Replay Games raised money earlier this year to remake the Leisure Suit Larry game, and now it’s following up that achievement by hiring a new chief creative officer and acquiring a new game that it will publish.
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Mandel is helping the company re-create Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, said Paul Trowe, Replay’s chief executive. Replay raised more than $600,000 via crowdfunding on Kickstarter to bring back the Leisure Suit Larry franchise.
“This is a priceless opportunity for me both personally and professionally. On a personal level, it allows me to be creative with people I’ve come to know and love over the course of the past 25 years,” Mandel said. “On a professional level, it puts me in a place where I can create the kinds of humorous, literate games that engendered the original market for computer games and bring them to a whole new generation of gamers.”
Replay Games is also publishing a retro-style adventure game, Fester Mudd: The Curse of the Gold. This should ship in January for Mac, PC, iOS, and Android. Fester Mudd is a throwback to the old-school adventure games that dominated gaming in the ’80s and ’90s. It has a Western theme and humor. Al Lowe, the famed creator of the Leisure Suit Larry series, said, “I laughed, I cried, I laughed some more. Actually, that crying part is a lie. Fester is a good ol’-timey adventure game in the true spirit of Sierra’s best games.”
Fester under development at Finland’s Prank Entertainment. It’s a Steam Greenlight submission. Greenlight is Valve’s service where members of the digital distribution community can review and vote on the submissions. If approved, Fester Mudd could make its way to the Steam platform.
“We’re thrilled to be joining with Replay Games and Josh Mandel in order to bring Fester Mudd to audiences new and old,” said Seppo Santapukki, the chief creative officer at Prank Entertainment. “Our game is a virtual love letter to classic adventure gaming, and Replay’s ability to tap into that audience is exactly what we’d hoped to find in a partner. We’re also hoping to introduce our style of classic gaming to today’s audiences, so they can experience the charm, the humor, and the cleverness of these games firsthand.”