Jared

Okay, this is actually my issue with SQ6... not the new characters in Starcon. They're all fine (as much as I got to interact with them anyway) The way they're handled. Yes, SQ5 brought in character interaction with the other games hadn't had - notably lacking in SQ4. But... and this is the important but.. you were properly introduced to the entire cast. The player gets introduced to Quirk, Bea, Drool, Flo, WD40 and Cliffy in ways that make perfect sense and we get to know them along with Roger. In SQ6 Roger is sent to the Deep Ship and... erm. Stuff happens. Off screen. He knows who Kielbasa, Stellar, the robot dude, the doctor, the hologram, those two guards are. Wow. Great for him. I have NO IDEA. All the introduction I get is basically Roger saying "Hey, what's up?" It baffles me entirely - especially with Stellar. Josh took issue with Roger having a girlfriend character looming over the series. So he ditches her and then introduces ANOTHER girlfriend character that he's gotten involved with before the game starts? That's what I meant when I called it an alienating game. I have to wonder if some sequence on the Deep Ship was meant to precede Polysorbate VX because I can't imagine anyone could have thought giving so many characters no introduction whatsoever was a good idea .

I'll go against the flow and vote for SQ6. When I finally played it, I was pretty much unable to accomplish anything without a walkthrough and was constantly being frustrated at apparently unable to meaningfully interact with anything when not solving a puzzle. So I ended up just playing it through windowed with the walkthrough open next to it, which made the game feel like a complete chore. I have to admit not having finished a Space Quest without a walkthrough, but in all the others I made my way some way into the game before needing one...

Okay guys, know double-posting isn't popular but an update with images that are less bad. Scanner now working I've put the not-sucky sketches together into one pic. Hopefully you can work out who's supposed to be who... Furthermore, to see what I'm like at turning sketches into sprites, which I have never done before, I got to work on that long-faced-and-wearing-wrong-uniform Roger, and brushed him up and res'ed him down. Result ISN'T very pleasant because his body looks twisted around (should have spent more time working on his pose) but I think it's presentable when you focus on the waist up. Remember, this is a quick job but feedback on the style would be nice. Going for a SQ6 style cartoon-with-black outline look. Also have not shaded yet. All in all I've been pleased with how quick it was to knock up. Results would improve greatly with a better posed sketch to begin with of course :P

Well... even though I keep getting sicker and called in for more and more shifts at work, I've done some sketches, which I'll scan and try to turn into hi-res sprites over the next couple of days - they're Roger, Bea, Fester Blatz and the Doctor Manhattan-style Vohaul from Space Quest Incinerations. Which, erm, mightn't be in much demand but I'm not sure how to draw vanilla Vohaul. I'll come back to it. Also working on drawing a GUI. Meantime, there are a heap of graphics on my harddrive from a Doctor Who game I never made. They need to be brushed up a bit and re-sized, but they could be other characters, and provide a style sample for the way I draw, which I think can be a decent fit for SQ6-style cartoon graphics. As I said, not looking great right now. But there's some potential. UPDATE: I've sketched The Two Guys, Keilbasa, Fester, Roger, Bea, Elmo Pug, Roger Jr, Xenosian Vohaul, Astro Chicken and I'm going to do Ken Williams to round off all the recurring characters I can think of. And then I'm going to try Stellar but she's problematic because a) I suck at female characters B) Her design is hideous. I guess to keep peoples options open I should try a SQ6 and Incineration versions of the character. But I've been putting it off because it'll be difficult. And I also hate the character, which doesn't help. Also, my scanner isn't working which is why I'm only TALKING about these sketches...

Command and Conquer the First Decade is one of the best things EA ever put out. Best purchase I ever made XD EDIT: Just an update if anyone else was wondering - don't know if he posted elsewhere but Mark Crowe posted on the KS comments section saying that there's a new backer-only website that they've been working on. So that will have been taking up some time I'm sure..

Yeah, that would be a good place to start. I'll set up an open invite on the AGS forums for art contributions soon, on the off chance that anybody has unused art that they're happy to donate and pitch the idea of the backdrops. Before that I'll draw up a list of what elements we'll need for the backdrops. I can contribute a couple of things myself, as I can draw cartoon characters well enough so I can sketch, scan, colour and animate a few aliens and robots in the SQ6-style. I'm also happy to code the template in AGS. Sorry for being quiet for a while but I've been kinda busy with work and a nasty recurring fatigue virus.

Hmm, I dunno, I think he has a bit of heroism in him. Essentially, every time you get a ship you have the freedom then to NOT do the right thing but Wilco doesn't. Most obvious example being that he didn't need to rescue the Two Guys from ScummSoft. Maybe that's why Vohaul is popular with fans? Because he's obsessed with killing Roger it gives the character a clear motivation to actually fight back, as in that case it's simple self-preservation to take him down.

Not at all, man. In fact it's great to get an official word on it. I'm really looking forward to it since so much work has gone into it now. Yeah, that probably is a good idea. There's quite a big number of adventure games I have bought but not played (Book of Unwritten Tales, Gray Matter, New Beginning...) played but not finished (Fate of Atlantis, Machinarium, The Dig, Space Quest 6 *gasp*) and then others I just plain haven't played and don't own (Gabriel Knight, Loom, nearly all the Quests of Glory) I have had a bit of nostalgia though - playing through the MI2 Special Edition. And SQ: Incinerations was so good it gave me a big nostalgia kick for the whole genre..

Waiting for the next Living Concept Art, that is. Mark's tweeted about the cool new animations, Scott's said that they're working on it and it's coming soon.... I dunno, I was expecting it to be out by now. I'm half antsy because I want to play it (of course) but half because I think it would seriously help any PayPal donations and get us some of those sweet stretch goals. At the same time I realise the last few days of the campaign were completely nuts so it makes sense for it to be late and I don't want them to rush it if it isn't what they want to release... GAH! YOU ARE TEARIN' ME APART MARK AN SCOTT! Actually, I think it's the whole campaign has got me over excited. I'm so nostalgic over Space Quest. Every KS that came along I was thinking "Oh, yeah, it's okay. But wouldn't it be awesome if there was a SPACE QUEST Kickstarter?" I literally haven't been this excited over anything since Christmases when I was ten and under. It's MADNESS. Anyway, I am reeeeally looking forward to LCA5. Erm, which I guess isn't a big revelation...

Well, it'll be something to start another thread about if we take the idea further, and maybe some PMs. There could be some people to recuit on the AGS forums, too. What we'd need to agree on: * General style - comic book or cartoon style * Resolution - 320x200, 640x400, 800x600... * Sprites - how much aliasing? Shading? Detail? Probably worth a bit of discussion as the sprites that VSB ended up using got a fair bit of criticism * Animation - again what style we'd want to use. More detailed animations with more frames would look better but would make things more difficult for fans to match if they need to add their own animations to the game. * Facial portraits - I'm guessing the consensus would be for these, right? I tend to assume Sierra fans are nostalgic for these kind of things.. * GUI - well we didn't mention one. But we should probably include at least a default one that looks nicer than the AGS default that we could put in an AGS template file. Probably with the smell and taste (and listen?) icons in the icon bar because those are popular with fans and the ability to use most of those interactions on inventory items. ....could also add LSL7 style limited parser support. Would take an extra bit of coding and trickier to use but another thing that seems to be 'in' atm. * Backgrounds - how much detail? Highly detailed backgrounds will look impressive, but less detailed will mean that people with less skills will be able to play around with them - if they're .pngs with, say, three colour tones for the sand it becomes much easier for people just messing around with MSPaint to make that sand a different colour and give it a unique look. They need to look good but if they're TOO good they could become iconic and associated with a certain game. An idea that could be interesting is if we had elements on a blank, exploitable background that could be copied and pasted in any program onto other backdrop elements to create a scene. Say, we have the street iself of a future city. Then you pick buildings out of a file to put on that street. Then you paste THOSE over a backdrop of the cityscape and the sky. (Actually, desert probably would have been a better example but hopefully you get the idea) * Sound / Music - something Troels didn't mention but I think fairly important. A bank of a few dozen stock sci-fi sound effects would be a big help, and I also think given the number of musicians in the Space Quest community a few generic tunes wouldn't be too hard. Say, two or three variations on the main theme, five or so ambient upbeat pieces of music, five or so menacing / disquieting sci-fi drones, five or so drama stings, a couple of 'action' pieces and a couple of death themes. Oh that reminds me... * Death- should definitely be part of the aforementioned AGS template to get put together, as putting it in a game means a fair bit of messing around. Anyway, I really like the idea (especially since this whole Kickstarter thing has got me in the mood to make a fan game) and I'm happy to help out. I had also been planning to try and mess around with a rotoscoped Roger sprite but we'll see if that actually happens...

Scott has said they'll release a demo when they're well into development proper. He didn't go into any detail, though. EDIT: Well, he said it in a context that suggested it would be a stand-alone episode similar to the SQ6 demo, rather than a chunk of the game.

Well, I figured they meant that the plotlines contradicted one another (between Incinerations and SQ4.5) at some stage. I would imagine involving the time travell-y stuff. Though I've been extremely slack - haven't played SQ4.5 AND I'm only just playing through Incinerations now. On another note, am I going crazy or did VSB have a TVTropes page? If so it seems to have been deleted..

Man I loved Commander Keen. I think that's Keen 5 in the icon, though. I'm sure 4 was The Secrets of the Oracle and 5 was Goodbye Galaxy. Also made me realise how hard games used to be because I've gone back and can't play Keen to save myself :( Oh, sorry, I think I got sidetracked. :P

Yeah, somehow over the last four years or so I went from having no problem with ripped graphics to disliking the laziness of them. Which is weird because I STILL rip graphics occasionally, but I use it as a point of reference for how a walkcycle works or how something has been shaded to create a look that I enjoy because I don't know much about graphic design at all. I think the ripped graphics also allow something to be put together quickly and encourages laziness with other steps, like writing and puzzle design from my experience playing these kinds of games. Dedicating a lot of time to animating characters and drawing backgrounds makes you look at the purpose you're making them for and I think encourages better design. They can be good when used thematically, though, like Akril did in her 'Adventure' series, though.

Heh, I'd never seen those trailers before. I was hoping the follow up to "In a world where junk is king..." would be "..who washes the washmen?" since I'm just a slave to stupid jokes..