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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."

23 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Space Quest taught me to cheat... by Champaign · · Score: 5, Funny

    I remember it well...

    I was stuck in a cantina and needed some cash. There was a slot machine there, but being a young wholesome lad, I knew better then to gamble. Then I realized that I could save games between pulls. How can it be gambling if you never lose? Soon I was rolling in buckazoids and have done nothing but sink deeper into depravity since...

  2. SQ (Sierra) taught people to SESO by GrayWing · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If Space Quest taught you to cheat - being a Sierra game it most definitely taught people to Save Early, Save Often. Not for getting more out of a game of chance, but to be saved from having to play again much of the previous half hour because you had just died Yet Another Sierra Death.

    1. Re:SQ (Sierra) taught people to SESO by Rothron+the+Wise · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Which is what was wrong with the sierra-games to start with. LucasArts understood that, and didn't
      just jump onto the bandwagon of graphical adventure games, they kicked Sierra off it.

      Sierra has yet to figure out that killing off the
      player whenever he takes a wrong turn is what
      killed them.

      --
      A witty .sig proves nothing
  3. News About This Also At AdventureGamers by meni · · Score: 5, Informative

    An article in AdventureGamers confirms these rumors.

  4. Innovation by chon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Back in the good ol' day, Sierra definitely had *something* about them; or at least their games did...

    Whilst they kept to a strange format (the point and click on a static screen) for a long time after it was fashionable in adventure games, their games did at least have *soul*...The worlds were believable and exciting. Really, they were very similar in concept to the Final Fantasy games , perhaps even a forerunner to them?

    Anyway, the point is that a new Space Quest game is probably something to get quite excited about...at least for us adventurers out there...

  5. Memorable Moments... by ^ZuLu^ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I can remember playing Space Quest IV as if it was yesterday: The hillarious shopping-sequence with all the nifty details (I'll probably never forget SimSim and Boom and that Chicken-game) that made this a true classic. Although there are passages (especially in the beginning) that could get frustrated - there isn't any Sierra original without the chance of dying at every second.
    I especially liked the atmosphere of Space Qust IV (which really was much more fun then Space Quest V [sorry to say so, but the scene where you will have to find your way through that gigantic space-ship in the end of SQ V really sucked]): The backgrounds were terrific at that time.

    I'm definitely looking forward to take a look at SQ 7!

    1. Re:Memorable Moments... by 75bhp · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I don't know. The man-eating plants of SQII, along with burning paper in the passageway to set off the sprinklers and short-circuit the robots will be something I'll always remember.

      The clincher was being miniturised, and then having to turn off Vohul's air supply to kill him, before saving the galaxy from a zillion travelling salesman droids.

  6. I hope they will use by phagstrom · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I hope they will use Gary Owens as narrator for this one too. He made SQ6 extra cool.

    "Careful, combining these two items might cause a rip in the space-time continuum, a tear in the very fabric of space itself! (or not)"

    This is going to be so cool.....Maybe I should get out more...

  7. Memories... by BitwizeGHC · · Score: 3, Funny

    I've been a big fan of Sierra games, and Space Quest games in particular, ever since I was a kid. And then we got a multimedia kit which included Space Quest 4 as a bundle-in. Man, I was in hog heaven. This wasn't a game with cheap multimedia features slapped on. It was a gem, with formerly textual dialog spoken by the characters (with real lip-sync and great voice acting). And a narrative (a staple for any Space Quest game) provided by none other than Gary Owens, the voice of Powdered Toast Man! Hearing him say that I've been a real pantload when I die makes me crack a smile.

    --
    N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
  8. I Think The Killings Contribute A Lot To The Games by meni · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is one of the things I disliked about the LucasArts games. You're usually immortal. How is that possible?
    As a matter of fact, the death-scenes in Sierra's games, especially in the Space Quest games, were usually really hillarious!

  9. Nostalgia, o yeah! by Theodore+Logan · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Those X Quest games and Sierra is to me like apple pie and learning to ride your bike is to most other people. Playing them is one of my first happy memories.

    Pathetic? Sure. Damn fun nonetheless.

    Now I don't play them anymore. Arrogant as I was I considered being able to drag and drop and point and click cheating and stopped playing when this became the standard of all new Sierra games. This was very silly on my part, of course. But I would be lying if I said that I don't think of the good old days, when the real challenge in killing the dragon in the cave (King Quest I) was typing "throw knife at dragon" fast enough, with a smug feeling of superiority. Now that was real gaming!

    Kids nowadays. Blah!

    --

    "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok

    1. Re:Nostalgia, o yeah! by denzo · · Score: 3, Informative
      Sierra games have done many things for me when I was a kid. First, they got me interested in computers. My father had a computer at home for work, and one day brought the Magic Cauldron Sierra game home, and my mom laughed as she moved a little walking guy around the screen, and I got into the fun. Then in one scene of the game where I was trapped in a cell, I looked at the wall and saw a crack that described a scene for King Quest I, and so my pattern of being addicted to Sierra games began (and moving on to learning to do other things on the computer, like write BASIC programs, then move on to C, etc.)...

      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).

  10. please, for the adults? by 8bit · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I used to play these games all the time. It taught me to type, and type FAST (scene where you're in the cage in, ohh, SQ2? Although now that I play it again they gave you a long time, but at ten they couldn't've made it shorter.) Heck, I still play them when I can coax win98 to comply (wonder where my dos 6 disks are.) But what got to me was that sierra started catering these games to the younger crowd. Okay okay, so SQ6 wasn't that bad, and hey the cartoony look was perty good (a lot better than SQ1 for sure.) But in Kings Quest 7 I just went nuts. Sure sure, I still haven't beaten the game, but giving you only one pointer that LIGHTS UP when you're on top of something clickable is infuriating. I liked reading the whitty comments when you couldn't do something, or tried something very silly. \-: In a way I'd like the old type-your-action even more (don't ya hate it when you're only given a few seconds to hurl something from your invintory into something else...and you mouse suddenly decides it doesn't want to move that way?)

    Ahhh sweet nostalgia. I know what I'll be doing tonight.

    --

    --Roy
  11. What are you on about? by Britney · · Score: 4, Funny
    You're playing exectly that game right now.

    We all are.

    It's called The Matrix^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HSlashdot!

    --

    --
    (if you're still looking for the point, it was back there, in the post. </sig>)
  12. Awesome by NiftyNews · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The only thing that could possibly be better is an update to some of the classic LucasArts games.

    Can you imagine an update to Day of the Tenticle, or dare I say it, Sam & Max? The latter game was quite possibly the most fun I have ever had on a PC.

  13. An Independant SQ7? by checkitout · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Looks as though some fans are also intending to release a version of Space Quest VII

    http://www.sq7.org/about.php

    It also gives a good bit of detail about why there haven't been any recent games in the series.

  14. Tierra Entertainment - keeping the dream alive by Spire · · Score: 5, Informative

    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:

    • a Quest for Glory II remake
    • a King's Quest II remake

    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.

    --
    begin 644 .sig22&%I;"P@9F5L;&]W(&=E96 LA`end
  15. Early history of Sierra by MacBrave · · Score: 3, Informative

    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

  16. Mixed? by Satai · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you check out some of the older developments that concerned Space Quest 7, it doesn't look entirely rosy. They wanted to make it multiplayer, or 3-D, or one of many different things that kind of stole away from the charm of the first six games. If I remember correctly, number 6 even came with an AVI advertising the seventh game, which was in development at that time. So is this a new project, or just a revisitation of the old?

    And more importantly, are either of the Two Guys from Andromeda involved?

  17. Re:Sierra taught me English. by ArsSineArtificio · · Score: 4, Funny

    We had this guy from Yugoslavia who started playing on the MUD I run. The problem was, he'd learned all his English from IRC and battle.net. The poor guy thought that l33tsp33k was actual English, possibly because vowel-less "thx" and "ttfn" and whatnot kind of resemble Serbo-Croatian.

    He had a great grasp of English, but it was completely unreadable.

    --
    All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
  18. Needs innovation... by FortKnox · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Even new innovations may not save it.

    The adventure series died. Look at the latest Kings Quest, or Quest for Glory V. No one bought them.
    They need to make it have an incredible plot like a Resident Evil-type game, or a FPS.

    Don't get me wrong, I was born and bred on adventure games, but I don't think they'll be able to sell enough if they "stick to their guns", and do it the way they always have...

    --
    Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
  19. Sam and Max Sequel! by NiftyNews · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Oh my God he wasn't lying.

    Sam & Max Sequel Confirmed!

  20. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME! by stefanlasiewski · · Score: 3, Funny

    Crap man! You should have warned people about that, you're such a troll. **WORSE** then the goat sex people!

    I did EXACTLY as the previous poster stated, stuck a big magnet to the slot machine, and then my monitor started changing colors. I took the magnet away (and stuck it back onto my fridge) and now I have a GIANT PURPLE SPOT on my screen. I reboot the computer, and nothing happens.

    /humor

    --
    "Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."