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Space Quest is a series of six computer games that follow the adventures of a hapless janitor named Roger Wilco, as he campaigns through the galaxy for truth, justice and really clean floors.
Initially created for Sierra On-Line by the famous Two Guys from Andromeda (who made guest appearances in Space Quest 3), the games mainly featured puns and parodies of other famous sci-fi series as well as wacky storylines, for example, Roger finds himself fighting the likes of the Sarien Aliens (a parody of the Vogons) and the (Software) Pirates of Pestulon (Pirates of Penzance) in order to save the galaxy and impress the ladies.
While the games of Sierra’s main adventure rivals, LucasArts, are usually (and incorrectly) thought of as not allowing the player to die or get permanently stuck in the game, in Sierra adventures, miscalculations, bad choices or just plain bad luck can be expected to lead to the unfortunate demise of the hero - followed by the dreaded "Restore/Restart" screen (which was parodied in LucasArts' Monkey Island 1).
Games
SQ I: Sarien Encounter (1986/1991)
The game was released in October of 1986 and was a big hit, selling in excess of 100,000 copies, believed to be around 200,000 to date, not including the many compilations it was packaged in. The game was programmed using Sierra’s AGI and featured a pseudo-3D environment, allowing the character to move in front of and behind background objects. The game, like many other AGI games, was operated by a text parser, with the Amiga and Mac versions offering basic mouse support for movement. The game had a 160x200 resolution displaying 16 colours. Sound cards were not available in 1986, so sound was played through the PC's internal speaker; owners of Tandy 1000 and PCjr computers would hear a three-voice soundtrack.
Space Quest I was given an overhaul when it was remade using Sierra’s new SCI language, which allowed the game to upgrade from its original EGA graphics to VGA. This version was released on August 20th, 1991, and in addition to the swanky-new VGA graphics, drawn deliberately in a 50's B-movie style, it now featured digitized sounds and an icon interface.
Players of the original 1986 version are never told the hero's name, which is Roger Wilco, but are instead asked to enter their own, however if no name is entered the name will revert to that of ‘Roger Wilco’. The hero of the game is introduced to the player as a member of the cleaning crew onboard the scientific spaceship 'Arcada', onboard which, before the events in the game transpire, was performing experiments with the 'Star Generator'. When the Sarien aliens attack in order to steal the Star Generator Roger, having survived the attack by hiding out in the broom closet, must escape the ship and re-equip himself in order to strike back against the Deltaur, the nearby Sarien star ship.
At the end of the game his efforts are awarded when Roger receives the Golden Mop, as a token of eternal gratitude from the people of Xenon and becomes an instant celebrity.
In the game, the player has to buy a droid in a store called "Droid'B'Us", obviously a parody on "Toys'R'Us". In the very first release (Version 1.0X), it was called "Droids'R'Us", before Toys'R'Us sued and Sierra changed the name.
By pressing the "Don't touch" button in the escape pod, Roger ends up inside another Sierra adventure game, King's Quest. Unfortunately it's not possible to continue the game from there, you have to restart/restore instead.
SQ II: Vohaul's Revenge (1987)
Released on November 14th, 1987, this game once again used Sierra’s AGI.
Roger, with his new found status of Hero, is transferred to the Xenon Orbital Station 4 and promoted to head (and only) janitor onboard. All is quiet until Sludge Vohaul, the scientist who was behind the original Sarien attack, abducts him. As Roger is being transported to the Labion labour mines as punishment for thwarting Sludge’s original plan, the prison ship crash-lands in a nearby jungle upon the planet, and, under the guide of the brave player, manages to escape his pursuers and the dangerous Labion jungle. Soon he reaches the Sludge’s asteroid-base to with the aim of preventing Sludge’s evil plan to harass the people of Xenon by launching insurance salesmen at them.
SQ III: The Pirates of Pestulon (1989)
The robot freighter abducting Roger's capsule. The game was released on March 24th, 1989, and was the first SQ game to be developed using an early version of Sierra’s SCI engine, which featured music composed by the Supertramp drummer, Bob Siebenberg, and was one of the first games in the world that came with SoundBlaster support. As well as this impressive sound-support, PC versions of the game now supported mouse movement and a new, heavily improved, text phraser.
Roger's escape pod from the end of the last adventure is captured by a robot garbage freighter. Once more he must escape his surroundings and he does this by repairing an old ship, named the Aluminum Mallard (a spoof of Millenium Falcon). During the game he discovers the sinister activities of a game’s company known as ScumSoft (a parody of Microsoft) run by the ‘Pirates of Pestulon’ that also has abducted the Two Guys from Andromeda and is forcing them to design their games. Roger’s goal quickly becomes getting inside their impregnable offices and rescuing the two programmers.
SQ III also featured a mini-side game inside it, called Astro Chicken.
SQ IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers (1991)
Space Quest 4 was released on floppy disks on March 4th, 1991, and in December 1992 on CD-ROM with full speech support, with Laugh-In announcer Gary Owens as the voice of the narrator. Using the SCI1 engine, it featured 256 colors, hand painted graphics and a full, mouse driven interface. It was one of the first ever games to use motion capture animation. The game cost over $1,000,000 US$ to produce, but sold more than its three predecessors combined.
In a future age (jokingly referred to as SQ XII) Sludge Vohaul has been brought back to life putting his memory in a computer as an infomorph. He then sends androids through time to find and capture Roger Wilco. Roger's son from the future foils the attempt but is captured in the process. To save his son and foil Vohaul, Roger travels through time to future (and past) Space Quest games.
SQ V: The Next Mutation (1993)
SQ V uses the same technology as SQ IV. In the game we find Roger is now a cadet of StarCon academy. He then graduates as the captain of the SCS Eureka, a space garbage scow.
This game, released on February 5th, 1993, is almost entirely a parody of Star Trek. Roger finds himself the captain of a garbage scow, which comes with a command bridge and several officers that he can give orders to (such as 'activate cloaking device', to which the technical officer responds with a suggestion to paint the ship black...)
SQ VI: The Spinal Frontier (1995)
SQ VI was released in 1995 and ran on the last version of the SCI engine, SCI32. This allowed it to use SuperVGA graphics at a 640x480 resolution with 256 colors. It abandoned the tradition of other SCI games by not having the interface in a pull down bar at the top of the screen, but resorted to a verb bar window along the bottom of the game, which like LucasArt’s SCUMM games. The graphics style also changed to be more cartoon-like in appearance than in previous games.
This game was the last to be released in the SQ series. Having defeated the diabolical pukeoid mutants in Space Quest 5, Captain Roger Wilco triumphantly returns to StarCon headquarters - only to be court marshalled due to breaking more StarCon regulations than on his last adventure!
The name of the game comes from a large segment near the end, where Roger has to shrink himself and enter the body of a fellow employee.
SQ VII
Sierra has tried on several occasions to revive the series for another episode, going as far as working with developer Escape Factory to storyboard and begin creating a game, before ending funding.
Space Quest 7 was way underway when Sierra released the Space Quest Collection: consisting of Space Quest I to VI. However, due to the poor sales of this collection (possibly because the target audience already owned them) and the decreasing popularity of the 2d adventure genre, Space Quest 7 was subsequently canned.
'Future' sequels
In SQ IV Roger travels in time, both past and present. Humorously, the creators didn't label the times Roger travelled to in years or any other temporal unit, but in Space Quest sequel numbers! SQ IV takes 'place' in these ‘times’:
- SQ X: Latex babes from Estros
- SQ XII: Vohaul's Revenge II
These games don't actually exist, but are real only in Space Quest's history and concern the SQ universe's future, in a post-apocalyptic era of the planet Xenon. However it is believed that if Sierra ever continued production for the series and reached number XII, it would be released under these titles and be faithful to the scenario presented above.
Collections
- The Space Quest saga (1993): this collection contained games I (remake), II, II and IV (disk version)
- The Space Quest collection (1994): released for Sierra's 15th anniversary, it contains games I-V plus a video with the Two Guys from Andromeda and a complete history of the game making.
- Roger Wilco unclogged (1995): all the above, plus Roger Wilco arcade games and a humorous "Inside Space Quest" video, but without the Two Guys video
- Space Quest collection series (1996): all of the 6 games plus a preview of episode VII
Comics
Adventure Comics (a division of Malibu Graphics Publishing Group) released three issues based on the Sarien Encounter in 1992 under the name The Adventures of Roger Wilco. The first was written by John Shaw and was in full colour. The other two were written by Paul O'Connor and were colourless. The print run was very small and, as many comics based on games, the books are very hard to find now.
Fan Made Games
The series has remained popular with Sierra-fans, and several fan pages are still active and maintain a community dedicated to the games.
There have been several attempts to create a Space Quest fan game, such as the SQ7.org project, and two fan games using era-specific graphics have been released.
Finished Games:
Unfinished Games:
- Space Quest 7 (http://www.sq7.org) - A work-in-progress sequel, including SQ6 designer Josh Mandel as a former team member.
- Space Quest: Vohaul Strikes Back (http://www.vohaulstrikesback.com) - The "other" hi-res full-scale Space Quest fangame in progress, taking place after SQ7.
- Space Quest 2X: Vohaul's Mines (http://www.vohauls-mines.com/) - An alternate version of SQ2 where Roger is taken into the Orium mines.
External links
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