Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist

Posted by Andrew Zitnay.
First posted on 17 April 2006. Last updated on 17 July 2010.
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There is no question that Sierra On-Line has excelled to become the leading developer of computer adventure games in the 1980s and 1990s. A good deal of this success can be attributed to Al Lowe, most notably for his Leisure Suit Larry series. Casual fans of Lowe, however, may have missed another gem of his creation from Sierra On-Line along the way. That gem is Freddy Pharkas, Frontier…

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Previous Comments

Excellent

I have the CD & floppy versions.. It does appear that the CD does NOT have all the inventory interaction text in it. It just makes the 'huh' sound.

Good to know.

United States By Freddy Phan • On 30 July 2007 • From Near Yosemite, USA

Excellent

Thanks Josh for the information and may I say a hearty thanks for the joy you and others at Sierra have given me for so many years! I have the CD version and will dig it out, check the text box and see if you are correct and come back and let you know!

This is, as far as I am concerned, the best Sierra adventure with the exception of the a very early Sierra game called Goldrush. It is better than the Police, Space and Hero Quest and Leisure Suite Larry adventures, in my opinion! Never before or since (including Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry) have I laughed out loud so much during a computer game!

About 3 years ago I sat down with my then 12 year old nephew and played through some of it with him. It was such a joy to see the 'next generation' laughing so much at the same situations and the same jokes! That Christmas he used some of his birthday money and bought the Space Quest Collection on ebay without telling me. It was so good to see it on his bedroom shelf when I next visited!

Freddy Pharkas is, quite simply, the most famous frontier pharmacist ever to have lived!

Great Britain (UK) By UK_John • On 19 September 2006 • From London, UK

Excellent

The part that I missed the most from the floppy version were the messages that came up during the installation each time you put another disk in. That's the only time that I know of that the installation of a game made me laugh out loud.

United States By Euglena • On 27 April 2006 • From Seattle, WA

Folks might find it amusing and instructive to know the actual reason that there're so many more jokes in the floppy version (specifically, in using the inventory items on screen features and on other inventory objects).

I had co-designed, directed, produced, and written the floppy version; there were no plans at all, at the time, to produce a CD version. When sales of the floppy version justified a CD version, I was no longer available to produce and direct it, having by then started on SQ6. Al Lowe was then tapped to do the casting and recording of the CD version, but the game already had so much text in it that, when it came time to record the inventory text, Al just stopped -- he was, he said, tired of sitting in the sound studio.

As I had written the vast majority of the game's text and dialogue, I pointed out to him that, in the process of cutting roughly 15% of the game's text from the recording, he'd not only left out many jokes, but many clues and hints as well. At tiem time, Al wasn't familiar enough with the text in the game to realize this.

It was too late to record the missing text, but Al's solution was to leave the text in the CD version IF the player has the Text option checked. I've never verified that this actually works, but those with the CD version might want to give it a try and see if they get all the inventory object comments.

--Josh Mandel

United States By Josh Mandel • On 18 April 2006 • From United Status