AGI (Adventure Game Interpreter) was the development tool used by Sierra Online to create their early adventure games. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... This is an article about the computer and video game genre. ...

The first King's Quest game originally used a language named Game Assembly Language, or *.gal, by its designer, Arthur Abraham. When its main designer left, Sierra was unable to complete the game, which had been intended to showcase the technology of the IBM PCjr. IBM "donated" its product, AGI, to Sierra to allow development of King's Quest to continue. Kings Quest IV screenshot Kings Quest is an adventure game series made by the American computer game company Sierra On-Line (currently known as Sierra Entertainment). ... A PCjr with the revised keyboard and a third-party floppy drive (attached to the top of the computer). ... For other uses, see IBM (disambiguation) and Big Blue. ...

When it debuted in the mid-1980s, AGI was innovative and made impressive use of the technology available at the time. Later versions were adapted to use 16-color EGA graphics. The Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA) is the IBM PC computer display standard specification located between CGA and VGA in terms of graphics performance (that is, colour and space resolution). ...

By the end of the 80s, however, AGI's 160×200 resolution began to show its age and could not compete with newer engines such as Lucasfilm Games' SCUMM, which featured mouse support. In 1990, Sierra abandoned AGI and started using the SCI (Sierra's Creative Interpreter) engine for their adventure games. Display standards comparison The display resolution of a digital television or computer display typically refers to the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. ... LucasArts is an American video game developer and publisher. ... SCUMM stands for Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion and is a scripting language developed at LucasArts (known at the time as Lucasfilm Games) to ease development of the graphical adventure game Maniac Mansion. ... Operating a mechanical 1: Pulling the mouse turns the ball. ... Sierras Creative Interpreter (SCI) refers to the scripting language created by Jeff Stephenson of Sierra On-Line for its adventure games after the older AGI. While AGI was a procedural language, SCI is completely object-oriented. ...

The AGI system was originally designed for the IBM PCjr and clones. In the 80s it was also ported to other platforms, and some games were released commercially on the Apple II, Apple IIGS, Apple Macintosh, Amiga and Atari ST. Although there is a Sega Master System version of King's Quest and an NES version of King's Quest V, it's highly unlikely that they use the AGI software system. A PCjr with the revised keyboard and a third-party floppy drive (attached to the top of the computer). ... An IBM clone is any personal computer that emulates the performance of the original IBM PC and all its successors. ... The Apple II was one of the most popular personal computers of the 1980s. ... The Apple IIGS, the fifth model inception of the Apple II, was the most powerful member of the Apple II series of personal computers made by Apple Computer. ... The first Macintosh computer, introduced in 1984, upgraded to a 512K Fat Mac. The Macintosh or Mac, is a line of personal computers designed, developed, manufactured, and marketed by Apple Computer. ... This article is about the family of home computers. ... The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was commercially popular from 1985 to the early 1990s. ... The Sega Master System ) or SMS for short (1986 - 2000), is an 8-bit cartridge-based video game console that was manufactured by Sega. ... “NES” redirects here. ...

List of AGI games

This is a list of Sierra games made in AGI (roughly chronological order). Note that there have been fan companies and other individuals who have produced usually shareware or 'unofficial' AGI games.

• King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown (1984)
• King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne (1985)
• The Black Cauldron (1986)
• Donald Duck's Playground (1986)
• King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human (1986)
• Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter (1986)
• Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards (1987)
• Mixed-Up Mother Goose (1987)
• Police Quest I: In Pursuit of the Death Angel (1987)
• Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge (1987)
• Gold Rush! (1988)
• Manhunter: New York (1988)
• King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella (1988) *
• Manhunter 2: San Francisco (1989)

* King's Quest IV was simultaneously produced and published in both the AGI and SCI formats. The main advantages of SCI are a higher resolution (320x200 rather than 160x200 in AGI), sound card support, mouse support, and a more versatile scripting system. Sierra supposed that contemporary low-end systems would be unable to run the SCI version, thus requiring a 'lighter' version of the game. However, sales figures proved them wrong, and the AGI version was quickly discontinued. Because of its rarity, the AGI version could be considered a collector's item. Note that sound card support is here distinguished from support for the Texas Instruments sound chip featured by the PCjr and early models of the Tandy 1000 series, which has capabilities beyond the standard IBM "PC speaker" hardware and was well supported by AGI. (Tandy 1000s have the chip because the 1000 was originally planned as a clone for the PCjr.) The Black Cauldron is an adventure game designed by Al Lowe of Sierra On-Line and released in 1986. ... Donald Ducks Playground is a computer game for the Commodore 64, based on the Walt Disney cartoon and comic book character Donald Duck. ... Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards is a computer game which was released in 1987, the first part of the Leisure Suit Larry series. ... Mixed-Up Mother Goose cover (1987 version) Roberta Williams Mixed-Up Mother Goose is a computer game first released by Sierra On-Line in 1987. ... Gold Rush! is a graphic adventure game released by Sierra Entertainment in 1988. ... Sierras Creative Interpreter (SCI) refers to the scripting language created by Jeff Stephenson of Sierra On-Line for its adventure games after the older AGI. While AGI was a procedural language, SCI is completely object-oriented. ... The Tandy 1000 was a line of more or less IBM PC compatible home computer systems produced by the Tandy Corporation for sale in its Radio Shack chain of stores. ...

Related software

• AGI Studio is an open source program that lets users create games that are based on the AGI engine. AGI Studio is designed for Windows. There is a version for Linux called QT AGI Studio (formerly Linux AGI Studio).

• DAGII is an AGI game engine recreation by David Symonds. It can only play games that are built into its database, and the compatibility isn't high. It is still under development, and runs well under Linux/Unix and Mac OS X.

• GBAGI is an AGI game interpreter for Game Boy Advance.

• JAGI is an open source AGI game engine recreation by Jens Christian for Linux. It isn't very advanced, but it is very portable.

• MEKA was the first AGI game engine recreation available to the public. The name is an acronym combining the last names of the authors (Joakim Möller, Lance Ewing, and Peter Kelly), and the word Adventure. It is open source and is only available for DOS.

• NAGI is an open source AGI game engine recreation for Linux and Windows that is mostly complete and has additional features such as mouse support.

• Sarien (Sierra AGI Resource Interpreter Engine) is an open source game engine recreation that can run AGI games. Sarien works on Dreamcast, GP32, Linux/Unix, and Windows. It has merged with ScummVM, now being one of the several engines supported by it.

• ScummVM recently gained support for AGI games by merging the Sarien code. ScummVM works on a wide variety of platforms including AmigaOS, Dreamcast, GP2X, GP32, Linux/Unix (BSD and several others), Mac OS X, MorphOS, Nintendo DS, Palm OS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Windows, Windows Mobile/CE and SymbianOS.

• WinAGI Game Development System is a new development system that allows you to create AGI based games. It includes many significant tools and features that can't be found in AGI Studio. AGI game creation is made significantly easier with WinAGI.

Windows redirects here. ... This article is about operating systems that use the Linux kernel. ... Filiation of Unix and Unix-like systems Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX®) is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy. ... Mac OS X (IPA: ) is a line of graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... This article is about the family of closely related operating systems for the IBM PC compatible platform. ... Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ... Game engine recreations are engine interpreters for video games that replace the original engine binary that came with the original game. ... The Dreamcast , code-named White Belt, Black Belt, Dural, Dricas, Vortex, Katana, Shark and Guppy during development) is Segas final video game console and the successor to the Sega Saturn. ... The GP32 (GamePark 32) is a hand held console built by the Korean company Game Park. ... ScummVM is a multi-platform stack-based virtual machine which was originally made to allow one to play LucasArts adventure games that use the SCUMM system on platforms other than those for which they were originally released. ... AmigaOS is the default native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. ... The GP2X is an open-source, Linux-based handheld video game console and media player created and sold by GamePark Holdings of South Korea. ... Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD, sometimes called Berkeley Unix) is the Unix derivative distributed by the University of California, Berkeley, starting in the 1970s. ... MorphOS is a mixed proprietary and open source operating system produced for the Pegasos PowerPC (PPC)-processor-based computer, most models of PPC-accelerated classic Amiga computers, and the EFIKA PPC consumer device. ... “NDS” redirects here. ... Palm OS is a compact operating system developed and licensed by PalmSource, Inc. ... “PS2” redirects here. ... The PlayStation Portable , officially abbreviated as PSP) is a handheld game console released and currently manufactured by Sony Computer Entertainment. ... WinAGI is a full featured game development system to create new games that use the Adventure Game Interpreter, by Sierra. ...

See also

• Avis Durgan

Avis Durgan is the ASCII-string on which an exclusive OR operation (XOR) was performed in the text of the vintage Sierra Entertainment AGI adventure games to keep the gamers from snooping clues in these games. ...

External links

• Adventure Game Interpreter at the Open Directory Project
• Making adventure games with AGI: A tutorial, Adventure Classic Gaming (2000)
• Sarien home page
• NAGI home page
• agigames.com
• The Ultimate AGI & SCI Web Site
• AGI Development Site
• The AGI Wiki
• Mega-Tokyo Message Board, Sierra AGI section
• WinAGI Game Development System home page