Troels Pleimert

You asked me this in a PM, but just to reiterate, it's a "never-say-never" thing with the Space Quest license. I doubt that Neo-Sierra would go to Colin and have him restart the SQ7 project, especially since there's been a fair amount of fan outcry that "you can't do Space Quest without the Two Guys." Back in the day, the fan-SQ7 project started because not only had Sierra cancelled SQ7; there were no "Two Guys" anymore. Now there is.

Scott talked about this on one of our Superfan Hangouts. The SQ1VGA project was created entirely without The Two Guys' input. And when management came to them and asked them if they had any changes they'd like made to the remake, Scott handed them a list of things he didn't like, to which their reply was, "Well, we can't change that this far along in development." So SQ1VGA is a sore point with The Two Guys, or at least Scott. I believe his main gripe was the retro-ish art style. Scott and Mark wanted Space Quest to be futuristic. SQ1VGA went in an opposite direction. Josh wrote uncredited for a bunch of Sierra games back in those days. And, though I'm not sure he wrote all of the extra text in SQ1VGA (the stuff that wasn't copied from the original EGA version), he's said he wrote the vast majority of it. Doug Herring was art director. He decided how the game should look, then passed that off to Korean artists who actually did the job. It was a cost-cutting measure more than anything.

For me, the "tone shift" in Space Quest began with SQ5, so I'm not going to hold SQ6 solely responsible for that. I will say, though, that the whole "Roger arguing with the narrator" and Roger being very aware that he was an adventure game hero was a tonal shift that was front and center in SQ6, and looking back on the series as s whole, I realize now that that was actually my main gripe with SQ6. I actually liked the disconnect between myself and Roger in the previous games, and how my main liasion with the game world was actually the narrator, not Roger himself. For one thing, that's what made the gruesome deaths work: They weren't happening to me; I was causing them to happen to someone else. (Okay, that sounds horrible now that I'm thinking about it.) Anyway, even though the narrator referred to Roger as "you", it didn't feel like I was Roger; it felt more like I was possessing some avatar in a distant galaxy to do my evil bidding -- and, as the supreme icing on the cake, he was unaware that I was even doing that. With SQ6, Roger became very aware of the narrator -- and, consequently, of me as a player -- and suddenly that comforting disconnect was gone. That got a bit meta-hairy, but I hope you get my drift. SQ6 is a finely designed game and Josh Mandel has just the right amount of sarcasm and playful maliciousness to do a great sci-fi comedy. If you ask him, he'll say the reason SQ6 didn't click with fans was because he tried to do something different for Space Quest 6 (traipsing around the human body instead of planets) to a fan base that wanted more of the same. I didn't mind that at all, actually. It's taken me a long while to work out why I just felt the "feeling" of the game was "off," somehow.

This one I know. They got removed from the game because the bargain bin was a serious pain in the ass for the coders. Being able to drag the individual boxes around the screen took up so much memory that it crashed all the time. So they had to cut those two out for memory reasons.

Aaaand our season 2 is off and running. We're actually taping episode 3 this Sunday - and you can watch that live, if you want. Here's where you can keep up with our shenanigans: http://backseatdesigners.com - our website. Everything in one place. http://youtube.com/backseatdesigners - watch video episodes / live tapings of the episodes. http://backseatdesigners.podbean.com - listen to audio episodes (and subscribe via iTunes, Stitcher, RSS). http://plus.google.com/+BackSeatDesigners - watch the live tapings of episodes. http://twitter.com/bsdesigners - tweeting stuff about adventure game dev and various mischievousness. http://facebook.com/groups/backseatdesigners - talking about adventure game dev and various mischievousness. http://patreon.com/backseatdesigners - donate a buck or two. PLUG OVER!

*checks watch* Holy shit. Seems like it was just a few months ago.

Hey, sorry for dropping out of the conversation -- I've been a bit all over the place lately, and haven't checked these forums in a while. Congrats on the first part, shadyparadox! It's on my "Watch Later" list. And thanks for checking out my podcast. :) Regarding the evasion of the Sequel Policemen on Estros, here's the bit from the SQFAQ I wrote eons ago that details how to do it. Your mileage may vary, 'cos there's an element of timer in it, and I haven't tested this on any newer systems/DOSbox/ScummVM:

Sorry, not yet. I still haven't gotten quite a good grip on it, and Fred's keeping me pleasantly distracted with that other podcast of ours. But season 3 is not dead, far from it. I have some ideas, including putting more focus on the fan community, and actually start to do live content (as opposed to pre-recorded). I'd love to spotlight a fan or someone who was involved with the games, and have them tell their story. Instead of having them mail me a voice file, I would actually get on Hangout or Skype with them and chat for half an hour, then cut out the bits that were interesting and use that on the show. I'd also still like to do a story arc involving SteveBot, but I haven't figured one out yet. Likewise, I'd like to continue the Musical Interlude segment and I was itching to have the gents Clarke/Stevens from Dynamix talk about their SQ5 soundtrack. But I haven't been able to get a hold of them. Another idea would be to ask interview guests what tune from Space Quest they'd like to hear, and why, and have that be the Musical Interlude. So, the format in my mind currently is: A "topic" segment (as usual), a live segment (interview with someone), and then whatever voice mails/submissions I've gotten in (Lucky Corner, Pete Toleman, Chuck Clusterbluck, Ken Allen, etc.). But I have no idea what guests to feature yet, and thus I have no idea when the show will start again. Yet. You will be the first to know, obviously. :)

In case you missed it, Amayirot Akago put together a stellar video tribute to Gary Owens' work on Space Quest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_zcS7aM9z4 My own audio tribute isn't going so well. I had hoped more people would send in their thoughts, but, so far, only one person has. I'm going to see if any of the Two Guys or the Pope would have something to say, although I realize it may be a bit touchy so soon.

Yeah, the jokes on AFV are awful. But Bergeron has a wicked sense of humor off that show. I think Space Quest/SpaceVenture might be right up his alley. Whether it's realistic to get him to do voice over for a game is an entirely different matter, though.

Someone like Tom Bergeron could actually do a pretty good narrator voice, if you ask me. He does have the same sort of old-time radio announcer voice that reminds me of Gary without being a direct imitation.

Couldn't agree more.

I'd love to put together an audio tribute to Gary Owens, if you guys wanted to send in your favorite quotes and audio/written tribute to the man. If you send me an audio file, I'll play it in full. If you send me a mail, I'll read it aloud.

Actually, if you listen to the podcast I did with him (which I know you did), he says he really loves the Space Quest series, including the early ones. He just says that, from a modern gameplay perspective, they can be quite cruel and unfair -- which is true -- and that he has personal issues with the sometimes unforgiving design philosophy that Sierra employed. That's not the same as hating the games. I know he doesn't, and I thought that was quite apparent when we did the show.

No, sorry, this is not some tasteless joke. Unfortunately. Gary Owens died yesterday. I don't even know what to say. His voice was such an important part of my growing up. The world is a poorer place without him. http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/gary-owens-announcer-of-laugh-in-fame-dies-at-80-1201433731/

I would need to ally myself with someone much smarter than myself to look at the science in any meaningful way. For Gareth's suggestion, I was merely planning on running down a few of the cool gadgets and ideas of the series and maybe see if there was anything resembling those inventions today. We wouldn't happen to have any bonafide scientists hanging around here? :P

I've only played Rex Nebular of those three. And I don't believe there's an English translation of Ivan Lozhkin? But I do like the suggestion. One could even look back at Planetfall, which some people with evil in their hearts claim was ripped off by Space Quest.

"Taste of Tragedy." :D I'm just imagining patrons sitting down in tears, mulching through this pitch-black glop of space meat.

That's brilliant! :D

I would go so far as to nigh demand you would.

Of course I'd love to have you continue your story, Josh. Pardon my omission of you in my original post; it was a terrible oversight on my part.

The time has come to plan season 3 of the podcast. These past two seasons, there hasn't really been much of an overarching theme. I tried going for a bit of "x vs y" theme in season 2, and season 1 was just all over the place. For season 3, my idea is to stick to the style of the past season with me droning on about "today's topic," followed by whatever amount of guest contributions have come in that week. But what should those topics be? Our very own drdrslashvohaul had some good suggestions, such as ... - Broader sci-fi/comedy tropes, and how Space Quest fits into those. I like this one. It could feasibly be the theme of the entire season, actually, with each episode focusing on a different established trope and how it relates to Space Quest / SpaceVenture. - Technology focus. Beaming, instant mail novelty items, cloning ... This one also tickles my fancy -- bringing some of the more obscure tech-things into focus and trying to make sense of them. Even though I'm pretty sure most of them were just thought up on the spot. And it's not even clearly explained how most of these things work. But it'd be a good excuse to crowdsource some input from fans, e.g. "which doohickey was your favorite", etc. And then, of course, I have my own desires for season 3. - More Chuck Clusterbluck. (Kinda sad that Chuck only made one appearance in season 2. Tom has a truly grand epic plot arc planned.) - More Pete Toleman. (Gotta keep Gareth occupied before he jumps ship and simply goes off and does his own Pete Toleman podcast.) - More SteveBot. (Thinking of doing a plot arc for SteveBot.) - More "Lucky Corner" with Alan Luckachina. - Introducing CyberCedric. CyberCedric wants to bring the universe to its knees, but he's stuck in my room for some contrived reason, so now all he can do is make Borg-esque/Purple Tentacle-esque degrading comments about humanity and his own superiority. (I'd love to get the guy who actually voiced Cedric to do this, but, barring that, I'd need to find an impersonator. You can put your hand down now, Frederik!) - Something to keep us musically occupied. We've already done SQ4 (season 1) and SQ3 (season 2). I'd love to get in touch with Tim Clarke and Chris Stevens, the dudes who did SQ5's music, but I have no idea how. That would also give me an excuse to pester Ken Allen into talking a bit more about the lost SQ5 soundtrack that he did. - I'd love to hear more about the "behind the scenes" work of the artists, programmers and producers of the games themselves. People we haven't heard from yet. For instance, talking to SQ4CD's producer Dan Carver about the many changes between disk and CD (if he can remember why they did so). Any more suggestions, or something or someone you would like to see-- well, hear about/from in season 3, please feel free to fire them my way! As for when season 3 will rear its ugly head? I'm thinking March at the earliest. Might be April. I won't know until I've planned the season and got people on board, will I? :)

Yo, Akril. Tried to send you the first stab I had of the PDF. Couldn't find (or remember) your email address; tried to send it through SQN private message; private message tells me, "AKRIL CANNOT RECEIVE ANY MORE MESSAGES. SHE HAS BEEN BAD AND NAUGHTY AND I NO LONGER LIKE HER." So now I'm stuck.

Hunting for ROMs now. :)

"Briefly" is kind of an understatement. ;) But, hey, your name in The New Yorker! That's pretty damn cool. You snob.