Hoyle's Official Book of Games: Volume I

Hoyle's Official Book of Games: Volume I was the first card game simulator series released by Sierra entertainment. The series owes its name to Edmond Hoyle.

The Hoyle trademark and facecards were used under license from Brown & Bigelow Inc.

Relationship to King's Quest
Two characters Graham and Rosella are included. They interact with every other character speaking of their kingdom, family, grand relatives, previous adventures, inhabitants of their land, the castle, and other things. Of specific importance is discussion of Graham's father and grand-father, the history of the Dragon of Herenna, and Roger Wilco's crash into the moat the year before KQ4.

Games
The games included are: Crazy Eights, Old Maid, Hearts, Gin Rummy, Cribbage and Klondike (a solitaire game).

Characters
For all games, except the last, the player could choose opponents, each having their own AI and manner of playing. These opponents included historical figures, members of Sierra staff, and characters from Sierra games.

When the player took too long making a decision, the characters started having dialogues, each according to his background. For example,  Leisure Suit Larry begins to comment about women, while Roger Wilco wants to escape the game to save the universe again.


 * "More serious players"
 * The Kid (alias for Ken Williams)
 * Warren Schwader (programmer)
 * Diane
 * Thelma
 * Sol Silverman
 * Colonel Henri Dijon
 * Lenny
 * Shelly LeBlanc
 * Sonny Bonds


 * "Not so serious players"
 * Larry Laffer
 * Bulldog
 * Devin (son of the animator)
 * Jerry Moore (Sierra animator)
 * King Graham
 * Cassie
 * Roger Wilco
 * Rosella
 * Christina (programmer's daughter)

Development
The original concept was submitted to Ken Williams (CEO/Founder of Sierra On-line) by Warren Schwader. Once the project was greenlit, Warren acted as the Lead Programmer as well as the Game Designer. The games were programmed using Sierra On-line's proprietary scripting language: Sierra Creative Interpreter (SCI). SCI was originally created to aid in the development of Sierra's core line of adventure games. Working with SCI to implement card games and to code artificial intelligence for the characters proved challenging.

Warren Schwader continued as the Lead Programmer and Game Designer for the next two games in the series.