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New Space Quest Game Under Development?
Decaffeinated Jedi writes: "In a news item posted earlier today, GameSpot stated that they 'had learned from sources working on the project that Sierra is developing a new game in its classic Space Quest sci-fi adventure game series.' While GameSpot didn't give go into detail about the game, it looks like Roger Wilco is finally making a comeback! Check out Roger Wilco's Virtual Broomcloset for all the latest developments."
An article in AdventureGamers confirms these rumors.
It is not clear at this point whether the rumored new Space Quest release will be a completely new game or a remake. Sierra has a long history of doing remakes, so I would not be quick to rule out the latter possibility.
Those who might be interested in remakes of classic Sierra adventures should definitely check out Tierra Entertainment. Tierra is basically a bunch of old Sierra game fanatics who are trying to revive the adventure game genre by remaking classic Sierra titles, as well as creating new ones.
So far, they have actually completed a remake of the original King's Quest [I], with VGA-like graphics and full speech. Technology- and interface-wise, the game looks and plays roughly like KQ5. They even managed to get the guy who voiced King Graham in KQ5 to voice him in their remake of KQ1!They have several other games currently under development, including:
I discovered them a few months ago, and was very impressed by what they had accomplished. I would highly recommend that any classic Sierra adventure game fans give them the support and encouragement they deserve.
They are using a game engine called Adventure Game Studio, which has been used by others to create other Sierra-like adventure games as well.
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I think it could easily be played in the format, or 2nd person, kind of like Heretic 2.
Second person? How would that work? You always see yourself from your enemy's point of view? I don't think this would lead to interesting gameplay.
Although I have never actually played Heretic 2, it probably uses a 3rd person perspective.
For an interesting look at the founding and early history of Sierra I recommend the classic book Hackers by Steven Levy. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0141000511/ qid=1013176234/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/002-5989678-81544 46
Actually, that wasn't the best way to do it. If you stuck the magnet onto the slot machine, it would fix it so that you always won!
Another thing Sierra games helped me with is learning to read and write. At the time, I was living overseas and going to a non-English school, and had to learn English at home. The command lines and dialog really helped me because it made reading really fun for me, and I became a pro at typing. Sure, the commands you type in Sierra games aren't exactly great in literary quality ("l room", "get thing", "give thing to guy"), but it didn't matter. I even wrote to Ken Williams (then-coowner/president of Sierra) telling him how I liked Sierra's games because they taught me how to read and type, and he wrote me back!
I miss those good old adventure games.
Oh, and take a look at Sarien... I always wanted to see a good, modern AGI interpreter that runs in our current OSes. I hope someone gets an SCI interpreter done that'll allow for good speed adjustment for games like Space Quest IV (which is a pain in the ass to play on a fast computer, even with MoSlo). Problem is, I think SCI is too complicated to reverse engineer. I'd like to see Sierra release the specifications and documentation for it, since it's hardly a money-maker anymore (it's an obsolete game development environment).
Linux AGI studio http://samhain.cc.huji.ac.il/agi/studio.html
Sarien AGI Interpreter
http://sarien.sourceforge.ne/
Tierra Games (they remade kq1, etc)
http://tierragames.cjb.net/
David's AgiPhile Page (He made Dave Quest)
http://www.eds.org/~david/agi/
The Hidden Secrets Of Sierra (by Lance Ewing)
(probably the best place to start)
http://www.123.co.nz/lance/sierra.htm
The Ultimate AGI & SCI Site
tons of info
http://agisci.cjb.net/
Adventure Game Studio (software for making sierra games)
http://saturn.spaceports.com/~dosuser/ac.shtml