preAGI/AGI games by Al Lowe

dooplex · Post by **dooplex** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 2:27 pm

Al Lowe himself (who is the original creator of the Leisure Suit Larry series, for those who don't know), offers a few games for download on his website:
http://www.allowe.com/More/download.htm

You'll find following games there:
The Black Cauldron
Donald Ducks Playground (not yet SCUMMVM-supported)
Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood
Mickey's Space Adventure
Troll's Tale
Dragon's Keep (maybe never supported?)
Softp**n (maybe never supported?)

Softp**n is the inofficial precursor of LSL1.

Maybe Al would also agree to have these games downloadable from the SCUMMVM site? At least he wouldn't be to unhappy, if the SCUMMVM site linked there, I guess.

moderatorial: since the games are not for free, misleading statement was edited out from the title

bobdevis · Post by **bobdevis** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 2:46 pm

Direct download seems a no-no because ppl should at least see his Tipjar links.
Maybe there could be some GoG-ScummVM-Al Lowe deal, who knows

It seems that Softp**n is text adventure(!).
Gogo ASCII art?!!!

Mud · Post by **Mud** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 2:51 pm

All the games there are cracked and Sierra doesn't endorse Al Lowe. I'm pretty sure that isn't legal.

dooplex · Post by **dooplex** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 2:56 pm

Al wrote this:
"As far as I know, these games are no longer of any interest to my friends at Disney or Sierra, so feel free to copy them and share them with your friends."

Well, I guess this is a bit like the abandonware concept and therefore somewhat of a gray zone... I guess you could be right, Mud. Given this putting these games on the SCUMMVM page is difficult.

Nonetheless, I guess it's ok for us to download these games, because, well, how to get them otherwise?

Softp**n doesn't contain any images or ASCII art, as far as I know

. Al Lowe used the puzzles as a base for Leisure Suit Larry 1.

Post by **sev** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 3:01 pm

It is not a gray zone. Al Lowe has no legal rights to distribute those games, and even acknowledges that.

Eugene

Red_Breast · Post by **Red_Breast** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 10:46 pm

A couple of years back I was browsing Digg and came across a link to a site where you can play Apple II/GS games in a browser. It also lets you download them.
It has The Gelfling Adventure which, last time I looked, wasn't on Al Lowe's site.
I won't link, unless it's OK'ed, for obvious reasons.

Post by **sev** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 3:16 am

Red_Breast wrote:I won't link, unless it's OK'ed, for obvious reasons.

No, the games were never freewared.

Eugene

dooplex · Post by **dooplex** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 12:18 am

I know this isn't an excuse, but you can't get these (very old) games anywhere else than from Al's site. GOG doesn't have them, and searching them on Ebay doesn't provide any results either.

Sierra won't have any interest putting them back on sale, as, obviously, there are only a few people that would buy these games, and even then only for a evry low price (like 5$ for all of them in one package?).

Post by **sev** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 5:30 am

dooplex, it is not matter of availiability or something, it is matter of our, ScummVM devs' peaceful sleep and overall future of the project. If we would help pirates, the project would be shut down next day.

Eugene

lazylazyjoe · Post by **lazylazyjoe** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 8:49 am

I was reading on wikipedia about the game "soft pcrn". Apparantly, the designer of the game, Gary thompson, rewrote the entire game and releasesd it independent of Sierra as shareware. (with Sierra's permission) Since this is a total rewrite, it's distribution is legal.
It appears that this shareware version is the one on his site(he mentions the rewrite), so it would be allowed to be distributed freely.
All the other games are still property of Sierra, though.

MeddlingMonk · Post by **MeddlingMonk** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 3:45 am

sev wrote:If we would help pirates, the project would be shut down next day.

Too true. You guys are on a knife's edge.

That said, if Al Lowe wants to tapdance on said knife, that's his business. He's not connected to ScummVM and ScummVM isn't connected to him.

dooplex · Post by **dooplex** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 4:25 pm

I agree - the SCUMMVM project mustn't be endangered and, as long as it's not perfectly legal, the team mustn't endorse those games downloadable from his site.

Though I've gotten my own opinion on Al Lowes website (I hope this is ok, nobody needs to agree to it):

The situation is different here. It's Al Lowes website the games are downloadable from, not some warez/abandonware site. Al Lowe is the original creator of these games and I'm also pretty sure that Sierra knows about his website. Calling Al Lowe a pirate would be just, well, wrong.

I like the idea with his tip jar, too. Personally I very much prefer paying the person behind a game directly instead of giving lots of money to a faceless company (I don't endorse piracy either, to make this clear).

That being said, from the view of the law the situation is clear, as Sev already pointed out, though there are no bad intentions behind any of it.

Post by **sev** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 4:57 pm

dooplex, to make things straight. I did not call Al a pirate. My reference was about the reasons of our attitude, when you touched the topic of abandonware.

Al in fact is one of the victims of modern copyright laws. From one hand he can't distribute games created by himself, and from the other hand he had no power to stop mockering on his creations if form of LSL: Magna.

Eugene

lazylazyjoe · Post by **lazylazyjoe** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 5:28 pm

Yeah, they did a number on him with that. He was supposed to atleast have a hand in the creation of the first one, but they decided that they didn't want his help or pay him anything. I was so excited when I heard the announcement of the new larry game until I heard that. I knew it would be bad if they didn't even want his help. Ever since ken sold the company in 97, the company has been horrible.
Atleast Sierra still makes most of their old games available for purchase, unlike a certain lucas company...

Collector · Post by **Collector** » Tue Apr 07, 2009 5:29 am

lazylazyjoe wrote:Atleast Sierra still makes most of their old games available for purchase, unlike a certain lucas company...

Only some games from four of the main series, and then several games were missing from the 4 new collections.