Herculean Effort Productions (often abbreviated to HEP) is an adventure game development duo in the USA, founded by brothers Ian and Greg Schlaepfer. Of the two, Ian Schlaepfer is primarily responsible for the graphics and storyline and Greg for music and AGS scripting. Their games are considered to be of very high quality for amateur efforts, and their releases Apprentice and Apprentice II: The Knight's Move have won numerous amateur adventure game awards. Herculean Effort draws their inspiration from the classic LucasArts adventure games. Their name humorously refers to the difficulty of creating adventure games, their motto being "it's not easy being the best".
Their game Apprentice is mentioned as a good example of a game created with Adventure Game Studio in the book Gaming Hacks published by O'Reilly Media.
Famous quotes containing the words herculean, effort and/or productions:
“Every milestone of a firstborn is scrutinized, photographed, recorded, replayed, and retold by doting parents to admiring relatives and disinterested friends. . . . While subsequent children will strive to keep pace with siblings a few years their senior, the firstborn will always have a seemingly Herculean task of emulating his adult parents.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)
“Had I been less resolved to work, I would perhaps had made an effort to begin immediately. But since my resolution was formal and before twenty four hours, in the empty slots of the next day where everything fit so nicely because I was not yet there, it was better not to choose a night at which I was not well-disposed for a debut to which the following days proved, alas, no more propitious.... Unfortunately, the following day was not the exterior and vast day which I had feverishly awaited.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“Eternity is in love with the productions of time.”
—William Blake (1757–1827)