Missed Classic 9: Softporn (1981)

By Ilmari

Since Alex is about get his hands on the remake of Larry, I thought we might take a look at the game which it is based on. But didn’t Trickster already review original Larry way back then? Indeed, but before there was Larry, there was Softporn. Yes, we are getting back to the very source of smut, that has now, in form of Larry I, been remade three times - that’s gotta be some sort of record!

Softporn is a bit of weird one among the early Sierra adventure games, as it is the only real non-graphical text-adventure Sierra ever published. The game itself was made by Chuck Benton, a field engineer from Boston. It had begun as a programming exercise, but Benton had then got the idea of making some money with the game. This proved to be rather difficult, until Ken Williams, who happened to have purchased a copy from Benton in Applefest 1981, called and asked if On-Line Systems (the predecessor of Sierra) could publish the game. (For a more detailed story, look at the Digital Antiquarian).

Sierra didn’t really change Benton’s game in any way, although there was a talk of a graphical upgrade even back at the day. What they did was design a new game box, with a famous picture showing Roberta Williams with two other lovely ladies in a jacuzzi.

Kenny, I know what you are thinking, stop that immediately!