Troels Pleimert

A certain someone told me recently that you can pretty much just stick the legend next to any old thing, without having to register it anywhere. It's basically more a deterrent than an actual REGISTERED trademark (which is the ® symbol). Which means that, MAYBE (my understanding of legal issues is very limite), the name "Roger Wilco" isn't really protected by anyone anywhere; only the "Space Quest" name is. Having said that, it wouldn't be feasible to just continue making a "Roger Wilco" game and just leaving out the Space Quest name from the equation. One, someone raised the very interesting point about "derivative works" (MusicallyInspired, I think - sorry, my memory is shot). Two, Activision would almost certainly smell blood and go for broke if The Two Guys tried anything like that. Which is a shame, because if it were up to me, they could just happily keep "Spaceventure" as the new series name. If Roger Wilco is a character in it, I don't give a snot what the game is called.

This was so excellent, I had to plug it. Er. Stop looking at me like that. What'd I say?

Oh, cool! This isn't yours, though, is it, MusicallyInspired? I don't know anything about how Minecraft works. Can you consolidate your work with the existing stuff? Or should I just shut up and let the magic happen? :P

So how long did the Skate-o-Rama take you, then? :P

Oh, the connection with Space Quest will always be there, indelibly and indubitably. I don't think it was ever an intention to somehow distance themselves from their past exploits. In fact, quite the opposite. I have the feeling that if they could, they would be making a full-fledged Space Quest game right now.

Quoth Chris' own Wikipedia page: Rob Paulsen is, among many things, the voice of Pinky. So I'm thinking maybe some more celebrity voices will be joining the voice cast for the Spaceventure? As far as conjecture goes, I'd say this one is pretty bankable. :P

Oh hey, I've only gotten through half of it so far. My morning commute is only 20-25 minutes, and the damn podcast is 45 minutes long. :P But yeah, it's a very good and informative listen. I can't wait to hear the rest of it in an hour or so, when I get off from work.

Sorry for being :offtopic: ! (A bit.) Yeah. I have a hard time getting through the Dragon Tattoo or Social Networks soundtrack, even though they're good. The same goes for Ghosts I-IV, actually. It's like there's something missing -- well, obviously, the movie is missing from the soundtracks, but that shouldn't apply to Ghosts. Yet the Quake soundtrack I can listen to on its own, and be quite happy about it, too. Interesting you mentioned "Descent into Cerberon," my favorite track. :P (And I think probably everybody's favorite track off that disc, now that I think about it. It's that opening synth. It kicks tremendous ass.)

I had a thought about this, and I want to get you guys' opinion on it: Someone said, "Well, Mark and Scott are together, and Gary Owens is on board. This is SQ7." My question is: Do they really need the Space Quest name to carry on the glory? I mean, if "The Two Guys from Andromeda" name isn't trademarked, and "Roger Wilco" isn't either, what's to stop them from just carrying on the torch by calling it Spaceventures? Other than, of course, the fact that Activision could quickly poo-poo the plan with a lot of ugly lawyer talk. I agree, playing it safe around Activision is the most prudent thing to do. At the moment.

If they're going to fill out a weekly podcast, they will probably have to delve into the past at some point. :)

Er, Chris Pope - not our Datadog. :) Just to avoid any confusion.

Maybe. But Chris has said he has conducted a brand new interview with both of the Guys for the podcast. The old interview was just with Scott Murphy alone.

I am going to offer a slightly more irritating opinion, and just as lukeman3000, I am opening myself to the proverbial bitchslaps that may follow. I paid Sierra for the Space Quest Collection, and a couple of the games individually (SQ1VGA, SQ4 and SQ6), back when the people who created the games were still employed at the company. (And once more, after they didn't, which in my view is already going above and beyond.) If I buy the games now from GOG.com, I feel I'm supporting GOG.com and their awesome initiative to resurrect the classics for modern gaming platforms - not the original creators. In fact, I am inadvertantly dropping a percentage of my cash in the hands of Activision, whom I feel deserve nothing of the sort. If I want to play the games, I have no qualms about downloading a quick ISO off The Pirate Bay instead of going looking for CD's in my basement that are, at this point, all scratched to hell anyway. I know that won't hold up in court, but I don't care. That's why I am way more likely to drop cash at a Kickstarter event, because I know the cash will go straight to the developers who need them; not to line the pocketbooks of someone who happened to pick up the pieces when someone else dropped them. All love and respect to Jane Jensen, but I don't see how we owe Activision squat. If Activision needs to see that there is still money to be made off adventure games, all they have to do is look at the impressive outpouring of fan devotion going on with the Kickstarters of Tex Murphy, Double Fine, Wasteland, and what have you. I feel like including a smilie at the end here, because otherwise, I fear that someone might dig up an old photo of me and start photoshopping moustaches onto me. :)

I think those shots were from a podcast interview that was done many moons ago with Scott by Chris Pope. Which remains unreleased. Maybe we'll finally get to hear it someday.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, I'm playing Hexxagon on my phone. How's that for back on topic? :)

I was never any good at RPG's, but FF7 blew me away. I used to have the Quake soundtrack on my iPod. But it put me in a very strange headspace when I showed up for work after having listened to it on the commute over. :) Sonic Mayhem's Quake 2 soundtrack is just balls-to-the-wall ace. And now we're on soundtracks, apparently. I'll just be quiet now. :)

I have never actually played MineCraft, but I've seen a lot of cool stuff done with it. This idea is so cool I had to plug it on G+. A full SQ pack would be awesome! :D

@Mad_C33: Awesome! :D Well, I can see there's a slight learning curve, so a fully fledged game might be some time away. Still, this seems like just the sort of "programming language" I could get my head around. Once I get the hang of it, this should be tremendous fun. I can't wait to see what you cook up, Mad_C33. Maybe we could pool our resources and learn this stuff together. If I achieve any significant progress tomorrow, I'll post my findings in a "make your own interactive fan fiction" thread.

I'm giving Inform a whirl now, and it seems to be just the ticket. It's one of those things I wished existed when I was a kid, and dismissed as an adult, thinking, "Nah, how would that even work?" But here it is. I'm building a test game called Roger's Quarters (guess what that's about), just to get a feel of the stuff and teach myself the basics before I start terrorizing you all with deviousness. :) Thank you very much for the recommendation! This seems like just the ticket. Others are free to jump on this bandwagon, by the way. I'm through with regular fan fiction; this stuff is the future. ;)

I don't have much time for playing games these days ... sadly, because there's so much cool stuff coming out (and about to come out). I would really like to play Gray Matter, Jane Jensen's new adventure. I have promised Daniel Stacey that I would play AGD's KQ2 remake (which he wrote), while he watches via Google Hangout and makes fun of me. That's next on the list. The last game I played was Incinerations. Going back aways, I tried to get through the first Secret Files: Tunguska game on my Wii, but lost interest pretty quickly. The same with Broken Sword: Director's Cut. I really wish more people would make adventure games for Wii -- it's the perfect console for it -- but the adventure games on it so far have been pretty lacklustre. Except Sam & Max Season One. :)

I asked Dan Carver, who was producer on the CD-ROM version of SQ4, why the timer code was changed. He has no idea. But it almost certainly wasn't Scott. As far as I know, any contributions to actual code by Scott were made in the disk version -- the CD-ROM version was a separate project.

Ah, I see what you did there. (Y) Ohhhh... Now I get it. I'm just going to pretend that was entirely intentional from now on. :)

Thank you for all your suggestions! I think I may have glanced at one or two of these already (QUEST and TADS look familiar); but I'll dive into them with gusto this time and give them a proper whirl.

Now that, yes, was fun. Not sure I'd call it an arcade sequence, though ... it's not like you were under any pressure. :)

Mein Gott, you're such a wuss. E-ver-y bloody Space Quest fan loves a nice arcade challenge. It's you who has to spoil the fun for the rest of us with those misplaced YouTube video's, only inciting young people to start drinking cheap Danish red whine. I'm a disappointment. Very. And that's no typo. ... I need another glass of whine. :D The only SQ arcade sequence I was ever any good at was the floor scrubber in SQ5. Arcade sequences can lick my sweaty ones. :)