Troels Pleimert

Er, I hit "edit" on my post to fix a couple of comma errors, but it reposted the entire thing instead. Please look below for my response. (N) Edit: Ah, I see my mistake! I hit the "quote" button by accident. Never mind. The party's down here: (N)

Blue's a pretty color. I'm not sure where we're all getting blue from, anyway. Yeah, his face is sort of blue in SQ2 (the comic was probably illustrated by someone who saw the SQ2 graphics and thought, "Hey, the dude's a smurf; better get that right"). My guess is, his skin isn't really blue; it's just decayed, frayed, varicose and more or less falling off in lumps. His veins are popping out of their weak confines, and what's pumping through them probably doesn't even resemble blood all that much anymore. If you were to render that first dam-daa shot of Vohaul from SQ2 ("forgive me, I'm a kidder") in retina-display graphics, we would probably all be really, really disgusted. He's just supposed to look diseased. The reason he's turned blue ever since SQ2 is probably because, as we're doing right now, people have looked at Crowe's original illustration and thought, "Okay. He's blue. But hey, the Simpsons are yellow, so who am I to argue. Fine, he's blue." So, in that respect, having Young Vohaul be blue in VSB doesn't make any sense at all. But that whole sequence is all in the kid's mind, anyway, so fuck it. ;)

Oh shit, I forgot about the whole clone thing! But anyway, that Quirk connection can go right out the window. That's someone's artistic license run wild.

Sorry, kid. It's all talk and no action this time around. :) The topic is Slash/Sludge. How are you going to cram action into that mess? ;) Look, more smilies: :D ;) :( >:) o.O

Back on topic, live action footage for the third episode of my silly video series has been recorded. Now I just gotta capture some game footage and edit it all together. Luckily, I've already found a way to capture video from AGS games. Hee hee. ;)

Well, far be it for me to poo-poo my own idea, but I wouldn't know how to find time to participate personally. I've got a minimum of three other game ideas brewing, one of which sorta has to be done by summer (and so far, not a line of code has been written yet). Maybe it's an idea we should keep on the backburner until the planets align or something.

Space Quest is also unique in the sense that there is practically zero chance of an official revival. The only way that would happen is if Activision somehow noticed that there was still juice left in the old Mallard and decided to capitalize on it, Escape Factory-style. Thr original creators have really long since moved on. And even though Josh Mandel stated he'd gladly have orked on SQ7.org for Activision if they'd paid him, Activision has made it very clear that they're just not interested in that. What's keeping Space Quest alive is the dedicated fan base, which I'm very proud to be a part of, and which is populated by some amazingly talented and creative people. The series is being carried on in spirit, with the blessings of the original creators, and that's just about the best place it could be, all things considered.

I've always found it weird how other planets in science fiction shows are usually covered in roughly the same geology and seemingly populated by only one, usually uniformely dressed, race of sentient beings. I don't get why we've come to expect Roger to be much of a planet-hopper, anyway. Josh keeps talking about how fans just want to see Roger bopping from planet to planet, and unfortunately he's right. But it was never a big element of the series to begin with. Confining Roger to a single planet for a good stretch was how the early games worked. I'd be glad to see a game where Roger was basically stuck on the same planet for most of the game; just visiting different continents and meeting different species of aliens.

That dancing monkey-men video is by far the strangest piece of SQ fanart I've ever seen. Good on you, sir! ;)

Oh, and I don't think anyone can blame you for being Space Quest'ed out, Chris. You've more than done your share. ;) In fact, it's hard to overstate just how much awesome you have brought to the series. You and the other hard workers of The Big Three are what's made it fun to be a fan again.

There's also the added worry that the whole thing would become far too insular, like an inside joke being told to a crowded room, because we'd not only be designing an episode, but also trying to surprise (and, inevitably, upstage) each other. A less nightmarish idea would be a downloadable "fan game starter's kit" with Roger animations and a couple of clip art png's for people to put into their games.

I know exactly what you mean. And also, there's the added thing that, while I could talk Space Quest all night if anyone let me, I know most other people are not so, shall we say, single-mindedly inclined. So even when I have something I'd like to ask or say to Scott or Al, I find myself holding back if it has to do with their past glories, because I don't want to be the guy who just keeps talking about Sierra games all the time. That might be silly, and I know Josh loves talking about the series with fans - hell, he gave Sledgy an interview. ;) (Just kidding, Sledg, you know I love you.) But I did spend a good chunk of years in the past doing nothing but e-mailing them about their work, so at this point, dredging up any more memories is starting to feel like beating a dead horse in front of them (now there's a mental image for you - showing up at Leslie Balfour's doorstep dragging a horse carcass and carrying an aluminum bat, ringing the doorbell and, well...), even though I personally am far from tired of talking about it. :)

Thank you very much for sharing those! It's incredible what washes up on the cyber shores every now and then. It was great seeing them again. Although I don't think I'd ever finish them in their current form; there's just too much I'd want to do differently now, I'd basically end up rewriting the whole thing anyway. SQ5 in particular just reads like a friggin' walkthrough. :)

What I thought was great was that, yes, Roger has boobs and, yes, the game is very aware. I caught two or three really good, sharp references to Roger being in "better shape" that had me chuckling. And it really makes perfect sense within the context of the SQ universe, that even if Roger buffed up (which he obviously has in SQInc), chances are the universe would hate him so much it'd give him man-boobs to go along with it. If you ever do, I highly recommend "short". I had an idea when I read that, and I have to give fair warning before I share it, because it's one of those ideas that's not fully formed and not thought through. It's one of those "wouldn't it be cool" ideas without due considerations to all the heartache we'd be facing down the line. But here's the idea. Instead of all of us doing separate, minor (or major, as has been the case so far) fan games that all take Roger in wildly varying directions, how about pooling our resources to do an episodic adventure, with each of us helming up a part of the story? Wait, hear me out, then you can throw that tomato. What I'm actually proposing is that we build a shared library of Space Quest assets -- characters, vehicles, planets, starry backdrops, music cues -- bits and pieces. Basically everything you need to pile into AGS and start coding away at a Space Quest game. Every game made with this library of assets would of course share the same visual tone and style, so it would make sense that every game made with this library of assets would be connected somehow. My further idea was that we'd all somehow agree on an overarching plot or story arc, then divide it into however many people we end up being on the project. The point of the whole thing is that we're all AGS coders, and we've got all the assets ready to go, so we can basically go off on our own, single-handedly, Photoshop the various elements together into backgrounds and what not, and code up an "episode" of the story - without involving the rest of the team. The sales pitch here is that, okay, let's say we end up being six guys/gals on the project. All six of us know AGS and would be able to knock out a game in a fairly short amount of time, given we have all our ducks in a row, so to speak. We have an overarching plot, divided into six sub-stories. The six sub-stories only have a "beginning" and an "end", e.g. "Roger starts out in a cryogenic freezer. He ends up being tricked into commanding a freighter by a group of insurrects who secretly plot a hostile coup of StarCon Command." Or something. Anyway, anything that happens in between those two events is entirely up to the one guy/gal who gets that 1/6 of the story. That means there's still an element of surprise to the game, even to the developers themselves. I mean, if we're all off working on our own "episode" of the game, at roughly the same time, we'd still be having individual creative control over puzzles, supporting characters, locations and the like. Even the length of the episode would be entirely up to the individual designer. The end product would, in effect, be six downloadable games, all connected by a singular set of art and music assets. Of course, where it all falls down is that we'd all have to agree to a timetable of some sort for when we'd finish episodes, or the plan will just linger forever in the "wouldn't it be cool" sphere of consciousness without actually getting anywhere. Oh, and the whole deciding who's involved process, and what the story would be, and what not. But, in my mind at least, it's an exciting and novel ways for us to concentrate on creating kick-ass content without having to worry about getting team members to do graphics and music (if I were to do a Space Quest fan game on my own, it would suffer very badly in the graphics department). Okay, now you can throw that tomato.

I thought the final designs were great, too. And I'll never forgive myself for staring twice at Roger's pulsating pecs.

Holy hell, you still have those? I'd love to see them. Feel free to share them publicly as well; I don't think I'll be finishing them anytime soon. ;)

Woohoo! Cheers. ;)

Thanks to this thread, I was inspired to pull out the old Sarien Encounter novel and wring it through a quick layout process in InDesign for a PDF version. I figure, if anyone would ever want to read it, having to download an old Microsoft Word document from 1998 would be asking a bit much. Here it is: pdf file - The Sarien Encounter.pdf

Whoa, you actually read The Sarien Encounter? I didn't think anyone actually got through that. ;) Daniel Stacey and I had plans to novelize the entire series. We would take turns. Dan actually finished an SQ2 novel which was really good and sadly lost forever. Meanwhile, I was working on SQ3 and SQ5 simultaneously. SQ5 got really far, over 80 pages (up until Genetix); SQ3 not so much, about 30 pages. These are also gone. Dan was supposed to do SQ4 but went off on a wild tangent and did the Future's History books instead, which I had the priviledge of editing. Leonard Kramer and I were actually really proud of Lone Voyager when we wrote it, but in retrospect I see it owes far more to Hitchhiker's Guide (and often reads like a bad impression of Douglas Adams) than Space Quest. Which is entirely my fault: I wrote most of the actual text, with Leo sitting on the sidelines with grand ideas and scenarios.

Oh, and thank you for being so attentive that you spelled my last name PLeimert, with two capital letters. That was actually a typo when I created the account and now I can't fix it because I can't edit my name.

I remember Josh once told me the actual contents of that SQ6 comic book and swore he'd kill me if I ever revealed it to anyone (because he wanted to use it again someday). I guess it's just as well I can't remember any details about it now, other than the title.

Oh, poo. ;)

In the broom closet? Where else? ;) Also, hi, Akril! Good to see you again. Great job on the character design for Incinerations! I know you only did early concept art, but I just wanted to show I was paying attention. No, seriously, good to see you again, and thanks for the bookmark. Likewise, Johnathon, thanks for the cool banner!

Not at all. I already linked to yours from the G+ thing a couple of days ago. ;)

Thanks. ;) I'm batting around ideas for future episodes, and I'll gladly take suggestions. Because I'm really just winging it; there's no real planning involved, other than quickly writing down a script in Notepad before recording. Edit : Right, that's the last time I try to post with my phone. That made no damn sense. :) What I meant was I'll gladly take suggestions because I'm winging it and i usually don't know what to talk about right up until I hit record. How's that for scatterbrained. :)