Leisure Suit Larry 8: Lust in Space (lost build of cancelled PC adventure game sequel; 1998-1999)
Leisure Suit Larry 8: Lust in Space (also known as Leisure Suit Larry Explores Uranus) was the planned eighth installment in the Leisure Suit Larry series by Al Lowe, announced in 1998. It was to be developed by Sierra On-Line; however, in 1999 Sierra announced that it was cancelling the project and terminating Al Lowe's contract due to the major reorganization of the company.
However, in the 2010s the Leisure Suit Larry license was obtained by two other game companies who made three more installments, Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded (a remake of the first game in the series), Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don't Dry, and Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice, with Al Lowe involved in the development of the former, so the revival of the project remains a possibility.
Storyline
At the end of the previous installment, Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail, the protagonist Larry Laffer, who was at that time aboard a cruise ship, was abducted by an alien spacecraft. In 2010, Al Lowe revealed his ideas for the plot of Larry 8:
"After Larry was taken away in the spaceship at the end of Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail!, he awoke to find himself in what he considered "heaven" — a world of disco balls, 70s music, and beautiful women who constantly wanted him to make love to them. What's not to like?
These amazonian warrior women were from a superior civilization light years away. Long ago, their modern technology enabled them to live forever, which meant they could no longer have children without overpopulating their planet into disaster. That made the male of their species redundant. Because the women were the warriors, they killed off all their males.
Now they wanted to expand to other planets and for that, they needed to increase their numbers. For that, they needed males. But where to find them? Why not look on the planet they chose to conquer first: Earth? Picking up transmissions from the PMS Bouncy, they learned of the “Thygh’s Man Trophy” Competition to choose the sexiest man alive. Who better to kidnap to breed with their women than the World's Sexiest Man?
Besides, after hundreds of years without sex, they were horny as hell!
But there was no way they could allow Larry to see their alien bodies and hideous faces. So, via the always handy anal probe, they discovered Larry's true feelings, what he liked and disliked. Then they brainwashed him into seeing his surroundings, and them, as that. Thus, their ship appeared to Larry to be a wonderful casino, disco, spa, etc., while the ugly alien females appeared to him as ideal women. Their spastic noises and clicks became 70s disco music inside Larry's brain.
But eventually, he would learn the truth: they were using him to father a generation of children that only looked human; a battalion of aliens human enough to blend in on Earth before taking control. When he escaped their mind control, he realized: he had to figure out the truth, find a way to stop them, and literally save the planet!
Of course, all this would be done in a satirical way, while poking fun at the thousands of other games that have used that theme before."
Features
- The game was the first installment in the series to be made in 3D; a short promo video demonstrating a 3D model of Larry was released in 1998.
- At least some part of the storyline was to take part aboard the cruise ship; in Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail, if the player examined the upper decks in Atrium, he would get the message: "Those decks are reserved for Leisure Suit Larry 8: Lust in Space! Don't try going there THIS game".
- Allegedly the game was to have the free rotating camera feature.
- It was also to include CyberVox 2000 and CyberScan 2000 features also present in Leisure Suit Larry 7, which allow the players to insert their voice recordings and photographs of themselves into the game.
Possible Resurrection
In the late 2000s, the rights to Leisure Suit Larry franchise were acquired by Codemasters, who licensed the franchise to Replay Games, a company founded by Sierra veteran Paul Trowe. Paul re-hired Al Lowe to work on the remake of the first Leisure Suit Larry (which was released in summer 2013), and Al had plans to remake all the installments in the original series with the hopes that Codemasters would then allow them to restart work on Lust in Space. However, at the end of 2013, Lowe left Replay and returned to retirement because Trowe was convicted for showing a sex video to a minor.
After the incident, the Codemasters took the license away from Replay and gave it to a German game company CrazyBunch who released two other installments in the series, Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don't Dry (2018) and Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice (2020). However, the production of either did not involve Al Lowe, so it remains unclear whether they would be interested in bringing Lust in Space back to the table.
Gallery
Sources
- The plot of Leisure Suit Larry 8. Retrieved 16 May '19
- The story of the project at Questzone (Russian). Retrieved 16 May '19
- Facebook page for the resurrection of the project. Retrieved 16 May '19