Regarding the "walking dead" outcome of earlier adventure games (which I always hated BTW) just a quick reminder that, back in the day, every gaming magazine would carry walk-throughs for the most recent games. Usually it would only take 3 months max until a gaming magazine would provide the solutions for the most hardcore games of the time.
Hence, one of the reasons why absurd puzzles and moon logic lasted for so long in video-games throughout the 90s. Basically everyone knew it was just a matter of time until one read the solution somewhere.
I still remember a few times I guided a friend or two by reading a game walk-through using the phone.

Inevitably even the gaming magazines would benefit from these "hardcore" adventures. I remember one school colleague who never bought gaming magazines for the reviews and previews but solely because of the solutions inside.

Thanks, some interesting looking stuff there.


Gladly.
I can't find the months reference back on such short notice, but the back cover of Grand Larceny is advertising the completion time of the game being "Weeks".

http://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/grand-larceny/cover-art/gameCoverId,395721/


The same can be said of mazes, but surprisingly, some people actually do love them.
So much so that in very recent times there was a new adventure game which had those as basis of its design philosophy, the game was all about escaping mazes.
The name of the game escapes me now, and I have never played it, but the point is that even very obscure things appeal to some people.

Well, "weeks" can be anything from two weeks up, and two weeks are still two weeks short from becoming a single month. Not to mention "months" (as in: plural).

I'm (honestly) not trying to mock you here (I'm an old fart myself, so I know something about lack of memory), but it sure does look like there's a lot of proof available, that you sadly just can't remember in detail right now (but you definitely can remember that that proof exists).
;)

Well, at least you're in luck because I wrote something about Grand Larceny last year elsewhere, so it was on my mind still.

And if you absolutely must have that maze game name, I suppose I could trace it back from my games wishlist, but there are 2000 games on that list (literally) so going through them one by one wouldn't really serve the purpose?

About the months reference, I can't honestly remember whether it was some old game cover or perhaps something in some old game magazine. I don't think it's that important to find that out either, as the point of that all was that back in the day games were deliberately hard.

"Save early, save often" was not an exception, it was how the entire industry felt about adventure games.
Well, not counting those platforms were you couldn't actually save.

One notable game of this design philosophy is The Detective Game for Commodore 64. It has few dead ends, which aren't that bad, most likely they can be avoided, but there is a final confrontation in the game, and there are basically three ways to solve it:

1) By being incredibly lucky and doing all the right things which aren't necessarily logical.
2) By cheating, and using some walkthrough or something.
3) By playing the game all the way to the end, and dying there a few times to know what happens, and from that try to figure out what you are doing wrong, and play the game from the beginning all over again trying to do what needs to be done to successfully complete it.

A horrible design that is by modern standards, but was OK back then.
In many ways that game was even very advanced. All items were actually manipulated by pointing and clicking with joystick, and this was back in 1986, a year before Maniac Mansion among other things.

I seem to recall that there was even a remake of this game to some platform, but (you guessed it!) I can't remember which platform it is.

If some people have nostalgia for dead ends then that's cool. I don't get it, but it's cool. We all have niche things we're into, including old PC games in general!

However I think arguing that dead ends were "good" and only gotten rid of by some kind of mainsteaming misses several factors... 1) not much internet to hear complaints at the time, 2) Lucasarts became much more popular for reasons, one of them being a lack of Sierra's more annoying aspects, 3) these games were never that mainstream even once they removed dead ends, and 4) games like King's Quest could be successful and loved without being flawless. Them being successful doesn't prove anything really. Everyone hates Oblivion's level scaling, but it was still a super popular game.

I like Oblivion's level scaling. So again you are wrong. You should not project your likes and dislikes as universal.

I have long memories of the original Sierra text-parser adventures. My first foray into PC gaming. King's Quest III, Space Quest II, Quest For Glory (I) ... wow.

But I'll be honest: they're both bad and good memories. The games were hard to play and were designed for you to spend absolute hours conquering. And back in the day when you were swapping disks to play and to save it was even longer to get through. I didn't get around to finishing most of the old collection until many years later.

But for those who actually finished them without help? I tip my hat to. That's probably the highest badge of honour you can have - beating those unforgiving games on your own proves dedication and skill.

They aren't meant to be rushed. They are meant for you to learn by trial and error and repeated death. And you learn to save the game, and use those limited saves carefully. Eventually with some experience of one or two you learn the ropes and apply the techniques to others.

But gaming moved on and players these days expect to finish a game quickly within mere hours without straining their brains (or losing their temper) in the process. For those people I say ... pick a walkthrough which doesn't just hand you the answer, and one which warns you the sections of the game where failure to do something will lead to you having to restart the whole thing again. Follow that and try to enjoy the ride if you can. I can truthfully say I got to the end of only one without help: QFG 1 (the text one, not the VGA remake).

I can't recommend any text-parser Sierra games for people who are looking for a walk-in-the-park (no death/softlock) experience. That's not really how they were made.

Your interesting reflection made me think of something:
Are the Sierra old games the "Dark Souls" of adventure gaming?
:)

The original LSL on the Apple IIGS is one of the only ones available for the Apple IIGS that I beat without a hint book.
I believe I beat KQ3 without a hint book, but didn't get 100% completion. The only place I had trouble was those caves and cliffs you had to climb after arriving in Daventry as the obvious path wasn't the right one.
Then I got the "King's Quest Companion" for KQ4, which had the solutions for the first five games.
I beat Quest for Glory I without hints, but again didn't get the best ending. I don't recall if I have a hint book for Police Quest or not.
All the rest available for the Apple II, which IIRC was limited to Gold Rush, Space Quest, Manhunter:New York, King's Quest I, II, and IV, I needed hint books for.
Same for Codename Iceman on the PC Transporter card.
Manhunter New York I needed a hint book because of that land mine area. Even though the in-game hint said "M.A.D. had the answer" it wasn't clear how to figure it out.
I think I beat Manhunter:San Fransisco without a hint book however.