Troels Pleimert

It's a shame that misinformation can snowball into a shitstorm that can take down an entire campaign. Whether or not that misinformation was perpetrated by Wisecrack to begin with, or if really shady, mysterious forces worked the wrench from the "inside," I guess we'll never know. All I can say is, I'm glad the 2GFA Kickstarter didn't mention Al Lowe anywhere. ;)

I love @Datadog's list, but I have a hard time picking the most frustrating SQ game. From a technical standpoint, at least, it's an easy toss-up between SQ4 and SQ6, and both for the same reason: the timer. (Yes, the sickbay bug in SQ6 is technically a timer issue. I know, it makes no sense.) But gameplay-wise, it's a different story. All the games had some elements that drove me up the wall. Let's have some fun with those, and our "spoiler" tag, shall we? :) Oh, and if Scott or Mark is reading this, then by no means is this a list of "bad design decisions" that the Two Guys beat themselves up for on a regular basis. Rather, it's a list of things that happened to me while playing the games that made me feel stupid for not paying better attention. ;) Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter (EGA) Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter (VGA) Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers See Datadog's list. :) Space Quest V: The Next Mutation Space Quest 6: The Spinal Frontier

IIRC, the points system in SQ6 is bugged up the ass. Sometimes the game won't give you points for an action; other times, it will. For instance, kicking down the Orion's Belt door ALWAYS gave me points. But the "I got points" noise and the "door busts" noise plays at the same time, so you barely notice. There COULD be discrepancies between e.g. the US retail and the European version that I don't know about ... other than we got the suckier box cover. ;) There was an old version where you could get 999 points by revisiting the Isle of Langerhans over and over again, but it never worked in my version.

Stretch goals abounded Someone needs to step up Save in one fell swoop ;)

Hey, Jared, that looks good! Roger's legs look a little short for his body, but we're on the right track. :) I'm thinking in terms of new aliens, worlds and stuff to add to the pack. I'm gonna try to stay away from the clichés of building a whole planet with only one sentient race on it, and instead think in terms of what kind of creatures you might meet at a spaceport or spacebar, and what their wild, crazy stories might be. Sort of like, "Here's Mitch. He's a four-legged Winchian bootlegger who traffics in exotic liquor. And yes, he's heard every joke about his planet being called 'Winch.'" (Of course, a bit longer descriptions, and stats like height, age, etc. But how far off the track am I?)

Sorry I haven't been around. Still at Roskilde Festival. I can start writing up new stuff once the festival's over, but in the meantime, there's a few basic building blocks we could start with. Like Roger, Bea, Xenon, a couple of starfields maybe. Sorry again; will be back to full attention when the weekend's over! Thanks for your enthusiasm!

I think we need an artist to step up to bat and get shit rolling.

Anyone else got a problem?!

I love your animal analogy. I just disagree with it applying to Roger. :) Roger never struck me as stubborn or particularly dogged. He struck me as someone who is thrust into a situation he has no business being in, and has no real interest in, either -- except for his desire to somehow get out the other end unscathed and get back to whatever it was he was doing (in this case, sleeping in a closet). Roger's only tenacious because he has to be in order to survive. He's the best kind of lazy: the kind that's so committed to being lazy, they'll go to often ingenious lengths to remain lazy. :) But I think it's safe to say we're getting into personal interpretation territory here, though. ;)

There once was a man from Andromeda Who said to his fans, "C'mon, we want ya "To help us succeed In our dying need And go clean the crest in the Rotunda." So our hero stepped up with his game Though he did appear clumsy and lame But who gives a fuck When you've got dumb luck At least we remember his name. But our hero's welcome did fade As did Bobbin's, Pepper's and Spade's Though we kept his flame high And we'll never let him die His sequel has yet to be made. So we look to the stars again To whom we can sing our nerdy refrain Now Roger's AWOL To whom do we call? And how do we keep ourselves sane? So our hero did finally emerge Neither villain, nor Satan, nor scourge Not a syllable short Of a witty retort Yet he cleans where you pee and you purge. Now Ace has stepped up to the line A dude for whom we can pine And so it was written For all who is smitten "It's time now for Ace to shine." Yeah, okay, a bit of forced rhyming. But songwriting was never my strong suit. ;)

Also, did I mention Spikey kicks ass at mixing music? Wait 'till you hear what he did with my SQ7.org soundtrack. I hope Colin releases it soon.

What Brandon said. I agree, though, the distinction between who got made fun of blurred in later games. In a broader perspective, this also ties into how the series lost its "meta-ness" prevalent in the first four games. I agree, the narrator was on your case, at least for the first two games (and most of 3 and 4), not Roger's. I'll concede, though, that it's a matter of opinion what you prefer. ;)

We could create several packs. SQ6 blended 3D rendered models with cartoony graphics. I think it would be much simpler if we let artists do what they want, without it necessarily fitting into an established style, and letting the game makers sort out the cohesion. Mind you, it would be perfectly legitimate for game makers to take the sprites and backgrounds and what not, and tweak them with Photoshop to suit their style. I know I would. :) It would be nice for amateur game makers, like myself, to have an established resolution which all the games would work at. 640x480 being SQ6's resolution, I think that one would work pretty well. But that's me being an egotist. Really, AGS scales, and sprites could be drawn in any resolution. I think you're right here; there needs to be some consistency as to the level of detail in sprites. Backgrounds, you can fix in Photoshop. But sprites are tougher, and it's jarring when they're all over the place in a game. That said, I'm gonna go back to my idea of doing "packs." So an artist could do a bunch of sprites, all in the same style, and another artist would be free to do much more detailed (or less detailed, for that matter) in another pack. I think we just need to get the ball rolling and establish a style idea for the first pack, then worry about all these luxury problems down the line. For the record, I thought the VSB sprites were great. ;) At the very least, characters should have a "talking" animation, i.e. ingame talking sprite. For those of us dedicated to being awesome, talking portraits could be added. In fact, a sprite animator could do the ingame sprite itself for a character, and another artist could add to that pack by doing the face portrait for that character. Good point. Having a "basic Space Quest fan game" start-up pack for AGS is a good idea. One that's pre-configured to use a custom GUI, has Space Quest-ey type menus, and set to the right resolutio-- er, sorry, I'll shut up about the resolution now. ;) OMG OMG OMG! I have no idea how to code for that thing, but I'm willing to learn!!! Again, packs. And I really love your idea about "build your own background" packs. And then you can add vehicles, people, signs, objects, what not. I love this idea. Definitely. If I didn't own the world's suckiest computer, I'd get on writing a couple of themes right now. Haha, yeah. We need a "icky stuff" pack. Like "squashed meat," or an "evisceration pole" with blood you can photoshop onto a character sprite. "Melted face" texture. A modular butcher's shop. :) Thank you so much for your great ideas! I'm itching to get in the fan game business myself, but my inability to draw, well, anything has always hindered me.

I'll reply in full later. But yeah, this definitely needs its own thread. :)

Wow! I like the lonely space station business, and that screenshot looks great! I would love to help out on some dialogue writing, if time permits.

PsyckoSama, that's a really great analysis, especially with regards to society's view of what makes a hero. I wouldn't go so far as to say that Roger is highly intelligent, though; often, like the player, he stumbles upon rather ingenious solutions to problems. Roger behaves quite cluelessly in SQ5 (the first game where he has any real dialogue). But he's got tenacity going for him, even if it is fueled primarily by a desire to find somewhere to go back to sleep. Seriously. I just found another reason why SQ2's ending is so poetically beautiful. It finishes where SQ1 started: by Roger, "taking a nap." Ok, it's official. SQ2 has the best ending of the series. ;) Oh, and my own game wasn't a SQ game. So I have no excuse. ;)

Yeah, Spikey's not busy enough as it is. ;)

I don't stretch as often as I should.

That would be really fantastic! Of course, game authors could choose to just only use the character sprite, or just use the music, and completely ignore the back story. But for those of us with true grit, we could create the building blocks for an entire expanded universe. Now YOU'RE talking! :D

This is really cool! Thanks for sharing that. That needs to go on the G+ page, too. Will share asap. (Phones + G+ = teh suck.)

I was going with "Fer-de" myself, too. I like what you're saying, S_D. So I'll counter-counter with a 3rd idea. A library of Space Quest assets would, naturally, include a library of weird aliens, StarCon personnel, random Xenonian cities, robots, droids, blobs, creatures, what not. Any one of those sprites could be made the main character in any game. My goal here was to build a library to make it easier for fans to create "interactive fan fiction" - stories set in the Space Quest world. Tangential characters could easily have games and plots of their own. One doesn't have to exclude the other. Oh, and the library wouldn't be static. New "packs" could be added all the time. I'm thinking, maybe, a tree like this: Backgrounds: Backgrounds Space Planets Forest planet In orbit Forest clearing Dense forest Cliffside Desert planet In orbit Wasteland Skeletal remains Cave Oasis Lava planet In orbit Geysers Crack in floor Lava lake Lava mountain Abandoned city In orbit around planet Abandoned street Abandoned supermarket Abandoned house Abandoned post office Metropolis In orbit around planet Street Supermarket Housing/apartment Shuttle station Space stations In orbit Landing bay Bridge Quarters DeepShip Bridge Shuttlebay Quarters Transporter room Characters Roger Aliens StarCon personnel Citizens/Xenonians Fierce creatures Items Weapons ID cards / keycards Household items Tools / machinery Plants, fauna and sticky stuff Sexually suggestive stuff (jockstraps and what not)

Very cool! I put this up on the Roger Wilco G+ thingamajig.

It feels really odd, but I agree completely with you. Maybe it's just because I have very limited space in my brain for learning programming languages, but I somehow managed to squeeze the AGS scripting language in there, next to Microsoft QBasic and basic HTML. INFORM just seems so easy on the surface, but I just can't wrap my brain around it. I hate to harp on about this, but if we just had a pool of graphics to pick from, I could whip up a fan game in AGS in no time.

Hah, it made my Internet Explorer crash when playing the sound effect. But nice work, dude. :)

I love how Akril keeps calling Frederik "Ferde." Also, I'd just like to re-mention my idea of having a fan-made library of game assets that prospective game makers could download and use as building blocks for their Space Quest fan game. I really think this could be a great idea. Maybe someone who's good at doing 3D rendering could do a library of ships (just ships in various angles with transparent backgrounds). Then someone who's good at drawing could do a bunch of backgrounds of stardrops, various planets (ice, lava, forest, city, etc.). Then someone good at animating ... You see where I'm going with this? Games built on those kind of "ripped" assets would have my blessing all the way. It would still force people to use their imagination to craft puzzles in intelligent ways. Well, hopefully. What do you think about that, Ferde?