1. Sierra 1988 Catalog – As a kid, Sierra’s adventure games were at the top of my list. I was obsessed with King’s Quest, Police Quest, Space Quest, Manhunter, Quest For Glory, and Leisure Suit Larry. Each title was contained on anywhere from five to ten floppy disks, and you had to swap out disks as you entered (and returned to) certain areas in the game. I didn’t care!
The games came in these huge boxes with intense artwork, comically huge considering they contained a handful of 3.5″ floppies and a manual. And a catalog. Sierra always packed in a catalog that displayed the rest of their offerings for the year, and I would read those things to shreds. The design of the catalogs really ‘over-hipped’ the product, and the 1988 catalog is a good example of that:
They also produced “trailers” for their lineup and distributed these to game retailers for potential play in their stores. In many cases, the game creators starred in their own trailers. Check these guys out from 1988 – that’s Jim Walls, the creator of Police Quest, getting shanked in that prison.
2. 300 Years of Imagined Spaceships – Check out this writeup over at the Library of Congress blog featuring some imagined spaceships dating back to the 17th century. Here are a couple of my favorites:
3. Sherlock Posters – In honor of Sherlock’s triumphant return this week, here are some fab fan posters by Chris Schweizer. These are my faves:
4. Atari Frogger/Star Wars Commercial – An unlikely pairing, but the custom animation on the Frogger commercial is pretty impressive and Empire Strikes Back on the 2600 was, well, amazing, so Parker Brothers gets a pass on this.
5. America 3000 – This trailer looks like it’s being riffed after the fact, but it’s not! It’s got a real Gor feel to it.
-ds