''Save early, save often, and don't overwrite saves.''

'''Sierra Entertainment, Inc.''', more popularly known under their former name, '''Sierra On-Line''', was an early game developer. The company is credited with various milestones in video game history, such as creating the very first "graphic adventure game" (''Mystery House'', essentially InteractiveFiction with extremely crude line-art drawings), some of the earliest animated games (''VideoGame/KingsQuest''), and implementing beyond PC-Speaker sound into a game (''VideoGame/KingsQuestIVThePerilsOfRosella''). Sierra also was responsible for introducing the Japanese PC games ''VideoGame/{{Thexder}}'', ''Fire Hawk'', ''Silpheed'', ''VideoGame/{{Zeliard}}'' and ''Sorcerian'' to Western audiences. Sierra's milk and honey days were the mid-80s to the mid-90s: this was the era of [[AdventureGame adventure gaming]], when games focused more on testing the player's ingenuity than their reflexes.

Sierra's works are gaming classics and Sierra is now commonly associated with three things:

* {{Adventure Game}}s, which made up the majority of its line
* {{Text Parser}}s, where the player had to write out all commands, from "PICK UP BOWL" to "OPEN DOOR" (Sierra switched to a [[PointAndClickGame point-and-click interface]] in the 90s.)
* [[TrialAndErrorGameplay Sadism.]]

Sierra's games are notoriously difficult. Death is [[EverythingTryingToKillYou everywhere]] and springs up at random, and if you haven't saved your game in a while, too bad, you have to start everything all over. The games are riddled with situations made UnwinnableByDesign, and since Unwinnable doesn't mean Unplayable, you often didn't realize the game was moot until you had been playing for hours. Or days. Sometimes weeks.

Sierra's infamous CopyProtection was a nuisance; their GuideDangIt moments made you want to scream. Though often their puzzles were well thought-out, equally as often they ventured into SolveTheSoupCans territory. And it bears repeating: death and unwinnable situations are ''everywhere''.

Yet, despite all its... quirks, Sierra produced some of the finest games of the 80s and 90s, and easily some of the best ever adventure games. Their work featured hand-crafted oil paintings for backgrounds, elaborate music, professional voice actors and composers, memorable (and loveable) characters, amazing worlds, enjoyable stories, and creative gameplay. Sierra never took itself too seriously; games were loaded with gags, puns and {{Easter Egg}}s. Although deaths were frequent, they were always friendly and most times featured a joke or pun; half the fun of a Sierra game is playing through [[HaveANiceDeath to find all the]] [[TheManyDeathsOfYou unique ways to die]].

Sierra fizzled out in the late 90s, with the decline of adventure gaming. It was bought by Vivendi Universal, who were cool enough to let amateur game makers create fan games of their series until 2009, when it was merged into Creator/{{Activision}} and subsequently closed down.

However, in the recent times, Creator/TimSchafer's success with crowd funding on {{Kickstarter}} has inspired several of the old Sierra teams to reunite under new banners, and thanks to several successful funding campaigns, many of them has started to work on SpiritualSuccessor and [[VideoGameRemake Remake]] projects.

Compare Creator/{{LucasArts}}, their main rival, whose games were decidedly more forgiving.
!!Notable Games and Series include:

* The ''[[VideoGame/ThreeDUltraPinball 3-D Ultra Pinball]]'' series of DigitalPinballTables
** ''[[VideoGame/ThreeDUltraPinball 3-D Ultra Pinball]]''
** ''3-D Ultra Pinball: Creep Night''
** ''3-D Ultra Pinball: The Lost Continent''
** ''3-D Ultra NASCAR Pinball''
** ''[[VideoGame/ThreeDUltraPinballThrillRide 3-D Ultra Pinball: Thrill Ride]]''
* The ''Aces'' series of flight sims (''Aces Over Europe'', ''Aces of the Pacific'', ''Aces of the Deep''; developed by Dynamix, published by Sierra)
* ''VideoGame/TheAdventuresOfWillyBeamish''
* ''Birthright''
* ''VideoGame/TheBlackCauldron'' (yes, based on [[Disney/TheBlackCauldron the movie]])
* ''VideoGame/CodenameIceman''
* ''VideoGame/ConquestsOfCamelot''
* ''VideoGame/ConquestsOfTheLongbow''
* ''VideoGame/DrBrain''
* ''VideoGame/EcoQuest''
* ''[[VideoGame/FreddyPharkasFrontierPharmacist Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist]]''
* ''VideoGame/GabrielKnight''
* ''VideoGame/GoldRush''
* ''VideoGame/{{Half-Life}}'' (developed by Creator/{{Valve|Software}})
* ''Heart of China''
* ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}''
* ''Hunter Hunted''
* ''VideoGame/TheIncredibleMachine''
* ''Impressions City Building Series'' (''VideoGame/{{Caesar}}'', ''VideoGame/{{Pharaoh}}'' and its [[ExpansionPack expansion pack]] ''Cleopatra'', and ''[[VideoGame/EmperorRiseOfTheMiddleKingdom Emperor]]''; developed by Creator/ImpressionsGames, published by Sierra)
* ''VideoGame/JonesInTheFastLane''
* ''VideoGame/KingsQuest'' (the series that spawned other Quest games and launched Sierra into the mainstream)
* ''VideoGame/LauraBow''
* ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry''
* ''[[VideoGame/{{Manhunter}} Manhunter]]'' series (''Manhunter: New York'', ''Manhunter 2: San Fransisco'')
* ''Mixed Up Mother Goose'' (a rather popular EdutainmentGame title, notably ironic since it came from a software house most famous for its NintendoHard games that are anything but for kids)
* ''Mystery House''
* ''VideoGame/{{Phantasmagoria}}''
* ''VideoGame/PoliceQuest''
** Its ''{{VideoGame/SWAT}}'' spinoffs, including ''{{VideoGame/SWAT 3}}'' and ''{{VideoGame/SWAT 4}}''.
* ''VideoGame/QuestForGlory''
* ''VideoGame/{{VideoGame/Rama}}'': TheGameOfTheBook Literature/RendezvousWithRama
* The ''VideoGame/RedBaron'' series (developed by Dynamix, published by Sierra)
* ''VideoGame/{{Shivers}}''
* ''VideoGame/SpaceQuest''
* ''Franchise/SpyroTheDragon''
* ''VideoGame/TorinsPassage''
!!Tropes associated with Sierra's work:

* ActionBar
* AdventureGame
* CopyProtection
* EasterEgg
* EverythingTryingToKillYou: We're not kidding, everything can and ''will'' '''kill you!'''
* FantasyKitchenSink
* GuideDangIt
* HaveANiceDeath: Punny comment on your demise! Restore, Restart, Quit?
* HurricaneOfPuns
* IconicLogo
* KleptomaniacHero
* LastLousyPoint
* LemonyNarrator
* LostForever
* TheMaze
* MultipleEndings: Featured in many of their later games.
* NintendoHard: And then some!
* NoFourthWall
* PlotCoupon
* PointAndClickGame
* PressStartToGameOver: Sierra games loved to kill you on the first screen. And gloat about it.
* SaveScumming
* SchmuckBait
* SolveTheSoupCans
* TalkToEveryone
* TextParser
* TheManyDeathsOfYou
* TrialAndErrorGameplay: In some circles, this is actually known as ''"Curse You Sierra."''
* {{Unwinnable}}: So bad that Sierra has its own section in ''both of the tropes'':
** [[UnwinnableByDesign/{{Sierra}} Unwinnable by Design]]
** [[UnwinnableByMistake/{{Sierra}} Unwinnable by Mistake]]
* WorldOfPun: Pretty much every adventure game they've made. The ''VideoGame/KingsQuest'' series is probably better known for the puns in its death messages than anything.
* YouCantGetYeFlask