Leisure Suit Larry Megathread - "My name is Larry... Heh, Larry Laffer" - LSL and other spicy games from when we were kids

[Pepito The Cat]

Game Index:

• Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards
• Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places)

Whenever someone ask me about the games I used to play when I was a kid, among the usual arcade and puzzle games, I usually mention the point and click graphic adventures. I was a big fan of the Lucas Arts (or LucasFilm, depending on how old you are) games such as the Monkey Island series, the Indiana Jones adventures and even the odd ones like Loom or DIG. Those games were at the top of my list but not far behind were the graphical adventures produced by Sierra Entertainment. King’s Quest, Space Quest and the Police Quest games were my favorites but there was another series I had a tendency to pass during formal conversation. The Leisure Suit Larry games.

I made Larry an acquaintance in the early 90s through an Intel 286 in the form of his first official game: Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, a videogame with one clear goal: To find true love… or at least, get laid.

Using the Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) engine developed by Sierra Entretainment and widely used in the early King’s Quest series of games, you command Larry and his interactions with the world by the means of a set of instructions in the form of verbs and the directional keys. The game is full of quirky and sometimes raunchy humor written by the skillful hand of Al Lowe, a former music high school teacher and genuinely funny man that ended up becoming a videogame development legend during the mid and late 80s.

Now, we can’t talk about LSL without mentioning the true origin of the game. Turns out LSL is an almost beat to beat recreation of an earlier game published by Sierra Entertainment, back when they called themselves On-Line Systems. The game was called (and I shit you not) Softporn Adventure, released in 1981 and originally written by Chuck Benton as a test project while formally employed as a database engineer for an unrelated company.

Original sleeve of the cassette version of Softporn Adventure

This is the only game On-Line Systems/Sierra Entertainment published that does not have graphics. Though Larry does not appear in it, the original version has been later included inside of Leisure Suit Larry collections.

In the game, the player (taking the role of a down-on-his-luck party animal) is required to obtain certain items that will allow him to win the affections of a series of beautiful (and sometimes not-so-beautiful) women. Although tame even by 1980s standards, the game was nonetheless controversial for its racy content, and it was also widely bootlegged and distributed among high-schoolers (because of course).

Initially, Chuck tried to sell the game by his own under the name Blue Sky Software but only managed to sell 100 copies out of the 10000 he had ready to ship. Out of options, Chuck ended up offering the game to On-Line Systems, which revamped the cover in an… interesting matter and sold a whooping 50.000 copies in the first year.

It was the early 80s, forgive them...

Now, about the cover. That’s probably the reason why so many copies left the shelves in a time when piracy was as simple as copying a floppy and a sheet of paper. Surprisingly, the women in it are not models but, from left to right, the first woman was a shipping clerk at On-Line Systems. The second is the wife of Bob Davis, the creator of other Sierra titles, such as Ulysses and the Golden Fleece. The waiter was an actual waiter from a local restaurant and the woman on the far right is the legendary game designer and co-owner of Sierra Entertainment, Roberta Williams. The hot tub is actually that of Sierra's owners, Ken and Roberta.

And yes, all the girls confirmed to be fully naked for the photo shoot.

Now, by 87, the game Softporn Adventure was hugely popular, being sold and pirated left and right with an estimate players nearing 100% of Apple II users (!) so Al Lowe, who previously worked with Sierra as a contractor in writing the script and designing the gameplay for Police Quest, was tasked with updating Softporn Adventure to not only modern hardware but also with modern themes. With the advent of HIV, the actions of the protagonist weren’t settling right with the times. The free sexual expression of the 70s and early 80s wasn’t in tune with the big AIDS scare so Al accepted the challenge with one big condition: That he was free to make fun of it.

And oh boy he did. The absolute madman.

Al Lowe looking way more dignifying than deserved.

He came up with the plot about a 30-something virgin in a desperate quest for china and/or love who goes the extra mile to please every passable female out there but, somehow, still following the source material beat by beat… but with added condoms. And humor! Lots and lots of humor. From raunchy naughty jokes, passing to sexual innuendo and straight to fart jokes, LSL had it all and the master knew his trade.

"My initial reaction was that I had wasted six months of my life."
―Al Lowe

Unsure of how the game would be received, Sierra's management chose to release the game without any publicity or advertising budget. Unsurprisingly, its first-month sales were lower than any new Sierra product launch in years; many large computer chain stores refused to sell it, finding the adult content unacceptable. However, word-of-mouth quickly spread. By year’s end, Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards became a critical and commercial success, being named the Software Publishers Association’s "Best Fantasy, Role Playing or Adventure Game of 1987" and selling over 250,000 copies. According to marketing director John Williams, "Obviously lots of retailers were selling lots of Leisure Suit Larry, but no one wanted to admit it."

Technical Facts.

All these correspond to the original 1987 release of the game:

• The game was created for MS-DOS IBM compatible or Tandy systems (XT 8086 and better). No PCjr Support.
• A minimum of 256K of RAM was required.
• Supported the following graphic modes: 16 Tandy/EGA colors, CGA (composite palette) or Hercules monochrome. It did support early VGA chipsets but only running in EGA compatible mode.
• 320 x 240
• It required an HDD installation with no option for bootable floppys.
• No sound card support. PC Speaker only.
• The box came with both 3 ½ and 5 ¼ HDD disks to maximize compatibility.
• The game didn’t use a mouse but it was joystick compatible to move Larry around. You still needed the keyboard to input the actions.

Plot.

Spoiler: Dunno why I'm spoiling this. It's very simplistic.

Larry Laffer is a 38-year old balding man 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 to experience what he hasn't lived before, and find the woman of his dreams. Larry's quest involves four possible women: a nameless, seedy-looking prostitute; Fawn, a club-goer of low moral fibre; Faith, a receptionist who (true to her name) is faithful to her boyfriend; and Eve, a bathing beauty and Larry's ultimate goal. In true Sierra fashion, you have a score that increases for each action taken and a Game Over screen awaits at every corner.

Screenshots.

Hercules Monochrome

Spoiler: WARNING: Strobe effect on some LCD Screens due to high contrast

- YES, we played it this way. NO, it wasn't any better on phosphorus CRT monitors.

CGA (4 colors dual composite palette)

EGA / Tandy 16 colors

Extras

Spoiler: Some extra photos and oddities about LSL and Softporn Adventure.

Some other photos from the Softporn Adventure cover photo shoot. The girls having a good time and the waiter wetting his Willie.

Full content of the LSL box. Back from an age when paper was really cheap.

Full content of the Softporn Adventure sleeve.

In my next post I'm gonna sperg about Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places) also known as Leisure Suit Larry 2.

Edit: Some format errors.

 

[Bland Crumbs]

Classic game. I remember playing this early in the morning on my Dad's Tandy 1000.

 

[NerdShamer]

Nowadays we have cheaply made flash games that people will spend their entire paychecks for.

...History is repeating itself.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

I've always wanted to try Leisure Suit Larry. They seem hilarious and raunchy, and some people have praised certain ones like 7. I especially like that one gag where you need a condom to have sex with the prostitute or else Larry dies of an STD. Thing is, I'm not terribly good at point and click games; I basically always need a walkthrough handy.

On a scale of 1-10, how much would I need a walkthrough for any of these games? Just out of curiosity in case I want to try them out.

 

[Rebel Wilson]

Just shows you how different a legend like Roberta Williams saw the world and gaming in general compared to some of the women that allegedly see her as a personal hero.

Fuck yea Roberta

My dad has the first 2 leisure suit larry adventures and I wasn't allowed to play them and neither were any of my siblings, he got us Hugo and Penelope instead which had some mature content anyway.

@Duncan Hills Coffee

If you've never played a game of this style before getting the commands right is going to be a struggle at first and remember to investigate and LOOK at everything!

 

[Wonderful Id]

I loved the hell out of most of the Leisure Suit Larry games. 1 and 3 are great, 5-7 are great, Magna Cum Laude is passable (some decent jokes and the gameplay borders on eh to forgettable), Box Office Bomb is one of the worst games I've ever played, and I wont even go near the newest one. Still, as a franchise, LSL is fantastic.

Speaking of Softporn Adventures variations, there was a first person version of it called Las Vegas for the PC 88 in Japan.

In fact, Softporn Adventures is probably the most remade game of all time.

It got remade as LSL, which got two remakes of it's own, and Las Vegas as well, so yeah, Softporn was remade four times.

 

[Jimjamflimflam]

Love everything about the art in these games. The box covers and the in-game graphics. Also the amount of crap they included with the game, funny stuff.

It was a better more relaxed time back then.

 

[Pepito The Cat]

On a scale of 1-10, how much would I need a walkthrough for any of these games? Just out of curiosity in case I want to try them out.

For the original, the one with the command interpreter? a solid 7. If you want a more relaxed experience, try the 1991 remake or better yet, the 2018 Andriod/iOS Re-release "Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded". All 3 are the same game but repackaged and remastered to work on the current systems of their respective times.

 

[TrippinKahlua]

The second game should have been called "Larry goes looking for love and gets killed every time he tries." Because it is filled with situations that will kill you.

On the cruise ship, you acquire a Spinach Dip on Sourdough Sandwich. The only thing you are supposed to do with it is throw it away when you escape on a lifeboat. If you eat the spoilt sandwich, you die.

 

[Mitt Doggy Dogg]

Man I remember playing this when I was a kid loved it, the redish tint of the skin really takes me back to how the tandy looked back then, truly a classic all gamers should play thru atleast once

 

[Pepito The Cat]

The second game should have been called "Larry goes looking for love and gets killed every time he tries." Because it is filled with situations that will kill you.

That's a staple of the Sierra games from that era. In this one, if you press the down arrow and forget to stop Larry (the commands can only be paused by another command) on the first screen, you get ran over by a car. You can die literally 3 seconds from starting the game.

 

[Wonderful Id]

One thing I remember from LSL3 is that you have to get bulked up and you did that by lifting weights, the faster your cpu, the more reps you had to do. On my 300mhz machine of the time, I don't even remember. I think I had to use a cpu slowndown program to make it even viable to do enough reps.

 

[TrippinKahlua]

That's a staple of the Sierra games from that era. In this one, if you press the down arrow and forget to stop Larry (the commands can only be paused by another command) on the first screen, you get ran over by a car. You can die literally 3 seconds from starting the game.

I agree. "Funny ways to die", as morbid as that sounds, was always a staple of the Sierra AGI adventure games. I once left dead Gwydion on my Uncles office computer for like one hour once.

Believe it or not, I grew up playing these computer games. I was 3 years old playing Space Quest at my Uncles office (him and my dad own the business) and even Leisure Suit Larry. Yeah, my Uncle showed me around Lost Wages. It sounds Powerlevel, but I really have a lot of cherished memories playing them.

I obviously didnt play Larry by myself until I got older, but I just remember Larry 3 being one of the very best Sierra adventurers ever.

 

[Marissa Moira]

GOG has all the games up, they go on sale and it's like 3 dollars for the whole collection sometimes. You will also get the VGA graphics ones for free included.

I'd also recommend Torrin's Passage which was also done by Al Lowe.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Magna Cum Laude is underrated, yeah the minigames get repetitive but it delivers in the sex and humor department, some of the dialog is quite funny and one thing that happens in the game is even funnier in a modern context, it's not a HORRIBLE game.

I've played a handful of the LSL games but the only one I've beaten outside of Magna Cum Laude is Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded, the 2013 remake, which was really good and I had hoped they would remake the others but evidently there was some shenanigans with the rights and the developer or something and it has yet to happen.

 

[Wulfpack Legend]

Here's a Let's Play of Magna Cum Laude with all the secrets and extras

https://lparchive.org/Leisure-Suit-Larry-Magna-Cum-Laude/

 

[The Last Stand]

Maybe this is beyond my generation or taste, but I don't understand the appeal of Lesiure Suit Larry.

It sounds like a point and click adventure as a Playboy esque character.

 

[Wonderful Id]

Maybe this is beyond my generation or taste, but I don't understand the appeal of Lesiure Suit Larry.

It sounds like a point and click adventure as a Playboy esque character.

He's a playboy wanna be, but really a huge dork. Keep in mind that the series came out in the early 80's, but he wore a leisure suit (from the disco era) in an attempt to be cool. That's the kind of guy he's supposed to be. He sometimes gets laid, and sometimes silly things happen. The main example of that I remember is from LSL6, where he gets two girls together with the idea of a threesome...and then they kick him out and just fuck each other.

 

[The Last Stand]

So, he runs a mansion of sorts but in reality he's just a spaz with money?

Where's the appeal?

 

[Pissmaster]

Shout out to everyone who tried playing the first one as an adult but failed the quiz at the beginning to verify you're an adult by asking questions that only boomers would know