Frede

You're welcome, Akril! I think my last post may makes me appear a tad too hostile towards ripped resources. I'm mainly indignated about games like SQ4.5, though (I do have other reasons for hating it.) I always liked your comics, and while you did use SQ6 backgrounds, they were never the focal point. Roger and Xandra were. And again, WSSQUID made sure the wheels kept turning, even after SQ7 was cancelled. It deserves to be on a list of fan projects, especially because it's very easy to overlook now that there are so many completed fangames out there. I think that was the gist of it, yeah. Time travel stuff that makes the two games contradict each other. I'm not sure we ever had a TVTropes page. Some of our voice actors discussed whether we would be able to get an IMDB page, so it's quite possible that one of them submitted some info for TVTropes...

True. As far as I can tell, Akril made it work. With a title like "Adventure: All In the Game", there's more of a metaphysical angle to it. And the ripped stuff needs to be there for that concept to work. In that respect, I suppose you can do something creative with ripped resources, though most developers still seem to do it out of laziness or because of lacking abilities.

Well, after seeing all the cool work from my fellow team members that went into VSB, I've been totally unable to respect the idea of someone wanting to "make a game" by using a resourcer viewer to steal stuff from existing games and stitching them together again with a bunch of possibly half-assed puzzles. I must admit, I don't really mind the legal issues. I'm mainly offended by the whole concept because it is incredibly lazy, and because it's completely screwed-up to design an adventure game by going "Well, this SQ6 screen has this hot spot..." Annoyingly, some fans don't seem to mind this; a while ago, Datadog told me that a fan complained about "Incinerations" ignoring SQ4.5 canon. Canon?! What canon? All this artwork and this music were made to be used in a different context. To claim that such a game has a spot in the canon is completely ridiculous. Truth be told, I've never played any of these games, and I honestly don't intend to. The above reasoning keeps me from ever wanting to try them out.

Thanks for your nice words - glad you like the article :) Be aware that I'm not covering every fangame. There are some old Klik & Play minigames out there that are nearly impossible to get to work on modern systems. There are also a number of larger fangames that use ripped resources rather than original material, but not covering those is a matter of principle for me...

Scott also mentioned someone called Sledge Vohaul, but I'm not sure if he meant to say that, or if he got things jumbled up a bit. Either way, we do know a bit more about Sludge now. Scott disclosing the full untold background story was one hell of a cool moment.

No idea how Slash fits into this. The estranged biological brother? Father? Either way, Scott did confirm that the SQ1 scientist is, in fact, Slash Vohaul.

I haven't seen that much Comic Sans since I tried 3D Movie Maker back in the day. It now feels like my eyes are melting.

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That was fun. Somewhat sillier than last time, though Peter's AGI Tetris and very potent remarks on adventure games made sure we weren't just having a four-hour laugh. I do feel I should state that my remarks on the reception of the SQ2VGA remake should be taken with a grain of salt. I love the game dearly. I guess, in my somewhat... inebriated state, I was trying to convey what it felt like, having worked ten years on a sequel, suddenly seeing people go for the 1991-approach. I do have a bit of a character flaw in the fact that I'm very rarely serious in situations like this, and that I like retorting to ironic vitriol. I'm sorry if my attempt to tell the story in an off-kilter way offended anyone. My closing remarks on SQ2VGA being a great remake were very sincere, however. And hey, at least, the VSB intro was dissed way more often ;)

Don't worry - everyone here knows that the manipulative "someone" was lying through his teeth. Chris and the Two Guys know too. There are no rights issues to speak of with SpaceVenture, fortunately. As for insufficient funds, there'll be a PayPal donation phase after the Kickstarter has ended. And if that crosses into July, I think we'll see a moderate increase there - there must be other people like me who aren't really able to pledge more till after payday, but would gladly chip in with a little more if they get the chance.

Spot on, Brandon. Doesn't matter if Paul is guilty or not - this fan is fighting for the Guys doing an indie game, and I definitely won't accept lesser than that.

Not a press release as such, but for those of you not on the Phoenix Online Studios mail list, they just sent out an e-mail supporting the Infamous Adventures Kickstarter, as well as that of the Two Guys. They're clearly focusing on the former one, but given that they started out with a fangame, I can understand that.

One thing I think we should keep in mind is that if Wisecrack are actually staging this and it backfires, it will hurt their project financially. Pledges will be withdrawn, word on their actions will get out there, Al Lowe might take action - the whole nine yards. Basically, being caught with their fingers stuck in the cookie jar here would mean the death of their project. Again, I'm not after a Paul Trowe lynch mob here, but as I, like drslashvohaul, find the discussion very much worth having, let me ask you guys this. Do you think that Wisecrack would be able to stage all this crap and then suddenly forget that they're actually the ones at risk? Sure, they'd have sabotaged the 2GFA Kickstarter, but their own project would be as much in danger. Like it or not - objectively speaking, the projects that are secured financially are better candidates for this.

Welcome to the forums, Raiden. You certainly kicked off with a well-written post that raises more than a few very valid points. I think you are spot-on in everything you write. So let me just add another smoking gun to your conclusions on this whole charade. Apart from the concerns raised by Mixnmojo, there was an incident a while ago where someone trusted by the Guys delibrately misled them into thinking the "Space Quest"-IP and the rights for the "Two Guys from Andromeda"-name resided with Telltale, and not Activision and they previously believed. It took around two weeks of phone calls and voice mails for them to find out that the rights in question were still owned by Activision, and had been so all along. Meanwhile, however, they had lost about two weeks of press because they didn't want to face the legal troubles they would get themselves in, had the rights been with Telltale. Adding to that, it's a fairly open secret that the Kickstarter has seen some quite odd activity apart from the negative comments. I'm somewhat sure that the perpetrator for all this stuff is known by the Two Guys. But obviously, since this kind of behaviour might do more harm than good for their project, they'd be keeping the identity of the person confidential in any case. But this goes to show that there is definitely more to this mess, and that it's certainly not getting prettier. Us "Space Quest"-fans are just grateful that the Kickstarter seems to be on the right track now and some of us are quite content with this discussion being brought up, as long as it's kept on a civil level.

Oh, in these Kickstarter days, I think more than a few wives and girlfriends are living alone with someone!

Scott did mention on Twitter that Jimmy Fallon is a "Space Quest"-fan, as is Josh Thompson. Might be worth pursuing.

On Twitter, Paul is putting the blame for this on Wisecrack games. Check out this exchanges with Twitter user @gbfan: Thoughts? Do you guys think it's Wisecrack or..?

Actually, in the Hangout, Scott shared the background story of Vohaul as it was intended. The blue skin was probably just CRT glow, as Sludge and Roger were actually siamese twins. When they were separated, Roger got all the good organs while Vohaul ended up in an orphanage. Eventually, he ended up in the care of an old scientist who taught Vohaul everything he knew before he died. Maybe at Vohaul's hands. So this is why Vohaul hates Roger, and why he was likely supposed to have non-blue skin. Still, one thing that impressed Scott was that our game has a young Vohaul being sold off to research. It's surprisingly close to his intended, henceforth undisclosed backstory and that made him a lot more interested in the fan projects. EDIT: Haha, "Vohaul ended up as an orphanage" :D

For what it's worth, this is not the first fishy sabotage attempt against the Two Guys. The whole rights issue that prevented them from doing press for two weeks did reportedly have a perpretrator and this happened before the Sam Suede Kickstarter was launched. We can only speculate about who did that. It may not even be the same person. Still, make of it what you will. The Sam Suede Kickstarter may have reasons to go after Trowe, but as far as I can tell, less so for attacking the Two Guys.

Evidentally, this is getting quite ugly indeed. The best thing we can do is to stay positive and keep the discussion here clean, as well as keeping this subject away from the Kickstarter page. Now, I don't want to draw any conclusions myself, but it is fairly obvious that something fishy has been, and is, going on, and no matter who the perpetrators are, they should face some consequences. Till then, let's show them - no matter who they are - that we are the better people...

Yes, he tweeted that and it does seem supportive and sympathetic. However, in my personal opinion, one should not mistake him for a philantropic do-gooder just because of that. He is still very much a businessman. And like all businessmen, he must have his own motives. Things are rarely black or white in matters such as these. Again, this is all my opinion. Doesn't reflect anyone else's, and nor does it reflect anything but speculation. And believe me, I actually kind of want someone to prove me wrong.

Hah! Hadn't even realised I was the first one to drop the F-bomb when we were talking about that easter egg - I could've sworn someone else said it. Maybe that wasn't just any regular echo...

Thanks for posting these highlights for posterity, Troels! Technically, Patrick was the project lead by the end of it. I prefer to call myself "project founder," because that makes me appear important ;) Seriously, though. My girlfriend deserves a huge shoutout for buying me two cans of Dr Pepper and some bags of crisps. I'm still sure the sugar in the former was what kept me going by the end. Still, my addled brain managed to kill off Roger in a way that no one in the Hangout had seen before, apparently, by neglecting to go free Spikey from the garbage compartment. Of course, when people say "I've never seen that death before," that's pretty much a polite way of saying "I've never been stupid enough to try that." ;) I switched to SQ3 a little while after Scott joined, but since my attention was slipping, I didn't even get off the Garbage Freighter before I quit and focused on the great conversations we were having. Again, this is one of the funniest things I've ever participated in, but I will have to admit that a personal highlight for me was that, because of similarities between Scott's intended Vohaul backstory and the one we came up with for VSB, he stated that I had actually indirectly convinced him to play the fangames. I've written this so many times it's starting to get creepy, but Scott really is a nice, humble and very funny man, and to think that he's going to work his way through a game I helped create is just... well, "mindblowingly huge" can only cover so much :)

As those attending and watching this can probably tell, I'm dying to get all the VSB anecdotes out of the way, so I'd definitely be up for that. Would give Scott an overview of what to expect from the fan projects as well, if he chooses to participate again.

Heh, you probably noticed, but your improvised conversation about Florida after Troels and I had announced we were leaving put the broadest smile on my face, cause that was just symptomatic for this Hangout. The man can talk for hours, can't he? I sincerely hope I didn't come across as an ass who was trying to steal anyone's thunder by interrupting, but truth is, every time I thought Scott was done talking, he kept going. Love that he shared so much stuff with us, though, so my joking around with interruptions was certainly not supposed to offend anyone. I will admit that I'm strangely proud of throwing Cedric into the mix, though ;)