FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

'Leisure Suit Larry' Fails to Read the Room, Back With New Game

The original Pick Up Artist is back to harass ladies in his never ending attempt to get laid.

In the world of classic point-and-click adventures games, a few names are legendary. Guybrush Threepwood. Purple Tentacle. Manuel Calavera. And then there is Larry Laffer.

During the late 1980s and ‘90s, a wave of graphic adventure games ruled the PC market and Larry Laffer was the genre’s gross uncle. Laffer was the star of Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, the first of seven adventure games where players controlled an aging lothario loser trying to get laid.

Advertisement

That’s it. That’s the whole point of the game—leading Larry to the land of the luscious ladies. Developers released a kickstarter backed remaster of the original game in 2013 and attempted to reboot the series in 2004 in a game that starred Larry’s nephew. The last proper Larry game came out in 1996 and now, more than 20 years later, German developer Crazy Bunch has announced a brand new title in the series— Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry.

At first glance, releasing a new game about a dad-boded loser in an ugly white suit wandering a city in a quest for female companionship seems like a terrible idea. Larry is an unabashed pickup artist, a creature from a different era, and what once came across as the crass gropings of a lovable loser probably won’t play as well now.

Based solely on the press release, the developers seem to know that, but it’s too early to tell if the game will be critical and explain why people like Larry suck or if Wet Dreams Don’t Dry will just be a dated sex comedy.

“Hey ladies, I’m back in business!” Larry declares in the announcement for his new game. “My new adventure…takes me…from the end of the ’80s directly into the 21st century and wow, how the world has changed! While my view of the world and women from way back in the 1980s collides with modern reality harder than the breasts of a lusciously stacked blonde jogging along a beach, I’m all set to date my way across the modern world!”

The original games cast Laffer as a complete and total loser who couldn’t catch a break. He’s 40 years old and lives in a terrible, run-down apartment. He obsessed over sex to the point that it ruined his life. In the first game, unprotected sex with a local sex worker will literally kill him. And it’s all played for laughs.

Wet Dreams Don’t Dry transports that loser into the modern era where, according to the press release, he’ll grind out dates on an app called Timber to make himself worthy of his ultimate goal—getting a date with the woman of his dreams. Which sounds gross, but it could still be fun if Crazy Bunch keeps a satirical eye on the tropes of the past and exploitative nonsense.