Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist

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Template:More citations needed Template:Short description Template:Main other{{#invoke:infobox|infoboxTemplate | child = | subbox = | bodyclass = ib-video-game hproduct {{#ifeq:|yes|collapsible {{#if:|{{{state}}}|autocollapse}}}} | templatestyles = Infobox video game/styles.css | aboveclass = fn | italic title =

| above = Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist

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| label2 = DeveloperTemplate:Pluralize from text | data2 = Sierra On-Line

| label3 = PublisherTemplate:Pluralize from text | data3 = Sierra On-Line

| label4 = DirectorTemplate:Pluralize from text | data4 = Josh Mandel

| label5 = ProducerTemplate:Pluralize from text | data5 = Josh Mandel

| label6 = DesignerTemplate:Pluralize from text | data6 = Al Lowe
Josh Mandel

| label7 = ProgrammerTemplate:Pluralize from text | data7 = Steve Conrad
William R. Shockley
Cynthia L. Swafford

| label8 = ArtistTemplate:Pluralize from text | data8 = Bob Gleason
Ruben Huante
Phy Williams
Karin Ann Young

| label9 = WriterTemplate:Pluralize from text | data9 = Template:If first display both

| label10 = ComposerTemplate:Pluralize from text | data10 = Aubrey Hodges

| label11 = Series | data11 = Template:If first display both

| label12 = Engine | data12 = Sierra Creative Interpreter

| label13 = PlatformTemplate:Pluralize from text | data13 = MS-DOS, Macintosh, Windows 3.x

| label14 = Release | data14 = 1993 (floppy)
1994 (CD-ROM)

| label15 = GenreTemplate:Pluralize from text | data15 = Adventure

| label16 = ModeTemplate:Pluralize from text | data16 = Single player

| label17 = Arcade system | data17 = Template:If first display both

| data30 =

| below = Template:EditOnWikidata

}}Template:Main other{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|ignoreblank=1|preview=Page using Template:Infobox video game with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"| alt | arcade system | artist | caption | border | child | collapsible | commons | composer | designer | developer | director | embedded | engine | fetchwikidata | genre | image | image_size | image_upright | italic title | modes | noicon | onlysourced | platform | platforms | producer | programmer | publisher | qid | refs | release | released | series | state | subbox | suppressfields | title | writer }}Template:Main other{{#if:Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist.jpg|}} Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist is a 1993 point and click adventure game developed and published by Sierra On-Line for MS-DOS, Macintosh, and Windows 3.x home computers. Designed by Al Lowe and Josh Mandel, the game sees the player controlling Freddy Pharkas, a former gunman turned pharmacist, as he runs his pharmacy and solves other problems around the town of Coarsegold, California.

Gameplay

The game uses Sierra's SCI1.1 engine and features 256-color hand-drawn art, scaling sprites, and a point-and-click interface. Freddy Pharkas ran under both DOS and Windows 3.1. It was released in both floppy disk and CD-ROM versions, the latter having full voiceover speech for all characters. The game's manual is entitled The Modern Day Book of Health and Hygiene, a parody of 19th century medical texts. It contains information necessary for solving prescription puzzles.

As a form of copy protection, the player must concoct prescriptions for Freddy's patients using recipes found in the user's manual. An incorrect prescription will result in the customer returning angrily, but does not end the game.

Plot

In the game, the player takes the role of Freddy Pharkas, an 1880s-era pharmacist in the town of Coarsegold, California which was the location of Sierra's headquarters in 1993. Freddy was once a gunslinger, but sought a new career after his last gunfight, in which "Kenny the Kid" (a reference to the infamous outlaw Billy the Kid) shot off one of his ears. Throughout the town, businesses are either being bought or proprietors are being scared out of town. Someone is obviously trying to take over the entire area, but who? And why? The slimy sheriff, Checkum P. Shift doesn't seem eager to help, so it's up to Freddy to find out the details. The cast includes the town's eccentric old man and story narrator Whittlin' Willy, Srini (Freddy's "Injun" sidekick – actually East Indian), Doc "Dizzy" Gillespie the drunken town doctor, the cafe owner Helen Back, otherwise known as Mom and her stereotypical Chinese chef Hopalong Singh (a reference to Hop Sing, the cook on Bonanza), the crooked banker Phineas (P.H.) Balance, town schoolmarm (and Freddy's love interest) Penelope Primm, and Madame Ovaree, who runs the local brothel. The villain "Kenny the Kid" is a cartoonish version of Sierra's then-president Ken Williams. Madame Ovaree's name is an obvious parody of Madame Bovary and (as evidenced by her occupation) ovaries. Also, there are some anachronisms in the game, such as Srini mentioning him being on Pakistani time, but Pakistan did not exist at the time the game is set, as the region where the country is located was still a part of India at that time, and Pakistan did not become a country until 1947, 67 years after the game's setting.

Freddy must take part in numerous tasks such as mixing the right amount of chemicals to create the requested prescription remedy and lab equipment. He also must deal with various dilemmas taking part in town such as a gas leak aka all the town's horses with explosive flatulence, a snail stampede, a diarrhea epidemic and an abandoned building fire that might spread through the entire town. He must use found objects and pharmaceutical skills to solve these problems.

Eventually, he regains his gunslinger status and apprehends a poker cheater and neutralizes a group of rowdy cowhands with a canister of laughing gas. Soon, he is confronted by Kenny the Kid and in the ensuring duel, has his remaining ear shot off. Assuming that Freddy would soon die of blood loss, Kenny reveals his affiliation with Penelope Primm, the one who was attempting to buy out Coarsegold for the oil rights. Freddy staunches the bleeding and recovers enough strength to enter the schoolhouse, only to find Penelope packing up. Penelope shows her true colors by aiming a Derringer at Freddy and ordering him to drop his gun holsters. Freddy complies, only to grab a slate to block the bullet that Penelope fires. Penelope then responds by throwing her gun at Freddy, knocking him out, and tying him in the basement and setting it on fire. Freddy escapes the basement and confronts Penelope in a sword fight. Freddy prevails but Kenny reappears and realizes Freddy's true identity, only to be killed when Freddy tosses his sharpened silver ear at his throat. Freddy then leaps out of the schoolhouse before it, along with Penelope, is consumed by an explosion from the fire set in the basement. In the game's dénouement, both Whittlin' Willy and the closing song pointedly mention that Penelope's body was never found.

Voice cast

Development history

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In 1992, veteran designer Al Lowe conceived Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist as a humorous Old West adventure game.<ref name="LoweFunniest">Template:Cite web</ref> Lowe later recalled that at the time “there wasn't a single Western computer game” on the market, and he wanted to spoof the genre.<ref name="LoweFunniest"/> The pharmacist protagonist emerged from a brainstorming session with Roberta Williams, where Lowe accidentally coined the word "farmer-cist," inspiring the title character.<ref name="LoweFunniest"/> Lowe cited Blazing Saddles as a major inspiration.<ref name="LoweFunniest"/>

Lowe co-designed and wrote the game with Josh Mandel, a fellow Sierra writer known for his work on the Space Quest series.<ref name="MandelCutContent">Template:Cite web</ref> Lowe praised Mandel's wit and described him as a major contributor to the game’s humor and tone.<ref name="LoweFunniest"/> The two also collaborated on the music and lyrics, including the comedic ballad that opens the game.<ref name="LoweMusic">Template:Cite web</ref> The printed game manual, titled The Modern Day Book of Health and Hygiene, was designed as a parody of 1880s medical almanacs and doubled as a form of copy protection.<ref name="Manual">Template:Cite web</ref>

The game was developed at Sierra On-Line’s Oakhurst studio during 1992–93, using the SCI1.1 engine.<ref name="HardcoreGaming">Template:Cite web</ref> It supported 256-color VGA graphics, scaling character sprites, and a point-and-click interface compatible with both MS-DOS and Windows 3.1.<ref name="HardcoreGaming"/> Mandel served as director, producer, and lead writer on the floppy disk release, which shipped in mid-1993.<ref name="MandelCutContent"/> Reviews at the time described the game as “the Blazing Saddles of computer games.”<ref name="LoweFunniest"/>

Strong sales of the floppy version prompted Sierra to greenlight a CD-ROM version with voice acting. By then, Mandel had left to work on Space Quest 6, so Lowe directed the voiceover production.<ref name="MandelCutContent"/> He ultimately decided to cut about 15% of the game's original text, especially inventory descriptions, because he was weary from the length of studio sessions.<ref name="MandelCutContent"/> As Mandel later noted, the abridged recording led to the loss of many jokes, narrative cues, and puzzle hints.<ref name="MandelCutContent"/>

The CD-ROM edition, released in 1994, featured professional voice acting, with Cam Clarke voicing Freddy and Lowe performing the musical ballads.<ref name="LoweMusic"/> Some ad-libbing by actors resulted in differences between the spoken lines and the original script.<ref name="HardcoreGaming"/> Although the narrator's witty observations were reduced in the CD version, the added audio gave the game broader appeal.<ref name="HardcoreGaming"/>

The game’s commercial performance was solid, though not immediately recognized within Sierra as a hit. Lowe stated that it sold more than 150,000 copies in its first year and eventually exceeded 500,000 total sales, bolstered by the CD-ROM re-release.<ref name="LoweSales">Template:Cite web</ref> Despite those numbers, Lowe remarked that Freddy Pharkas had a “reputation as a failure” at the company, likely because it took several years to reach its sales peak and did not spawn a sequel.<ref name="LoweSales"/>

Testing and feedback were crucial to polishing the final release. Sierra’s internal QA team and volunteer beta testers played an active role. Notably, future journalist and presenter Geoff Keighley was one of the teenage testers on the game.<ref name="Keighley">Template:Cite web</ref> He later recalled it as one of his earliest roles in the gaming industry.<ref name="Keighley"/>

Reception

Template:Video game reviews Charles Ardai praised the game in Computer Gaming World in 1993, stating that "Freddy Pharkas is the Blazing Saddles of computer games", with better humor and puzzles than the Leisure Suit Larry series and which "can make a jaded player laugh out loud frequently". He wrote that although "satirizing the Wild West is by no means a new idea", the developers "manage to find new jokes to crack and new ways to crack old ones ... never runs out of material", including satires of other computer games, both Sierra's and others'.<ref name="ardai199308">Template:Cite magazine</ref> Game Informer in September 2006 called it one of the best adventure games of all time, and gave it a Retro Review score of 9.0.Template:Citation needed

According to Al Lowe, Freddy Pharkas "sold well into six figures."<ref name="acg">Template:Cite web</ref> However, he noted that the game and Torin's Passage "had a reputation as failures at Sierra".<ref name=200k-2>Template:Cite web</ref> He explained that the game sold over 150,000 after roughly a year, which inspired the team to re-release it on CD-ROM. This new edition "sold well for two years", and drove the game's lifetime sales to 500,000 copies. Lowe remarked, "It turned out to be quite a successful game and probably should've had a sequel, but because it took three years to get those big numbers, Josh had moved on by then and other things had happened, so it fell through the cracks."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2011, Adventure Gamers named Freddy Pharkas the 78th-best adventure game ever released.<ref name=top100>Template:Cite web</ref>

References

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