s_d

Yeah, she did a lot more than the artwork, but that's the stuff I'm most impressed with. :) Also, I don't want to hire her. She would then have the option of quitting! Besides, I couldn't afford to pay anyone in anything except for abuse.

Way awesome, Akril!
 
I'm so impressed with you two (and no, you don't have to go being modest and crediting Jess, as usual! I already gave him kudos via PM, so there :P ).
 
Funny story; I really don't play games in front of my toddler for a number of reasons (being not even 3yrs old, we've pretty much completely eschewed violent imagery in front of her, for the time being), but I felt I was under a time crunch for Linux, and wanted to play through PQII thoroughly for testing. So, she crawls out of the beanbag chair and hops up on the couch next to me, staring intently at the game... this time I let her watch.
 
It was pretty funny hearing her commentary along with the game (for example, nearly every time I brought up the inventory, she'd ask "Where is the girl? Where did she go, Papa? I can't see her.", etc., ad infinium). I finally began positioning Bea to the left of the inventory before raising it, every time. She remarked about the "funny cat" because of the spoiler on his face, and how silly it was that he was spoiler on top of spoiler! At one point she asked frankly whether or not Bea was learning to pee in the toilet like a big girl, in an unexpected reflection of what is important in her little world at present. :) The biggest surprise was when I replied that Bea was going to travel spoiler spoil... and had zero questions back, as if doing so made all the sense in the world.
 
The crux is that PQII was her first adventure game, from beginning to end, and she loved it. Especially all the fish jokes. ;)

Way awesome, Akril!
 
I'm so impressed with you two (and no, you don't have to go being modest and crediting Jess, as usual! I already gave him kudos via PM, so there :P ).
 
Funny story; I really don't play games in front of my toddler for a number of reasons (being not even 3yrs old, we've pretty much completely eschewed violent imagery in front of her, for the time being), but I felt I was under a time crunch for Linux, and wanted to play through PQII thoroughly for testing. So, she crawls out of the beanbag chair and hops up on the couch next to me, staring intently at the game... this time I let her watch.
 
It was pretty funny hearing her commentary along with the game (for example, nearly every time I brought up the inventory, she'd ask "Where is the girl? Where did she go, Papa? I can't see her.", etc., ad infinium). I finally began positioning Bea to the left of the inventory before raising it, every time. She remarked about the "funny cat" because of the spoiler on his face, and how silly it was that he was spoiler on top of spoiler! At one point she asked frankly whether or not Bea was learning to pee in the toilet like a big girl, in an unexpected reflection of what is important in her little world at present. :) The biggest surprise was when I replied that Bea was going to travel spoiler spoil... and had zero questions back, as if doing so made all the sense in the world.
 
The crux is that PQII was her first adventure game, from beginning to end, and she loved it. Especially all the fish jokes. ;)

times like this I wish I could draw - animate. I would love to do what you guys are doing. I am just glad I was able to help with the porting.

Why mess with a good thing? As long as it's fun, and they're motivated, we get to play these hilarious games.
 
DON'T JINX IT, FREDE! :lol:

You know, it's really funny - to the average person it looks like a slump, but as a fellow game designer and creator, I just know how much work is going on right now.
 
This lull will be temporary - the next few months will probably progress like this, and the die-hards will be all in, as normal - but after that, BAM, a lot of excitement is going to come.... heh. I've got nothing but time, and I can't wait for that time. I know it will come.
 
You know, us adventure fans had a crazy exciting summer. I mean, look at all that happened in the scene - so many great projects dominated Kickstarter! It was amazing - I personally connected with a whole bunch of new friends and fans, and I rekindled some old relationships. Honestly, as far as my adventure game love goes - the summer of 2012 was The New Summer Of Love!
 
Bt

Greetings!
 
After four months of hard work, Akril and I are proud to announce the release of Pledge Quest II: Noodle Shop of Horrors. You can head over to the newly-launched PledgeQuest.Net and download it now for Windows, Mac, and Linux!*
 
Here's a screenshot from the opening cinematic that showcases Akril's awesome art on the project:
 


 
I hope you folks enjoy the game; it was a blast working on it. Now, let's spread the word** and rustle up a few more buckazoids for the SpaceVenture stretch goals!
 
Jess
 
* Special thanks to Lunchbox and s_d for all their hard work to provide day-one Mac and Linux support!
** Twitter is being weird and blocking the PledgeQuest.Net domain in tweets, so if you want to share it there, try this Google-shortened URL instead: http://goo.gl/4H7vj

There's some coming in every day. ;)

Way awesome, Akril!
 
I'm so impressed with you two (and no, you don't have to go being modest and crediting Jess, as usual! I already gave him kudos via PM, so there :P ).
 
Funny story; I really don't play games in front of my toddler for a number of reasons (being not even 3yrs old, we've pretty much completely eschewed violent imagery in front of her, for the time being), but I felt I was under a time crunch for Linux, and wanted to play through PQII thoroughly for testing. So, she crawls out of the beanbag chair and hops up on the couch next to me, staring intently at the game... this time I let her watch.
 
It was pretty funny hearing her commentary along with the game (for example, nearly every time I brought up the inventory, she'd ask "Where is the girl? Where did she go, Papa? I can't see her.", etc., ad infinium). I finally began positioning Bea to the left of the inventory before raising it, every time. She remarked about the "funny cat" because of the spoiler on his face, and how silly it was that he was spoiler on top of spoiler! At one point she asked frankly whether or not Bea was learning to pee in the toilet like a big girl, in an unexpected reflection of what is important in her little world at present. :) The biggest surprise was when I replied that Bea was going to travel spoiler spoil... and had zero questions back, as if doing so made all the sense in the world.
 
The crux is that PQII was her first adventure game, from beginning to end, and she loved it. Especially all the fish jokes. ;)

Thank you very much for the feedback, everyone! I'm glad to hear that everyone is enjoying the game.
 

Leaving the issue of our current post-release exhaustion out of the equation at the moment, I'm not sure what other sort of game we could collaborate on. But who knows -- maybe we might be inspired to do something non-Pledge Quest/Space Quest related someday.

PQ 2 was alot of fun! The storyline actually reminds me of an idea for a fanfic I had many many years ago (1999!) that involved Sludge Vohaul using a time machine to erase the SQ series and have it renamed "Vohaul's Conquest" and a friend and I being tasked to set things right. And I also at one point had an idea for a time travel story that involved a time traveling toilet...so great minds do indeed think alike! :D
 
If y'all ever need any ideas for PQ3 (or even another beta tester!) hit me up sometime! :D

Thanks for the incredibly kind words, everyone. I'm really thrilled that people are enjoying the game so far. :D
 
There's an updated version (1.1) posted at PledgeQuest.Net that fixes a small bug discovered by pcj. If anyone comes across any other problems, just let us know.
 

Thanks! For now, we're still recuperating from this project. If only we knew somebody with a time machine, maybe she could tell us what the future holds...
 
Jess

Hey everyone,
 
Sorry about the extreme scarcity of updates to this thread, but at long last I can finally announce that work on Pledge Quest II is finally nearing completion! It should hopefully be ready to download within the next week. Jess and I have spent a long time working on this thing, and it shouldn't be long before we finally have something to show for our efforts (as well as something to help promote the SpaceVenture stretch goals)!

Just an update to follow up on Akril's earlier post...
 
If all goes according to schedule, we plan to release Pledge Quest II: Noodle Shop of Horrors on Monday, October 8.
 
If you'd like to preview our brand-new website, visit PledgeQuest.Net and have a look around. The "Download Pledge Quest II" link isn't active yet, but it will be soon. :)
 
Take care!
 
Jess

Speaking as a lucky person who has been fortunate enough to play this before its release, I can guarantee that you're all in for a treat. This thing really is an immense achievement. Tomorrow's going to be a big day. :)

Hey all,
 
It's been a while since I visited these forums. Years actually: back when I was coding a virtual sierra-related chatroom in 2003 or 2004. Didn't even remember my login credentials so the sign-in-with-twitter was a nice welcoming :D
 
Just for the fun of sharing, I was wondering if any of you SQ fans saw the EGA pics we made for laughs during the kickstarter?
 

 

 

 

 
We thought they'd make a good sq4-ish joke where the KS 2012 dome was in fact a remake of an old 1986 Sierra game - with time and space all getting mixed up and such.
Fun fact: Mark loved them but was afraid it would scare away new potential backers as it could make them think this was the new game they were backing ;-)
 
We posted these in the KS comments back when they were in high-rotation mode during the final days of the campaign (10 updates a second? What was it? ;)) so it probably got lost forever in the gap between everyone's page-refreshes.
 
So I thought reposting them here would hopefully be apprecated.
 
Cheers from a true sq-fan,
 
- Martin

Hey Jared! Can't blame you for being restless, I include myself in that category. All I can say is there is quite a few really cool new features being added. This is indeed to help garner help in our stretch goals. While the programming is being done, Scott and Mark have been discussing lots of things along the way. We've had to make decisions on expanding the team members and all the other things you can imagine that is involved here. But most importantly, this will be the last of the Living Concept Arts of the two guys on the Island, so we're trying to make it extra special. And in saying that, hopefully gain more excitement from the adventure gaming press :) Uhg, I hate sounding to vague and I hope that wasn't too bad. Thanks so much for taking the time for posting though, we appreciate all the feedback.

I find it interesting that a decent chunk of the criticism on message forums and comment sections has focused on the Two Guys' promise to include SQ-style death sequences in the game.
 
I get the impression that, for a lot of younger gamers, deaths are essentially "what's wrong" with old school adventure games -- especially Sierra games. Somewhere along the way, the LucasArts model seems to have prevailed, making games that feature character deaths seem "behind the times" or "unfair" in some sense. In many ways, the Space Quest series' emphasis on gruesomely hilarious (or hilariously gruesome) death scenes makes it emblematic for what a certain segment of the audience perceives as a "broken" gameplay mechanic.
 
Naturally, as SQ fans, we view these death scenes as part of the charm of the series. For some, though, I think the tendency is to lump character death right alongside unwinnable states as an unpardonable adventure gaming sin.
 
Just a largely irrelevant observation...
 
Jess

There's also a lot of people acting very precious about their own favourites, worried that more startups means they won't get the game they want. A legit position to take, of course, if a little myopic. More adventure games from more people creates an industry.
 
Are you telling me, for instance, that the 2GFA game is going to be worse for having to compete to look, sound and play better than its competitors? Yeah, right. Variety and competition drive up quality.

Steam just announced its Greenlight service, scheduled to launch at the end of August. As it currently stands, all games that have been submitted to Steam goes through an internal process of review. With Greenlight, users can have a say in what gets published on their digital distribution platform. I think that it would be a great way to get SpaceVenture some attention by having the Two Guys submit this project for review. I know that I'd do my best to get it upvoted.
 
http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight/

That's exactly what turned me off. It offends my sensibilities, even if I am online most of the time. Sets a bad precedent, so don't want to encourage it. Power play by companies coveting more and more power over players.

It was awesome. For posterity, and those that missed it, here is the AMA.

Guys, this is just freaken epic! Plans to make it into a youtube video? Flash animation video maybe? Good chance, this would be blasted out of every promotion stream we got if you guys put it together. Make sure there's credits on it if there's a video. :)

I've got all the plot overview I need. It's a sci-fi adventure comedy made by the Two Guys. Will it be as good as Space Quest was(/seemed) back in the day? Maybe not. But I don't care. Expectations will almost certainly not be met as much as we'd like, even if it WAS a Space Quest. But it WILL be good and I just want them to keep making games. They're bound to find their stride even if they don't right away.

The game's correct title is Protostar. I may have mumbled in that part of the podcast. And I did misspeak. It was supposed to be a sequel to Starflight 3. See the Wikipedia article on Starflight 2 for confirmation.
 
The producer at EA assigned to Starflight 3 didn't believe in our team and recommended to the EA honchos to terminate the deal.
 
Tsunami went with Time Warner Interactive Group (or TWIG as we referred to them). TWIG was a new player in the computer game space and their marketing kinda reflected theat. They were not very effective in selling Protostar, which is a shame because I think Protostar was the best game released under the Tsunami label.
 
Ken "Your Music Pal" Allen