Caldric

From a completely selfish standpoint, as a coder myself, I'd love to hear more about behind-the-scenes programming stuff. I'm curious what the really hard parts about building the early Space Quest games were, and how those challenges changed as technology advanced. Culminating in, I suppose, a comparison with which parts of SpaceVenture are proving difficult and why. I know we've heard bits and pieces about this already in previous episodes, but hearing about the progression of programming over time would be fascinating. To me, at least. :)

For me that's true. Don't get me wrong - I love a good movie, but I always connect better with a novel.

I'm catching up on season two - it's great so far! I just listened to the parser vs. point-and-click episode, and I wish I'd had a chance to comment sooner, because I have a specific point to make on that debate. I hope it wasn't already made on the podcast somewhere...I listen while driving, and occasionally the road demands more attention than the podcast. Occasionally. Anyway, I will always prefer the parser interface, because though it can become a stumbling block at times, it will always have one huge advantage. With a parser, the player is interacting with the fictional world itself. With point-and-click, the player is interacting not with the world, but with the artistic depiction of that world. You simply cannot interact with what you cannot see. With the parser, that limitation doesn't exist. You can be told about something in a room description, and because it exists in your mental model of that room, you can interact with it, even though there are no pixels representing it. The game is allowed to become more than what's on screen, and in my opinion, it brings the game more intimately to life.

I would love a pre-SQ1 multiplayer adventure where the players are all Sariens. Giving them some depth and mythology would be a treat.

I'm also on 7.1, running on an iPhone 5s. I'd recommend running it on an iPad, though. Playing on the iPhone is an exercise in frustration. It is for me and my fat fingers, anyway.

I just tried Space Quest briefly on an iPhone, and it seems to work. I had to use the "add to home screen" feature after clicking on the Space Quest box, then run it from the home screen icon it created. The resolution isn't quite right, though, so I can't always read the action buttons at the bottom of the screen.

Oof. That is just painful.

This could be like an anti-Kickstarter, where people would pay to PREVENT a developer from making a game. Kickstopper?

Yeah, sarien.net is interesting, but more from a coding perspective than a playing perspective (for me, anyway). I still think a true co-op adventure game would be a lot of fun. Also, it seems the Realm's server is still running. That is insane!

I'm curious how many of you played the Realm, back when it was a Sierra product. I spent far too much time there, and really enjoyed it. It was by far the most social online game I'd played up to that point, and I had high hopes for it. I was disappointed that it never quite became what I had hoped. It faced a lot of tough competition as massively multiplayer online games exploded. I still think there's an opportunity for an online game that is multiplayer, but not massively multiplayer. I don't think the adventure genre lends itself to hordes of people in the same world at the same time, but I think there's sort of a niche for very small groups of people, say two or three, working together to solve puzzles in classic adventure game fashion. I don't know how to refer to this kind of game. I'd call it intimately multiplayer instead of massively multiplayer...if that phrase didn't evoke something so entirely different. Granted, I haven't been plugged into online gaming for a while, especially since I became a father, so perhaps there's something out there already that fits into this category I've decided to make up. If so, I'd love to know about it. If not, it sure sounds like it'd be something fun to create!

When I watch SF television, I usually expect lighter entertainment. If I'm looking for heavy subject matter, I read SF books. Though some television does do a good job of being meaty - the new Battlestar Galactica, for example.

I'm new here, but I'm doing a replay of the series, and am in SQ6 right now, so I'll chime in. This is my first series replay, and its interesting what memories get dredged up while replaying. In the early stages of SQ6, I really didn't like the recycling of characters and ideas from past games. The rapid fire "Oh look, here's Fester Blatz! Oh look, here's a space bar! Oh look, here's Elmo Pug! Oh look, here's a video arcade!" was offputting, and made me worry that the whole game would be a mash of unoriginal ideas. Luckily that wasn't the case, but it made for a bad first impression on me. The level of detail in the game is a definite step up from previous installments. I had a lot of fun clicking around to see what gems the designers buried...I'm a sucker for that kind of thing. And of course, the return of Gary Owens was very welcome. I read all printed narration in other SQ games in his voice. Always. Regarding narrative structure, I agree that making Roger and the Narrator aware of each other was a jarring change; not something I hated, but something I had to adjust to. However, I do like exploitation of the fourth wall, and I find the idea of an evolving Narrator-Character relationship (and Narrator-Character-Player relationship, really) absolutely fascinating. There are so many avenues for interesting storytelling with a less-than-solid fourth wall. And I'm really a fan of creator-creation interaction (Animal Man #5 is a fantastic example); one of the reasons I like SQ3 so much.

I second your plea for hard puzzles! One of the reasons I'm so fond of the Space Quest games, especially the early ones, is that I spent days, sometimes weeks, stuck in certain areas. (Give me a break...I was young!) I will never forget the feeling of instant elation in SQ1 (EGA) when I finally found the broken glass outside the crashed escape pod on Kerona and knew I could finally pass those frickin' lasers! Also, all that time spent in "what-did-I-miss" mode helped me to find, and to really appreciate, the myriad little details and descriptions that went into each game.

Naturopathic vaccine substitute! Vegan repellant!