Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption Interview

Lori and Corey Cole, the masterminds behind Sierra Entertainment’s Quest for Glory series and the recently released Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption, had a chat with PC Gamer about their latest game’s troubled development, its bumpy road to release, their approach to game design, and their future plans. An excerpt:

So You Want to Be a Hero

The Quest for Glory series, which eventually encompassed five games across nearly a decade, are a unique hybrid of classic 2D point-and-click adventure like King’s Quest, infused with RPG features like raising stats, solving quests, and combat. Players select a fighter, rogue, magic-user, or later, a paladin to determine which skills and abilities they will use to fight monsters and tackle puzzles.

“We’re known as adventure game designers but we really don’t play many adventure games,” says Corey. “We used an adventure game engine for Quest for Glory because that’s what Sierra had, and where their strengths were. But we always considered ourselves role-playing game designers.”

The Quest for Glory games were beloved for their lovely 2D artwork, memorable characters, and humorous writing, though the Coles are quick to point out that nostalgia has helped highlight the series’ strengths and minimize its flaws, particularly the bugs. “When we shipped Quest for Glory 4 on floppy disks, it was pretty much unplayable,” says Corey.

Thankfully Sierra later released a much better CD-ROM version of Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness that included numerous bug fixes as well as full voice acting. That CD version was one of the first PC games I ever played, and remains one of my favorite games to this day, leading me to quickly back the Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption Kickstarter in the fall of 2012, along with about 6,000 other nostalgic fans.

“Tim Schafer and the Double Fine Adventure was so successful, we ended up getting dozens of emails and phone calls—someone actually tracked down our phone number,” says Corey. “Fans told us to check out this Kickstarter thing and kickstart a new Quest for Glory.”

The Coles had been relatively quiet after their careers at Sierra, having initially entered the gaming industry well into their 30s back in the late 80s. In the 2000s, Lori turned a fan request to do a collaborative Quest for Glory novel into an interactive website, which then evolved into an ARG-like role-playing experience.

“The idea was for a fantasy version of a school, called The School for Heroes,” says Lori. The Coles had been expanding upon the hero school concept, and upon seeing the success of Double Fine Adventure, adapted it for their Kickstarter project. But that wasn’t the game they’d end up making.