TSTT (THE Sierra Trivia Thread)

[Rakeesh]

What? No thread dedicated to trivia of the Sierra games?? Let's fix it.

This is the place to share any oddities, obscurities, or strange discoveries you have made during your explorations in Sierraland.

Have you discovered a very obscure or little-understood in-joke? Have you tried something strange, to which the game reacted in a strange way? Have you visited an optional character or bonus-screen, usually missed by most players? Have you tried things in an unconventional order, only to be surprised how the game designers predicted even this? Have you discovered a strange way to die? How about an alternative way to solve well-known riddles? Have you spotted any strange symbol? Or in general, any mistakes, strange bugs or historical/factual mistakes?

In my opinion the most trivia-rich game is Conquests of Camelot; I have explored it thoroughly and discovered many historical references and historical mistakes usually overlooked. I've also been surprised to discover events or replies already prepared by the designers for me.

But these will have to wait until you first, share your discoveries

[Rudy]

This is kinda like a hidden-Easter-egg thread. Found many thanks to the Sierra alumni. For example: why is the rowing boat in LB1 named "Jessie"?

[Rakeesh]

Why, really?

[Rudy]

"Jessie" refers to Jessie McKenna, the niece of Douglas Herring (lead artist of Colonel's Bequest) who was born prior to the release of the game.

[Rakeesh]

Intriguing!

More? More?

[Rudy]

Sure. "Jones in the Fast Lane" originally had a different title which, unlike "Hero's Quest", never hit the shelves. What was the original title?

[Rakeesh]

"Indiana Jones and the legend of the Fast Lane"?

[Rudy]

"Keeping Up with the Joneses"
The title was already in use, but they detected it shortly before shipping and had to toss away all the original boxes, change manuals, reuse the disks with new labels, etc.

[Rakeesh]

Ok has anyone tried to type "kiss" or the f-word in Conquests of Camelot?

[Tawmis]

"Indiana Jones and the legend of the Fast Lane"?

[Rakeesh]

Not actually a trivia (actually a question) but there goes...

At one point in Larry 3, Patti falls down a cliff after eating "the plant", and the textbox says "Way to go Newton"

I guess it's an expression or motto or American pop-culture reference* from somewhen around the 80s. But since I am not American nor an 80s kid, the injoke is obscure to me.

Typing "Way to go Newton" in Google or Wikipedia isn't fruitful. Anyone who can help?

* Sierra games, especially Larry series, were a bit too-much American-oriented

[Tawmis]

Sir Isaac Newton, is what you're looking for.

Newton described universal gravitation...

[Rakeesh]

Oh how silly of me "Way to go Newton" indeed sounded like some sports motto.

Here's something else I discovered while playing the Amiga version: at some points when I tried to save, it popped out a window with the title "Not now, I have a headache" (LOL) and told that for some reason it wouldn't allow me at that point. I had to exit the screen in order to save. This had never happened to me while playing the PC version.

The screens this happened were at least two: the beach, and the maitre'd foyer at the casino.

Has anybody noticed it? I guess it occurs because of memory shortage

[Rudy]

Here's another one. Ever wonder where Sonny Bonds got his name from? One of Jim Walls' sons is Sonny Walls. Still figuring out the "Bonds" part.
Also the guy shown on the front cover of Codename Iceman is another son of Jim, John Walls. The girl on the front cover of Iceman is his daughter, Laura Walls.

[Collector]

Still figuring out the "Bonds" part.

Perhaps from a bail bondsman?