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Multiplayer Space Quest in a Browser

Martin Kool writes "As a sequel to Quek we at Q42 are proud to present another DHTML javascript showcase: Good Old Adventures Remember the classic adventures games like Larry and Space Quest? Well, now you can play them online, multiplayer, right there in your browser." My favorite part about playing old Sierra games was watching and waiting for the screen to finish flood filling. Thankfully these are much quicker.

59 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. Does not work in mozilla by krokodil · · Score: 4, Funny

    I guess I need Oprah browser or something

    1. Re:Does not work in mozilla by gearheadsmp · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually it does, you just have to have Phoenix .5 or Mozilla 1.2.1r?. I've run flash applets with both.

    2. Re:Does not work in mozilla by ahaning · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's right, you can get the latest Oprah browser here: ftp://ftp.oprah.com/pub/oprah/latest/.

      Be sure to get the new DrPhil plugin. It will make every webpage tell it like it is!

      (S'okay. I had to look up the spelling: Opera ;-) )

      --
      Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
    3. Re:Does not work in mozilla by JLyle · · Score: 3, Funny
      I guess I need Oprah browser or something
      First the talk show, then the book club; now her own web browser?
    4. Re:Does not work in mozilla by adjuster · · Score: 5, Funny

      I guess I need Oprah browser or something

      Isn't that the browser project that goes through horrible code bloat every so often, then gets all trimmed down and redesigned, only to bloat right back up again?

      (I couldn't resist...)

      --
      The Attitude Adjuster, I hate me, you can too.
    5. Re:Does not work in mozilla by Radical+Rad · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It was already slashdotted so I haven't seen it. But it uses flash? Why did they say it was 'DHTML javascript'? I thought it was going to be more like this startrek game.

    6. Re:Does not work in mozilla by Anonvmous+Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      "I guess I need Oprah browser or something"

      It was named Oprah because it's the same browser available in multiple sizes. If you need help remembering which one the bloated one is, remember that it's Oprah with coffee.

    7. Re:Does not work in mozilla by helmutjd · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It doesn't use Flash, it's just really crazy DHTML/Javascript... I thought it was Flash at first, too, but if you right-click you can see otherwise.

      I'm not really sure what the point of the project is, though... they obviously spent a LOT of time making it look and feel just like the original games, but you can't actually do anything but walk around.

      Cool concept, but... could've done a lot more with it.

  2. Linux? by Amsterdam+Vallon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm really into these new Flash websites, but I still think it's a shame we can't do Flash programming on our Linux boxes.

    Doesn't Marcomedia realize that ~ 25% of computer users *dont* run Windows?

    --

    Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
    1. Re:Linux? by Trogre · · Score: 2, Insightful

      One of the reasons why I say bring on SVG :)

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    2. Re:Linux? by jsse · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Doesn't Marcomedia realize that ~ 25% of computer users *dont* run Windows?

      They do realize very few among that 25% would buy their products for Windows. :)

    3. Re:Linux? by bergeron76 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, you can do Flash using Apache, PHP and ming (the funk in your trunk). SWF is a reverse engineered version of flash that's free, open, and more importantly: scriptable!. Try generating real-time flash animations using Macromedia without headaches!

      --
      Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
    4. Re:Linux? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Doesn't Marcomedia realize that ~ 25% of computer users *dont* run Windows?
      Sure they do. That's why they release all these products for the Mac, i.e. the platform most graphic designers use.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  3. Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of Onan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    My favourite part was the big black bouncing "Censored" box.

    Wait, I mean my LEAST favourite part. I would have preferred to see the twelve or fifteen blocky pixels beneath....pixeeeelllls.

    Either way it was better than having to use my imagination like in Softporn Adventure.

    Multiplayer though, that's just sick.

  4. can we watch larry do the girl now? by craqboy · · Score: 4, Funny

    do we get to watch when larry gets freaky with the girlie? I hope so cause I hated the censor box going up and down instead of being able to watch larry get it on with the chick.

  5. It's the newest marketing trend by tyrani · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Release a new game in stores, release an old game that anyone can play over the net.

    Simcity did it not too long ago. You can play the origional SimCityonline.

    --
    rejected (19) accepted (0)
    Is there a psychological term related to getting your stories rejected on slashdot?
  6. Did you try to get the page to load? by LittleBigScript · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think it is ironic to read "...things are must faster now..." and then wait 2 minutes for it to load.

  7. /.'ed by Bios_Hakr · · Score: 2, Funny

    I don't think thousands of users rushing to establish a connection to their poor web server was the multi-player game they had in mind.

    --
    I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
    1. Re:/.'ed by lizzybarham · · Score: 2, Informative

      Their Net Statistics page.

  8. This reminds me... by sawilson · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Of the practice of sneaking text based games in
    daemons. I think either classic adventure or
    mansion was on one of the mindspring DNS servers
    for a while. You could play with nslookup. It
    went along the lines of:

    nslookup www.blah.com 207.69.188.186 forward

    and you'd get your request back and at the bottom
    of it would be something like:

    You enter a room and a loud clear voice says
    "ritnew is a charming word"
    or whatever your next move was. I'd love to find
    another one of these.

    1. Re:This reminds me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Unfortunately mispelling "xyzzy" with too many characters caused a buffer overflow, allowing the entire server to be 0wned. The concept of little "hidden" games kind of went out of fashion after that.

    2. Re:This reminds me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The original used to be at hastur.rlyeh.net. Quite likely that someone set one up somewhere else, though - it's just data.

      Background at http://www.fataldimensions.org/links/dns-mud.php
      and http://www.lysator.liu.se/adventure/Various_compan ies.html.

  9. Hideous Intentions by robbyjo · · Score: 3, Funny

    So, you guys are posting to Slashdot to test how your multiplayer module would scale up, eh? :-) Well, you got it... Time to get to more work, guys...

    --

    --
    Error 500: Internal sig error
  10. Wow, how.. umm .. cool? by Warin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So basically this is an IRC interface masquerading as pixelated, ugly, early 90's looking (by modern standards..those games were very cool 'in the day!') Sierra Game?

    While walking around as Roger Wilco or Leisure Suit Larry seems kind of cool, and you can travel the various locales and talk to other people, you cant actually play through the stories.

    So whats the point...other than a chat room you can talk to other old timers who remembers when it was cool to play the game when it came out?

    1. Re:Wow, how.. umm .. cool? by Iffy+Bonzoolie · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Sierra tried to do something sort of similar. It was called "The Realm." It was an MMORPG made with the Sierra interface. It sucked. As usual, Sierra discovered an online market before it's time and, as usual, completely failed to execute on it. I also beta-tested The Sierra Network (later the ImagiNation Network), which was actually really cool for it's time, but the internet was about 5 years from hitting homes, so the connectivity issue was too big a problem then, i think.

      -If

      --
      Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
    2. Re:Wow, how.. umm .. cool? by fmita · · Score: 3, Funny

      So basically this is an IRC interface masquerading as pixelated, ugly, early 90's looking (by modern standards..those games were very cool 'in the day!') Sierra Game?

      No, I'm pretty sure it was early 90's looking in the early 90's, too.

  11. Are these legal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Unfortunately the site is slashdotted (dare I say "farked"?) beyond reason. But I can't help but wonder-- if this is the real game, aren't there copyright issues w/Sierra? Or have they been given permission...

    Also, since I can't connect, could someone explain how Space Quest is now multiplayer as described in the story headline?

  12. huh, I dont remember by JeanBaptiste · · Score: 5, Funny

    any 403 errors in the original space quest...

    1. Re:huh, I dont remember by WickedClean · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Reminds me of the old days when a floppy would go bad. Remember when you were ENCOURAGED to make backup copies to play from and store away the original disks. I had a few games where that was written in the instructions.

      --
      ...All I can say is that my life is pretty strange...
  13. *sigh* by PhoenixK7 · · Score: 2, Funny

    My favorite part about playing old Sierra games was watching and waiting for the screen to finish flood filling. Thankfully these are much quicker.

    Not for the next couple of days...

    Thanks slashdot!

    Before you mod this as a troll put yourself in the shoes of the sysadmin of that poor server, or better yet: whoever has to pay the bandwidth bill!

  14. Any other Mozilla users that were lied to? by bergeron76 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The site says that it supports Mozilla, and the other Netscape "clones" yet when I load it in Moz. 1.2.1 I get a nonsensical site. Did this happen to anyone else or am I just overly intoxicated tonight?

    Jokes aside, I _loved_ the Sierra games and I can honestly say that they were the catalyst in my computing career/interests. I started with Space Quest I/II/III and when I upgraded to VGA I was all over SQIV. Kings quest, the Black Cauldron, and Quest for Heroes were among my favorites.

    Unless I'm mistaken, there's an open King's Quest project out there. I just can seem to find the link. Can anyone help me find it?

    (I have to get revenge on that witch that tricked me into her _pad_).

    --
    Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
    1. Re:Any other Mozilla users that were lied to? by Beetle+B. · · Score: 2, Informative


      I can run it fine on Mozilla.

      KQ9 - http://www.kq9.org (work in progress).
      King's Quest remakes - http://www.tierraentertainment.com - they've remade KQ1 and KQ2 for VGA.
      SQ7 - http://www.sq7.org (work in progress).

      As for the complaints about not being able to play the games, I think the developers got a little enthusiastic a little too early. They DO intend to have playable versions ultimately - it'll just take a while.

      --
      Beetle B.
  15. /.ed game server by grey3 · · Score: 4, Funny

    My favorite part about the old Sierra games was that I could actually PLAY them and didn't have to wait for the /.ed server to come back online, then drop off the face of the internet after the story gets re-posted.

  16. hmmmmz by spudwiser · · Score: 2, Funny

    Thankfully these are much quicker.

    Assuming they're not /.ed, which they are :p

    --
    .cig - what you do after winning a good flame war
  17. "Flood Filling" is a false memory by Minna+Kirai · · Score: 2, Insightful

    CowboyNeal is mistaken if he thinks a Sierra game like SQ or LLL forced the user to watch floodfilling happen. Those games used precomputed pixmaps for graphics- there was be a severe delay as they were loaded from a (5.25") floppy for each new screen, but you couldn't actually watch the graphics redraw.

    There were other games who exposed the process of rendering 2d vector graphics. I recall a few "Carmen Sandiego" clones for IBM PC or Apple that did this around 1982.

    Going back even further, Sierra had some games like "Mystery House" which did monochrome line art. IDR if there was floodfilling or not.

    1. Re:"Flood Filling" is a false memory by Rothron+the+Wise · · Score: 2

      Flood filling predates bucket fill quite a bit and is pretty descriptive of how the algorithm works.

      This is back in the olden days where you could count the number of available colors on your hands,or if you were lucky, feet aswell.

      A color was a color. To have a "tolerance" like you have on todays fancy shmancy bucket fills was pointless. Floodfill would expand a colored area until it hit a pixel of a different color than the one you started filling. If you had a black outline you wanted to fill and there was a hole in it, the color would spill out, filling the entire rest of the screen. i.e. "flood".

      --
      A witty .sig proves nothing
  18. Sierra Games still work! by sethadam1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I cracked out a copy of good old Space Quest II about a year ago and loaded it up on my Athlon. It still works just fine. Sure, it's a little dated, and yes, those damned boxing robots are still friggin impossible, but it works.

    Funny thing is, I won the game in a few hours, but I remember it being weeks when I was a kid. Oh well. Now I have Leisure Luit Larry and Police Quest to track down!

    1. Re:Sierra Games still work! by Minna+Kirai · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Funny? Not really. Faster, modern disk IO means no more spending 80% of game time waiting for screens to load.

      It also means you can save your game every 60 seconds, without waiting (swap game disk for save disk...wait wait wait... swap back), and with no concern for running out of space. That'll save you a lot of lost time when the game pointlessly kills you (carnivorous mushrooms, anyone?)

      PS. SQ2 had no mechanized pugilists. You're off by one sequel. For minigames, SQ1 had desert-racing and anti-Sarien gunslinging. I don't remeber any in SQ2, but the 3rd game (which changed to a totally different graphics engine) had AstroChicken and boxing. AstroChicken had catchy music and was rather fun. Two more sequels, and they were reduced to "You Sunk My Battlecruiser", one of the least entertaining things imaginable.

    2. Re:Sierra Games still work! by richie2000 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Funny thing is, I won the game in a few hours, but I remember it being weeks when I was a kid.

      I've done the same thing with a few old C=64 games like Arkanoid (when I was a kid, that purple ball was impossible to get past, now I just whizzed by) and Paradroid. Since I played them now on the same compuer as I did then, the faster hardware theory doesn't hold. Any other thoughts on a reason? Are we just so wired for life in the fast lane that the old games aren't challenging anymore?

      --
      Money for nothing, pix for free
  19. No... by Eric_Cartman_South_P · · Score: 2, Troll
    ...you're thinking of Mozilla.

    1. Re:No... by BitHive · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How is this a troll? I used Mozilla (mostly as a MUA) for a long time and switched to Opera 7 a few days ago. The difference is night & day! Mozilla feels clunky and bloated (gee, maybe it *is*), whilst Opera is nimble even with a much better skin engine and a more graphically rich interface!

  20. Emulating a 8086 by spoco2 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I see... the games were running too fast, so they submitted the site to slashdot so it would be slowed down to the point where it was just like playing them on the ol' 8086...

  21. Trouble with tribbles... by VoidEngineer · · Score: 2, Funny

    Ack! I've got Queks multiplying all over my webbrowser! Help!

  22. Quicker, yea right. by Harik · · Score: 2, Funny
    My favorite part about playing old Sierra games was watching and waiting for the screen to finish flood filling. Thankfully these are much quicker.
    ... and to make yourself feel at home you directed the slashdot DDoS at them to slow their servers down! EVIL! Pure Evil!
  23. SQ6 by mickcim · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm still waiting for Space Quest 7. Number six ended with a "To Be Continued..."

    1. Re:SQ6 by jolujogat · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There won't be an OFFICIAL space quest 7, but there is a fan-made game being made:
      http://www.sq7.org/

    2. Re:SQ6 by Beetle+B. · · Score: 2, Informative

      Sierra dropped all plans for SQ7 - read the full story at:

      www.wiw.org/~jess/roger.html

      --
      Beetle B.
  24. Page text / play link - from the "Play!" page by tbdean · · Score: 3, Informative

    BEFORE YOU START
    Please make sure you have read the HELP section on this site before you start playing. It explains all the controls, and you'll find lots of other valuable information there too.

    One more thing. Once playing, please avoid using foul language, it won't be appreciated by most people. Besides, why risk the chance of getting banned from the site for life? Don't forget, if you find someone to be annoying, you can always ignore that player by clicking on that character.

    READY?
    Well then, what are you waiting for?
    Click here to start!

    --
    tbdean
  25. Am I the only one... by sryx · · Score: 3, Funny

    who read the URL as www.GoodOlDadVentures.com

    Maybe thats how they are paying for it :P
    -Jason

  26. /.'ed by Iscariot_ · · Score: 2, Funny

    Anyone wanna post one of these games up here, site seems to have been slashdotted. I bet you'll get +5 so come on... why wait?!

  27. QuakeDHTML by Iscariot_ · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'll pay 50 bucks to the first guy to get quake running in pure DHTML code.

  28. floodfill? by yanyan · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hmm... i don't remember having to wait for Space Quest or King's Quest to floodfill the screen. I DO remember though, that the drawing technique used in some of the earlier Quest games (in particular King's Quest 1), caused some objects to be drawn last, and it would be really obvious to the player. Imagine the whole scene completely drawn, and one or two last objects placed in. All of the time, these objects were movable and or get-able. For example, in KQ1 there's a boulder that you could move to get a knife under it. Because of the way that particular scene was rendered, it was a giveaway.

    In later games though, all objects were drawn simultaneously, so this minor "flaw" disappeared.

  29. does anyone else think it's kind of hypocritical by funkapus · · Score: 2, Interesting
    that in the source of the page, they have the following comment:
    Hi there,

    Nice to see you are interested in how we built Good Old Adventures. Feel free to discover that we didn't make it too easy for you, but why hack our code if a free singleplayer/standalone version will probably be released someday?

    when their whole project is basically a copy of other people's work? and they're posting this on an open source advocacy site?
  30. Yet another SQ game: Lost Chapter (In SQ2/3 style) by Nanoda · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Wow, lookit all the links! I had no idea so many people had created so many SQ games! I'll add this one that was released in 2001, "Space Quest - The Lost Chapter" (Hope he can handle it).

    It's meant to fit in between SQ2 and SQ3, and has the interface totally down. I've played it about 1/4 the way through since last week, and so far my only complaints are the spelling errors every dozen messages, the (very) wordy cut scenes, and the way some exits to other screens are totally hidden. (Don't even get me started on the squid). There are hints and walkthroughs available though, and is very welcome to those who miss the text-interface games that made Sierra so popular.

  31. Screw space quest, I want Scorch! by riflemann · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I am still waiting for Scorched Earth to be updated so that it works in true online multiplayer mode.

    An online version of that game would absolutely rock! Please Wendell, do it!

    Yes there are clones out there, but none are quite so good.

  32. In the meantime play a game... by sh0rtie · · Score: 2, Interesting


    Give Scott and his friends a visit over at Javascript Games, for more DHTML goodness

    Note:
    Opera isnt supported as it doesnt (at least it didnt used to) support the ability to re write the page after loading (elm.innerHTML) due to Opera's incomplete DOM model so any mildly adventurous DHTML will fail, hence Mozilla/NS6/ IE required.

  33. Starsphere by Idimmu+Xul · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'd rather play Starsphere which does work in all browsers, and is a free online mmorpg where you control a planet and it's space fleet and go up against thousands of other players.

    --
    The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
  34. DrPhil plugin considered harmful by Maggot75 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Beware the DrPhil plugin! It claims to tell you things as they are, but it only tells you what you want to hear. And only if you're a middle aged woman, at that.

  35. Sierra incurred my wraith after KQ4. by Gannoc · · Score: 2, Interesting


    You get cupids bow and 2 arrows early on in the game. You can shoot a pegasus? to make him fall in love with you. At any time, you could shoot the other arrow and it would fly across the screen, etc.

    THE LAST PART IN THE GAME, the evil queen or whatever, required the 2nd arrow. Literally, the last two words you typed were "Shoot queen." If you shot the arrow 5 hours ago... tough luck, you were dead.

    Weeee, fun.