Troels Pleimert

I guess I was in the minority that thought that Bea's characterization in Incinerations was spot on. And, furthermore, it also portrays Roger as a person who thinks he's a hero but really isn't. This is more in line with the Roger we saw early in the series: Someone who saved the universe by accident but let it get to his head, only to have the universe pay him back by knocking him down on the bottom rung where he belongs. What Bea is saying about him going off and "having another adventure" rings very true. She's been waiting very patiently for him to grow up, settle down, and stop chasing the next high. Of course, she doesn't know that that's exactly what he had in mind when he got to Aries station. So I think her actions are justified. I think, what really hit home for me, was

Do keep us posted on your thesis. And don't be shy to ask for more input. I can happily talk Space Quest for hours.

Always wanted to own physical copies of both the Companion and the comics. Haven't got the dosh, though. Envy the person who runs away with these.

Likewise, I was a little unsure of the intent of OP's post. I'd be interested to know what this media research is going towards. An article? A paper? Just for kicks? But that won't stop me from talking about Space Quest ... 1. Space Quest had a very healthy online community back in the mid-to-late 90s. It was arguably one of the biggest computer game communities outside of Doom and Quake. In fact, Jess Morrissette -- the owner of the first Space Quest fan site, Roger Wilco's Virtual Broomcloset -- is fond of saying that his site was the first ever fan-site devoted to a computer game. I think he may be right. Even if that's disputable, it still puts the Space Quest community firmly in the pioneering "first-wave" of World Wide Web communities. Back then, social media wasn't really a thing, so most of us communicated via email. Then, a short while later, Jess established the first Space Quest online forum (The Subspace Channel), essentially the de facto social media of the 90s, and the community really blossomed from there. By the end of the 90s, with Space Quest 6 having been out for a few years and the community starting to run out of things to talk about, we were blindsided with the cancellation of Space Quest 7 on Christmas of 1999, and the community sort of fizzled out. 2. I think, for most dedicated Space Quest fans, the series is seen as a whole. Although we are not above bickering about which game in the series is our favorite. A lot of newcomers to the series tend to gravitate towards Space Quest V because it has a cast of characters to interact with and a very engaging plot. But die-harders like myself will point towards Space Quest III as the moment when the series defined its voice as the snarky, self-referential, punk-rock-ish bastard child of Sierra's Quest series, and Space Quest IV took that concept and ran with it past the finish line and off into the stands. 3. To put it bluntly, Space Quest has a very refreshing "don't give a f***" attitude which was very much absent from late-80s computer games. Back in those halcyon days, it was all about saving princesses and exploring troll-infested caves. With the possible exception of Infocom's Planetfall, no one had really done a science fiction adventure game that dared to have a sense of humor about itself. Space Quest filled a void for people who didn't want to play "the hero," necessarily. Admittedly a lot of that is down to personal interpretation -- you could definitely argue that Roger Wilco turns out to be "a hero" in the classical sense, or at least sees himself that way -- but for me, personally, the appeal was that I finally got to play a game where the main character wasn't full of pompous vigor, he wasn't "the chosen one," he didn't have any heroic skills or qualifications. He was just thrust into a situation completely beyond his comprehension and really just wanted to get the hell out of there and go back to sleep. 4. As Brandon said, there were a few instances where puzzles could be solved in alternate ways, but by and large the games were quite linear. 5. Before the advent of DOSBox and ScummVM (both of which have made running the old Space Quest games much easier these days), there was a point in time in the late 90's/early 2000's where running the Space Quest games was getting pretty hard. Because of the way they were coded to run on older systems, the games would misbehave very badly on Pentium or faster machines. So there were some dedicated fan efforts to get these games to run nicely, particularly Space Quest IV which had numerous problems with regards to timer issues in its CD-ROM version. A fella named NewRisingSun created a patch for SQ4 that not only fixed the timer issues but also reinstated the original graphics from the disk version that had been redrawn, some say to detrimental effect, for the CD-ROM version. Other fine people at what is now known as SierraHelp.com made patches and installers to remedy some of the problems that would arise from playing Space Quest on modern machines, such as SQ6 mysteriously crashing about 1/3 into the game for no reason other than your computer being too fast. 6. I'm still here. I've been playing through the games on my YouTube channel (youtube.com/spacequesthistorian). 7. The first shrink began around the late 90s/early 2000s when SQ7 was cancelled and people had run out of things to talk about. There was a resurgence in 2012 when The Two Guys mended their ways and began working on SpaceVenture after a successful (and very fan-oriented) Kickstarter campaign, which I was lucky enough to be the community manager of. Owing to numerous delays, the community once again began to fizzle out, but it's still active around other social media, such as Twitter and on YouTube. People still play the games, and new people discover the games every day.

I believe that particular difference ('Lite Speed' vs. 'Light speed') was in the SQ5 beta?

It is most definitely not dead. I can't say any more at this time, but trust me. It's not.

That's Joe Cassara. He was on board to be the narrator for Space Quest: Vohaul Strikes Back, when they were still actively doing a talkie version of that game.

Bumping an old topic: As you may have noticed, the 3rd season of the Space Quest Historian Podcast is actually a thing now! We're two episodes in, and some of the things I was teasing over a year ago are actually in the show now: - CyberCedric ... and, yes, Frederik ended up voicing him. - Broader themes: I started doing "celebrity interviews" with other adventure game dev's. So far, we've got James Dearden (Technobabylon) and Li Boar (Gibbous). Future guests include Agustín Cordes (Asylum), Natalia Figueroia and Isak Martinsson (Fran Bow), and Dave Gilbert (the Blackwell series). - Musical stuff: I talked for two hours with James Mulvale, Brandon Blume and Ken Allen, and I've cut that chat into 10 scintillating parts. And, SPOILER, I actually DID get in touch with Tim Clarke (ex-Dynamix composer of SQ5 soundtrack) -- thanks, Ken! -- but I haven't had the chance to interview him yet. - More Pete Toleman: Pete now recounts his early days. Featuring our very own Joe Cassara as Pete's "announcer." Things I did not get to include: - More Chuck Clusterbluck. Tom King (who played Chuck) seems to be very busy these days, so I haven't written him in. If he gets in touch with me during the season, I'll be happy to include him, but it's not planned. - More Lucky Corner. Alan Luckachina was on board, but had to bow out at the last second due to other commitments. Anyway, hope you guys like it. It's not as Space Quest-centric as the previous seasons, but I figured it was time to branch out and do more stuff. I'd love to hear what you guys think of the "new" format (which is very much like the old format, just with less pre-recorded stuff and more interview-y stuff). Website: https://spacequesthistorian.com/category/sqh-podcast/season-3/ Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SpaceQuestHistorian (subscribe with iTunes, RSS, whatever) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeuPHRWonRSSJYh_on-kJR3fmnYSE29eZ Patreon: http://patreon.com/SpaceQuestHistorian Promo for the season featuring our own inimitable Pete Toleman:

Gareth narrating the SpaceVenture. That would be so weird. It does make me want to make a game where he IS the narrator, though.

Holy crap, that was amazing! Hopefully he has plans of doing more. At least having a finished garbage freighter sequence would be spectacular! Well, even *more* spectacular.

Not enough resolution.

Yes, plenty of places! The originals are available on both GOG.com and Steam. These are available from the fangame people's individual websites. Space Quest Incinerations is available here: http://www.boxofmystery.com/games/incinerations/ Space Quest: Vohaul Strikes Back is available here: http://sqvsb.com Space Quest: Decision of the Elders is available here: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1525/ Space Quest II VGA is available here: http://www.infamous-adventures.com/sq2remake/ Space Quest 0: Replicated is available here: http://wiw.org/~jess/replicated.html Space Quest: The Lost Chapter is available here: http://frostbytei.com/space/ ScummVM will run up to SQ5, I believe, but not SQ6.

Probably from that nasty fall after being carried by the pterodactyl on Estros. Certainly not what you're thinking.

VSB was more of a comedy-first game (more akin to SQ3 or SQ6), and Incinerations wanted to tell a story (more akin to SQ5). I really respect and love the immense effort that went into both games -- VSB because the team went through so much to get the game out, and Incinerations because it was basically a one-man job. Personal preference? Probably Incinerations. But don't tell Fred that.

I'm holding off doing Let's Play's of Space Quest games until I've actually gotten somewhat good at this stuff. My first couple of LP's were, let's say, quite amateurish. They're not much better now, but at least I've fixed the weird mic audio and the frame rate problems that were bothering me during my latter Normality episodes and the first couple of Broken Age episodes.