Akril

Something that I should have brought up during the discussion about possible arcade sequences in SpaceVenture was this: There actually was an arcade sequence in an Ace Ventura: Pet Detective adventure game where Ace has to swim up a sewage pipe (in scuba gear) dodging just the sort of things you'd expect to find in a sewage pipe. Now that's what I call synchronicity.

Thanks! This makes me wonder if the Cat Quest series would have actually been cancelled in the first place, given how popular cats are in Internetland these days.

Something I should have mentioned earlier was that I used photos of a couple of my family's cats to create the calendar and the poster in Bea's apartment. Here's the full-size Cat Quest V: Apocalypse Meow poster (the border was cropped out, since there's no way that logo would be anything but a tiny blur once the poster was resized): And here's the photo where I got the face for the poster: (Yes -- this dog is very confused and disturbed.)

Well, no surprise, but it will definitely take a while to do all that, even if I do take a lot of shortcuts.* I'll still try to work on some of that art and animation when I have the time. In the meantime, though, I'd suggest using placeholder graphics in AGS until better ones can be made/found -- either stuff from the games themselves, or even something as simple as a circle with the word "blaster" written on it. It would also help if I knew more about the animations for the characters: are the talking animations going to be portraits, or LucasArts-style animations? Should the "grabbing" animations have Roger and Bea reaching out and taking an object at chest height, or lower/higher? Are Roger and Bea's "crouching" animation supposed to be them preparing to crawl through a low tunnel, or just bending down to pick something off of the floor? Also, what should Roger and Bea's clothing look like? And in case you get tired of waiting for me up upload something, there's also a bunch of graphics, music and other game assets available on opengameart.org, which are all free to use as long as you comply with whatever conditions the artists set (which usually are just making sure to mention them in your game's credits). *Speaking of which, I'm sure I've seen at least one 3D model of the Aluminum Mallard out there...

Well...I've held back on jumping into this thread for a long time, but I figured that there wasn't much point in prolonging the inevitable any longer. Are there any particular art assets that people are interested in (e.g., walking characters, idling characters, backgrounds)? I'm willing to do one or two characters and/or animations if I have the time, though as the production time of PQ2 may have hinted, animation takes a long time to do. Also, has any particular style been agreed upon (VGA, SVGA)? How about a walk cycle for Roger himself (that isn't from the official games)? I may stick with the low-res, shaded look of PQ2, since that has proved surprisingly easy to work with (most of the time, anyway). I've also amassed several 3D models of futuristic cities, plus a sci-fi-themed room or two (most of these are freebies from various 3D model sites). I could make some renders of these models from various angles, then run them through a couple of filters to get rid of the stiff, sterile look that 3D tends to have. I may even have a 3D prop or two that I could render to use as inventory items.

Wow. I didn't think I was that -- Oh... :unsure: Well...that feeling of smug satisfaction was good while it lasted. If you check the SQ4 transcript, Roger Jr. outright says this, so it's hard to assume that Roger could have ended up anyplace else when he had gone through the Time Rip. As for StarCon Academy, since that was a Mark Crowe retcon, it's a bit difficult to view any of the previous Space Quest games from the perspective of StarCon ever existing. ;) I guess you could explain StarCon's sudden existence in both the present and past of the "new" SQ timeline by postulating that Roger being sent so far into the future caused some sort of 4D "ripple effect" that altered events in the distant past, setting off a chain reaction of other events that led to the creation of StarCon many years prior to SQ1.

Another in-game mention of StarCon implying that there was some ret-conning at work is the soliloquy Roger launches into when you try talking to the golden mop in his quarters. One thing he says to the mop is, "You were a symbol of my bravery, of my importance to StarCon." I never thought too much about this before, but this does seem to imply that Roger was working for StarCon in SQ1, and that StarCon has been ret-conned to have existed since the very beginning of the series.* The SQ wiki's page on StarCon says that the SQ Companion mentioned StarCon existing as early as Roger's account of SQ1 (the first edition of the book covered SQ1-4, but the authors were getting information about SQ5 from the Two Guys (mostly Mark) while the game was being developed). I'm still not putting much stock in the accuracy of the SQC, though -- it says that Roger was adrift in the sleep pod for 100 years, yet Beatrice's first remark upon seeing him in SQ5 is, "Aren't you the guy who defeated the Sariens some years back?" If he really was MIA for more than a century, you'd think she'd say something like, "Hey...you look a lot like this guy named Roger Wilco I heard about on an old documentary about the history of Earnon. Are you his grandson?" *Which makes me wonder if all the time traveling in Space Quest IV somehow resulted in a major change to a time zone many years prior to SQ1 so that by the time Roger returned to his present time, he actually ended up in an alternate version of the timeline (the original timeline had no StarCon, and Roger somehow avoided the Sequel Policemen, meaning that SQ4 actually took place during the SQ4 time zone). (This wasn't what you were hinting at, was it, Troels?)

Gah -- I was afraid that this topic would eventually go there... <_< But back to the topic at hand, I'd say that with an entire universe with a virtually infinite amount of possibilities out there, it is possible that a handful of in-universe Wilco fans still exist, even at the time SQ6 takes place. However, to make these fans fit convincingly within the "framework" of the series, they would most likely fall into one of three categories: There's also a googol-to-one chance of any of these fans actually running into Roger. "Never the twain shall meet", in other words. If you wanted to take the fan idea to a new level, perhaps you could even find a bunch of creatures who are "fans" of Roger for completely different reasons. This could be something like a population of submicroscopic, plantlike organisms who have never heard of Roger saving Earnon or defeating Sludge Vohaul, but they revere him because they are descended from a form of mold growing in the corner of a bathroom which Roger never cleaned thoroughly. Since what little cleaning Roger did do wiped out all of the mold's competing species and some of the chemicals he used dramatically altered the mold's genetic makeup, the mold was able to develop very rapidly, and eventually gave rise to a super-intelligent species of plant life that (unsurprisingly) sees Roger as their creator.* I have actually explored the "in-universe fans" concept once or twice in this work-in-progress currently quoted in my signature. I've been pretty cautious about saying anything about it (since it's still far from done), but I figure I might as well quote a bit of it that relates to this topic: I'm also reminded of quote from Hoyle Games, Volume 1. It features several Sierra characters (including SQ3-era Roger, who thinks that he's gotten trapped in the game and desperately wants to get out) as well as some actual Sierra employees, who start talking with each other if you stop playing the game for a while. One of the characters is a kid who keeps talking about his love of sports, and at one point Roger tells him, "I get most of my exercise running away from Sludge Vohaul's troopers and my fan club." :D *This ficlet was loosely inspired by J. F. Bone's short sci-fi story, "The Issahar Artifacts".

Just to make things clear: is the next Hangout going to be the one on the 27th, or is there one scheduled to be on the 20th as well? (whatever the case is, I'll definitely try to attend the Hangout on the 27th).

I'm sorry for not replying to this thread sooner, but thank you very much for the feedback, everyone! The amount of coverage this little game is getting is remarkable, and being part of this whole project is surreal, to say the least. Regarding the SQ theme in the outro: I've mentioned this elsewhere, but at first, I was hesitant to use that music (since it's from SQ6, which wasn't technically a Two Guys project). However, In the end I figured, why let a little detail like that get in the way of an otherwise perfect piece for that scene?

While I do take commissions (well, technically I've only taken one so far), I'm still willing to make exceptions for members of relatively small fandoms that I'm also part of (it depends what sort of art/animation I'm being asked to make). I try not to quit any project I get involved with without a very good reason, though I might get slowed down because of other commitments. I had a lot of stuff going on during the development of PQ2, which really dragged out the whole thing. (Pledge Quest II was 3 months in the making, but it's barely a third as large as Adventure: The Inside Job, which took me about 6 months to make.) Speaking of art, I've got a few pieces of PQ2 concept art I need to upload once I get back to my place. EDIT: And I'm sorry I forgot to bring it up when I first posted this message, but that story about your daughter was adorable, s_d. Thank you for sharing it. (Also, thanks to everyone who's spreading the news about the game!)

Thank you very much for the feedback, everyone! I'm glad to hear that everyone is enjoying the game. Leaving the issue of our current post-release exhaustion out of the equation at the moment, I'm not sure what other sort of game we could collaborate on. But who knows -- maybe we might be inspired to do something non-Pledge Quest/Space Quest related someday.

Hey everyone, Sorry about the extreme scarcity of updates to this thread, but at long last I can finally announce that work on Pledge Quest II is finally nearing completion! It should hopefully be ready to download within the next week. Jess and I have spent a long time working on this thing, and it shouldn't be long before we finally have something to show for our efforts (as well as something to help promote the SpaceVenture stretch goals)!

It's the voyeuristic Pinkunz in the background that really makes that screenshot complete.

Hmm, I hope I can be there next weekend, though I doubt I'll be playing anything. I certainly like the game lineup so far -- a few of my favorites are on that list.

Thank you very much! :) The Adventure series (which I really should give a proper title to eventually, even if it's something as generic as "the Thalia James series") started out partly as a homage to the classic Sierra and LucasArts games, but also as a form of advertizement for some of the less popular games that don't get as much attention. If just a few people play one my games and decide to check out some of the more obscure titles featured or referenced in either of them, I feel that this dubiously legal enterprise was definitely worth the risk.

Great -- I was wondering if the ports were based off of version 1.0 or 1.1. Thanks! Also, thank you s_d and nockgeneer!

Thank you for clearing that up for me, Ferde. I figured you had a reason for including my comic there despite its frequent use of official art, and I do appreciate the mention. I've got to admit that when I first saw that post, I hadn't read the posts on the previous page leading up to it, and for a moment I thought, "Oh geez -- is he talking about Adventure: The Inside Job??" :unsure: I think I've heard something about there being only eight or so basic plots used in literature ("Journey of discovery", "Bitter rivalry/revenge", "Triumph of the underdog", etc.), but I don't know if that's the same thing you're talking about, or if such a concept actually exists (the book where this concept was mentioned was pure fiction). (Come to think of it, somebody's take on The Inside Job after seeing my description of it said it all sounded "a bit too Sophie's World" to him -- even though I've never read that book.)

Hey, thanks for the mention in your article, Ferde! (Though in light of what you said about disliking fangames with ripped backgrounds and sprites, I'm a little puzzled why you gave my comic a shout-out when I used so many backgrounds from SQ6 in it, especially in the early days.)* On the ripped art subject, I think a fair number of Sierra fangames use ripped/modified backgrounds and/or sprites -- heck, AGDI's first two KQ remakes used a modified version of Graham's KQ5 sprite. TLC and Replicated also have a tiny bit of modified/reused art. I certainly have no leg to stand on when it comes to reusing official art/music/etc.,** and though SQ4.5 wasn't a terrible game, the story and puzzles just weren't enough to draw my attention away from the large amount of reused sprites, backgrounds and locations. A lot of old AGI fangames also use ripped graphics (heck, a lot of them just use modified sprites for the main characters, even when all the other art is original!), but some of them have a quaint sort of charm to them. I've played a game where Graham comes flying out of the sky on his seahorse and commands the protagonist to get meat for his steed (no, I'm not making this up), a game where Roger Wilco randomly runs through a hotel hallway and yells at the protagonist to get out of his way, and another game where the protagonist (an original sprite) can shapeshift into various AGI Sierra characters. I'm also baffled by the "SQ:Inc doesn't follow SQ4.5 canon" complaint. What sort of logic was that person using? "If a fangame uses Sierra graphics/music then it's canon; if it doesn't, then it's not canon"?? *There are times I wish I had focused my creative energies on something other than that comic...but that's another bemoanment for another time. **Though I do appreciate the comments. ^_^

Hey, I remember seeing that site back in the day! Nice!

Kind of a late contribution to this thread, but I just recently realized that the mad doctor/scientist you encounter in the game is named Dr. Slache. And here I thought I'd cataloged everything I felt this game had to qualify it as a SQ knockoff... (It's still not a bad game at all, but sheesh, could the "Hey, Sierra! We're making fun of your franchise!" message be any more obvious?)

I'm just fine with Pledge Quest being included, but since it was Decaffeinated Jedi's idea, he's the one you should talk to about including that game.

I admit, I was pretty tense for a while...the amount was at 489 when I had to leave the house, and when I got back 5 hours later, it was 512. And we helped make this happen! Thanks a ton to everyone who went out of their way to help fund and promote this thing. And now, as promised...Pledge Quest victory art!

I played your game today, filipst. I thought the English was very good, and the ending (plus Roger's reaction to it) was hilarious! Great job! Also, good work on the custom GUI. It's great when a game designer refuses to stick with AGS's default GUI, even if the game is really short. EDIT: "plug Roger's reaction"? I really shouldn't post messages here so late at night...

Thanks! I know I should be working on other games, but I just don't really seem to have the drive that much anymore. Pledge Quest was fairly easy because it was so small and I had a lot of help (plus a pretty good reason to get the thing done ASAFP), but I just can't seem to muster enough enthusiasm to work on my other projects that much anymore.