Leisure Suit Larry Bares All: A Conversation With Al Lowe

Leisure Suit Larry

There are few people who can be considered legends in the gaming industry, but Al Lowe is one of them. At various points in his career he has been a game designer, programmer, composer, and developer; through it all he has been, and still remains, a very funny man. Al helped define a memorable era of PC adventure games by conceiving one of the most popular and respected humor games of all time: Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards.

Al Lowe

I remember playing Leisure Suit Larry when I was 11 years old - I really duped my parents on that one, when I somehow managed to buy my own copy! While I appreciated all of the imaginative elements that made Leisure Suit Larry such a great game, at 11 years old, I certainly didn't understand all the jokes. For example, I thought Spanish fly was some sort of insect. Oh well.

Anyway, like many of the early Sierra titles, Larry helped me discover a whole new world that I never knew existed. I believe these early adventure games provided the gamer with an involved role in a rich and vibrant story, which read like a book but was played out through an interactive experience. It's debatable whether these feats in adventure gaming will ever be achieved again. That is, unless Al Lowe has anything to say about it!

With that, I present in its entirety, my interview with the original Bad Boy of Gaming, Al Lowe.