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Okay, that's a relief.  Hopefully the next news we hear from you will be of good sales figures and reviews from the German gaming press.

Thanks for the link.

Hmm, this box cover was not ran by us. In fact, this is the first time I've ever seen it. It was suggested to keep Eriq's artwork, and also Eriq's pretty unwavering on the fact that a game's logo should not be changed, since that equates to changing the branding.

I'll have a word to them and see if we can get it changed.

I think Eriq's absolutely correct (besides which, his work is excellent and deserves to be seen by a wider audience in the retail version) but what worries me most about this is what other changes have been made by the localization team. Obviously certain idioms just don't translate well, but what totally unnecessary "improvements" in dialogue could have been made?

I think Chris has the right idea with crazy limericks...


Twas the joyous birthday of Tom Lewandowski
Who stayed home to watch "The Big Lebowski"
Then went out and celebrated
Came home quite inebriated
And could find neither hide nor hair of his house key

As good as the music was throughout the game, Dianne (and Tom, of course), Act Nine was in a class of its own. The feeling I got was that the music of the first eight acts was required to adhere to certain "Wild West" conventions in addition to the mood of the scene, while the change of scenery for Act Nine allowed you to be as creative as you wanted and only worry about the right mood.

As I said, it's all excellent, but act nine is more so .

On the other hand, if the player's using the keyboard (or keyboard and mouse combo) to walk around, it doesn't present an issue.

Thanks for the tip. I'm having no problems in windowed mode now. It was really only the right-hand side of the screen that was affected, in hindsight.

I attempted to play the game once in windowed mode and found that this made it very difficult to trigger the exit cursor compared with playing in fullscreen mode. The reasons for this are obvious, as it's possible to move the mouse off the playing area in a window but not in fullscreen, and you couldn't make the exit collision area too big or else limit the player's ability to interact with the environment.

May I please suggest that you make a note of this in the readme file for the commercial version of the game and recommend that players don't use windowed mode?

Otherwise I'm having a blast with the game so far. Two standouts for me are the banter between Al and the narrator, which is making me want to try everything possible on every screen just to hear all of it. Bravo to Daniel for this. The other standout is the voice of Jonathan Standiford as Bill the Piano Man. I get the feeling you heard his audition and immediately thought "Yes, that's Bill!"

The thought of "Al Emmo" sounding like "Alamo" occurred to me immediately, but I only recently thought of the possibility that in a possible sequel the title character might end up having to pay Al-Emmo-Ny

Thank you, I'm here 'til Thursday. Try the veal.

Len: Where'd you get 18 from? Brit's in her late 20's.

A gentleman never asks and a lady never tells. Therefore, he had no choice but to make the most flattering guess he could think of.

Finally, nice job on TSL! The demo really brought through the same atmosphere of KQ6 and the characters were written in such a way which makes you really believe that they're an extension of Roberta Williams' original story. I also like the approach you took with the backgrounds (lots of moving stuff) and the interface works in that familiar old-school Sierra style too. It's definitely a game I'm looking forward to playing!

Thank you very much for the great feedback. Though I can't claim any credit for any of the content of the demo or other materials we've released (I'm strictly PR), I'll definitely pass your kind words on to the appropriate people.

We always felt that mountain climbing paralleled game development quite well.  Even if you feel that the task is an impossible one, if you just continue to take one step after the other, you will eventually reach the top and finish what you began.

I think that's an appropriate and insightful analogy, though I think I'd also add to it by saying that the path you ultimately take to reach that goal will almost certainly be different than the path you originally mapped out.

Unfortunately, if I were to create a studio and name it after what I would be brave enough to climb, it would have an aesthetically unsatisfying name like "Chair Studios" or "Very Small Ladder Entertainment".

One thing I'd love to know is whether or not the name "Himalaya" is an homage to Sierra (both named after mountain ranges)?

Tribe! It's always nice getting props from another team. It's great to see you here.

To quote Superman: "Don't thank me, Warden. We're all part of the same team."

Firstly, congratulations are in order to all members of the Himalaya Studios team for the completion of Al Emmo, and the excellent press that this game has earned. It's hard enough to collaborate on one project where team members are so far apart. The fact that many of you were working on Al Emmo as well as Quest for Glory II VGA at the same time has definitely earned my respect. From a public relations standpoint, I'm also extremely impressed that you've managed to keep your fan community informed on both projects, juggle the different fan expectations involved with an original release and a game based on an existing IP, not to mention your ability to handle the constant pressure of being asked when both of your games are being released.

I was looking through your team member profiles, and most of you were familiar to me from various adventure gaming sites, but one name and picture stood out. I've never seen animator Stuart Murray in the adventure gaming community, but several years ago I used to see him in the school band, not to mention LAN parties hosted by his brothers. Small world, isn't it?