Leisure Suit Larry is a computer game franchise that had a huge impact on me as a writer and pervert. I played the very first game way back when I was a teenager and a bit too young to understand all the dirty bits. The puzzles were far too hard for me but I still loved it. It was a gamechanger ( pun not intended) for me as it never occurred to me that you could make games dealing with sex. I immediately started making my own computer sex game using BASIC. I didn’t have a computer, but I would fill notebooks with the code. These early programs were the ancestors to the interactive porn I write today.
Leisure Suit Larry will always have a soft spot in my heart and I have played every game in the series. Like most comedy from the 80’s/90’s, the older games haven’t aged well. There are way too many homophobic jokes and the less said about they treat transgender characters the better. The games are also guilty of the trope of giving the right puzzle piece to women in order to have sex. This is often alleviated by the fact that Larry’s objectification of women makes him the butt of jokes and a person everyone scorns, but still, quite problematic.
Which brings us to Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry. Published in 2018, this game starts with Larry waking up in a strange laboratory underground. He goes to the surface and realizes 30+ years have passed and he hasn’t aged a bit. This new world baffles him but he still wants to get laid. Aided by an experimental cell phone Artificial Intelligence, he tries to navigate the new world of dating apps.
This version of Larry manages two miracles. One, it might be the most woke of the entire series. The one transgender character is portrayed positively and several homosexual characters are depicted as real people instead of something to ridicule or be afraid of. The ethnic characters are real people and not stereotypes. It might be the first Larry game that I didn’t wince at.
The second miracle is that it is actually funny. Humor can be hit or miss and sexual humor is even harder. This game made me laugh out loud several times. The art is lovely and every background has great details that make studying the game worthwhile.
If you were ever curious about the Leisure Suit Larry games, then I can’t think of a better one to start with than this one.
2 Responses to “Have You Played Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry?”
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There was more than one Leisure Suit Larry??!!!!??!!! As a die-hard Infocom kid, I must have missed it. Perhaps because of the ASCII art nudes I kept “finding.”
There are so many Larry games and you can still play them all. I would suggest Leisure Suit Larry 5 as being the most fun and being the least frustrating.