The following is from Hobart 9, the Games issue.

Hobart #9, Games

Ken Sent Me: Lost in the Land of the Lounge Lizards(1)

I am not Leisure Suit Larry(2), except for when I am. For instance, when I was eleven, I was Leisure Suit Larry for several weeks while he taught me about sex and I helped him get laid for the first time in his life. Now I am twenty-seven and although I am joining him once again I can’t help cringing at his many mistakes, his misguided attempts at pickup-lines and lovemaking. There is no way to change his destiny, and so the best I can do is get him there efficiently, with a maximum number of points and a minimum loss of life.

You see nothing special.

On at least one level, video games are about fantasy and wish fulfillment. Game after game, the player steps into the role of the lone space marine stranded on Mars or the amnesiac farm boy with a hidden talent for swordplay. During play, this archetypal protagonist must stand against impossible odds to save the day from invading hordes of goblins, aliens, or Nazis, all of whom must be defeated in a generally similar fashion. Even most non-violent adventure games still offer up juicy roles like private detective or cop. Rejecting this trend is part of what made Larry Laffer such a special protagonist. Instead of being some sort of superhero, he is a forty year old leisure suit wearing virgin and little else. He isn’t good-looking nor is he financially well off, and he doesn’t have any qualities that could even be considered mildly heroic(3). As an eleven year old, I’m not sure I knew what a virgin was, and certainly the game’s humor was often completely lost on me. At twenty-seven, I can’t necessarily identify with Larry any better, although he does bring back a fear from my teenage years: That I would die a virgin, that no one would ever want to have sex with me. Putting myself back into Larry’s shoes means revisiting those years all over again. Like my younger self, Larry is awkward and embarrassing and mostly clueless as to the needs and wants of the opposite sex.

You’re fairly certain this is a hammer.

An important part of playing adventure games is understanding that inventory items often have multiple uses, and not always the most obvious ones. Much of the gameplay is based on using the right items in the proper combination at the correct time to move the game forward. Like the gameplay it describes, this essay can be more than one thing at a time, depending on the situation. This is essay as guide, as walkthrough, as reflection on personal experience.

(1) The title is two separate references to the same computer game, Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, a classic text adventure published by Sierra in 1987. “Ken Sent Me” is the password to get into the even seedier backroom of the already seedy Lefty’s Bar.

(2) AKA Larry Laffer, video game character and star of all of the Leisure Suit Larry Games except for Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude (which is not considered a proper game in the series by most fans, as it wasn’t written by Al Lowe nor was it very good).

(3) This is a trademark of Sierra’s early adventure games. Other Sierra series also featured bumbling protagonists, such as Space Quest’s Roger Wilco, a janitor in outer space.