About five min­utes into the game I had to attend a brief­ing for the day. Not just that, but I had to find the exact right desk to stand at, and stand on the prop­er side of the desk, before the brief­ing would start. Until I found it, oth­er char­ac­ters would peri­od­i­cal­ly yell at me for being in the wrong place. Once I man­aged to fig­ure out the arbi­trary cor­rect set of actions to take, I was reward­ed with a slow, dia­logue-heavy cutscene about Drugs that did not ulti­mate­ly pro­vide any rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion about my quest. This would prove to be an omi­nous por­tent of the game as a whole.

Line on Sier­ra: Police Quest I · Line Hollis

Amus­ing and reveal­ing piece on what is prob­a­bly one of the most abu­sive adven­ture games of all time. Pip­pin Barr calls it his ur-game and I can see why.

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Kars Alfrink

Kars is a designer, researcher and educator focused on emerging technologies, social progress and the built environment.