Space Quest
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Space Quest is a series of six computer games that follow the adventures of a hapless janitor named Roger Wilco, as he campaigns through the galaxy for truth, justice and really clean floors.
Initially created for Sierra On-Line by Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy (who called themselves the Two Guys from Andromeda), the games parodied both science fiction properties such as Star Wars and Star Trek, as well as pop-culture phenomena from McDonald's to Microsoft. The series featured a silly sense of humor heavily reliant on puns and wacky storylines. Roger Wilco's perpetual loser was a popular underdog who repeatedly saved the universe only to be either ignored or punished for violating minor regulations in the process.
Games
Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter (1986/1991)
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Space Quest I was eventually remade using Sierra's newer SCI language, which allowed the game to upgrade from its original EGA graphics to VGA. This version was released on August 20, 1991; in addition to the new VGA graphics, which were drawn in 50's B-movie style, it now featured digitized sounds and an icon interface.
Players of the original 1986 version were never told the hero's name, but were instead asked to enter their own. The default name of "Roger Wilco" became the de facto name of the hero in the later games of the series. Roger is a member of the cleaning crew on board the scientific spaceship Arcada, which holds a powerful experimental device called the 'Star Generator' (a thinly-veiled reference to the Genesis Device from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan). Roger emerges from an on-duty nap in a broom closet to find the ship has been taken over by the sinister Sariens. He must make his escape, survive a crashlanding on the desert planet Kerona, and ultimately sneak aboard the Sarien starship Deltaur to stop the vicious aliens from using the Star Generator against Roger's home planet of Xenon.
At the end of the game, Roger's efforts are awarded when he receives the Golden Mop as a token of eternal gratitude from the people of Xenon and becomes an instant celebrity.
In the game, the player has to buy a droid in a store called "Droid 'B' Us", obviously a parody on "Toys 'R' Us". In the very first release (Version 1.0X), it was called "Droids 'R' Us", before Toys 'R' Us sued and Sierra changed the name. Sierra also had legal trouble over a "band" that appeared in the 1991 remake; the band was very obviously modeled after ZZ Top, and even played a somewhat recognizable version of their hit song Sharp Dressed Man.
It is believed that the game may have been strongly inspired by Star Wars IV: A New Hope. The janitor's ship being taken over is similar to the scene where Princess Leia's ship is taken over. The desert planet Kerona is similar to Tatooine. The craft that flies through the desert is similar to a Landspeeder.
Easter eggs
By pressing the "Don't touch" button in the escape pod, Roger ends up inside another Sierra adventure game, King's Quest. Unfortunately it's not possible to continue the game from there, you have to restart/restore instead.
Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge (1987)
Released on November 14th, 1987, this game once again used Sierra's AGI.
Roger, with his newfound status of Hero, is transferred to the Xenon Orbital Station 4 and promoted to head (and only) janitor. All is quiet until he is abducted by Sludge Vohaul, who was behind the original Sarien attack of the Arcada. As Roger is being transported to the Labion labour mines as punishment for thwarting Sludge's original plan, the prison ship crash-lands in a nearby jungle upon the planet. Our hero manages to escape his pursuers and the dangers of the Labion jungle and soon reaches the Sludge's asteroid base. Once again, it's up to Roger alone to stop Vohaul's evil plan: to harass the people of Xenon by launching millions of cloned insurance salesmen at them.
Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon (1989)
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The game was released on March 24th, 1989, and was developed using an early version of Sierra's SCI engine. SQ3 featured music composed by Supertramp drummer Bob Siebenberg, and was one of the first games to support the new SoundBlaster sound card. PC versions of the game now supported mouse movement and a new, heavily improved text parser.
Roger's escape pod from the end of SQ2 is captured by an automated garbage freighter. He escapes the robot-controlled scow by repairing an old ship, the Aluminum Mallard (a play on the Millennium Falcon). He soon discovers the sinister activities of a game company known as ScumSoft (a parody of Microsoft) run by the "Pirates of Pestulon". Pestulon, a small moon of the planet Ortega, is covered in soft, moss-like vegetation, and dotted with twisted tree-like growths throughout. Elmo Pug, the CEO of ScumSoft, has abducted the Two Guys from Andromeda and is forcing them to design their games. Roger somehow gets inside the supposedly impregnable ScumSoft offices and rescues the two programmers. In the process, Roger must fight the Bill Gates-like Elmo in a game that combines giant Mecha-style combat with Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots.
SQ III also featured a mini-game called Astro Chicken.
Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers (1991)
Space Quest IV was released on floppy disks on March 4, 1991, and released on CD-ROM in December 1992 with full speech support and featuring Laugh-In announcer Gary Owens as the voice of the narrator. It featured 256-color hand painted graphics and a fully mouse-driven interface. It was one of the first games to use motion capture animation. The game cost over US$1,000,000 to produce, but sold more than its three predecessors combined.
In this installment, Roger embarks on a wacky time-travel adventure through Space Quest games both past and future. A reborn Sludge Vohaul from Space Quest XII chases Roger through time in an attempt to finally kill him. Roger also visits Space Quest X: Latex Babes of Estros (whose title is a parody of Infocom's game Leather Goddesses of Phobos) and Space Quest I; in the latter, the graphics and music revert to the style of the original game and Roger is threatened by a group of monochromatic bikers who consider Roger's 256 colors pretentious.
Like SQ III, SQ IV featured a mini-game (Ms. Astro Chicken).
Space Quest V: The Next Mutation (1993)
SQ V used the same technology as SQ IV. Roger is now a cadet in the StarCon academy. He graduates (well ok, he cheats on the final exam) and is appointed captain of the SCS Eureka, a space garbage scow.
Released on February 5, 1993, SQ V is almost entirely a parody of Star Trek. Roger's new ship features a command bridge and several officers to whom he can give orders. This game was the first in the series not designed by "The Two Guys From Andromeda": only Mark Crowe worked on the project, and the game's sense of humor is noticeably different than that in previous games.
Space Quest VI: The Spinal Frontier (1995)
SQ VI was released in 1995 and ran on the last version of the SCI engine, SCI32. This allowed it to use Super VGA graphics with 256 colors at 640x480 resolution. Unlike other SCI games, it didn't have the interface in a pull down bar at the top of the screen, but instead used a "verb bar" window along the bottom of the screen, similar to LucasArts' SCUMM engine. The graphics style was also more cartoonish than in previous games. Gary Owens served as narrator once again.
This game was the last to be released in the Space Quest series. Having defeated the diabolical pukeoid mutants in Space Quest V, Captain Roger Wilco triumphantly returns to StarCon headquarters - only to be court marshalled due to breaking StarCon regulations while saving the galaxy. He's busted down to Second Class Janitor and assigned to the SCS DeepShip 86 (a parody of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), commanded by Commander Kielbasa.
The game's subtitle comes from the final portion, in which Roger has to undergo miniaturization and enter the body of a shipmate and romantic interest. (This segment also provided the game's original subtitle, Where in Corpsman Santiago is Roger Wilco?, which was not used due to legal threats from the makers of the Carmen Sandiego products.)
Josh Mandel designed the majority of Space Quest VI but had to leave the project shortly before completion. Sierra asked Scott Murphy to complete the game, and then (reportedly against Murphy's wishes) promoted SQ VI as if the former "Guy from Andromeda" was solely responsible for it. As an additional result of this change in designers, some puzzles were shoddily implemented due to lack of communication.
Space Quest VII
Sierra has tried on several occasions to revive the series for another episode, going as far as contracting developer Escape Factory to storyboard and begin coding before withdrawing funding.
Development of Space Quest VII was underway in 1996 when Sierra released The Space Quest Collection, which consisted of Space Quest I through VI. Little was released regarding story line, interface, et cetera, although there was speculation that the game would introduce a multiplayer aspect. Scott Murphy said during development that Space Quest VII would contain some 3D elements, but would NOT require the use of a 3D accelerator card. Due to poor sales of The Space Quest Collection (possibly because the target audience already owned them) and the decreasing popularity of the 2D adventure genre, Space Quest VII was cancelled.
Another attempt at creating a new Space Quest was announced on February 7, 2002. Development proceeded for almost a year and a half before the project was cancelled. Since the designers were reportedly forbidden from using story elements from the original Space Quest games (or indeed, from even playing the games), it may be seen as fortunate that this project was never completed. Various leaks, in fact, claimed that this "gutted" SQ7 would not have been an adventure game and/or would have been released only on game console platforms such as the Xbox rather than the PC.
'Future' sequels
In Space Quest IV, Roger travels in time, into both the "past" and "future". Portions of the game took place in the time frames of the following "sequels":
- Space Quest X: Latex Babes from Estros
- Space Quest XII: Vohaul's Revenge II
These games were never actually created, of course, and only exist within the internal "history" of Space Quest IV. However, many fans hoped that if Sierra had continued production for the series, the tenth and twelfth games would have been released under these titles and incorporated elements of the plot mentioned in SQ IV.
Planned games
Space Quest VII: Return to Roman Numerals
Planned in 1997 and designed by Scott Murphy, the game was cancelled by Sierra at the end of that year.
Space Quest
Space Quest was being developed by Escape Factory for the Microsoft Xbox video game console. The game was planned as a departure from the main Space Quest series, starring a new character, "Wilger". Though it would have maintained a comedic theme in space, no plan was made to connect it to the original series. It was cancelled around 2003.
More information can be found at the Space Quest 7 (http://www.spacequest.net/sq7/) and Escape Factory (http://www.spacequest.net/sq7/escapefactory/index.shtml) articles on SpaceQuest.net
Collections
- The Space Quest Saga (1993): this collection contained games I (VGA remake), II, III and IV (floppy disk version)
- The Space Quest Collection (1994): released for Sierra's 15th anniversary, this contained games I-V plus a video featuring the Two Guys from Andromeda and a complete history of the game series.
- Roger Wilco Unclogged (1995): all the above, plus Roger Wilco arcade games and a humorous "Inside Space Quest" video, but without the Two Guys video
- Space Quest Collection Series (1996): all 6 games, plus a preview of episode VII
Comics
Adventure Comics (a division of Malibu Graphics Publishing Group) released three issues in 1992 of a comic based on Space Quest I under the name The Adventures of Roger Wilco. The first was written by John Shaw and was in full colour. The other two were written by Paul O'Connor and were black and white. The print run was very small and the books are very hard to find now.
Fan-made games
The series has remained popular with Sierra fans, and several fan pages are still active and maintain a community dedicated to the games.
There have been several attempts to create a Space Quest fan game, such as the SQ7.org project, and two fan games using era-specific graphics have been released.
Finished Games:
- Space Quest 0: Replicated (http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?gameid=4484) - A prequel of SQ I
- Space Quest: The Lost Chapter (http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?gameid=2308) - An "interquel" set between II and III
Unfinished Games:
- Space Quest 7 (http://www.sq7.org) - A work-in-progress sequel, including SQ6 designer Josh Mandel as a former team member
- Space Quest: Vohaul Strikes Back (http://www.vohaulstrikesback.com) - The "other" hi-res full-scale Space Quest fangame in progress, taking place after SQ7
- Space Quest 2X: Vohaul's Mines (http://www.vohauls-mines.com/) - An alternate version of SQ2 where Roger is taken into the Orium mines
External links
- Space Quest Omnipedia (http://omni.sq7.org) - Wiki database, with everything related to Space Quest.
- SpaceQuest.net (http://www.SpaceQuest.net) - The largest frequently-updated SQ fansite still alive today.
- The Virtual Broomcloset (http://wiw.org/~jess/roger.html) - The first major SQ site that's still online (although previously inactive for a while).
- The Subspace Channel (http://wiw.org/~jess/forum) - The forum of The Virtual Broomcloset. Unlike the website, it's still quite active.
- Who Says Space Quest Is Dead? (http://wssquid.sq7.org) - A series of fanmade comics based on Space Quest.
- The Many Deaths of Roger Wilco (http://tmd.alienharmony.com/rw/index.htm) - A database of the death scenes in the SQ series.
- List of SpaceQuest Fangames (http://sqfp.sq7.org/fangames.htm) (outdated and inactive)de:Space Quest
Categories: Adventure games | Sierra games | Computer and video game franchises | Science fiction computer games | Comedy computer games | 1986 computer and video games | 1987 computer and video games | 1989 computer and video games | 1990 computer and video games | 1991 computer and video games | 1993 computer and video games | 1995 computer and video games | Novels based on video games