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.
Background[]
Choose Your Opponent For Fun Or Challenge
Play against ruthless card sharks - "The Kid," Lenny, Colonel Dijon and even the author of the program.
Or play against Sierra's super heroes and heroines. You've been through a lot with them - saved the galaxy with Roger Wilco, completed critical quests with King Graham and Rosella, been in "several wrong places" with Leisure Suit Larry, tackled the underworld with Sonny Bonds. Now you can sit down and enjoy a friendly game of cards with them.
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 (a reference to an easter egg death in Space Quest I).
Graham and Rosella are shown to be playing Crazy 8's on the back of the box.
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.
If Graham and Rosella become your primary opponents at the start of a game (as in the first opponents to invite you to play the games after you have chosen your players) a snippet of King's Quest Music is played. For Graham it is a snippet and remix of the original main theme from King's Quest 1 for the Apple IIGS (specifically the part when you introduce yourself to King Edward at the beginning of the game). For Rosella it snippet of one of the themes from KQ4.
- "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.