JDHJANUS

Facebook et al probably have more to do with the demise of the forums than anything else. Too bad as they are not nearly as conducive to holding a real discussion as a proper forum is. Twitter is probably the worst of the lot given its limitation of such a tiny number of characters per post. It reduces interaction to little more than an inane string of quips. Of course so many accessing things with their smart phones only exacerbates it.

I actually generally prefer almost all of Sierra's remakes of their classic games, with the exception of the Quest for Glory I Remake (don't get me wrong, that game is beautiful in its own right, but I really enjoy the EGA original. This, though, is moreso due to my love of Sierra's SCI-0 design system). My main reason for preferring the remakes is my general dislike of Sierra's AGI system, though. I have only played the SQI remake once (whereas I have played the original several times), but I liked it a lot better, mainly due to Josh Mandel's terrific dialog, Ken Allen's soundtrack, and as Troels mentioned earlier, the seamless transition of a parser game into a point-and-click interface.
 
I'm not going to lie. I don't generally have a much of an eye for art in games. I've recently learned to appreciate it, but I mainly play games for their story and character development, and since I haven't played through the Space Quest series as many times as the other people on this forum, it's difficult for me to really say whether or not that it fits the overall feel or vibe of the series. I know that for me, I was able to enjoy the game quite a bit while I played it, and it is one of my favorite Space Quest games (after Space Quest III and V). I took some time in composing this post to go online and really compare the artwork in this game to the rest of the series, and I do admit, it is quite different indeed! I didn't notice it when I was playing through the game myself last year, but seeing it in comparison to the others, it's quite surprising just how different it is.
 
I can definitely still appreciate the artistic direction of this game, though. I've never seen any 1950's sci-fi, so I really have no basis for comparison except for what a Google search could show me, but I can definitely see the point that several people have brought up about that vibe. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, but I think that if it were to fit with the overall feel of the original series, it would need a lot more darker colors. Mark seems to favor a lot of blue, green, and purple in his games, which are mostly missing from the SQI Remake. Again, not a bad thing, but a definite stylistic difference nonetheless.
 
So, in conclusion, while I totally understand several people's perspectives in preferring the originals, at the same time, I think that the remake in and of itself is a fun game, and one that I would definitely play again someday!
 
Talk to you later!
 
JDHJANUS
Josh

Greetings!
 
As you may have seen elsewhere on social media, several members of the Space Quest/adventure gaming fan community participated in the recent Adventure Jam event and created an original point-and-click adventure in just two short weeks.

The end result is Late Last Nite, an adventure in excess -- available for download now! I'd provide some details on the plot, but I hate to spoil the surprises. Let's just say that things get weird.
 

 
As for the familiar faces who worked on the project, there's Akril, Datadog, drdrslashvohaul, Frede, Resulka, Troels, and me.

We invite you to play the game and let us know what you think! Oh, and if you feel inclined, leave a rating for us on Late Last Nite's Game Jolt page.

Take care!

Jess

The information on that site is in error concerning the SQI Remake. I believe the last Sierra game released for the Apple II was King's Quest IV AGI. The Atari ST handled releases up through Sierra's SCI-0 releases, they stopped support after the move to VGA (although I suppose technically it wouldn't have been that hard to port the EGA version of the SQI Remake to the Atari ST). Nevertheless, Collector is correct in that the only versions that were released for the remake were DOS (both EGA and VGA), Macintosh, and Amiga.
 
I *have* seen a KIXX box that uses the SQI Remake cover art for an Atari ST version, but my understanding is that it was the AGI version, and not the remake.
 
Talk to you later!
 
JDHJANUS
Josh

Eh, maybe to us personally, but SQ doesn't have the community today that KQ has - look at the Phoenix Online forums, even back in their "Silver Age" versus here. Not much activity round these parts even back then. And it's not like there weren't similar things going on - the SQ7 group shut down about the same time TSL was going through its own cease-and-desist throes, which eventually reversed, supposedly thanks to their fans... And saying it's SQ ignores the following that games like QFG, GK, or even PQ has...
 
My intent is not to dump on any specific community. Perhaps SQ just appeals to a different type of person than KQ - the underdog.
 
My opinion as a programmer is that AGI/SCI, as well as Ken's ability to keep developers produce a number of quality games for years, are the true "crown jewels" of Sierra. Without an engine that could let storytellers do what they wanted or a producer that pushed them to succeed, I don't see how Sierra could have been successful. It's only once Ken was pushed out by Cendant that we saw Sierra fall. I don't feel that SQ could have happened at that time without Sierra. SQ helped diversify Sierra's portfolio and probably helped make it a bigger name, but there was Sierra before there was SQ. Ken was the one that let Scott learn how to program and develop his own game after hiring him for random projects. That wouldn't have happened later, or likely at another game company.

Good question!  :)
 
I think Gareth said it pretty well. To me, the remake eschews all kinds of subtlety. With all fear of sounding a tad pretentious, it's just a loud, busy game. A spaceship entering hyperspace looks like Space Quest IV's time rip tunnel on LSD. Yes - merely travelling in space apparently looks more spectacular than travelling through time or entering a black hole. Roger screams like the Wicked Witch when he's melted by acid, and BOOM - we've got an instant replay lined up for you too! Which I don't really think of as a classic Space Quest moment, btw. It's a one-off that's unique to this game, isn't it? The backgrounds look like Ray Harryhausen on a sugar rush.
 
I could go on, and I do realise that none of the stuff I highlight above is inherently bad. But it makes it extremely different. I'm not sure I agree 100% with Gareth that the remake has no artistic value. It does have a very interesting style, which adds a unique twist to the game, but we do know that adding artistic value to SQ1 was not Sierra's main motivation for remaking it.
 
Applying the jazz standard terminology, the loud, busy SQ1VGA is not just another interpretation of Some Day My Prince Will Come or Greensleeves. It's Weather Report's take on Rockin' in Rhythm. And, like I said I do enjoy SQ1VGA's art style, I actually like that version, but I can also totally understand why an oldschool jazz purist probably won't. Much like I can relate to the more negative points of view here.

Let's remember that trying to do it on the cheap was probably necessary given the lower sales of the remakes. The remakes did not sell well enough to warrant their continuation. People wanted new games, not remakes of games that they had already played. Ken once said that he had learned that you can't really hurry the creative people, so taking the remakes out of the hands of the original designers was probably a necessary measure to keep a low return game within budget. Also, the 2 guys would have been commanding higher salaries. I'm sure that Ken also wanted his primary designers working on new games where sales could be expected to be higher. The one paying the bills has to make sound fiscal decisions.

Yes, but I don't have it. The later version would have been bug fixes. Earlier versions were probably replaced soon after the initial release for the bug fixes. Also, the game versions for the different platforms would have had little to do with other platforms. Part of the different game versions were very dependent on the interpreter version, which were way off from other platforms.

The DOS version of SQ1 AGI was first. It was released in Oct, 1986 in North America.  Most of the other platforms were released in 1987. While AGI was intended to be portable, it was designed to be primarily for the PCjr. Atari was never a primary target for Sierra. At that time DOS/Tandy/PCjr and Apple would have been their primary markets.
 
As far as I know there was no Atari release of SQ1VGA. It was a late SCI1 game that would have been a bit beyond the capability of the Atari. It was released for DOS, Amiga and Mac.

Aaaand our season 2 is off and running. We're actually taping episode 3 this Sunday - and you can watch that live, if you want.
 
Here's where you can keep up with our shenanigans:
 
http://backseatdesigners.com - our website. Everything in one place.
http://youtube.com/backseatdesigners - watch video episodes / live tapings of the episodes.
http://backseatdesigners.podbean.com - listen to audio episodes (and subscribe via iTunes, Stitcher, RSS).
http://plus.google.com/+BackSeatDesigners - watch the live tapings of episodes.
 
http://twitter.com/bsdesigners - tweeting stuff about adventure game dev and various mischievousness.
http://facebook.com/groups/backseatdesigners - talking about adventure game dev and various mischievousness.
 
http://patreon.com/backseatdesigners - donate a buck or two.
 
PLUG OVER!

Sorry, not yet. I still haven't gotten quite a good grip on it, and Fred's keeping me pleasantly distracted with that other podcast of ours.
 
But season 3 is not dead, far from it.
 
I have some ideas, including putting more focus on the fan community, and actually start to do live content (as opposed to pre-recorded). I'd love to spotlight a fan or someone who was involved with the games, and have them tell their story. Instead of having them mail me a voice file, I would actually get on Hangout or Skype with them and chat for half an hour, then cut out the bits that were interesting and use that on the show.
 
I'd also still like to do a story arc involving SteveBot, but I haven't figured one out yet. Likewise, I'd like to continue the Musical Interlude segment and I was itching to have the gents Clarke/Stevens from Dynamix talk about their SQ5 soundtrack. But I haven't been able to get a hold of them. Another idea would be to ask interview guests what tune from Space Quest they'd like to hear, and why, and have that be the Musical Interlude.
 
So, the format in my mind currently is: A "topic" segment (as usual), a live segment (interview with someone), and then whatever voice mails/submissions I've gotten in (Lucky Corner, Pete Toleman, Chuck Clusterbluck, Ken Allen, etc.).
 
But I have no idea what guests to feature yet, and thus I have no idea when the show will start again. Yet. You will be the first to know, obviously. :)

Just don't know if we would be able to get him...

I would suggest a discussion of Space Quest knockoffs (like Altered Destiny, Rex Nebular and Ivan Lozhkin: Price of Freedom), but I suspect that that ground has been covered already.
 
I'd also toss out the idea of a discussion of humorous sci-fi in general, but that might be too broad a topic, even if it were pared down to older and/or lesser known material.

I liked the French/Russian/generic-European Let's Play of Pete Toleman's game.
 
Did not like Pete Toleman's singing.
 
Not exactly "helpful" or "useful" feedback, but Pete Toleman should bring that European Let's Play guy back.

Of course I'd love to have you continue your story, Josh. Pardon my omission of you in my original post; it was a terrible oversight on my part.

The time has come to plan season 3 of the podcast. These past two seasons, there hasn't really been much of an overarching theme. I tried going for a bit of "x vs y" theme in season 2, and season 1 was just all over the place. For season 3, my idea is to stick to the style of the past season with me droning on about "today's topic," followed by whatever amount of guest contributions have come in that week. But what should those topics be?
 
Our very own drdrslashvohaul had some good suggestions, such as ...
 
- Broader sci-fi/comedy tropes, and how Space Quest fits into those.
 
I like this one. It could feasibly be the theme of the entire season, actually, with each episode focusing on a different established trope and how it relates to Space Quest / SpaceVenture.
 
- Technology focus. Beaming, instant mail novelty items, cloning ...
 
This one also tickles my fancy -- bringing some of the more obscure tech-things into focus and trying to make sense of them. Even though I'm pretty sure most of them were just thought up on the spot. And it's not even clearly explained how most of these things work. But it'd be a good excuse to crowdsource some input from fans, e.g. "which doohickey was your favorite", etc.
 
And then, of course, I have my own desires for season 3.
 
- More Chuck Clusterbluck. (Kinda sad that Chuck only made one appearance in season 2. Tom has a truly grand epic plot arc planned.)
 
- More Pete Toleman. (Gotta keep Gareth occupied before he jumps ship and simply goes off and does his own Pete Toleman podcast.)
 
- More SteveBot. (Thinking of doing a plot arc for SteveBot.)
 
- More "Lucky Corner" with Alan Luckachina.
 
- Introducing CyberCedric. CyberCedric wants to bring the universe to its knees, but he's stuck in my room for some contrived reason, so now all he can do is make Borg-esque/Purple Tentacle-esque degrading comments about humanity and his own superiority. (I'd love to get the guy who actually voiced Cedric to do this, but, barring that, I'd need to find an impersonator. You can put your hand down now, Frederik!)
 
- Something to keep us musically occupied. We've already done SQ4 (season 1) and SQ3 (season 2). I'd love to get in touch with Tim Clarke and Chris Stevens, the dudes who did SQ5's music, but I have no idea how. That would also give me an excuse to pester Ken Allen into talking a bit more about the lost SQ5 soundtrack that he did.
 
- I'd love to hear more about the "behind the scenes" work of the artists, programmers and producers of the games themselves. People we haven't heard from yet. For instance, talking to SQ4CD's producer Dan Carver about the many changes between disk and CD (if he can remember why they did so).
 
Any more suggestions, or something or someone you would like to see-- well, hear about/from in season 3, please feel free to fire them my way!
 
As for when season 3 will rear its ugly head? I'm thinking March at the earliest. Might be April. I won't know until I've planned the season and got people on board, will I? :)

Chapter II
 
Several hours later, Roger and Beatrice landed on Utefu, a tiny, barren world at the edge of the solar system whose surface was covered almost entirely by sharp, jagged rock. It was not a place suited for most life forms; if the absence of an atmosphere or the extreme cold didn't prove fatal to the misguided soul who decided to take a walk on it without any protective clothing, he or she would most likely become shredded like mozzarella by the planet's rough terrain.
 
The only inhabitable parts of Utefu were a spaceport and the Hilbert Hotel. This hotel was just one of a large chain of hotels owned by Don Hilbert -- an eccentric quadrillionaire best known for his ground-breaking mathematical discoveries as well as his somewhat disturbing obsession with monkeys. It was rumored that his hotels could accommodate a virtually endless number of guests, but just how that was possible was a topic of constant debate.
 
Due to the bizarre nature of this hotel, Roger was easily able to get a room for both him and Beatrice despite lacking a reservation. The rooms were surprisingly cheap, a welcome surprise to Roger, especially after the cost of the flight from Magmetheus had taken such a large chunk out of the meager amount of cash he and Beatrice still had with them.
 
Roger informed the receptionist that he and his wife were "Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Trace," and after answering a few other basic questions, the receptionist handed Roger a keycard, told him where the elevators were and wished him and Beatrice a pleasant stay.
 
 
 
It took about thirty minutes for Roger and Beatrice to locate their room (Room 3x1023). By this time, Beatrice was growing very irritated, and Roger, who had remained mysteriously quiet, tranquil, and focused throughout their entire trip, was starting to return to his normal mental state -- he was also growing very nervous. As soon as he and Beatrice had entered their room, Beatrice folded her arms and glared daggers at him, not saying a word.
 
Every nerve in Roger's body tingled with anxiety. Remembering his encounter with the future had shaken him up pretty badly, but why did Beatrice have to know about it as well? Why had he promised to tell her everything back on Magmetheus? Why couldn't he have made up a story or just pretended that he had no idea what was going on?
 
Roger's anger with himself slowly faded into a sense of complete futility. He was frazzled, he was tired, and his back was killing him. He suddenly didn't care whether telling Beatrice about the future of Xenon caused a serious time paradox that erased one or both of them from existence. He had made a promise to Beatrice, and if that was going to be the last promise he ever made in his life, then damn it, he was going to keep that promise.
 
"Beatrice, I...I have something to tell you. A lot of things, actually."
 
"I'm listening."
 
"You'd better sit down first," Roger said, gesturing to one of the beds (his calmer, smarter self had had the foresight to order a room with two single beds instead of one double bed).
 
Beatrice walked over to one of the beds and sat down, never taking her eyes off of Roger as she did so. Roger sat down next to her.
 
All right...this is it. You're going to tell Beatrice the truth...about her, about you, about Junior... everything.
 
"I...uh..."
 
Easy, now...stay calm...don't screw this up...
 
"I...I was...that is, I will..."
 
Spit it out!
 
"Beatrice, before I first met you, I was on Magmetheus and Junior came there from the future and then sent me into the future. He was nineteen when I met him and he told me that the Xenon Supercomputer had been taken over by the mind of Sludge Vohaul and nearly destroyed the planet..."
 
Breathe.
 
"...and Junior had to go back in time to get me because something had happened to me at that point in time and I was the only one who could stop Vohaul again..."
 
Breathe.
 
"...and he also said that something had happened to you and that I wouldn't remember most of this once I returned to my own time and -- "
 
BREATHE!
 
Roger doubled over, his need to reveal everything to Beatrice overwhelmed by his need for oxygen. After hyperventilating for several seconds, he nervously glanced up at her -- it was the first time he had made eye contact with her during his entire rant. Beatrice opened her mouth to speak, but before she could utter a word, Roger had jumped up from the bed and made a break for the only place in the hotel room where he felt he would be safe: the closet. Beatrice stared in the direction he had gone, barely able to even think.
 
Idiot...
 
 
 
Several hours later, Roger emerged from the closet. He knew that hiding from Beatrice forever was impossible, and he also desperately needed to use the bathroom. After doing what had to be done, he slowly walked back to the two beds and collapsed on the one closest to the door.
 
Beatrice was still sitting on the other bed. She looked at Roger, feeling confused, deceived, afraid...and yes, a little angry. It took several minutes for her to work out just what she ought to say to Roger, an when she finally spoke, her words had a distant, detached quality to them, as if she were a person in a dream Roger was having. Roger answered every question she asked him: Yes, their son was going to bring Roger's past self into the future to save Xenon; yes, Xenon was a horrible mess when Roger was there; and no, he hadn't completely remembered any of this until seeing his past self and the body of Junior's buddy had suddenly brought those hazy memories into sharp focus.
 
"Until just a few hours ago, all I could really remember was you and Junior," Roger explained. "I remembered him mentioning you being my wife and the picture of you that he showed me, but I didn't remember how he'd talked about you in the past tense..."
 
Roger sighed heavily.
 
"Well...I guess I almost remembered," he said dully. "That must have been why I kept changing the subject whenever you brought up the idea of us getting married...something about that just seemed so wrong..."
 
Roger paused, reflecting on his relationship with Beatrice. Despite the romance between them that had eventually developed after several false starts, unexpected turns and rough patches in both of their lives, Roger had still become nervous whenever Beatrice brought up the possibility of marriage. Though Beatrice initially brushed off his reluctance as a typical male reaction to the idea, Roger couldn't help but think that there was some deeper reason for the way he felt.
 
For several years, he had continued to shy away from the marriage prospect whenever it entered the conversation, and his life remained relatively uneventful until that one night he and Beatrice had spent at the old bar on the planet Kerona. Roger had no idea what the drink he wound up was, but it was definitely not the Keronian Ale that he'd ordered.
 
The next thing he knew, he was waking up next to Beatrice in an unfamiliar hotel room. According to what Beatrice told him, he had gotten down on one knee and proposed to her right there in the bar, and she was so moved by his sudden change of character that she said "yes" immediately. They were married just a few days later on one of the many picturesque moons of the planet Pantagama and were now a week or so into their honeymoon.
 
Roger was sure that Beatrice was playing an elaborate practical joke on him until she showed him a holodisk with a picture of her that had been taken of her during their wedding. The picture showed Beatrice from the waist up, an elaborate crown of some sort atop her head, her golden hair framing her perfect face, her body clad in some sort of traditional style of dress that Roger wasn't familiar with...
 
It was the same picture that Junior had showed Roger in the future.
 
"...but it happened anyway," Roger said sadly. "I tried to change things, Bea...but I couldn't."
 
He slumped back on the bed, both mentally and physically drained. Beatrice stared at the floor, her hands clasped together.
 
"So..." she said quietly without much emotion, "Any day now, the Vohaul virus is going to attack the Supercomputer...then couple of years later, our son is going to go back in time to get you to save Xenon..."
 
She paused. She looked at Roger, her brow furrowed.
 
"Wait a minute...if that was you we saw on Magmetheus, and you say RJ returned you there just a few hours after he sent you into the future..."
 
Roger continued to stare blankly at the ceiling.
 
"Then we're...in the past?" Beatrice asked.
 
Roger nodded. Beatrice's eyes widened and her voice grew a little more worried.
 
"How are we going to get back to our time, Roger?"
 
Roger turned his head to look at Beatrice. He tried to think of an answer, and none of the ones he could come up with seemed any good.
 
"I don't know," he confessed sadly. He returned his gaze to the ceiling, studying the various stains and cracks that decorated it. "I just don't know."
 
For several seconds there was a thick silence, broken only by the distant rumble of one of the hotel's innumerable ice machines. Then Beatrice noticed the strange gun lying near the foot of Roger's bed, where he had absently dropped it when he and Beatrice first entered the room.
 
"What's the story with that thing?" Beatrice said, pointing at the device.
 
Roger forced himself upright, picked up the gun and laid it across his knees.
 
"This is the same kind of gun Junior used to send me through time," he said. "That dead guy was with Junior when I first saw him. I thought that I might be able to use that guy's gun to bring us back to our time, but..."
 
He looked at the mangled device and sighed again.
 
"Can I take a look at it?" Beatrice queried.
 
"All right...but be careful."
 
Roger passed Beatrice the gun. Beatrice held it gently, turning it slowly and examining its screen and keypad.
 
"You don't know how this thing works, do you?" she asked.
 
"Not really...all I know is that it's broken. The screen wouldn't be like that if it weren't broken."
 
"Hmm...what if I pressed this?" Beatrice wondered out loud, reaching for a button on the keypad. Before Roger could protest, Beatrice had pressed it and the screen had flickered on with a high-pitched whine. Roger leapt back as if the gun had bitten him.
 
"It's -- it's not broken," he gasped.
 
Beatrice looked at the glowing red letters that had appeared on the screen. There were three lines of text, one beginning with "CURR", one beginning with "DEST" and one beginning with "LAST". LAST each consisted of a static row of text and numbers, but the numbers at the end of the CURR row were slowly changing, and DEST (aside from the word itself) consisted of nothing but zeroes.
 
"What do those things mean?" Roger asked.
 
"Well," Beatrice said after a moment's thought, "If this gun is supposed to send people through time, it should ideally show the user when and where he's going and where he is now. CURR must mean ‘current time', DEST must mean ‘destination time', and LAST must be the last time the user departed from.
 
"Although," she said, staring dubiously at the screen, "I don't understand this timekeeping system this thing is using."
 
She pointed at the CURR line. It read "SQV||UTEFU||-01:210:08:16:27."
 
"I mean, we are on Utefu, but what's on that line doesn't make sense. What's ‘SQV?'"
 
"It means...Space Quest V." Roger said quietly.
 
"Huh?"
 
"The name isn't important. It's the name of a time sector."
 
"Oh," Beatrice said, satisfied by Roger's answer but still a little puzzled. She glanced at the CURR line again. It now read "SQV||UTEFU||-01:210:08:15:52."
 
"Wait a minute...why is this clock counting down?" she asked. "And why is there a minus sign in front of it?"
 
Roger had to think about this for a little while.
 
"The Space Quest IV time sector ended just a few hours ago," he eventually said, "But the Space Quest V sector hasn't begun yet. We're in between the two sectors right now."
 
"So when that clock reaches zero, we'll be in the next one," Beatrice concluded.
 
Her glance dropped to the two other lines on the LCD screen.
 
"So this is the last spot that man departed from," she said, pointing to LAST. This line read "SQXII||XENON||00:02:12:16:00."
 
"Space Quest XII," she reflected. After a moment of contemplation, she turned to Roger.
 
"Do you have any idea what sector we were in when we got shot back here?"
 
"I think...I think it was close to the end of Space Quest IX," Roger surmised. He wasn't entirely sure how he came to that conclusion, but ever since his time-traveling experience in Space Quest IV, he had developed an uncanny awareness of where he was chronologically situated in regards to the various Space Quest time sectors.
 
"Space Quest IX..." Beatrice said slowly. "And we're in between Space Quest IV and V."
 
Roger sighed.
 
"Looks like we've got a long wait ahead of us," he mumbled.
 
Beatrice's face suddenly grew sour.
 
"A long wait?" she repeated. "Roger, I'm not going to just sit on my thumbs and wait until we hit Space Quest IX...again."
 
"But Bea, what else can we do? I mean, that gun may not even work..."
 
"I turned it on," Beatrice countered. "That seems like a good sign that it's working."
 
"But we don't even know how to use it," Roger protested. "And that user manual I found is useless!"
 
"I guess we're only going to figure out how it works by experimenting, then," Beatrice snapped. Before Roger could protest, she had entered "SQIX||XENON||00:00:00:05:00" into the gun's DEST field. She then pointed the ungainly thing at the nearest wall and squeezed the trigger.
 
There was a brief whirring sound that quickly choked and died. There was no blinding flash of light and no tear in the fabric of space-time appearing on the hotel wall. The gun had proven itself quite capable of telling the current time and seeing where and when Junior's buddy's last departure point was, but for actual time travel, it had just turned out to be utterly useless.
 
Beatrice let the gun fall onto her lap, stared blankly at the wall for a moment and buried her face in her hands. Roger thought of saying something to comfort her, but was unable to come up with anything that sounded genuinely reassuring. What he had said earlier seemed to be ringing truer than ever: it seemed like he and Beatrice were in for a very long wait...

Not a bad idea, but I'd say to wait a little while. Agreeing to narrate this story would be one heck of a commitment. 
 
 
 

Close -- it's more like the end of SQIX. 
 
 
Chapter I
 
The first thing Roger became aware of was sand -- hot, coarse sand. This wasn't surprising at all, since Gritt was covered in sand, but somehow this sand felt different. He lifted his
face out of the grainy nest it had planted itself in and started brushing the miniscule flecks of rock out of his eyes.
 
"Roger..." a soft voice next to him moaned.
 
Beatrice! She was alive!
 
As soon as Roger had scraped enough of the sand away from his face, he turned in the direction of the voice to see Beatrice sprawled on the ground beside him. She looked disoriented and more than a little shell-shocked...but she was alive.
 
Emotion overwhelming him, Roger scrambled over to her and threw his arms around her, holding her close to him. Fortunately for him, Beatrice was too weary to push him back as she might have done under normal conditions. However, she wasn't too weary to ask him what the hell he was doing.
 
"It's okay," Roger said. "It's going to be okay -- it's over now. I'm okay, you're okay...everything's okay..."
 
As Beatrice tried to figure out just what had come over her husband, something in the distance caught her eye. As she focused on the something, she suddenly realized what (or, in this case, who) it was, and her confusion immediately grew even greater.
 
"Um...Roger..." she said slowly. "Who is that?"
 
"It'll be okay," Roger said, still rocking her gently, his face buried in her hair. "It'll all be okay..."
 
"Roger!" Beatrice hissed. "Look!"
 
This time, the urgency in his wife's voice made Roger pause and do what she had demanded. Examining his surroundings, he realized that there was much more to their new location besides sand: they were lying between two rows of parked spacecraft, with many more rows disappearing into the distance. It was a parking lot -- but a parking lot for what?
 
The answer to that question was a building just a few hundred yards to the couple's right. It was, large, domed, and had a fairly nondescript exterior. The only visible opening into the structure was a large doorway with a blue neon sign reading "BAR" affixed to the wall above it.
 
The hairs on the back of Roger's neck stood on end. He knew this place. He had been here before, many years ago. However, the shock he was currently feeling was nothing compared to what he felt when he saw what had originally caught Beatrice's attention: a skinny male human with dark blond hair, wearing a grey uniform with purple sleeves, slowly walking towards the bar's entrance with an unsteady gait and a completely bewildered expression on his face.
 
"Who is that?" Beatrice repeated, albeit with differently-placed emphasis.
 
"That's...that's me." Roger said in a high, tremulous whisper.
 
Beatrice squinted quizzically at the bewildered human in the distance.
 
"Why does your hair look like that?" she asked.
 
Roger didn't answer. As he watched his other self walk into the bar, a memory that had remained faded, distant and hazy for so many years suddenly came rushing back to him: the memory of that talk with his future son, Roger Junior, in Space Quest XII. What his son said about the Xenon Supercomputer, how he had spoken of Beatrice in the past tense, how he had implied that Roger didn't exist in Space Quest XII...Roger remembered it all as clearly as if it had just happened -- and suddenly felt very faint.
 
"This was right after he sent me back," he whispered to himself. "I spent a few hours in that bar, then I went back outside and -- "
 
"Roger, what is going on?" Beatrice demanded. "Why did we just see you over there? And what is this place?"
 
"This...this is the planet Magmetheus," Roger said without any tone or inflection. "I stopped here for a few drinks years ago. I have no idea how we got here...but I think...I think it's a very good idea if we -- "
 
Beatrice suddenly gasped. She was looking over her shoulder, the exact opposite direction she would have to look in order to see the bar. Roger turned to look in that same direction, and this time his shock was so great that he dropped Beatrice.
 
One of the nearby ships was a bulky, yellow monstrosity perched on four equally bulky legs. Protruding out from behind the foot of one of these legs was another pair of legs -- however, these legs were much smaller, slimmer, and looked like they belonged to a humanoid.
 
Beatrice rose to her feet and cautiously made her way towards the ship. After taking one last look at the bar's entrance, Roger got up and followed her. The body the legs were (thankfully) still attached to was sprawled on the ground. It was undeniably the body of a male human, and it looked very much as if it had fallen there. There was a dark, sticky, red puddle beneath it, and though the visor on its helmet made its features difficult to make out, the frozen expression of pain on its face was impossible to overlook.
 
"Woah...you think he's okay?" Roger asked.
 
Beatrice knelt down and touched two fingers to the man's throat. And after a few seconds, she shook her head.
 
"He's dead, all right...and who knows what could have killed him, in a place like this..."
 
"Junior!" Roger suddenly yelped.
 
Beatrice stared at Roger, then at the dead man, then at Roger again.
 
"Roger, what are you talking about? This isn't our son."
 
Roger took a closer look at the body, and found that Beatrice was right: wasn't Roger Junior's body, but it was wearing the same dull green and brown outfit that Junior had worn when Roger had first met him. Roger hadn't recognized the uniform immediately, but a few seconds of staring at it had jogged his memory again.
 
He knelt down alongside Beatrice and gingerly began to search the man's body. Before Beatrice could say anything, Roger had extracted a small, white booklet from one of the man's pockets. Printed on the cover were the words "User Manual", overlaying a pale gray diagram of a very familiar-looking device.
 
It took only a few seconds for Roger to remember where he had seen that device before: it was the gun that Junior had used to send him through time -- this was the user manual for that gun!
 
He opened the manual, only to find the text and diagrams within it completely incomprehensible. This wasn't because the language or terminology was too complex for him to understand, however: despite the manual being created inside the Xenon Supercomputer, for some inexplicable reason it had been originally written in Sarien, then translated into Rigellian, Ferbangi and then back into Sarien again before finally being translated into basic Xenonian. The result was an insane jumble of words that even the most powerful pocket translator would have run away from, screaming in horror. The text looked as if it might have been understandable at one time, but the only purpose it served now was decorating the manual's pages. Still, if Roger could make some sense out of the manual's diagrams, perhaps he could use that gun to...
 
Wait a minute...
 
"The gun...where is it?" Roger wondered out loud.
 
Beatrice stared at him in disbelief for what had to be the eleventh time since they had arrived on Magmetheus.
 
"What?" she asked.
 
"The gun," Roger repeated, getting to his feet and cramming the manual into his pocket. "This guy had it with him the last time I saw him...unless the Sequel Police took it, it's got to be around here somewhere..."
 
Roger tried to replay the scenario in his head: he and Junior had run one way while Junior's buddy had tried to split up the two Sequel Policemen that had almost killed Roger outside the bar. Junior's buddy must have run this way, only to get gunned down by one or both of the Sequel Policemen, who had then come after Roger and Junior. So if he had been running when he dropped his gun, the gun would have ended up...
 
"There!" Roger said, running towards a sleek, blue skimmer parked nearby. The gun was lying in the sand just in front of it. Roger picked up the strange device and examined it. It looked just like the one that Junior had used...except this one looked as if it had either been run over or stepped on by an Andorian Megaped. Its casing was badly cracked and dented. There was a keypad and an LCD screen on the side of the gun, but while both were undamaged, the screen was completely dark. It looked as if the gun was completely useless for anything except beating someone over the head with.
 
"Darn," Roger said, his hopes just as crushed as the gun was.
 
Beatrice walked up behind him, her footsteps slow and heavy.
 
"Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on or am I going to have to make you tell me?" she said through clenched teeth.
 
"I don't know what's going on," Roger cried. "I mean...I sort of know what's going on, but I have no idea how we got here, or what happened on Gritt, or how we're going to get back home, or...or..."
 
Roger paused. His surroundings suddenly felt strangely quiet, and time itself seemed to have slowed to a crawl. His fear and anxiety dissipated and his mind became almost completely clear. This serenity only lasted briefly before it was replaced by a peculiar sense of urgency. It screamed at him to get as far away from his current location as possible, and quickly. Roger didn't know what had trigged this bizarre sensation, but what he did know was that he and Beatrice needed to leave Magmetheus...and soon.
 
"We need to leave Magmetheus," he told Beatrice firmly, "And soon."
 
"Leave?" Beatrice cried. "But..."
 
"Don't worry," Roger said. "I'll tell you everything...I promise. But right now, we've got to move."

It's funny, because I've never been worried about the project once.
 
I guess that's what happens when you have better things to do than post angsty comments on the Kickstarter page.
 
It's pretty obvious that all these comeback-kids didn't really know what they were getting into. The Coles and the Guys are obviously not the best project- and money-managers. Their projects are obviously not going to plan, and they obviously don't really have a really clear or professional plan.
 
Whatever. Unless you mortgaged your house and wife and testicles on this, I think was worth the risk. Worst thing you might have done is give another chance at glory to the people who gave you so much fun as a kid. Not such a bad way to spend some leftover cash.

I think most of these games -- probably including the Space Quest series -- are way more fun in retrospect / replays.
 
Having been through the experience, it was pretty great.
 
Going through it for the first time? Eh.

Well, no you're right. It may not be a need I didn't mean that, but it's not tied to responsibility either, in the same way that those who give to charity shouldn't expect anything. The only difference in this case is that you expect (or hope) that the game will be released someday. As far as pledging goes, nobody is owed anything but seeing the product released, and any rewards they may have pledged for. Even then, there's no guarantee and nothing is admissable in court.

I accept that it's instinctual to want updates on how the project is going that you've backed, and even fair. But I don't accept that it's deserved. I'd question any campaign that didn't offer ANY updates whatsoever, but I wouldn't question their honesty or competence. Just their decency. Even AAA published games show a little bit every now and then. But not because they have to.
 
Kickstarter IS charity. You are given no guarantee of anything but the fact that you're giving the creator of the campaign the chance to finish his/her/their project. Whether they do or not is entirely inconsequential to your "role" as a backer.

@HCH That's what I mean, though. Why are backers deserved project knowledge of any kind? It was never promised that there would (or should) be any updates. It's that sense of entitlement I don't get. Where did that come from?
 
I think asking for an update is ok but expecting one is entirely different.

Well, I understand the point where the problem was that Chris's updates were mainly "still working on the game, we've fixed some bugs!", which is not terribly exciting but certainly a necessary part of the game development process.
 
I'm not going to comment much on anything that isn't otherwise public/widespread knowledge. (No specific order here, just mentioning things that seem relevant/timely)
Unity 4.6 just came out, something which I'm excited about because it gives us a lot more freedom/control with the GUI, and makes it simpler to design rich interfaces. Scott's mother has Alzheimer's and it has been bad recently - which means he has been offline a lot as he takes care of her. Sad situation there. GFA is not out of money, we have just had to tighten our belts. This slows us down because we can't retain as many programmers/artists/etc, and some of us work day jobs to make ends meet. Honestly, Chris has stepped up a lot with helping with the programming which is great because that leaves me to focus more on systems/overall game stuff than setting up rooms. Behind the scenes, though, I've seen a lot of things, especially recently, that particularly excite me and which I think directly address some issues fans have made about the SpaceVenture they saw so far. I think that when SpaceVenture does come out, it will be well-received. As a backer, I do wish that the Guys did more with the SVRewards site but I can understand some of the reasoning.

"Fewer", updates, dear fellow. Not "less".