Space Quest Fan Game - Roger Wilco and the Outer Edge of Earnon Information for Posterity

[OneGuyFromAndromeda]

For anyone, new or old, interested in or curious about this fan game idea that never was. Here's the last post made by the "creator", Johnathan. Project was started in 2009, practically no work at all was done on it and it was cancelled in September 2022. Very important to save history or it could repeat itself...

 

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I feel guilty doing this--at the same time, I feel as though said very feeling may constitute an unwelcome sense of pretentiousness...

Have I deliberately waited until this seemingly opportune time, seeing how it may serve to soften the blow...? Yes, I have. I am sorry for this, really.

(there's no way you cannot anticipate at this very moment what I'm about to say--reason would have it you've already drawn the conclusion over these last 6 years--somehow, that does not make it any easier for me at this moment. I never wanted to say these words.)

The Outer Edge of Earnon is on indefinite hold...

(everything that has gone into this gesture of expression... this... magnificent dream... is nonetheless retained/backed up to 4 levels of redundancy as it currently stands; I am still after all this time very passionate about it, and still would love to finish and release it someday--thus I would not call it cancelled--but to keep you good people believing that I have been spending significant time on it would not be a very nice thing for me to continue to do. I do feel very guilty about not having told you sooner--somehow I just wasn't willing to let go; and then at some point, I realized how hard it was to continue staying afloat, and then I got the cute idea to utilize SpaceVenture as a cover--figuring you'd have something else to focus on--to avoid having to swallow the 'humble pie' and say what I should have said probably a half-a-decade ago. I do apologize for this. Please accept my apology, to any who have been really following/anticipating...)

I love this dream... just not nearly as much as I love my wife and children...

...they say that life is the hardest teacher, and in a way, this whole endeavor, this experience, has been almost like a sort of...holding onto 'Neverland' experience, in a way, my refusing to walk through the door of reality...

...but reality happened before I was prepared for it, and somehow, I made the right choice (although it has not come without suffering and disappointment--for both of us): I put higher priorities first, and the rip-tide thus swept me away! Here we are!!

Why is it that as we age, we cannot seem to dream, nor to daydream, as vividly as we used to...? The more time you spend in any given world--be it reality or fantasy--the more you tend to become sucked into that world; there's this certain 'law of inertia,' if you will, about life and about the age-old, 'since the beginning of time' tendency we have, given our humble condition/existence in this beautiful cosmos, to resist and reject our reality if and when we find it to be so hard to realize...to acknowledge'... rather than to recognize that it truly is as painful as it is...

Maybe I don't know what in the hell I'm saying. I guess I'll just conclude that I have some very strong desires (to express... to create... to self-actualize...) that I feel have never truly been fulfilled--and I suppose I'll leave it at that. It hurts. But that is what love does...

Let me talk a tad bit now on the things I have accomplished--although probably nobody cares, (nor deserves,) to be burdened with it; but only b\c my EGO seems to be just that sensitive--I have achieved that which I never thought I would: I have the most beautiful (inside and out) partner one could ever have hoped for, and I have become the proud father of five of the most adorable children--I would straight-up undergo torture to save any one of their lives--I love them that much. I have a job that requires a security clearance. I am the first member of my family to actually graduate from college (that is vanity, of course, and a bubble about to pop, let's not get into it)

(I think you can see where my priorities lay, and have lain, if you were to glean from my pattern of postings/updates; clearly The Outer Edge is not yet complete b\c it wasn't a priority in comparison to what I have/had judged as more important--I do, after all, have to sleep w\ myself at night--and we're talking about a "game" here after all--but this doesn't mean that I haven't been... nor that I don't continue to be extremely passionate and excited about the possibility of it. I feel like I'm really bombing this explanation here... just... shit.)

Let me put it to you this way: I recall, very specifically, back in October of 2018... when it had been a couple of years since I had graduated, and I had been working for my (still, as of now, current) employer... I had been aching (and I mean, just ACHING) to work on The Outer Edge, for so long... I remember finally taking the time--after two years out of school--after having gotten on my feet, secured my first home, ensured I could provide for my--at the time--only child and wife (how did I suddenly become the 'old man'...? I mean, now my oldest is pushing 7 years, and I have four others right behind him--my work hasn't even started!; I have to be a good father above everything and anything else, you understand...? and that means before being a good game designer--and my own father is gone; the last memories I have of him are of him wrapped up, pathetically and pitifully in a blanket, with a severe fever, waddling down the hallway, vomiting on the carpet--me barking at my children to stay away b\c "grandpa is ill..." at the ER, I had to go piss so badly I couldn't help myself: I said "Dad, I'll be right back", I couldn't have been in the restroom any longer than 45 seconds;  but when I stepped out, he was gone--and the hospital security guards would not let me go after him nor say goodbye. I spent 12 days worrying about him while he was on the ventilator, before his life was taken, and I never got to see him again.  I hadn't realized, at the time I last spoke to him, that it would be the last I would speak to him in this life--and the next time I saw him was in a casket, 12 days later--and it was just the hardest thing, explaining all this to my little 5-year-old boy, at the time--how someone he had loved, had regularly watched Speed Racer with...was suddenly gone. Harder even, MUCH HARDER, than having to accept for myself that he was gone--so hard for a child so young to understand--my poor little boy!! That was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, explain it to him, I am forever scarred--seeing his denial... his reaction to the whole news of it, still haunts me to this day)...

How the hell did I get into talking about this? This is weakness; you good people aren't looking for convenient excuses... Please accept my apology yet again...

Here's the deal: life happened somehow; and let me get back to what I was saying about October 2018--please forgive me for that personal and very emotionally-charged tangent--I spent a whole weekend working on the Outer Edge of Earnon back in October 2018--and I was feeling so excited and enthusiastic, I was having significant FUN!!! I have always striven to wow myself and to wow other people. It's just a passion, or a compulsion...or both... perhaps it stems from an insecurity...but it's certainly not all that ugly and vain... I am a very visual person after all (that much had better be evident to anyone who's been following me the last 15 years!) and it is very pleasurable, that is... as a person gifted w\ that rare desire to invent, create, impress upon others... to acknowledge the fruits of your labor...

...I was literally on a high... there's no other way to put it. I'm not lying to you guys... I've literally 'blown' entire vacation periods (requested time off from work) during the holiday months in December, etc... just pretending I'm Mark Crowe at my computer screen... producing the best artwork in the world! (also playing VSB and Incinerations on the side, every 20-minutes or so... 😄 ); but then it had occurred to me--just that very weekend, perhaps by happenstance and by the planets having aligned ever so rarely--that I HATE my employer through and through and they had 'screwed me over' for the last time!

They were working me overtime--once again--without compensation b\c I fall into that category of "exempt," and it was all b\c of their own poor planning (if looking at it optimistically--otherwise, clearly as a result of their own greed...)

...and I had been jerked around just one too many times, you see--I could go into it--but I won't...

I looked at the condition in which me and my [pregnant] wife, and son, had been currently living, and I looked at the greed and inhumanity of my employer... and some switch just suddenly flipped in my soul, and I thought to myself, "why [and how?!] should I continue to go on like this...?"

From that very weekend (four solid years ago), not the slightest bit of progress has been made on The Outer Edge of Earnon. I had decided right then and there I was going to use my skill to get us all (my family) out of this... "situation," and that my personal efforts would be utilized on a purely commercial product of the potential to make MONEY!!

(I never was one to idolize money--but when you need it; man it is hard to diss it... let me tell you.. you'll get there as well, if you survive enough shit. It's hard, being human, and suffering, and to continue to see others around you, whom you love... suffering...)

Truth be told, it really is just a means to an end... I  so much love this art of expression, and I have such a desire to create/invent and to impress... I would do it for free, absolutely, and you better believe it--if I could afford too... but the sad reality is that I can't. When you have to worry about explaining to your wife or to your innocent little angels why there is no food, the decision becomes very easy...

I feel like such a jerk right now...

This is the truth, however. I've been working on what I intend to be a commercial production, very intensely, for a solid four years now...

...of course, it hasn't been uninterrupted... there was the pandemic.. the 1.5 years I had to spend--in addition to my full-time job as a software developer--finishing up the ADU I personally designed and erected on my property, in order to keep my father (before he was taken), mother, and sister all off the street during it all--and every single evil in-between all that--as well as those everyday evils that I continue to face, which always wait just around the corner...

...but nonetheless, I press on... I figure if I can get off the runway here with this (commercial product, that is), the floodgates will open! What a DREAM it would be... to be my own boss... to spend all my time in self-employment doing what I love! It doesn't stop w\ OEOE you understand--I am inspired and compelled to produce the best experiences in life that I can dream! I shit you not, I've got at least FIVE (count 'em FIVE)  excellent, passionate, and original ideas still on the back-burner, for the past several years--even since 2007, that have yet to be realized--if I could just somehow break free from this terrible trap... well... the sky would be the limit...

It is at this point that I realize I need to just cut it off. There's no way to wrap up/provide justified explanation to what has occurred (and the choices I've made) over the last 6.5 years...

...Suffice it to say that I'm NOT giving up; but don't expect anything. I am just so, so sorry for having led you good people on any more than I had to. I promise you, it was not deliberate and it was not premeditated. Life just happened you know...? In a way, I bit off a lot and I wasn't able to chew it, maybe one day I will...

...but until then, I have to do what's right. I must first and foremost be that 'rock,' a good husband and a good father (a good son, brother, etc...)

In the meantime, please enjoy SpaceVenture, and keep a lookout for my commercial product. The sooner I yield success in that arena, the more likely I can again become that 'not so shy fish who's willing to put it all on the line by swimming up, totally naked, to the front of the tank, once more...' (I was always weak at spontaneous analogies!) I do still owe 1/3 of a million dollars in debt, and I have to do something about that, after all...

...I'm so sorry guys... I'm just so sorry...

Before I forget, I want to extend my sincerest thanks to all of you who have shown enthusiam for my vision over all these years: including, but not limited to, some very prominent and respected members of the community (who have proven themselves much moreso than I have managed after all this time): Troels, Chris, Kurdt, Frans... I also want to thank my original team, once again, for the great time we had together, initially dreaming this thing up and brainstorming the main plot together back in 2007: Samuel, Vroom, Jeff... I'm sorry life happened. I know we fell apart after just one summer, but although it was half of my lifetime ago, I'll still never forget it, and I appreciate your enthusiam; sorry I wasn't a better and more competent leader...

Sincerely, to all of you who have followed and have shown sincere enthusiasm, it continues to validate me and drive me onward in my current life and endeavors--and though we have nothing concrete/tangible, at least at this point, to show for it, it has really meant, and continues to mean something REAL to me. Thank you for having believed in me, my friends.

(and to anyone whom I have slighted; whether years ago or recently; please also accept my apology. I can tend to have a tad bit of an EGO. I am certainly not without my character flaws--as any human being is not. Please don't take it personal. I'm just a passionate person, and I continue to grow, even at my 30s--Nonetheless, there are times when I wish I had been a little less outspoken)

I'll see you guys...