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Fan-Made Space Quest Prequel Released

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the flash-from-the-past dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Earlier this week, a new fan-made prequel to Sierra's Space Quest series, Space Quest 0: Replicated, was released. Designed by Jeff Stewart, Replicated features a hilarious story centered on cloning, retro graphics and interface, and tons of the wacky death scenes that made the SQ games famous in the first place. You can download Replicated at the Virtual Broomcloset." I adored Space Quest in my younger days... not sure if this will be worth it, but it brings a tear to my eye to see new AGI games being fan created ;)

32 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. I wonder... by Quill · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How long before this project gets shutdown because of copyright or trademark violations?

    Same applies to the Fan-Made Sequel.

    --
    My religion forbids the use of sigs.
    1. Re:I wonder... by RyanFenton · · Score: 5, Funny

      Forget copyright violations - How long before it's shut down for bandwidth loss due to slashdotting?

      Ryan Fenton

    2. Re:I wonder... by Alpha_Nerd · · Score: 4, Informative

      Sierra doesn't even own the rights to the name Space Quest... Space Quest is a registered trademark of Children's Museum of Indianapolis.

    3. Re:I wonder... by Surak · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, but they own the rights to the characters and the names of the characters, so, yes, they could sue for copyright and/or trademark infringement.

      Don't believe me? Put a picture of Mickey Mouse on your Website and watch how fast you get a cease and desist order from Disney!

      --
      My journal has hot /. gossip.
    4. Re:I wonder... by puntloos · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually according to This Slashdot Article pointing to This Slate Article making a sequel should be (but isnt, as far as corporations are concerned) legal..

    5. Re:I wonder... by RyanFenton · · Score: 4, Funny
      The file is 658K. Don't worry.


      Famous last words.

      Ryan Fenton
  2. Where's Leisure Suite Larry? by Saint+Stephen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I would love to see another installment of LSL. The only game (or movie, or anything) that literally made me fall out of my chair laughing (something In Passionate Pattie).

    KQIV, SQIII, and PQ1 were some of my favorite games as a kid. I wish they could find some way to capture the flavor using updated tech. Maybe they should let us type commands instead of using the mouse again... I dunno... Games just aren't as fun any more.

    1. Re:Where's Leisure Suite Larry? by evilroot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      For most people, such is an unfortunate side effect of becoming an adult. Today's kids don't seem to be having any trouble enjoying current games as much as I did the old ones.

  3. Those were the days, when men were men... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    and all games did not use variants of the same plot. Over and over again.

    1. Re:Those were the days, when men were men... by talon77 · · Score: 2

      What are you talking about? I don't think I have ever read a more incorrect statement. Even games just by sierra at that time were radically different in the plots, king's quest, space quest, quest for glory, police quest, leisure suit larry, robin hood:conquest of the longbow, conquests of camelot, codename:iceman, etc..

      Those plots are some of the greatest story lines ever in games. Back then is when people actually put some thought into the story, and the end result of the game was worth it to millions of fans. Hence, even now people are trying to expand on those plots.

  4. PC only by sebi · · Score: 3, Informative

    It doesn't explicitly say so on the page, but the game seems to be Windows/Dos only. The download-able zip doesn't include a read-me, but it does include an .exe.

    --
    Hank! White!
    1. Re:PC only by JMcEttrick · · Score: 3, Informative

      This game is written in Sierra On-line's old AGI, language, which compiles to bytecode, so it can then be run on any platform for which there is an interpreter. In the 80's this allowed Sierra's adventure games to run on DOS, Apple II, Amiga, etc.

      To run it under GNU/Linux, try http://samhain.cc.huji.ac.il/agi/ , wherein lies a linux AGI interpreter (and studio for game creation). I didn't try it, but it ought to work.

    2. Re:PC only by nsonneveld · · Score: 3, Informative

      The interpeter that comes bundled with SQ:Replicated is actually called NAGI which is a clone of the original Sierra AGI interpreter. It has been ported to Linux.

      Debian Package of NAGI(will probably have more luck with this)

      NAGI homepage

      If you're interested in writing your own AGI games, you might want to check out the rest of the site.

      - Nick Sonneveld

    3. Re:PC only by Jonner · · Score: 4, Informative

      It seems to work fine with Sarien as mentioned in the shameless plug. In fact, everything was amazingly intuitive. I saw the post about Sarien, downloaded the source tarball, did "./configure && make", went to the directory of the game, ran sarien, and it was up and running.

    4. Re:PC only by Bostik · · Score: 4, Informative

      I just experimented with NAGI out of mere curiosity. Unpacked the zip of SQ0 to a separate directory and ran NAGI there. *poof* Instant jump to opening screen and on with the game. From the short experience it seems to be very true to the originals.

      As if I didn't have problems with my personal scheduling already. Damn.

      --
      There is no such thing as good luck. There is only misfortune and its occasional absence.
    5. Re:PC only by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 2, Informative

      It doesn't explicitly say so on the page, but the game seems to be Windows/Dos only.

      That's what I noticed as well, so I decided to go off on a quest of my own see what I could find. Turns out the best place to go is to the AGI Development Site and see what's available. You will need to download one of the interpreters, which are listed on the 'links' page.

      The one I decided to download was the Java AGI. It comes with no documentation so you will need to compile it yourself and then realise that you need to create an empty 'agi.conf' file (will need to investigate the config values) in the classpath and use com.sierra.agi.tools.AGI to get things running, oh and the 'user.dir' should point to where the game is installed. After all this I am only at the stage at listening to the music, as I see no graphics. This is all on MacOS X, with JDK 1.4.1.

      --
      Jumpstart the tartan drive.
  5. Erg, those were the days. by Oscar_Wilde · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hmmm, its not very often a slashdot story makes you feel like turning your monitor resolution down to 800x600....

    And thats a fact I'm very glad of.

    Incidentaly, people might like to check out The Lost Chapter for more fan-made adventures in the SQ universe.

  6. Tierra Entertainment by master_p · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.tierraentertainment.com/

    They have excellent remakes of the King's Quest 1 and 2(especially).

    1. Re:Tierra Entertainment by Haak · · Score: 3, Interesting

      And here is a fanmade sequel to Zak McKracken.

    2. Re:Tierra Entertainment by Deusy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Although their efforts (whilst being very good) can't touch the ambitions of the KQ9 effort.

      Seriously, check out the screenshots!

      The thing about fan remakes, is arguably more passion is put into them than the originals whose authors are often in it for the momey. Every member of a fan remake is a fan and wants to make the game as good as possible.

      --

      Free Gamer - Free games list and commentary

  7. Fixed version by pacc · · Score: 4, Funny

    "I bought too much beer, drank it all, and can't finish my quest!"

    These people will have to restore a saved game, but it won't happen again.



    It seems like this latest version can prohibit you from bad drinking habits. It must be a programmers dream to be able to correct buggy users.

  8. Running it on *nix by adamsan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Does it work with Sarien, the linux AGI interpreter, then?
    http://sarien.sourceforge.net/

    1. Re:Running it on *nix by mjrauhal · · Score: 3, Informative

      Sarien worked for my until trying to launch the
      escape pod. Then the game got stuck, while still
      accepting input.

      Nagi, on the other hand, got me onto the planet.
      So, apt-get install nagi ;)

  9. Shameless plug by almightyjustin · · Score: 5, Informative
    This game was written using the old Sierra AGI engine, which used bytecode and intepreters to allow games to be run on just about every platform back in the day (PC, Amiga, Mac, Tandy, even Apple II and CoCo).

    Sarien is a very mature reverse-engineered interpreter that carries on that tradition and will run on just about every modern platform (protected-mode DOS, Win32, *nix, pre-OSX Mac, OSX, Photon, PalmOS, even original platforms like real-mode CGA DOS and Amiga). It even offers improvements over the original AGI like high-res graphics and multi-channel sound even on PCs.

    *Disclaimer* I'm an official project member, so I may be slightly biased. ;)

    --

    Omnes arx vestrum sunt adiuncta nobis.

  10. Fanmade Zac McKracken is ... by rasjani · · Score: 4, Informative

    here Quite faithfull follower of the original.

    --
    yush
  11. DNF? by ruiner13 · · Score: 3, Funny

    So a prequil to Space Quest was completed by a hobbiest before Duke Nukem Forever was completed by a full-blown company? Not bad. Maybe the DNF creaters should license out to this guy if they are ever going to get that game out.

    --

    today is spelling optional day.

  12. SQ 7 by dominic7 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Space Quest 7, http://www.sq7.org/ looks great. There's a little teaser trailer in quick time and wow, I'm salivating. I wasted much too much time on these games but I'm ready to waste again

  13. Re:stuck in the pod by gpinzone · · Score: 2, Informative

    You are going down the wrong path. Don't go in the escape pod. Go through the garbage chute.

  14. Re:stuck in the pod by pimpybra · · Score: 2, Informative

    type "press one" or "press two" or "press three"

  15. Re:For a moment... by phong3d · · Score: 2, Funny

    By Grapthar's Hammer, I will remember to stop walking before I type my commands.

  16. I fired up SQ3 on my girlfriend's computer... by confused+philosopher · · Score: 2, Funny

    And she looked at me like I was a Vogon.

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    Why slashdot? Why not?
  17. If you dig this by yem · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Check out Ur-Quan Masters.
    It's the original Star Control 2, ported to SDL & OpenGL and available FREE for *nix and Windows - including source.

    --
    No, I did not read the f***ing article!