Sierra adventure games get a unique achievement system

Sierra games showed no mercy. You died a thousand deaths before seeing the end credits, or you gave up trying. Without any warning or clue, players would wander off in an instant death situation, and the only way to know was by doing it.

For instance, in Leisure Suit Larry, just pressing cursor down right after the game starts, has Larry crossing the street and getting run over by a car. Walking to the left gets Larry beaten to death by a guy with a club.

I read a quote somewhere on the web which struck me as funny, with a cruel twist:

"Oh, Sierra games. You are like an abusive husband. Regardless of how you beat me up, I still love you"

This got me thinking. The Sierra developers put a lot of effort in these games to have you dying at every corner, that it would actually be quite an achievement to undergo them all -- and watch the animations that go with it! And so, I am proud to announce that the upcoming Sarien.net update has this new achievement system called... Ways-To-Go (tm).

Yes, Sarien.net is getting a major site update soon. Not only will this have a brandnew redesign (see screenshot), user accounts, savegames (that you can store online and share on twitter or facebook), but also unlockable avatars that you can use in every game (be Larry in Space Quest!), user scoring, rankings and this unique achievement system that rewards you for finding different "ways to go". Get run over by a car, eaten by an alien, shot down by the Death Angel, cut in pieces by leaserbeams, roasted on a stick, zapped by a Wizard... it's all going to be rewarding and fun.

With this new update I hope to show the world what is possible with combining old singleplayer games with the endless possibilities of the social web. I hope you will sign up when the new sarien.net goes live, probably somewhere in Februari or March! So, it's not there yet, but it will be... soon.