Before that, even, we were both already connected with Sierra. For a while Janet was the (remote) BBS Sysop for Sierra’s help BBS. People could dial in from wherever and ask for help, tech support, hints, and such. The BBS itself was an IBM PC running a product called “The Major BBS” – with eight eight-modem cards in an expansion chassis, no cover, and a big fan blowing constantly to make sure it didn’t melt down.

Amusing – the BBS software would auto-ban users who posted “bad language”, but it was badly written so it would find “bad” words embedded in good words. Janet had to be careful, because it would even auto-ban the sysop, requiring someone at Sierra HQ to go in and fix it. Tough to answer a question using the word “chardonnay” and get banned for “hardon”. Tough for users from Sweetwater TX.

Interesting. Janet also had an offer to work for Lucasfilm Games, which at the time was located at Skywalker Ranch. We went out one time and Brian Moriarty showed us around. I remember being impressed that every room had not just electric outlets but plugs for phone and Ethernet – elegant brass ones. She took the Sierra job instead because it didn’t require a commute.

Yes, we played all the other quests. King’s Quest, Space Quest, Hero’s Quest, even Police Quest.

Janet and I would go up to Coarsegold fairly often and hang out / meet with Ken, Roberta, Al, and the gang. At one point we invented the Internet. No, really! We had this idea of a game called LarryLand that people could connect to from all over the country and play multi-player in real time. Ken also liked the idea of a way for oldsters to connect and play card games and such with each other; called it “Constant Companion”. SOMEONE started referring to it as “Constant Constipation”…

When we’d go up there we’d stay at the Shiloh Inn. Little Katherine (now 28) was especially amused if we’d go in winter, as we could play in the outdoor heated pool while snow fell on and around us.

Visiting at the Williamses house on Bass Lake one time, somehow Katherine got scared of their dog (rhodesian ridgeback, I think?) and ran from it, prompting the dog to run after her – bit of a mess. Another time Ken took me and some others out on the lake in his spiffy boat, forcing Janet to sit and have kamikazes with Roberta; tough life!

I’ve been writing for PC Magazine since 1986, and I used to do game reviews back then. That’s partly how I got into the beta testing. Handy to already know the game inside and out by the time it’s ready for review. Alas, I can’t really tell you anything about the process or what I thought of it at the time. Too long ago! But I’m 99% sure we did NOT get any answers or ways to pass the puzzles.

In LSL2 there’s a dating game with Larry and two other guys. One is Ragooka Singh Song (play on Sierra guy Guruka Singh Khalsa). The other was GOING to be Neil Rubberking. But I told Al, if you do that I won’t be able to review it. So he stayed a writer but got the name A. P. Wire.

Al would now and then run things by me, puzzles and such. I remember one time he came down to S.F. to talk about Torin’s Passage (great game, VERY too-bad he didn’t get to make the two planned sequels). He showed me prototypes of a couple puzzles over lunch at Zuni Cafe (great place, STILL great). I worked one out fairly quickly, which pleased Al immensely as some at Sierra had said it was too hard, NOBODY will get it. Something about a line of little men and women facing each other, and you had to reverse their positions by jumping over?

Brain dump ends herewith! Hope you’ll find some useful information.

I feel relief, a bit of shock and disbelief, gladness — but mostly gratitude and humility. It’s amazing that we can say, “Hey, guys, how about investing in a wouldn’t-it-be-cool-if?” and people are willing to play along. THANK YOU.

Bob is flying back from a Scarlet Furies gig in CA this weekend, and I want to wait til he’s here to do a video update. But I did dig out some old treasures recently, and this seems a good time to share them with you. HAPPY SUNDAY!

Well, I took all of your advice and I got some good rest Wednesday and Thursday. So now that I’m well rested, what do I do? I’m back at the office at 1:25am catching up on the 302 unread emails from the past 2 days. Ugh. LOL

Anyway, I promised you guys I’d keep posting here so I’m doing my best. I’m literally having to pry my eyes open while I write this since I’m pretty exhausted but I told you I’d do it, so I’m doing it, gang!!

Now, let’s get down to business! Since all 14,000+ backers made it past the $650k mark you guys get more rooms, another girl, and all new dialogue in the game (from hitting the $550k tier too!). The bad news is, this has serious ramifications on our ship date. We were originally planning on shipping in October but since we have to pretty much design a TON of new stuff (which I think is extremely positive), there is no way in hell we’re going to make October 2012. We MAY be able to make December but honestly, I’d rather launch the game after the holiday season and put a lot of polish (no, not Pole-ish…I said polish!) on the game and make sure we have beta tested it enough to release. There is nothing I can’t stand more than a game that was released “to make Christmas” that is just riddled with bugs (anybody remember some unnamed PC games that would ship super buggy in hopes the patch would come out before the game hit the shelves?). So anyway, that’s the bad news.

The good news is that I’ve created a blog!! I have never blogged in my entire life but I feel that now is a damn good time to start. You guys motivated me by asking for constant updates so the way we’re going to deliver them to you is via the Replay Games forum. So far we have 2 sections: “Announcements/News” and “Paul’s development blog”. Here’s the link to the READ ONLY section of the forums: Replay read only forums. I suggest you bookmark it since I plan on blogging pretty much every day on what’s going on. I’m not saying I won’t post here (like a lot of you guys want), but it just makes sense to keep things in one place. If you don’t feel like going through the multiple forums to find what you’re looking for (and reading reply after reply after reply) then you’re going to love those 2 sections.

Ok, it’s 2am and I seriously need to get to bed. I haven’t been skydiving since before the Kickstarter campaign and I really need to relieve some stress so I’m taking the weekend off (please don’t hate me) and am going to jump out of a perfectly good airplane as many times as I can between tomorrow and Sunday.

Until next time, your humble servant,

We were planning another video update, but that’ll have to wait ’til later tonight or tomorrow. In the meantime, I want to let you know about a new pledge tier we’ve just brought out: a $750 pledge tier we’re calling the “Larrywood Walk of Shame Edition.” We’re gonna do up Lost Wages like Hollywood, with stars along the sidewalks all over the city, and we’re allowing 20 donors (no more) to “buy” a star with their name on it. (Of course, Larry will be permitted to make a comment about your star, unless your name is funny enough by itself.) We think this will be a cool addition to the game, and a great way to memorialize yourself into the actual fabric of Lost Wages…outside of getting your name on a poster at the Post Office. And since there’s no Post Office in the game, who would see THAT except for NPCs?

More to come as this historic Kickstarter drive comes to a close in less than 2 days!