Dat Engineer

There's a lot of qualified opinion and nuanced conclusions going on in this forum at the moment.
 
I don't like it.

What Suejak said.

When has Anita ever demanded that someone's speech be squelched, particularly with reference to a game's content?
 
Some people always say she "forces her opinion down your throat," but YouTube doesn't work that way. You have to go and look at the video yourself, of your own volition.

Old-school DrSlash snark, how I've missed thee.

Hmm. There seems to be a bit of vitrol bubbling up in this thread. I was afraid of this; I still remember some of the same things being thrown around back in the old days. SRS BZNS and all. ;)
 
For what it's worth, I prefer SQ1 VGA. There's a few reasons for this, but by far the biggest one is this one:
Simple fact of the matter is, IMHO, Space Quest didn't really hit its stride writing-wise until SQ3. There's nothing *wrong* with SQ1EGA and SQ2, but like many of the other adventure game greats (especially Sierra's own AGI games), the writing was a bit tame compared to what they started coming up with in later games. Most of the written humor in SQ1EGA and SQ2 is either expospeak gags or dry wit; nothing bad about either of those, but it does make for less 'punchy', laugh-out-loud humor. Right around SQ3 is when the smartassery quotient (towards both the player and the sci-fi material they were mocking) really took off, which is easily the series' strong point. SQ1 VGA, being a later release, incorporated that more developed sense of humor - add Josh "Reward exploration! More random messages! MORE!" Mandel into the mix, and you get a game that gets me laughing as much as SQ4 and SQ5. :lol:
 
Another reason: The music. Good god, the music. :blink: Easily my favorite score in the entire series. The bombastic new version of the SQ theme alone won my heart, and much of the rest of the soundtrack seems to be a loving homage to Star Wars's similar style of orchestral epic-ness. I mean, heck, go back and listen to the end-credits medley, and tell me they're not ripping off A New Hope. But, that's a good thing. ;)
 
As for the art style...I'll admit, I think I like Mark's unique sci-fi designs (not just in SQ1, but in general) more than the raygun gothic look VGA went for. But like someone else said earlier in this thread, it's not unlike someone writing a cover of your favorite song. It's *different*, sure, but not necessarily worse than the original. Just...different.  ;)  I like the occasional foray into 'what if' scenarios, just for the sake of variety.
 
As for the behind-the-scenes aspects of development...I'm not going to get into that. I make it a point to judge games based on their own merit, not because of its pedigree.

I go into this post fully realizing that my reaction may be disproportionate indeed, but the above quote is such a blatant strawman that honestly I am no longer surprised this thread has become as drawn out as it is.
 
In the same breath you claim that feminists do not speak for most women while also making the blanket statement "feminists want to pathologize being male", completely missing the point that actual feminism represents equality for the sexes and not some totalitarian matriarchy where everything male is forbidden. You might rightfully have a beef with individual journalists and YouTube pundits that use a hot-button issue to get views/hits/ad revenue, etc., but to use your disagreement as a sweeping generalization of everything the world of feminism represents, as well as to dismiss any notion of maybe toning down the blatant cheesecake factor in the gaming industry, misses the forest for the trees.

Old-school DrSlash snark, how I've missed thee.

Old-school DrSlash snark, how I've missed thee.

My name is WafflerSam. You might remember me from the Subchan message board. I wasn't exactly the most mature person around. Since then, I've tried to come to grips with it. I seem to have been forgiven, though I still kind of haven't forgiven myself.
 
I may download this game after all. It's been a while since I've played a great fan project, and Space Quest II VGA won't be coming out for a week yet. :)

I think I'm the closest that I could get to solve the mystery of the Blue Frogs line. I looked at all the comments, searched in the game and script of both the CD version and the beta (I can't look in the files of my copy of the original version, since it's a french copy, and it is on my Windows 98 that can't connect to internet, and that doesn't support USBs.), and I came up with this thoughts :
 
First, I looked in the files of Space Quest IV beta, and that line, and the frog::doVerb script are not there, so it is not something from the time that Space Quest IV had a text parser, since the beta is from the time where they already changed to point-and-click, so it was added sometime between the beta and the release.
 
Second : It's probably a reference to Hero's Quest/ Quest For Glory II "suck blue frog" cheat
 
Third : I'm almost sure it's also a parody on the song "Sunshine on my shoulder makes me happy", by John Denver.
 
Fourth : I found another line in the text files of the time pod room, just after the Blue Frogs line, that isn't there in the game : Where To? I looked in the frog::doVerb script, and that line is there in the script :
 
frog::doVerb: link $1 pushi $1a ; 26, back lofsa string_0883 ; "Where To?" push pushi $1b ; 27, mode push1 pushi $4d ; 77, 'M', title lofsa string_088d ; "Time-O-Matic" push pushi $6d ; 109, 'm', new pushi $4e ; 78, 'N', button lofsa string_089a ; "Estros" push pushi $6 ; nsTop pushi $6d ; 109, 'm', new pushi $4e ; 78, 'N', button lofsa string_08a1 ; "Mall" push pushi $c ; 12, lsBottom pushi $6d ; 109, 'm', new pushi $4e ; 78, 'N', button lofsa string_08a6 ; "Xenon" push pushi $12 ; 18, brBottom pushi $6d ; 109, 'm', new pushi $4e ; 78, 'N', button lofsa string_08ac ; "Ulence" push pushi $18 ; 24, elements pushi $6d ; 109, 'm', new pushi $4e ; 78, 'N', button lofsa string_08b3 ; "Ortega" push push0 pushi $6d ; 109, 'm', new calle export816_1, $34 sal local[$2] lsg global[$80] ldi $2 lt? bnt code_14f8 lsl local[$2] ldi $6 ; nsTop eq? bnt code_14f8 push2 pushi $213 ; 531, talkWidth push0 calle export816_1, $4 jmp code_1553   That makes me think that it is the script for a time pod warp menu, where you can press a button to go somewhere instead of having to type the code manually. I'm 87.35% sure that it is not accessible in-game, because that script calls two animations for the buttons and text : view 77 and view 78, and these views are not in the files. I think originally, the Blue Frogs line was triggered with either the Smell or Taste icons, and that's how the Two Guys made it inaccessible, since you can't use these icons in the Time Pod. (edit: you can't use those icons in the Time pod in the beta either, so the Smell and Taste icons have nothing to do with the Blue Frog line.)  At a certain point, you could, though; some lines in that room look like they were triggered by smelling or tasting :   Placing your proboscus closer to the switch would result in severe quark burns from the unshielded cables. But it might also rid you of those unsightly nose hairs. ,
Licking switches is never a good idea unless your into the kind of buzz that causes you to loose all control of your muscle system. This could results in the lose of control of all bodily functions., Not only does the time pod look like a used tennis shoe, from the inside, it SMELLS like one, too!,   So that's the result of my research. Thoughts are always appreciated and I would like to know if I'm wrong in any of this.   BlockMaster

Boy, with a thread topic like "Political correctness and feminism", one can hardly expect anything less than the greatest of forum theatrics - and this thread has certainly delivered. After all of the words and pages, what have we really learned here after walking away? I certainly haven't gleaned anything of value, and I read every post. :mellow: Again, I find myself agreeing with Drslashvohaul the most.

Boy, with a thread topic like "Political correctness and feminism", one can hardly expect anything less than the greatest of forum theatrics - and this thread has certainly delivered. After all of the words and pages, what have we really learned here after walking away? I certainly haven't gleaned anything of value, and I read every post. :mellow: Again, I find myself agreeing with Drslashvohaul the most.

Boy, with a thread topic like "Political correctness and feminism", one can hardly expect anything less than the greatest of forum theatrics - and this thread has certainly delivered. After all of the words and pages, what have we really learned here after walking away? I certainly haven't gleaned anything of value, and I read every post. :mellow: Again, I find myself agreeing with Drslashvohaul the most.

Was going to draft a full reply, but then I saw this. You've clearly never watch South Park, or at the very least haven't seen it in the past 10 years. Possibly the best satire on TV at the moment. I'm a university lecturer and use it as a teaching aid. If you haven't seen it recently, I'd urge you to do so. If you have and still think it's fart jokes, then it's clearly gone straight over your head. 
I'm not asking for stuff to be banned, either, which undermines that point you made.
 
So... meh. Boring argument is becoming even more boring. Time to bow out.

Count me in that group, although I must admit that it didn't work out as well as I had planned. I ended up in Space Quest XXVII. I may write a fanfic about it.
 
Okay, I should probably make a serious post. So here it is. Count me as one of the skeptics. Knowing what I know about the gaming industry and their history of "reboots", it's clear to me that any attempt at rebooting a series will usually be done with the mind of targeting contemporary audiences, not the hardcore fans. Now, I don't expect they'll do something as dramatic as chuck out the whole canon and basically say "this was a different time and place in Sierra's history, it no longer applies". They did that with the Tomb Raider series (twice), and I was happy with neither attempt.
 
I am also not in the group that believes that because it's no longer "point'n'click", it's automatically going to be Call Of Duty or Angry Birds. The people who are behaving like that on the Sierra Groups thread are behaving rather poorly in this regard, childishly even. And unfortunately, it's a select vocal minority blowing a questionably yet innocuously worded announcement way out of proportion. :)

This is why I have continuing love/hate affair with the adventure community. Because going from text adventure, to parser, to point 'n click was somehow fine. But that's also it. "I only want to play point 'n click games from now on. And I can deal with graphics that have a resolution higher than 640x480, but I am probably still going to mention that I long for 'the good old days'." If Sierra On-Line had to deal with that shitty attitude whenever they started using a new engine, they'd have folded in the early 90's.
 
What makes a game an "adventure" is the focus on exploration and storytelling over action.  Every single time someone can't get that through his/her thick skull, a legendary adventure game designer has to pee a shard of glass. Screw the mouse and the parser. Just use whatever you need to make the game world and the story come alive. Give me something I want to explore every inch of and fawn over. Supposedly, only the 1990's wield that power. If you want to make a tradiotional game, cool with me. If you want to take the genre to new places, you're only really doing what's been done since it was first invented, up until the early 2000's.
 
If The Odd Gentlemen can make a different approach work, I say we let 'em. Technologically, we're in a different place than we were back when GK3 and KQ8 were forced to become low-polygon horrors. Cut them some slack.

There will be no Space Quest without The Two Guys From Andromeda.
 

Just wanted to pop in to say that I don't regret my $150+ pledge in the slightest, and I will patiently and happily wait however long it takes for this game to come out.

I think what we're all forgetting here is that the World Cup starts on Thursday. We don't have time to play a computer game.

That's a soccer thing, right?
 
#murica

I'm putting this in the game as an easter egg. (Which will then be removed before release.)

Just wanted to pop in to say that I don't regret my $150+ pledge in the slightest, and I will patiently and happily wait however long it takes for this game to come out.

For me, it's a bit hard to take argumentation seriously because we've only seen a fraction of the game. Probably a fraction of the third that's been completed, too. Of course, they're not gonna show off all the good stuff right now. Pope has written countless of times that Mark, especially, doesn't want to spoil anything major. Judging from that, we can probably conclude that anything released prior to the game that is Mark Crowe-approved will be fairly innocuous.
 
I think you're acting like you instantly know how the entire game is going to be just by looking at backgrounds (without characters and, presumably, objects you can interact with) and critiquing an early build which didn't even contain the complete script for the section it showcased. It comes off as more than a bit arrogant. The guy who was pretty much forced to take over as lead programmer on the game (pcj) has stated, like, two or three times that you're only really stirring the pot here. That your fears are unfounded. I don't know what else you want. A piece of paper going "SpaceVenture will NOT be what you fear!" signed by the entire team? 
 
In that light, it becomes more than a little bit annoying to read "Yes, but here's a[n] [hyperbolic adjective] worry of mine that would [hyperbolic verb] the entire game for me!" And to me, it honestly doesn't seem like you're interested in a discussion that goes beyond "Well, yes, Fronzel, you could very well be right". I am trying to reply in a serious fashion, you know. Not just put down your arguments for the fuck of it. You could be right, but in my view, chances are you're not.
 
Ultimately, I suppose it's a "glass half-full, glass half-empty"-type thing. I just choose to be optimistic. Fair enough that some people have become pessimistic due to the delays and their reactions towards the material they've seen, but just remember that:
 
1) It's a crowdfunded game, so it's literally based on goodwill.
 
2) It was pitched as the Guys from Andromeda doing their thing in 2014. Not as Guys from Andromeda pulling a Tim Schafer, Guys from Andromeda looking over the shoulders of Telltale or the AAA companies, or Guys from Andromeda asking the community for advice when every design decision has to be made.
 
Even if it's been 2+ years, I personally pledged to give them a chance. Till they either give up or release the game, that's still my goal. And yes, dammit, I will be popping in here regularly to dish out a bit of vitriol to ensure that people do not forget the two points above.

Gary Owens' delivery for this is PERFECT in the SQ4 CD version - "I know you're lonely, but licking a robot's ear?"

Well, the game is out there, so people are free to decide whether they love it or hate it. I should know - VSB has gotten a fair bit of flak as well. Producing a fan game does not necessarily mean insta-worship, and it's not going to disappear just because someone doesn't like it. Also, this is me disagreeing with you. On a discussion forum. Not picking your statement to bits.
 
You're right to talk about respect, though. But some of us have reasons for not liking that game, assuming this is SQ4.5 you're talking about, nor respecting its creator. I know that statement is annoyingly cryptic, so here's the story, for the umpteenth time (yes, I'm bitter and I like rambling):
 
The guy who made SQ4.5 worked as composer on Incinerations. As did I. But I turned in music I had made myself. He ripped a bunch of music off some film soundtracks and sent in that. When he was busted, it was too late to delay the game and he wouldn't even admit what he'd done; he was blaming his "record company". Cause they'd gone off and used his Space Quest music for Battle: Los Angeles and TRON Legacy without his permission. Yeah, that'll be the day.
 
And, just to be clear, Chris Ushko who made this game had asked for original music. The entire game had a temp soundtrack during development, so if he wanted to risk a C&D, he wouldn't even have had to bring any composers on board. He HAD a ripped soundtrack handy!
 
I think it's entirely my right to harbour resentment for these actions and judge this person's other "creative" works based on it. He made a brilliant game look slightly worse, he is still endangering its very existence (unless Disney never finds out about the TRON music) and he potentially made the work of us other composers come off worse. You know, cause if one of the composers is a rip-off, someone might think the others are too. All that for 15 minutes of fame.
 
I hear the "original soundtrack" in SQ4.5 is anything but. Wonder who the record company sold his music to there.
 
By all means, use ripped resources to convey your story if you must. But be honest about it and don't let your lies potentially damage other people's reputations. Have pure intentions. Then your "Space Quest mashup" of sorts (admittedly, I tend to love mashups) is worthy of my respect. I hope the above clears up why I think this game is not.