"Pathetic little fat man
No one's bloody laughing
The clown that no one laughs at
They all just wish he'd die."
- David Bowie, "Little Fat Man"
Al Lowe has his baby back!
I'm not really sure how it went down, but Codemasters has apparently loaned the rights to Leisure Suit Larry to Lowe. (I'm guessing the complete critical and commercial breakdown of the unspeakably vile Box Office Bust suggested that their Lowe-free Larry experiment was over.) Lowe is now hopping on the Kickstarter bandwagon and trying to get another remake of the original Larry game made for modern machines and mobile devices. He's asking for half a million and has already made about $100,000 in a day or so, suggesting victory is nigh. Of course, a strong showing here (along with the massive haul for the DoubleFine game) will be another huge win for adventure gaming, so there's a lot at stake. The success of this project will also determine whether or not Lowe is put in charge of future projects, so in many ways, we're investing in Al's future.
I'm actually a smidge apprehensive about this - if you include the original text game that Leisure Suit Larry 1 was based on, this is a remake of a remake of a remake - but I guess this is a safe, conservative first move for a guy who hasn't designed a game in ages.
The link to the Kickstarter project lies here:
I'll chuck $250 onto the pile - call it a Nostalgia Tax for a decade of puzzles and laughs. $15 gets you the game, DRM-free, so that's a good place for normal people to start.
It's like 1992 all over again in here!