Line for DOS, Atari ST and Amiga in 1989 as the third entry in their Leisure Suit Larry series. The plot first follows series protagonist Larry Laffer, fresh from an abrupt divorce, as he combs through a tropical resort looking for love. After he meets the latest woman of his dreams, Passionate Patti, and leaves her to enter the wilderness, the player takes control of Patti to search for him.
Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work is a graphical adventure game developed and published by Sierra On-Line for the Amiga, DOS and Macintosh computers in 1991. It is the fourth entry in their Leisure Suit Larry series and the first Larry title to have 256-color graphics and a fully icon-based interface. Being an (in)direct sequel to 1989's Leisure Suit Larry 3, its title is misleading, as there is no Leisure Suit Larry 4. The game is followed by Leisure Suit Larry 6 in 1993. It was re-released in 2017 on Steam with Windows support.
Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out! is the fifth entry in the Leisure Suit Larry series of graphical adventure games published by Sierra On-Line and is a sequel to the 1991 video game, Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work. Originally developed for MS-DOS in 1993, an enhanced CD-ROM version was published a year later.
Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude is a 2004 adventure video game developed by High Voltage Software and published by Vivendi Universal Games and their subsidiary Sierra Entertainment. It is the seventh main installment in the Leisure Suit Larry series and the first game in the series without any involvement with series creator Al Lowe and the final game to be released by Sierra before the rights were sold to Codemasters following its parent company Vivendi Games' merger with Activision to form Activision Blizzard. The game introduces a new main character, Larry Lovage, as Larry Laffer's nephew.
Torin's Passage is a point-and-click adventure game developed and published by Sierra On-Line in 1995. The game was designed by Al Lowe, author of the Leisure Suit Larry series.
Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero is a 1989 adventure game/role-playing game hybrid, designed by Lori Ann Cole and published by Sierra On-Line for MS-DOS. It is the first game in the Quest for Glory series, and has been credited for being a genre-defining game, as it tried to mix graphical adventure gaming with role-playing-like elements such as statistic building that would actually affect the ability to accomplish certain parts of the game. The game has a satirical and silly tone. Ports for the Amiga, Atari ST, and NEC PC-9801 were released in the early 1990s. A VGA remake, titled Quest for Glory I: So You Want to Be a Hero, was released in 1992 for DOS and later in 1994 for Mac OS.
Josh Mandel is an American video game writer, designer, voice actor, and producer. He worked on computer games such as King's Quest V, The Dagger of Amon Ra, Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist, Space Quest 6, and Callahan's Crosstime Saloon.
Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel is a 1987 police procedural adventure video game developed and published by Jim Walls and Sierra On-Line. Police Quest follows police officer Sonny Bonds as he investigates a drug cartel in the town of Lytton, California.
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Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded is a point-and-click adventure game released on June 27, 2013, by N-Fusion Interactive, Intermarum and Replay Games working with series creator Al Lowe and intellectual property holder Codemasters. The game is available for Microsoft Windows via Steam and GOG, OS X, Linux, Android and iOS. It is an enhanced remake of the 1987 Sierra On-Line adventure game Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards. It is the second remake of this game, following the 1991 remake, which featured VGA graphics.
1 2 Morrissette, Jess (October 8, 1999). "Al Lowe Interview". Adventure Classic Gaming. Archived from the original on January 31, 2015. Retrieved January 28, 2015.
↑ Brillig (March 1988). "Naughty, but quite nice". Atari ST User. Vol.3, no.1. p.27.
1 2 "Available July 1!". Computer Gaming World (advertisement). July 1991. p.15. Archived from the original on December 3, 2013. Retrieved November 18, 2013.
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