Original Release: Sierra Online, 1981, Apple II
Other Releases: MS-DOS (1986), PC-88 (1987 – as Las Vegas)
This early text adventure was a precursor to the Leisure Suit Larry series, dropping an unnamed protagonist in the city of Lost Wages to gamble and “get lucky.” WOMEN! EROTICA! DERELICTS! BOOZE! and MUCH MORE !!!
Note: The MS-DOS version of the game is essentially just a recompile of the original Apple II code and is the same experience, so it won’t be getting its own section.
Softporn Adventure (Apple II, Sierra Online, 1981)
Where to Buy: ebay
How to Emulate: PC version is freeware at Al Lowe’s site, use DOSBox to run
Review by: Master-B
It’s pretty weird playing Softporn only after having played the first Leisure Suit Larry game multiple times over the years … Softporn came first and was used as the basis of Larry, so if you remember how to solve the puzzles in Larry 1 you can breeze right through this game!
Well, sort of. It requires random gambling (playing either blackjack or slots) to make enough money to win the game, so you have to grind away at that for a bit. And it has a much more limited and obtuse parser than Larry … just picking up and using a remote control successfully for a puzzle near the beginning of the game is a hair-pulling exercise.
The story and structure are basically almost identical, just minus the Larry character – replaced with some no-name schmo instead. Your initially unspecified quest is to lay the same three girls (technically you seduce four, but one just wanders off immediately), culminating in an encounter with the ultimate girl in the penthouse of the casino. It’s just a bit more confusing given the lack of graphics and the obtuse parser, but also easier in certain ways – the taxi doesn’t charge you anything to get around in this one, and you can’t die by simply wandering onto the wrong screen.
Softporn is basically the raw skeleton of Larry 1, stripped of most of its charm. Taken just as a text adventure it’s pretty simplistic and easy, made challenging only by the frustratingly limited parser and the need to gamble (though the little ASCII slot game is cute.)
Links
Atlantic article on the making of the game
Walkthrough
Videos
Gameplay Video
Interview with author Chuck Benton
Las Vegas (PC-88, Starcraft Inc., 1987)
Where to Buy: ebay
How to Emulate: coming soon!
Sierra had some interesting cultural exchanges with Japanese game companies in the ’80s and ’90s, the most well-known of which was the partnership with Game Arts that saw them localize titles like Thexder and Sorcerian. A lesser-known connection the company had was with Starcraft Inc. (no relation), a company that was active from the mid-80s to the mid-90s and specialized in porting Western PC games for the Japanese market.
Starcraft ported a number of titles for Sierra, including The Dark Crystal and Ultima II. In 1986, for whatever reason they decided to go whole hog and do a graphic adventure re-imagining of Softporn Adventure. If you ever wanted to see what a Japanese anime Leisure Suit Larry might look like, this is about the closest thing in existence.
Though you can emulate old Japanese computers fairly easily, this will be impossible to play without both a working knowledge of Japanese and a Japanese keyboard as there are no fan translations. I couldn’t find a video of it anywhere, but here are some neat screenshots for Softporn / Larry fans:
