So popularity = good design? That's a weird assertion.
Like I said, they were technological marvels, and I think people bought them because of that. I do wonder how many people who purchased them actually finished them.
Like I said, they were technological marvels, and I think people bought them because of that. I do wonder how many people who purchased them actually finished them.
If being able to finish the games would be all that important, I would personally have to consider pretty much any arcade game badly designed. I've never been able to finish Super Mario Bros, DOOM, Quake, any of the Ultimas. But I think all of those games are well-designed and, more importantly: fun to play.
And ultimately, I had lots of fun playing Sierra's and LucasArts' adventures. They may not be the pinnacle of game design, but that enjoyment alone makes then good games in my book.
Sierra games have a lot of "dead man walking" scenarios where you end up in a situation where an action you took hours earlier locks you out from finishing the game. They also have lots of instant death scenarios that you can only find by trial and error. Is your last save several hours old? Too bad, you get to play that part again.
Their games also feature a lot of "dream logic" puzzles where you really have no way of figuring out the intended solution short of clicking on everything. The "cat hair mustache puzzle" is a great example of this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_hair_mustache_puzzle. To be fair, that one wasn't created by Roberta Williams, but I think it typifies much of the Sierra design approach.
Again, Jimmy Maher at The Digital Antiquarian has gone into a lot more depth on these issues in Sierra games (and plenty from other companies), comparing them to better designed games from companies like Infocom and others.