The Adventurers Guild

Written by Joe Pranevich

It’s hard to believe now, but comic books were once not the hot property that they are now. In the 1990s and 2000s, Marvel sold the rights to some of their best-known characters, including Spider-Man and the X-Men, for what we might now consider a pittance. All of that changed in 2008 when Marvel released Iron Man, the first of a set of interconnected movies that featured other characters including the Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Nick Fury, and others. Seven years, ten films, and three live-action television series later, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the most successful and longest-lasting experiment in building many properties into a single coherent universe. Even Guardians of the Galaxy, a team that many comics fans (myself included) had never heard of, managed to take in 774 million dollars at the box office. Holy cow.

In honor of the upcoming eleventh film, Avengers: Age of Ultron, I want to step back to a simpler time for Marvel: the company’s first foray into licensing their characters for adventure games. (An action game featuring Spider-Man had been released for the Atari 2600 in 1982.) For this attempt, Marvel partnered with one of the kings of the adventure genre, Scott Adams’s Adventure International. While we have not yet featured any of their games on TAG, Adventure International was the first seller of text-adventures for home computers, broke into illustrated text adventures a bit late, then went bankrupt in 1985. By my count, AI had released about two dozen games (in several series) before winning the Marvel license and producing the Questprobe series.

Questprobe was ambitious: A 12-part series with three parts released per year for four years. Each part would feature a different hero or heroes, each would have a tie-in comic, and the sum total would somehow tell an epic story in the grand Marvel tradition. Regretfully, with the end of Adventure International only a year away, only three games were released. (The tie-in comic for the fourth was released later under the Marvel Fanfare series.) The second game would feature Spider-Man, while the third would feature a team-up between the Human Torch and the Thing, both members of the Fantastic Four. The fourth installment would have featured X-Men characters.

Regardless of what we might think of this series now, it is clear that Marvel took it quite seriously. The art for the game was done by comic legends John Romita Sr. and Mark Gruenwald, as well as Ken McNair. Mr. Romita is a comics legend having drawn some of the most iconic early Spider-Man stories including the death of Gwen Stacy. Mark Gruenwald was primarily a writer at Marvel (he wrote the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, part of which is excerpted in the manual for this game) and later became the executive editor at Marvel. Ken McNair was apparently not a Marvel employee and was probably the artist at Adventure International responsible for adapting the others’ comic art into the game. The outline for the series was done by John Bryne and Bob Budiansky. John was best known at that time for writing many of the iconic stories of the X-Men such as the “Dark Phoenix Saga”, while Bob was writing (or would soon be writing) the Transformers comic. He coined the names of many of the Transformers characters including Megatron, the Dinobots, and others. In other words, Marvel was placing talented people on this project to ensure its success.

Of course, marketing never hurt and Marvel also advertised the game through its books. There was a Bullpen Bulletin in the August 1984 issues:

As well as a very snazzy full color advertisement:

I’m a true believer in that afro.

I have been unable to locate any sales figures or contemporary reviews of the game to tell whether this push was successful, but this does not appear to have been a fire-and-forget project for Marvel. They were committed to the long haul, even if in retrospect we know the series did not quite make it.

Why Choose The Hulk?

You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.

Looking back now, it’s not easy to see why Marvel selected The Incredible Hulk as the first property to make a game from. A lot was riding on the success of the series, so why not choose a character with more “star power” and “mass-market appeal”?

And that’s where we forget: the Hulk was undoubtedly one of Marvel’s greatest crossover successes in the 1980s. The Incredible Hulk TV series had just ended its five season run, still the longest lasting live-action series in Marvel history, and had proven that a Marvel character could survive in the mass market. Yes, there had also been several Spider-Man shows over the previous decade (both live-action and animated), but none of them had the staying power of the Hulk, starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno. There would be a Spider-Man game soon enough, but for this first outing the spotlight was on the Hulk.

Prologue: The Tie-In Comic

“Limited series”, indeed.

Our story begins in the tie-in comic, Questprobe #1. This comic was sold separately from the game, but is almost essential reading. It covers the backstory for the events that lead into the player taking the reigns. It is actually quite good, with art by Romita Sr. and Gruenwald.

In a distant part of the universe, there is an advanced race that has been peaceful for millennia. They have been so peaceful in fact that they have forgotten the arts of war and consider even defending themselves to be against their core beliefs. All of this pacifism is unfortunate because they are being attacked by an unknown “black fleet” which threatens to destroy their entire civilization. They cannot stop this fleet, they cannot reason with it. The leaders of this advanced world can do only one thing: resign themselves to their deaths.

The people call a great council to debate their next moves, but the decision is made nearly before they begin. How can they fight, if fighting causes them to lose their core beliefs. Is it better to die following your moral code? Or live by violating it?

But as is always the case in these situations, one member of the council does not agree. His name is Durgan and he is a “philosopher”.

Durgan is denounced by the council for his views and sent into exile. But Durgan does not give up: he has been observing other worlds where there are still heroes. Could he capture their power? Harness it? Could he use that power to challenge and defeat the black fleet and save his people? Well, I suppose that is what we are about to find out.

Meanwhile, back on… wait a second. Durgan looks familiar. Where have I seen that face before? Oh right, a few pages ago in the advertisement for the game!

The resemblance is uncanny. Durgan even has Scott’s space-afro! And don’t you think the blue spots around Durgan’s eyes look suspiciously like Scott’s glasses? Perhaps I am imagining it, but I don’t think so. Anyway, where was I?

Meanwhile, back on Earth, the Hulk is having a bit of a disagreement with the National Guard. I suspect that happens quite often.

Unbeknownst to the combatants, a new player is on the scene to watch the fight. He is using a computer to learn from it, even to learn the humans’ language. This figure is known as the Chief Examiner, and while he looks suspiciously like Durgan with a helmet, the reader is left in the dark who he might be and how he might relate to the warrior-philosopher. I am not sure that they would make it quite obvious, but whoever it is he is after the Hulk’s power.

The Hulk escapes the National Guard and flees to a cave where he is blown up (as I will be, many times over) by a “Natter Energy Egg”. He shrugs it off and decides to sleep in the cave, allowing the Chief Examiner to discover that the Hulk is nothing more than a normal human who happens to turn into a monster when he’s angry. When Dr. Banner wakes up, he flees the cave only to tumble off a side of a cliff; he did not quite remember where the Hulk had put him. Fortunately rather than being reduced to human-pancake on the ground, he transforms into the Hulk on impact and flees with the Chief Examiner right behind.

With the Chief Examiner trying to catch the Hulk in his moving black doorway, the pair stumble onto a group of white-water rafters and in the ensuing chaos one of them falls in the water and starts to drown. The Hulk immediately changes gears to rescue her, but the Chief Examiner takes advantage of the situation and forces the Hulk to pass through his doorway.

Instead of teleporting Hulk into the game (what I expected to happen), the portal instead worked as something like a scanner. It analyzed the Hulk and allowed him to pass through to the other side so he could save the drowning woman. Having already scored his prize, the Chief Examiner leaves the scene and the comic comes to a close.

The comic is actually quite good, both as an introduction to the character of the Hulk and as a jumping off point for more stories about Durgan and the menace of the black fleet. The Hulk is depicted as being both heroic and misunderstood, the connection between him and Bruce Banner is explained, and several of Hulk’s powers are depicted. If I was a computer game purchaser that was not interested in comic books, I think I would get a pretty good idea of what the Hulk was all about from this issue. It made me want to read more. I hope that there will be some questions answered in the short time we have with this series before the bankruptcy, but all I can do is just wait and see. I will read the others when the time comes.

The Manual

Interestingly, Scott Adams and Marvel did not choose to include any of that backstory in the game manual itself. The booklet includes the normal instructions on how to load and save the game, as well as some hints on how to approach the game, but it also includes one more awesome feature: character guides.

Each denizen of the Marvel Universe that the Hulk is likely to meet in the game is depicted in the manual, with a glamor shot, a brief history, and a textual description of the person’s or creature’s powers. From that, I can surmise that Dr. Strange, Ant-Man, Ulton, and Nightmare are likely to appear, but I will cross that bridge when I get to it. All of these biographies appear to have been adapted from the 1983-1984 edition of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe by Mark Gruenwald, although I do not have a copy to double-check whether this is taken verbatim from that guide or is a new work in the same style. If someone has a copy, please let me know.

And with that, I’ve talked far too long! Let’s play the game!

Incredible Hulk Journal #1 - Hulk wake up, hulk no know where he is. Hulk smash! That no work. Hulk dig holes. That no work. Hulk smash puny ants, but that no work too. Now Hulk smash stupid journal machine.

Damn. Did I forget the safeword again?

As the game begins, I am Bruce Banner, tied hand and foot to a chair. How did I get here? I have no idea, but that isn’t really the problem right now. First screen and I already have the first puzzle! Obviously, Dr. Banner cannot do much about breaking free, but this isn’t a game about a brilliant scientist. This is a game about the Hulk and HE wouldn’t have any difficulty getting out of the chair.

I try the obvious first: “become hulk” doesn’t work, neither does “get angry” and the game helpfully asks me how to do those things. I also try “struggle”, “yell”, and “stand up”, but those don’t work either. I cannot look at my inventory when tied to the chair, so it’s clear that there is just something I need to do here, but what?

Eventually, I try to “rock” the chair. That works! I fall over and hit my head, but the pain brings out the big green guy and he breaks free!

Now I’m angry (™)!

But just when I think I might be able to smash something, a strange gas fills the room and I am forced to revert to being Dr. Banner. But on the bright side, I am free from the chair and can start to look around.

Well, that was unexpected...

What shall I do, indeed...

With that first puzzle out of the way, I can explore properly. I am in a dome of some kind with a mirror, a fan, the broken chair, and a strange iron ring embedded in the floor. A nearby sign conveniently tells me the point of the game:

This computer model has been created so that you will learn to perform as the HULK! To prove that you can supply the brains as well as control the Hulk’s brawn, you must collect all the *Gems and store them in the proper location. Good luck!

Just as I suspected: it seems that “I” am trying to learn to control a copy of the Hulk that was created when the black portal scanned the real deal in New Mexico. I assume that I am a member of Durgan’s race, but I have no idea. It’s quite meta!

Before I go on, I toyed with the interface a bit. It is a standard text parser with two word commands, not unlike the Hi-Res Adventures that I have been playing. Like those games, some of the items that you can interact with have full-screen portraits:

Even the inventory screen has a separate view, clearly laying out all of the items that you are carrying. I love the detail! I checked later and yes, you get a screen with the Hulk instead if you are transformed.

Carrying: Purple pants (ripped)

As any good adventure gamer would, I pick up everything nailed down. Bruce is not strong enough to get or pull on the iron ring, but any attempts to transform here result in more gas and switching back to Banner once again. Obviously, I have a puzzle on my hands, but I suspect it is one I will come back to later.

I head east to a tunnel with a button and a sign. The sign is warning me of high gravity ahead, which sounds deadly. When I push the button, I get a message that says “delay on”, but no clear idea what it is delaying. I try to leave the dome but, as expected, I die immediately in the high gravity. I guess I need to be the Hulk to get out.

Instead of having to start over, the game sends me to a much nicer place: heaven.

There’s a sign on the wall, but she wants to be sure
‘cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.

Going down the stairs here takes me back to the starting point. Just in case there is a reason that I shouldn’t die, I start the game over again, but it is nice that there is an easy way back. I just fear that there is a catch…

The next time in the tunnel, I press the button and try to turn into the Hulk. Just as before, “become angry” doesn’t do the trick but “bite me” does! Gentle readers, this has been one of my life’s dreams: I have successfully used “bite me” in an adventure game and have it do something important. Luckily for me, the gas does not come as quickly this time and I am able to leave the dome. Better yet, the Hulk can survive the high gravity. Time to see what else is out there!

Space igloo!

The first screen has a gem, but nothing obvious to do. I march off in a random direction (north!) and find myself in a warp, ending up in a “fuzzy area”. It’s a strange, trippy place with lots of Escher-like structures and, conveniently enough, a sign.

The sign tells me that this is where I am to leave all of the gems that I find, although I expected I would be waiting a few more screens to find it. But all the better! I drop off the two gems that I collected (my score is now 11%!) and keep exploring. But rather than document my travails directly, let me summarize: this “fuzzy” room is a hub room for the game. Moving in any direction takes you to one of several locations in the game. Except for north, which always takes you to a room with an exploding egg (more on that in a bit), the rest of the directions seem to lead to one of three locations:

Outside my starting dome
Outside a dome next to an ant colony
The Chief Examiner’s office

I did not know it yet, but there is actually a third dome that looks identical to the starting dome and I only noticed when I did something to change the scenery. More on that in a bit. Rather than narrating these completely straight as there was plenty of jumping back and forth to try things in each location, I will narrate the areas one by one. Trust me, it makes much more sense that way than trying to following my lunatic thought process as I flip back and forth from puzzle to puzzle.

The Underground Room

Was Wolverine here recently?

I head north off of Limbo the first time through and find myself in this “underground room” with no exit. Like in the dome, I am immediately gassed back to being Bruce Banner. Before I can worry much about not having a way out, the egg explodes (one turn later) and Dr. Banner is dead. But when I return here after going to heaven, the room is empty: the explosion also destroyed the Bio gem. I restore my game and try a few things, but I cannot find a way to get the gem. I can become the Hulk immediately after arrival and that allows me to survive the explosion, but there is no time to do anything else and the gem is still destroyed. I suspect I will need to come back to this one later.

I am fairly sure this is an important puzzle because not only does it appear on the game box/comic book cover, it is also a puzzle that the real Hulk failed to solve in the comic:

Regardless, I head off to try to find a puzzle I can solve.

Chief Examiner’s Office

Er… Scott?

One one of my next trips from the fuzzy room, I wind up in the Chief Examiner’s office. He even has his name stenciled on the door! I’m really glad that he has a space where he can file paperwork after a long day of capturing heroes in strange black portals.

Fortunately, the Examiner does not notice me and I can explore his room a bit. There’s a gem on his desk and I also notice that he is writing a computer program. What program might that be? Why, the next Questprobe game, of course! Now, here’s the odd thing: is he programming on paper? I was not a programmer (yet) in 1984 and I have done my fair share of jotting notes and doing basic design on paper, but it really looks like he’s coding on paper and plans to type it in later. That’s just strange.

With the gem I nabbed from his desk, I’m up to 17%!

The Ant Colony

Ant skyscrapers!

On my next exit from the fuzzy room, I find myself outside a dome that looks exactly the same as the other one, except for one detail: the giant ant colony outside. There’s also a gem, which I pick up, but that’s when it happens: alien army ants swarm out of the nest. Before I work out what to do, they surround me and crawl into my eyes and kill me. That is a surprisingly grisly death.

Subtle innuendos follow, must be something inside.

On the next attempt, I grab the gem and dart for the nearby dome. Inside it is nearly identical to the first dome, except for not having an iron ring in the floor. Even without the ring, it still has the anti-Hulk gas and I am quickly back to being Banner again.

On a whim, I transform into the Hulk in the room where the iron ring would be and I see an astral projection of Dr. Strange! (One of Hulk’s powers is that he can see spiritual bodies like this. I have no idea why.) I hulk-out again and am able to see that the good doctor is pointing at a baseboard. I examine that and find a small outlet where the gas is coming from. I try to cover it with my hand, but that doesn’t do much good. I have a feeling I am on the right track as the parser knows the command “cover outlet”. Now, if I can just find something to cover it with...

At this point, I am pretty sure that I am stuck and I just start trying lots of random things in different places. Outside the first dome (with the iron ring), I type “dig” and the Hulk digs a hole! I also get a great action scene of the Hulk digging.

Yes, I tried “get field”. That was the type of random nonsense I was trying.

I climb into my freshly-dug hole and find a gem. I also discover that I can keep digging, but that if I keep doing it I eventually break into the hot magma underneath the planet’s crust and die. Hulk must be very good at digging! I restore and stop digging when I get a warning that it is starting to get a bit warm.

Screens like this are one of the reasons I love the art in this game.

As I continue to explore, I find myself back at the “first” dome again… but this time it doesn’t have a hole. What gives? Did my hole disappear? No! It is a completely different but otherwise identical dome. I am not sure if this is supposed to be a puzzle or just bad game design, but either way I have something new to explore.

The Beehive

Maya gives and Maya cares.

Inside this new dome is a nest of killer bees as well as a stash of beeswax. Strangely, the bees do not seem to mind my being in the dome, but any time I try to get wax they sting me, I turn into the Hulk, I get gassed, and then I turn back into Dr. Banner. It’s almost funny, but I guess it is better than dying. There is some wire mesh in the wall that leads outside, which I assume is how the bees come and go.

Well, I’m shaking up my baby killer bee...

Even though I have a new dome, there is not that much new to explore as I do not have an immediate answers on how to get that beeswax. I take this time to dig holes in front of each of the other two domes (two more gems!), then resume my game of trying crazy commands until I find one that does something.

The first that I stumble on is “lift dome”. How this makes that much sense, I have no idea, but it seems that someone has hidden some gems underneath!

Now how did this get here?

The second command seems obvious in retrospect, but I can also use “look dome” on the bees’ dome to see the wire mesh outside! What makes this infuriating is that you do not see anything special looking at the other two domes, so having this be different is just another little infuriation. Still, it’s progress.

Still looks like a space igloo.

That gives me some terrible ideas and one excellent idea: I wave (as the Hulk) the metal fan at the hole to cause a powerful gust of wind that blows all of the bees out of the dome! I have no idea where they are going now, but the important thing is that I can get the wax. Even better: I have a pretty good idea of what I want to use that wax on: the gas outlet.

But with that good idea, I am going to end this play session. I have found 13 gems so far, 76% according to the “score” command. I sure hope that blocking the gas outlet gets me somewhere because I am running out of random commands to try everywhere...

Time played: 3 hours
Total time: 3 hours

Guess what? I’ve played a bit farther now and have managed to get stuck… well, let’s just say more than a few times. If you want some easy CAPs, now would be a great time to wager where it was that I got hung up. It will be like shooting fish in a barrel. I do not need clues as (in the interest of time), Ilmari and TBD provided some clue-assistance so that I could win the game.

Don’t forget that you can also still wager on the final score!

New Spring-Summer Contest!

Would you like to win this completely un-signed and non-mint copy of Questprobe Vol #1 Issue #1? How about issues #2 and #3 as well? I bet you would! Between now and August, I will be playing the three Questprobe games, with each “Missed Classic” coming out with a summer Marvel feature: #2 prior to Ant-Man in July, then #3 with The Fantastic Four in early August. After that is over, I will wrap up with a series-wide recap and an “epilogue” of how Marvel ended the series (and the Chief Examiner) after the collapse of Adventure International, as well as announce the winner.

All you need to do is write a comment (as many as you want) describing why you love or hate a character that appeared in our Questprobe adventure. I will randomly pick from the best comments to select the winner. For #1, the included Marvel characters are the Hulk, Dr. Strange, Ant-Man, Nightmare, and Ultron. Please avoid using characters from later in the series so as not to spoil me on those games. Good luck!

Written by Deimar

And here we go again one more time. With a game that comes back just like me. With a vengeance. Brace yourselves for the continuation of 1990’s worst game… Hugo II: Whodunit?

Carmen Sandiego, no doubt. That fedora and suspicious behaviour are unmistakable

There is little to add to the introduction of the first game. By this point, David Gray had left his previous job developing software for UK Ministry of Defense to go fully self employed. “Hugo II: Whodunit?”, also called “Hugo’s Mystery Adventure” or even “Hugo’s Who Done it?”, was his first game after going independent and seems to keep the same level of excellence and charm as the original. Whatever that level you think it is. I will simply say that is a commendable effort for a single-person project.

After the success of the first installment, Gray almost immediately started to think in a sequel. In this interview he admits that he was trying to come up with a clever rhyme or alliteration for the name and ended up deciding between “Hugo whodunit?” and “Hugo’s there?”. As a non-english speaker I’m missing the point of the pun in the first one, but as the second one is lame even by Hugo’s standard, it was the chosen one. And being a fan of Agatha Christie’s mystery novels, it was decided that the second game would be a murder mystery game. I bet the murderer was Bensonmum.

See the magnifying glass? MYSTERY!! (image source)

The story takes off where the first one ended. After rescuing his girlfriend Penelope and fleeing the House of Horrors, Hugo decides to take Penelope to visit his Great Uncle Horace, at his English country-side secluded cottage. Well, at least is not a house in the middle of a swamp or else I might become suspicious.

Ok, I regret anything I said. This an acceptable picture of a house.

Inside the cottage, the saucy-looking french maid welcomes them and invites them to a room upstairs. The name of the maiden may be Fifi or may be not, as she doesn’t say any other phrase than “go to your room”. But it is lovely seeing how she blocks any movement that doesn’t involve going up to the room.

And… the graphics go full paint-mode inside.
Almost as horrible as the maid’s french accent.
I’m starting to miss the House of Horror’s decoration...

In any case, Hugo reluctantly obeys and goes to his room with Penelope, who immediately goes to sleep. Being the curious and adventurous type, Hugo starts to loot the ro… erm… search what can he do to pass the time when he touches a yellow book in the bookcase which opens it and makes Hugo disappear.

Bye. bye Hugo. We will miss your startling personality and good taste in clothing

And here is where the game really starts, as we take control of Penelope which is awaken by a heavy noise to an empty room. Giving absolutely no attention to Hugo’s disappearance, I guess he must disappear quite frequently to seek a secluded spot and cry while saying “Bullet!! Bullet!!” , she decides to peek through a keyhole to see what’s causing the noise. And then she becomes the only witness to uncle Horace’s murder.

Sadly, I have to say that any person wearing that jersey deserves to die

I’ll be playing the DosBox version, included within the Windows trilogy. I can see that the game is already at the bottom of everyone’s guess for 1991 so we are probably starting the year with something that will make anything else look amazing. We will see in the following posts but if anything I have to wish this game to be as short as the first one or else I’m in a lot of trouble...

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There's a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no CAPs will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. As this is an introduction post, it's an opportunity for readers to bet 10 CAPs (only if they already have them) that I won't be able to solve a puzzle without putting in an official Request for Assistance: remember to use ROT13 for betting. If you get it right, you will be rewarded with 20 CAPs in return. It's also your chance to predict what the final rating will be for the game. Voters can predict whatever score they want, regardless of whether someone else has already chosen it. All correct (or nearest) votes will go into a draw.

By Joe Pranevich

Nearly six months ago, I was asked by this blog about my “favorite” adventure game. I remember thinking about that for a long time and answering that Quest for Glory IV was my favorite game now, but that as a kid I absolutely would have picked Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers. I played the hell out of this game as a youngster. I bought the floppy version shortly after it came out, loved it, then bought it again when it came out on CD. I must have played this game through a dozen times before I left for college. So why is it that I can remember almost nothing about it now?

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I remember some things about the game. I remember time travel between different games rather than years and that at some point you visit “latex babes”. That is certainly something my teenage self would have latched onto and remembered. I recall a sequence in a futuristic shopping mall where I had to flip burgers to (I think) buy a hint book. I even remember that they changed the name of one of the stores in the CD version. When the latter came out, I remember loving the voice narration. But that’s it. I do not remember how this game starts. I do not remember how the game ends. I do not remember the puzzles. I suspect that I will remember more as playing jogs my memory, but for right now this is it. I am looking forward to rediscovering this game and, perhaps just as importantly, rediscovering what my younger self saw in it. I hope that I had good taste.

Deliberate title confusion? Or just poor box design?

For some fans, Space Quest IV is the last of the real Space Quest games because this is the last of the series to be designed by the Two Guys From Andromeda, Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy. They had collaborated on the Space Quest series since 1986, but after this game had some sort of falling out. More recently, they must have had a falling back in because they launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund a spiritual successor called SpaceVenture. There would be two more Space Quest games made, but they only featured one “Guy From Andromeda” each: Mark on SQ5 and Scott on SQ6. That can be something that we talk about when we make it to 1993!

I think it is illuminating as we turn the pages of computer gaming history to look at the growing number of people it takes to make a game in 1991 versus just a few years prior. For example, Space Quest III boasted just five programmers (not counting those on the development system, which I assume are the folks creating the engine). SQ4 had nine. Perhaps more illuminating is that SQ3 did not credit any artists or animators, but SQ4 has a whopping fourteen team members just doing the art. There were three credited composers and sound effects artists in SQ4, but only one each in SQ3. I could keep going, but the point is that we have to expect a more polished product with exactly 2.8 times better art and 3 times better music. That is a mathematical fact.

Nice. But still not as cool as a TARDIS.

The manual for Space Quest IV is given to us in the form of a futuristic magazine filled with lots of fun advertisements and a few pertinent features. There is an interview with Roger Wilco as he catches up the reader on the events of Space Quests 1 through 3, a real ad for the SQ4 hint book intermingled with numerous fake ones, and a few other features. With all of that, there isn’t actually that much room for a manual in there. I suspect that some of the fun stuff will be useful in-game (and there is a brief walkthrough for players that are stuck in the first section), but there is nothing like King’s Quest V’s tutorial on how to navigate the new Sierra point-and-click interface here. Either they figured that the player could work that out him or herself (likely) or they just had so much fun coming up with ads for fake products that there wasn’t any room left. For my money, I’m just looking forward to discovering if anything I’ve read for the last fifteen minutes will matter when I’m actually playing the game.

Hoverboards are real!

For this playthrough, I will be using the GOG.com version of the game. After some research, this appears to be a DOS version of the CD-ROM re-release of the game. As that version was initially available only for Windows and has some problems on modern systems, this seems to be the best of both worlds. If you would like to play along with this version, it’s available now for around $10 and the bundle includes the fifth and sixth games as well!

Since I am playing the version that came out in 1992, rather than 1991, I will try not to bump the score too much for the vocal narration. If I have the option to turn it off and return to written captions only, I will do so after my first play post so that I can have a feel for the narration before I turn it off. I suspect that if I leave it on I will get frustrated by the speed: we read a lot faster than we can listen and I am an impatient person.

Enough writing! I am excited to play this game! It’s time to find out of me-from-the-past had better taste in games than he did in clothes.

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There's a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no CAPs will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. As this is an introduction post, it's an opportunity for readers to bet 10 CAPs (only if they already have them) that I won't be able to solve a puzzle without putting in an official Request for Assistance: remember to use ROT13 for betting. If you get it right, you will be rewarded with 20 CAPs in return. It's also your chance to predict what the final rating will be for the game. Voters can predict whatever score they want, regardless of whether someone else has already chosen it. All correct (or nearest) votes will go into a draw.

Written by Joe Pranevich

Incredible Hulk Journal #2 - Stupid journal machine repaired by Banner. Puny Banner. Hulk held nose. Hulk beat Ultron. Hulk talked to Dr. Strange until he went away. Hulk got all stupid gems for Chief Examiner. Hulk won, now Hulk sleep.

Hulk good enough and strong enough and Hulk know people like him.

At the end of my previous post, I was feeling pretty good about myself. I had scored 78 out of 100 points, I had a lead on what to do next, and I was pretty happy with the level of challenge in the game’s puzzles. My feelings of elation evaporated quickly as I started this session, but let me start at the beginning. I had just worked out how to get the beeswax off of the killer bees (by blowing them away with the metal fan) and I suspected that I knew what to do: block the poison gas outlet that Dr. Strange revealed to me. What would happen next, I have no idea, but that would get me to the next puzzle and perhaps that could be solved by one of the items I had already picked up.

Let me jump to the chase: it didn’t work. The game text keeps hinting that I am going in the right direction, but either the beeswax is the wrong item or I am using the wrong verbs. I have tried “block”, “fill”, “put in”, and others and I remain stuck. I put this puzzle aside and decide to work on the ants next.

Hulk vs The Ants (Part 2)

Hulks Kampf mit den Ameisen

When I arrive at the ant colony, I always have three turns or so to live. I arrive to a plain with a group of tiny holes, ants swarm out of the holes to attack, and before long they find a weak point by crawling into my eyes. It’s a gruesome way to die, but even the Hulk can apparently be taken down this way. But are the eyes a clue? I try covering them in the wax, but that is pretty stupid even for an adventure game. My other inventory items are a mirror and a broken chair, neither of which seem to be helpful in this situation. I cannot cover all of the holes, or fill them in. I try punching and kicking at the ants, but I cannot kill them faster than they can kill me. After a little while, I decide that I am stuck. With no leads on any of the game puzzles, I turn to the blog admins to try to help me complete the game in time to make this posting. They thankfully oblige with a sequence of rot13 hints that I can unpeel as I need them. I would have preferred to ask the blog, but there just wasn’t time.

The first hint that I took was from Ilmari:

You have a perfect protection for your eyes in your own anatomy.

Aha! I guess I am on the right track by trying to cover my eyes, but I have been so focused on finding an item to do it that I missed the obvious. I work on that a bit before I catch on the right solution: “close eyes”. I am not sure if I love this solution or hate it, but it works… up to the point where the ants crawl up my nose and kill me. On my next attempt, I not only close my eyes, but I also “hold nose” and that works! At least it works until the ants crawl into my ears and kill me. These ants are persistent.

Correctly placed apostrophe: +1 points.

What can I use to cover my ears with? Wax, of course! But once again, I struggle with vocabulary. I am positive that this is the right approach, but the parser and I just cannot come to an understanding. I unpeel the rest of Ilmari’s hints on the matter and he gives me the answer that I needed: the command is “plug”. Please pardon me as I beat my head against my desk. Do I need to play this game with a thesaurus? I know in retrospect, I look like an idiot, but sometimes you miss the obvious.

With my eyes, ears, and nose all covered, I survive the ant attack. And… I want to apologize for this in advance, but I have to tell you that I burst out laughing right after. The message you get for surviving the attack is “Ants attack, but find no opening.” And all my apparently juvenile brain could think of is that the Hulk must have very tight pants. I know, I know. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.

With my holes properly covered, I can attack the ants without dying, but they never stop coming. We reach an impasse: they cannot kill me, and I cannot kill enough of them for it to matter. As I search around to find something to do, I realize that I can pick up an ant and carry it with me, even out of the room. The down side to that discovery is that as soon as I open my eyes, no matter where I am, the ant kills me immediately. But all is not lost! I learned that the game knows “plug” and now I’ll go back to try to solve the nozzle puzzle. I restore my game back to where I was before and head back to Dr. Strange’s dome.

You Wouldn’t Like Me When I’m Angry

Faces look ugly when you’re alone.

Back in front of the gas nozzle, I try my new verb and it works! I can “plug” the outlet with the wax, preventing the poison gas from coming out. I turn into the Hulk and now I can see Dr. Strange clearly. Even better, he gives me some cryptic advice: “Remember your worst enemy, Nightmare.”

I am not a huge fan of the Hulk, but I have read a few Hulk comics over the years and had never heard of “Nightmare” or thought of him as the Hulk’s “worst enemy”. So I did a little digging and it seems that Nightmare and the Hulk were tussling in an ongoing plot arc at the time of the game’s publication. From our vantage point more than thirty years later, this seems obscure. But for players in the fall of 1984, a direct connection to the ongoing Hulk plotline may have been a welcome addition to the game!

The “Hulk” issue for August 1984 (same cover date as Questprobe #1)
featured Nightmare on the cover.

So, what happens when I type “remember nightmare” into the parser? Hulk gets even angrier!

Looks more like Vulture to me...

What does that mean? I try remembering Nightmare again and Hulk gets so mad that he rampages off and I lose control of the simulation. When I recover control, we are back in the fuzzy room.

To recap: I know how to survive the ants and even pick one up, but do not know what to do with it. I can get Hulk angry enough to storm off and that seems like it could be used to get back to the fuzzy room during a puzzle. Together, neither of those bits of information seem like enough to get me to solve the next puzzle. So for the third time, I go back to the tip well.

This one is from TBD about the iron ring puzzle:

Are you too relaxed?

I had almost forgotten about the ring puzzle! That was the iron ring in the floor of the first starting dome, but which I could not do anything about the last time I was there. I cannot enter the room as the Hulk, and the ring is too heavy for Banner, so I have just assumed it was something I would get to later. But obviously there is a way to get the Hulk in there (and mad enough) to pull the ring. Remembering Nightmare must be part of that solution.

Back at the first dome, I experiment around before I hit on the real use of “remember nightmare”: an angry Hulk is less susceptible to the anti-Hulk gas! If I get myself into that state, it gives me 1-2 more turns as the Hulk before I transfer back. I can transform in the hallway, quickly remember Nightmare before I would have transformed back, then head into the ring room and pull on it all before I change back!

I head into the hole in the floor, but instead of finding something new that took me to somewhere familiar: the exploding egg room. If you do not remember from my last post, there is a room that you can access by going north of the fuzzy room that has an exploding egg and a “bio gem”. I surmised that it was an important puzzle because it was also in the comic. But I did not have a way that I could get in and get the gem without dying. How does this new hole in the ceiling change that?

Aha! I had already discovered that if I turned into the Hulk in the room, that I could survive the explosion but lose the Bio gem in the process. But using “remember nightmare” in the fuzzy room then going north to the egg room meant that I could be the Hulk in there on the first turn. I could then grab the Bio gem and both it and I would survive the explosion.

Except… that didn’t work. It broke just being near the explosion.

Once again, I get a tip. I know this is number four, but I told you it was a train wreck… And that didn’t help at all. Let me just give you the tips that TBD gave me for this:

Do you have time to take any actions before the explosion?
What can you do to stop it
You shouldn't need to use any of your inventory here
What can you do with the egg
BLATANT SPOILER: Eat egg

I really tried, but it took me all the way to the fifth hint before I could figure it out: “eat egg”. Really? So the Hulk has such an amazing stomach that he can swallow an exploding egg? This is the first puzzle that I do not think I could have solved on my own. The vocabulary issues aside, I doubt I would ever have come up with that solution. I put the Bio gem back in the fuzzy room and continue my explorations.

Age of Ultron

This image perfectly sums up the 2015 Marvel summer film schedule.

With the egg taken care of and Dr. Banner able to become the Hulk in the room, I could explore further. There are scratch marks on the wall, but what are they from? I do not see anything I can do with them immediately except to try to do some scratching of my own. When I “scratch wall”, a crack opens up in the floor? Why the floor and not the wall? I have absolutely no idea.

Crawling through the crack, I emerge into a cavern where I confront my first Marvel villain of the game: Ultron. He has captured Ant-Man in a cage and seems content to gloat about capturing his “creator” rather than attack me. (In the 2015 films, the trailers suggest that Tony Stark, not Hank Pym, will be Ultron’s creator. I guess we will need to watch and see.) I talk to Ant-Man and he asks me to bring along one of his “friends” so that he can defeat Ultron. Obviously, I need to bring an ant here and I think I know how to do it!

But before I could get started, I realized that I was dead-ended: I used up all of my wax to talk to Dr. Strange, so I have no more to put in my ears to use against the ants. (I had reloaded between when I went after the ants the first time and when I did the nozzle puzzle, so did not notice this earlier.) But now I am stuck and without a save slot that far back, I have to play the whole game over. This time around, I do not bother with Dr. Strange at all and I did not need to talk to him to make “remember nightmare” work. It seems that I never need to “solve” the nozzle puzzle at all! I am not very happy about this from a game mechanics standpoint, but oh well.

Ant-Man: Stupid super power since 1962.

For all that Nightmare sort-of fits in this game, I am confused about Ant-Man. The manual makes it clear that this Ant-Man is the original, Hank Pym, rather than one of the myriad of other men (and women) that have worn the suit. (Heck, even Spider-Man’s Aunt May became Ant-Man in a “What If?” comic in 1982.) But in 1984, Pyn was going by Yellowjacket and was somewhat mentally unstable. Three years earlier, he famously punched his wife (the Wasp) when she disagreed in his crazy plan to get back in the Avengers good graces by attacking them with a robot that only he could defeat. He was caught, humiliated, kicked out of the Avengers, and did not return to costumed heroics for some time. If we are to connect this game with the comics, we have to assume that this version of Ant-Man was pulled out of the Hulk’s memories for the sake of the simulation, rather than implying that the “real” Ant-Man was active at the time. This is one of the details that would have been well-known to comic readers when the game came out, but not at all obvious to those of us playing thirty years later.

And we’re supposed to be rescuing this guy? Let Ultron keep him.

While you were reading my Ant-Man digression, I went back to the ants, closed all of my orifices, and picked up an ant. I know from my previous experimentation that opening my eyes means instant death, but fortunately I know the way back: any direction from the ant hill goes to the fuzzy room, then north to the egg room, then “go crack” to get back to Ultron. As soon as I arrive, Ant-Man takes control of my passenger and defeats Ultron, leaving on a gem behind for me. I miss the whole exciting scene of course, because my eyes were closed.

The Final Gem

Anyone know if there are names for these Escher-like shapes?

With that gem in hand, I head back to the fuzzy room and expect to find a victory scene. I am disappointed. I have solved every puzzle I know of and have picked up every gem, but when I get there I only have 88% completion. That is the same as I had before picking up the gem that Ant-Man dropped. What happened?

I look more closely: the Bio gem is gone. I had dropped it off in the fuzzy room before finishing up Ultron, but it is nowhere to be found. But even with the Bio gem, I would only have been at 94% complete so there is something else that I missed. This time since I did not want to wait to message TBD or Ilmari, I consulted a walk-through and that suggested two things:

That the ants probably devoured my “bio gem” on their trip through the room when I was taking one to Ultron.
That I needed to talk to Dr. Strange three times to get him to drop a gem.

To fix the second problem first, I head back to Dr. Strange and realize an extremely annoying aspect to this puzzle: the only way to talk to Dr. Strange without using the wax (which I need for the ants) is to “remember nightmare”. And when I talk to him, he still gives me that advice first. It’s just another moment in stupid reloading-puzzle design. I talk to him three times (the second time he gives me an ad for more Scott Adams games) and the third time he gets bored of me and leaves, dropping a gem behind.

Unfortunately, I hit yet another block which is that I am dead-ended again. All of my saves are after the Bio gem’s destruction and I have to replay from start. (This is in part because I am experiencing a bug in the C64 version or emulator where my saves are getting corrupted if I use multiple save slots. Sometimes they work, sometimes the save starts me over from scratch, and sometimes I get a different save entirely. Once, my disk image was corrupted so badly when I saved the game that I had to download it again. I do not credit these problems against the game because it may be an emulation problem, but it has been very annoying.)

I play through the sequence again and again and notice that the Bio gem is just very… delicate. It does disappear when the ants go through, but it also disappears if you leave it anywhere but the egg room for more than a few turns. The solution to that is just to move the Bio gem last, and this time I am rewarded by a victory screen!

In his off time, the Chief Examiner plays jacks.

I received a score of 100% and a password, “ARIA”. This password does not seem to do anything in this game, so it must do something in a future game.

Time played: 4:15
Total time: 7:15

Final Rating

That’s it for my very first Scott Adams/Marvel adventure! My feelings on this game alternate between being pretty pleased overall and wanting to throw the game out a window. Had I stopped after the first post, I think it would have received a much higher score. But let’s find out!

Puzzles and Solvability - 2

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, but if I had to judge it was the worst of times far more often than the best. This game had one really great puzzle: the final confrontation with Ultron and bringing the ant to his lair. It was multi-layered, innovative, and yet made sense once you put all the pieces together. It was also well-integrated into the environment, for all that means anything when moving in any direction from most rooms teleport you to the fuzzy room. But despite that bit of brilliance, the dead-ends in this game are terrible (especially with the Bio gem), the “remember nightmare” puzzle requires you to reload and use the answer you get from Dr. Strange without your in-universe character knowing it, and finding all of the gems is a real chore. You have to dig holes and look under the domes, really?

So much promise. I hope that subsequent games do better.

Interface and Inventory - 2

Let’s get the good out of the way first: I love the inventory screen. I love that you can be either Hulk or Banner on it, that it gives a graphical representation of everything that you are carrying. I love that many items in the game have close-ups. But the parser in this game is terrible, seemingly designed to be a frustration rather than a seamless gateway into the world. I had frequent difficulties with the limited vocabulary and more than once I had to take a hint just to get the right word for something I was already trying to do. Not acceptable.

The frustratingly fragile Bio gem.

Story and Setting - 4

I was torn when it came to this category. Should I include the tie-in comic, or not? After some deep consideration, I think that I will include it. The game was designed to be able to be played without the comic, but it is richer for it and the backstory for the Chief Examiner and his people is well done. I legitimately want to know what is happening next.

That said, the story did not integrate as well into the game as it could have. We know it is a simulation and that the task (collect the gems!) is ultimately meaningless, just a check to determine if you have the skills to “pilot” the replica of the Hulk in the upcoming war. But more information about this could have been integrated into the gameplay, perhaps even some aspect of the simulation could relate to a difficulty that they might encounter while fighting the Black Fleet, rather than what might be encountered in New Mexico. In the end, the story boils down to a treasure hunt and that is a shame.

Sound and Graphics - 3

The lack of a sound effect other than a “beep” during certain events dooms this game to a low score, but the graphics are actually quite good for the hybrid text adventures we have seen. There are lots of good moments where we zoom in on the Hulk performing an action and while those are not animated, they are keeping with the comic book experience. For example, the first changing into the Hulk is around three screens as a slide-show.

I also liked that they used different art assets across different versions of the game, rather than just scaling for different resolutions and color pallets. That made the game look as good as it could across more systems, which is a nice sign of the maturity of the Scott Adams adventure-creating machine.

Transformation scene on the C64.

Re-colored scene for DOS.

But a fully redrawn scene for the ZX Spectrum.

Environment and Atmosphere - 4

Difficult decision here, too. I was going to go lower because of the limited number of rooms and the constant teleporting, but on further thought this actually works with the story given that we are supposed to be a simulation. The art and the design of the game really allowed me to feel like I was playing a comic book, which was very nice! I want to say that the fetch-quest nature did harm the atmosphere more than a bit, but I already docked points in “Puzzles” so let’s leave this as-is.

Dialogue and Acting - 3

The text in the game is serviceable, there are a few characters to interact with, and overall this felt fine. It brought me into the game world, but did not “wow” me in any way. It’s just there and okay.

Drumroll please…

2+3+4+3+4+3=19/.6 = 30!

Wow. This places the game right on par with Wizard and the Princess, but I do not think that tells the whole story. The Hulk was a mixed bag of great promise and crappy implementation, while Wizard and the Princess felt more consistent over but lacked the few heights that this game had. And hey, it’s tied with Les Manly, too!

If you take the comic out of the equation (dropping points in both “story” and “environment”), the game would probably have scored 28 instead. The next game in the series will have a comic, but it will need to do something more with it as the backstory is already established here.

New Spring-Summer Contest!

My spider sense is tingling...

Written by TBD

King Graham of Daventry Journal Entry #2: "I've just seen enough sand to last many lifetimes and I have no desire to see even another grain of the accursed stuff – my first royal edict after I rescue my family will be to destroy all hourglasses in Castle Daventry. I scoured the desert for many miles, finding only a boot, a gold coin and a likely cursed bottle. But there is a silver lining - the gold coin has purchased information – information on my family's whereabouts. Just as importantly, I now have an item that I am certain will help me on my quest. I would love to use it immediately, but I am so very tired – it's likely the dehydration. So... very... tired...."

I don't think I can quite convey in words how boring this session was. It started well, it ended well, but the bulk of the 2 hours 20 minutes I spent was tedious busywork.

Before I continued, I loaded a previous saved game from before I bought the pie and tried using the silver coin on other shopkeepers – as this is an adventure game, the shopkeepers have limited inventory that you can actually buy - the tailor said that a silver coin wasn't enough for his blue cloak, and the toymaker requested a gold piece for his sled.

I did try the cloak in the inn, in case it was an invisibility cloak. It wasn't. I died. I reloaded.

I once again tried the haystack, thinking that something might be there after I did something elsewhere, and there was, or more to the point, I could get to it where I couldn't before.

They also do a great cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

I never would have thought the ants would help me find a needle in a haystack. But hey, they found a golden needle, which, unsurprisingly, belonged to the tailor, who was easily convinced that his beautiful blue cloak would be a suitable finder's fee. It seems Graham is just as much Vito Corleone as he is king, trading favours for items instead of using cash or barter like a normal person. It was the tailor's needle in the first place – if I found somebody's lost stuff the most I'd accept in return would be a beer or a cup of coffee – and it wasn't like the tailor offered the cloak – Graham 'suggested' it. I know I wouldn't say no to a guy who's singlehandedly defeated a giant and a dragon.

When I tried to wear the cloak I was told the weather wasn't cold enough. My deductive skills determined that I will at some point in the game go to a cold area. But now, time to go to a hot area.

Bloody hell, the desert! Everything I've just mentioned took 12 minutes.

My next plan was to tackle the desert – seems simple enough. And it was – very simple, but very boring and time consuming. So how does the desert work? You can only go a certain number of screens before dying of dehydration.

Birds- lucky I can talk to animals - please Mr and Mrs Vulture, would you kindly bring me wate...wait...noaaaaaaaaahhhhhh.

There are a few locations that contain water. So it's a simple case of travelling a certain number of screens, mapping continuously. I did this for 40 minutes, finding nothing of interest apart from two oases, which I could drink from, and some tents, which were empty apart from a fast bandit and had a water jug outside for drinking.

But wait, I'm just selling these Encyclopediaaaaaahhh...

Now that I write it, 40 minutes doesn't sound like too long, but 40 minutes of repetitive busywork seems longer than it is. At this point I'd searched 91 screens of desert, most of which you have to traverse multiple times to make sure you explore every screen on the off chance there's something useful there.

At this point, I made myself a cup of coffee – not because I was thirsty, but just to get away from the damn desert – if I weren't playing for this blog I'd have definitely downloaded a map from the internet before this point.

Graham and I both needed a drink after spending so much time in the desert

Coffee at the ready, I continued to map the desert. I found another oasis and a well - each time I found a new water source I despaired because it meant another bunch of screens I'd have to traverse.

I also found a skeleton with a boot, which I took.

Finally something other than sand

Eventually I found a temple, where the first interesting thing happened - I died.

Hi. I'd like to ask directions to the nearest oasaaaaaahhhhh

I knew what I was supposed to do, but just hadn't done it fast enough. This time I hid behind the rocks and the bandits rode past me to the temple door, saying “Open Sesame” and hitting the door thrice with a jeweled staff. After they left I tried the same, banging with my fist as I had no staff, but to no avail. I'd clearly need a staff. Despite the game's attempt at dulling my brain for the last few hours, the answer hit me quite quickly – the empty tents from before. I returned to the tents (stopping twice for a drink, of course) and found them partying. The small tent had the staff in it as well as a sleeping bandit – I carefully snuck in and quietly grabbed the staff. Then I woke the bandit to thank him at which point he knifed me in the throat.

Excuse me sir, may I borrow this staaaaaaaahhhhhh

Okay, let's try again without being so polite. This time I snuck past the bandit instead. I went back to the temple and opened the door with my staff, which promptly broke. Inside I saw a single gold coin and a bottle near the door and a large amount of treasure at the back. I knew taking the large amount of treasure probably wasn't going to do much good but had to try...

You know you're a bad king if you make the same mistakes as Daffy Duck

Taking the gold piece and bottle, I left just before the door closed (I died the first time for taking too long to switch from the hand to the walking icon, but did it fast enough the second time)

Finally I went back to civilization leaving behind the awful desert.

Here's the full map of the desert – all 210 screens, including the 7, that's right 7, screens with anything other than sand in them – a whopping 3% of the screens are useful! The minimum amount of times you have to die if you guess correctly every time is 32. I likely died at least 50 times.

Making the death screens red was a lot more fun than actually playing this part of the game

This whole desert sequence was just plain bad game design. The only way to be sure you've found every useful screen is to die 32 times, travel on 210 screens which all look the same, many of them multiple times, and there's absolutely no skill involved. It's all busywork. The fact that I'd clearly worked out the method a third of the way through and needed a break should be an indication that it went on way too long. Of course if there's a map in the game somewhere I've just wasted 2 hours and whinged unfairly on the game for this whole post.

Desert stats:
Total screens of desert: 210
Total screens with anything to do other than walk through it: 7
Percentage of useful screens: 3%
Minimum deaths required: 32
Time taken to do desert sequence: 2 hours 1 minute
Minimum number of screens required to traverse for full mapping: 300ish (stopped counting after 264 – took a guess)

Anyway, enough complaining about the desert, on with the rest of the game, which is quite fun.

The first thing I tried was using the bottle - Maybe there was a genie inside and he'd help me with a puzzle. I was half right. There was a genie inside, but he wasn't as grateful as I'd hoped...

Oh. Hi, Mr Genie. As for a wish, I don't need anything. Except this lamp, and the paddle game, and the remoaaaaaahhhhhh

Both the gypsy and the toymaker wanted my gold, but I figured I'd be leaving the town before needing a sled so gave the money to the gypsy. Seemed like a good decision as I got a cutscene...

I can escape if only next time he chooses paper

So, armed with more knowledge of Mordack the wizard (he's Manannan's brother and wants my son, Alexander, to turn his feline brother back into a human) and a new spell-repelling amulet, I'll start my next session by visiting the forest manwitch for some toad-reflecting action. Join me in a few days...

Session time: 2 hours 20 minutes

Total time: 3 hours 35 minutes

Session deaths: 6
Total deaths: 10

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

Save The Owls Fundraising

As detailed in the previous post and started by Joe Pranevich, anyone who mentions that they'll donate to an owl-related charity during the King's Quest V playthrough will get an as-yet-undetermined amount of CAPs.

Also, any adventure game companies looking for a new artist, I am currently available!

Written by: Joe Pranevich

The Space Quest series was not Sierra’s first foray into science-fiction, nor was Space Quest IV the company’s first real look at time travel. No, both of those firsts have to be credited to Roberta Williams in the Hi-Res Adventure series. While I am still too far away from being able to explore Time Zone (1982), the sixth game in the series, I am right on time to look at Mission: Asteroid, the third… sort-of. This may require some explanation.

As 1980 drew to a close, Ken and Roberta Williams knew that they were onto something big with their graphical adventure games. Their first two games, Mystery House and Wizard and the Princess were successful enough that they could continue to grow the series and their fledgeling company, but I suspect something was up. Those first two games were crackingly difficult and frequently frustrating, even for someone that had the backing of an adventure game community playing behind him. I can only conjecture, but when it came time to make another, Ken and Roberta stepped back to make a simpler (and shorter) game: Mission: Asteroid which they retroactively branded as “Hi-Res Adventure #0”. It would be the new “first” game in their adventure gaming series.

It is to their credit that at this point in the series Ken and Roberta were not playing it safe. The first two Hi-Res Adventure games were in different genres (a mystery and a fantasy quest, respectively) and there must have been at least a little pressure to keep going with what was working. This third (first?) game would be given a sci-fi theme, a race against the clock to save the earth from total destruction. While we’ve had several big-budget films based around the premise, especially the dueling 1998 films Deep Impact and Armageddon, that was not the case in 1980. The pair may have been inspired by the 1978 television film Fire in the Sky which entailed blowing up a comet with nuclear missiles. Other possible inspirations include 1968’s The Green Slime which featured astronauts blowing up an asteroid but bringing home an alien life form or potentially even Jules Verne’s 1877 novel, Off on a Comet which featured a comet glancing off the earth and taking a chunk with it, complete with Victorian adventurers and a surprising amount of not killing everyone.

I was unable to locate a real title screen for this game, only this “cracked” variant.

But while the premise may be unique, I have to take Ken and Roberta Williams to task for this: there are too many coincidences between this game and the 1979 Scott Adams adventure Mission Impossible (later to be renamed Secret Mission, once the lawyers for the television series got involved). That game was also the third game in the series, took place in the modern era (a first for Scott Adams, but not for the Hi-Res series), and required the player to complete the game in a certain amount of time or disaster would strike. Those coincidences are not damning, but frankly it feels like they cut corners in the idea department in order to rush out a third game in 1980. I hope the game does not play like that.

While researching this game, I found two different manuals. The first appears to have been from the original release and is very sparse, but serviceable, providing only the backstory that an asteroid is coming to earth and you are an astronaut who has to blow it up to save everyone. A subsequent release included a change in backstory (you are now a cadet), provides the solution to an early puzzle (the password), and you are given a few more clues as to what you need to do. I did not find the second manual before I started to play and while the differences seem slight, I feel it subtracts more than it adds. The idea that a cadet would be sent on this mission, rather than a trained astronaut, breaks my suspension of disbelief. For the purpose of this review, I will be ignoring the second manual.

Enough introduction, let’s play the game!

A well house for a large spring?

I start the game in front of an ugly green building. Almost immediately, I hear a beeping noise. I know from the manual that I am wearing a watch, so I take a look at that and find a switch. Pressing the switch gives me a message from Mission Control that I am to report to the briefing room and that the password is “starstruck”. I head into the building but I find my way blocked by a secretary. She wants the password before she lets me in and I give it to her. First puzzle solved! Maybe this is a game for new players?

I know that I need to find the briefing room, but I have no idea where it is so I explore. The base is shaped like a “T” with a east-west hallway at the southern end and the leg of the “T” facing north. I explore east first and find a computer room, a supply room, a gym, and a shower room. (I’ll get back to what I found in those momentarily.) The north hallway seems to lead to a launch pad, but there is a doctor there that blocks my passage. Since I don’t find the briefing room back that way, I explore west from where I started and find it right away. There is a general there and I think he has something he needs to tell me.

General Ross? Oops. Wrong game.

I salute the general and he begins my briefing:

“An asteroid is about to hit the earth. You must fly to the asteroid and blow it up. Of course, this information is top secret. The asteroid is projected to strike the earth at 7:15 tonight.”

I check my watch: it’s already 4:15. All that exploring of the base took time! Can I make it in three hours? I know from the manual that I will need a flight plan, and the doctor at the end of the hallway told me that I needed to be in “better shape” and to “get rid of that awful smell.” Time to see what I can do about that.

This is what I have found so far:

A computer room with an Apple computer and a disk that I can pick up. I suspect I need to read my orders off of the disk, but I cannot convince the computer to give it to me. I suspect it’s a parser issue and I will come back later.
A supply room containing explosives. The manual warns me against handling them until I have to, so I will mark down where they are and grab them before I leave.
A room with the press corps. I was warned by the general not to talk to them, so I don’t. (I follow orders!)
A gym with an attached shower room.

Dead and potentially naked.

I exercise on the gym equipment as the doctor asked and then head into the showers. Try as I might, I cannot seem to get the showers to work. I try “go shower”, “turn on”, “turn faucet”, and many other combinations but as I am working out what the parser wants me to type, the world explodes and I die. Think on that for a moment: The world ended because a crazy doctor decided that I smelled bad. Only in adventure games!

I restart the game and everything goes more quickly. Since I know where I’m going, I make the briefing by 12:50 and decide to keep exploring. Plenty of time, right? This time around, I ignore the shower and hope that I’ll come up with the right words soon. Instead, I work on the computer. And then it hits me: the computer in the game is an Apple ][! Why the military doesn’t have something better, I’ll never know, but the important thing is that I know that the Apple ][ did not by default have a DOS by itself. I shouldn’t be trying to “read” from the disk, I should be booting from it instead! I try “boot disk” (with the disk in the drive) and that does the trick. This is the flight plan that I am given:

Right for 10 minutes
Up for 5 minutes
Left for 15 minutes
Down for 5 minutes
Left for 5 minutes
Up for 10 minutes

State of the art!

Never mind that those directions make absolutely no sense in space, that gives me what I need. But I still have to figure out the shower.

And here is where I stumbled first: I needed to take a hint. And when you hear the command that worked, you will want to have my head examined because it is so obvious. I am embarrassed to tell you, but it is my journalistic duty to inform you any time I did not succeed in an adventure game on my own. Are you ready?

The command was “take shower”.

[ sound of head hitting desk over and over again ]

With that out of the way, I pick up the explosives and visit the good doctor again. He gives me a clean bill of health, does not complain about my body odor, and lets me onto the tarmac where I can see my beautiful rocket in the distance. I check my watch. I have an hour left. Is that enough time?

I board the rocket and work my way through a pressure room before arriving in the cockpit. There is a throttle as well as four buttons, but thankfully there is a helpful sign that explains their use:

You push the throttle for lift-off and pull it to land.
The four buttons each correspond to a direction (white is left, black is right, orange is up, and blue is down)

It’s time to lift-off! I push the throttle and moments later I am orbiting over our pale blue dot:

поехали!

My elation is short lived as the asteroid hits the Earth. Dead again.

I replay and look for ways to cut corners. In a few tries, I can get into the cockpit by 3:30. That gives me a bit less than four hours to find the asteroid and blow it up. Is that enough time? With a little bit of experimentation and looking at the watch in my inventory, I work out that each push of the buttons lasts five minutes. It is simple after that to work out the sequence from the flight plan (black, black, orange, white, white, white, blue, white, orange, and orange) and minutes later I am in orbit around the asteroid!

I pull on the throttle to land… and I crash into a crater and die. What the heck?

Curse you asteroid!

I run through the opening again and manage to shave 15 minutes off my time, arriving in the cockpit at 2:55. I repeat my steps and die again. I must be missing something, so I go to explore the spaceship. In addition to the cockpit and the airlock, there is a supply room containing a space suit. So do I need to spacewalk to the asteroid instead? I put on the spacesuit and launch myself out the airlock, but I am sucked into space and die. Something tells me that I am not on the right track.

While I am experimenting with commands, I notice something: the view of the asteroid changes every five minutes. Sometimes there is one, two, three, or four craters visible. So saving and restoring my game, I try them one at a time:

One crater? DEAD.
Four craters? DEAD.
Two craters? DEAD.
Three craters? I make it!

I land, put on my space suit, find a dial to turn to activate the air (good thing I found that!) and exit the airlock. The asteroid is itself a small maze: moving west does not mean that you can get back the way you came by going east. Before I can even get started on a proper map, I find a cave to explore:

That looks familiar somehow...

And… sorry. I have to stop and say how much I love this one screen. I know it isn’t very much and that most of the asteroid segment is just exploring empty gray on gray, but here we have a nice picture of the asteroid with the blue earth on the horizon. It’s a great picture, but even better because it must have been inspired by a real one:

Just… beautiful.

This photo, and others like it, were taken by Neil Armstrong on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 11 mission. For all that the science in this game is laughable, I feel better knowing that Ken and Roberta turned to images like this one in their research for this game. Details are important and kudos to the couple for this one.

Now, where was I? Oh yeah, before I can explore the cave I run out of air and die.

I restore back and am able to find the cave again more quickly. In the back of the cave, I find a deep hole that seems to lead to the heart of the asteroid. (Good thing I find that, otherwise would my explosives have been strong enough?) I set the timer on the explosives to 90 minutes and drop them down into the hole.

There’s a hole in my asteroid, dear Liza, dear Liza...

I quickly make it back to my ship… except I can’t find it. I am trapped in the asteroid maze when the asteroid strikes the earth. Naturally, I die.

On the next try, I manage to shave off some time, drop the bomb down the hole, make it back to my spaceship and take off. Unfortunately, before the bomb can detonate we strike the Earth and everyone is killed.

Without any more good options, I re-review the entire game and play from the beginning again. By cutting back on commands to the very minimum, I am able to make it to the asteroid by 3:35. Just to give you an idea how carefully I have to plan this, I even nip off 1-2 turns by putting on my spacesuit while I am waiting for the asteroid to be in the proper “three crater” position for landing. This takes some precision!

You would think I would have an easier time finding a massive rocket.

On my next attempt, I am able to get to the cockpit in enough time and take off from the asteroid. But now what? Do I run through the buttons backwards? As I try that, the asteroid explodes which is pretty good for the inhabitants of earth, but my ship is destroyed by some flying debris and I die. I guess being a martyr is not enough for this game? I suppose I’ll just have to make it back to safety.

On the next attempt, I set the timer for 120 minutes and am able to follow the instructions backwards to find the earth. Except, the earth isn’t there. I have no idea how to find earth, I have very few turns in which to do it in, and yes… I die again. Are you detecting a pattern here?

I go back to the hint-well and get one more hint: you do not need to exactly follow the flight plan.

The final frontier...

Thinking about what this hint might mean, I start to experiment with the directions in space. Most of the screens are empty but it seems that almost all of the time if you go “up” you can come back to where you were with “down”. Obviously, not all of the time because otherwise following the plan backwards should have led me to earth, but often enough. So what if I optimize my path? Instead of going right twice then left four times; what if I just go left twice?

And that works! I am able to reduce the flight plan from 10 steps (50 minutes) to 4 (20 minutes) by just going “up, up, left, left”. What a stupid flight plan! Obviously, we understand now why we no longer do space flight using Apple ][ computers.

With that out of the way, after several attempts I still cannot find my way back to earth. Over and over again I die in deep space, never to touch the dirt of my homeworld again. It is depressing and I take yet another hint, my third this game. The correct solution is: blue, blue, black, black… white.

Yes, I was right that you reverse the directions, but then you add a step at the end. Why? I have no idea. Did the earth move? Probably, but this game doesn’t have quite that level of science behind it. If anyone knows the answer, please tell me in the comments because I really want to imagine that this puzzle makes some sense. I do that and there it is: the earth. As I sit in orbit, the asteroid explodes behind me. The earth is saved and I win.

So, guys... Help me down?

Time played: 4 hours
Total time: 4 hours.

PISSED Rating

Now that the game is over, let’s see how it did on our PISSED rating scale.

Puzzles and Solvability - 3

We’ve all played games with timed sequences, but I do not know that I have played a fully timed game before now. I had a lot of fun trying to shave off time by cutting back on unnecessary commands, looking for shortcuts, and finding alternate paths. But while I enjoyed that quite a bit, I dislike games where you have to save and restore to solve puzzles by trial and error (such as the timing to land the spaceship), and I am particularly frustrated with the final “puzzle” where you have to correctly deduce that you can follow the flight plan backwards and then add an extra step for no clearly explained reason.

Interface and Inventory - 2

I probably should give this game a “3” in this category because it’s the same interface as Wizard and the Princess and Mystery House, but I found the parser here to be more sticky than in those games, perhaps because of the reduced development time. There was also significantly fewer inventory items to find and use: just the watch, the disk, the explosives, and the spacesuit.

Story and Setting - 3

I do not particularly think the game makes sense: it is not explained why you are the only one that can do this and it is unrealistic that you need to exercise and shower before you can save the earth. That said, I have to give Ken and Roberta credit for having a relatively new take on this genre and correctly predicting not one but two 1998 blockbusters. Way to go! The manuals do not add any points here because they are either too sparse to have a story (the first one), or what story they add only detracts from the game (the second one).

Sound and Graphics - 2

The graphics were uninspired and several of the screens seemed less detailed than the previous entries in the series. I really liked the shot of the earth on the horizon, but that does not make up for some of the lazy art throughout the rest of the game. And if you look carefully, you can even see that several of the base screens include reused assets from Wizard and the Princess.

Environment and Atmosphere - 3

The time limit brings a nice dose of tension into an otherwise pretty simple game, and that was a good choice. The overall environments are well designed and there are some good ideas here.

I never figured out what to do here. Another way to lose the game?

Dialog and Acting - 2

With only two NPCs that you can interact with and text that is somewhat less verbose than the previous entries, there is not all that much here to like. It has pretty much the minimum it needs to get by and nothing more.

Drumroll please…

(3+2+3+2+3+2)/.6 = 25! I admit that feels a bit low, and it is the lowest of the Hi-Res Adventure games to date. But, I think that score is reasonable for a rushed prequel that was designed to be easier for novice players to get into. If it were me, I would have made the very first game in the series as polished as possible so as not to bite the newbies, but no one asked me. (I was two. I probably wouldn’t have answered anyway.)

Mission: Asteroid also marks a turning point in the “Hi-Res Adventure” series. The next game in the series, Cranston Manor (1981), will be the first that is not designed by Roberta Williams. I look forward to seeing what a different designer brings to the Hi-Res formula at some point in the future. For now, back to Space Quest IV!

By Deimar

Penelope Journal Entry #1 "Dear diary: After being taken in that horrible house Hugo has brought me to his uncle’s house in England to forget everything of my traumatic experience. However, the minute I fell asleep he disappeared and then his uncle was murdered right in front of me. Ever more, I was locked in my room!! It’s happening all over again!!. But there is no way I’m going to stay put one more time. This time I’m gonna take matter into my own hands and beat the crap out of that murderer. My psychologist says that I have issues. Pff… I’ll show him who has issues when I mop the floor with this puny assassin.

Oh, look, flowers, bees, a river, parrots… What a wonderful place!! Wait. Wasn’t I supposed to do something? "

Alas, poor Horace. Killed in his own house with the only witness being a woman trapped in her room. Not that I knew that at that moment, because I took the hint from the game to look for Hugo and went directly to the yellow book in the bookcase after waking up.

Our intrepid main character!

The secret passage took me to the room where the murder took place. Uncle Horace’s study is a tidy place, or at least quite tidy for a recent murder scene, with a desk, a parrot, a chair and a dumb waiter. Parrots are known for their capacity for being live voice recorders very useful when you are trapped in a house with a murderer so my first instinct was to talk to the parrot who hastily reproduced the murder dialogue for me. Friking bird, I don’t know if I will find bird cookies in this game but you are not getting none of them. The desk contained a box of matches and a telephone. I took the matches but couldn’t do anything with the phone. With nothing left to do I started looking for exits. There were three doors leaving the room and the dumb waiter. The secret door was completely invisible so I could not get back to Penelope’s room, and two of the doors were locked so I took the only one available at the moment.

Now I know why there are so many murderers unsolved.
People try to not murder anyone in front of incriminating parrots...

And now I will introduce the typical paragraph regarding the controls and the like. But it is gonna be over pretty soon. It is exactly as Hugo or any of the SCI Sierra games. You can type whatever you want and maybe get an amusing answer from the parser. Or more often, get a useless answer. For example, trying to look at many things just returns a “You see nothing interesting about it” or a description of the room as if nothing was attached to the verb “look”, which kind of puts me off from looking at things. In many regards, this game is more of Hugo’s House of Horrors with little to no improvement in regards to controls. If anything, I would say the music is even worse, which makes me feel grateful for the tiny amount of sounds in the game.

Going back to the game, the door to the left took me to a nursery. The nursery contains a baby park, a set of cubes and a very bory decoration. Comparing the colour of the nursery to that of the mansion I think nobody took a moment to consider which room should be painted purple and which one pale blue. There is also a floating balloon which you can try to get. The balloon is moving through the room so you need expert positioning to allow the “take balloon” phrase to work. And then when you get it after dodging the baby park and set of cubes to get in the path of the balloon it just explodes containing a card with a wise advice. I’ll let you read it yourself.

Another Confucius saying is that red herrings are only fun when they are literally a red herring...

The nursery door was also locked. Hence I went back to the study and down the dumb waiter. Because it is common knowledge that all dumb waiters are human-sized and can support an adult’s weight. The box took me to the kitchen where I took some garlic from a cabinet. It is boring to me that every room has just one thing to do and almost no descriptions for anything else. Original Hugo had some interesting and funny moments like the scientist room, the dining room or even the dog, but this game is just… boring. A succession of empty rooms with nothing to do or see and little to do with the murder.

The story of my life

I left the kitchen through the garden’s door, which is the only one unlocked and that took me to another room with nothing to do. Kind of pretty. Or at least not completely painted in Paint. But completely useless. It seemed like there were three exits so I decided to leave by the right edge of the screen.

Who would have imagined? The only interesting thing in this place is its location...

That took me to a garden full of Venus Fly Traps with a magnifying glass sitting in the middle of the field. I’ve been to botanic gardens before and I know for a fact that there is no way these plants can harm a human. But reality has no business here. And so the plants can kill you on touch. I was immediately reminded of Space Quest 2 infamous plant maze. Chills came down my spine. However, after a few tries trying to get pass the plants and after trying to set them on fire I decided to leave them for later wondering if I needed an item.

The dangerous dangerous venus fly traps. Born from hell. Or something.

I went back to the garden door and took the south exit to get to the gardener’s shed. Oh boy. Another character at last. Even considering I’ve spent just about twenty minutes and run through barely six screens I’m very eager for something interesting to happen. There is nothing to do outside the shed, although you can see the gardener walking inside through the window, which is a nice touch. Inside you meet the creepiest gardener in history. He immediately start harassing Penelope and wanting a kiss. The shed has some tools, which you can’t take, and a panel with four colored buttons. Looking at the gardener the description states that he has a pair of pliers that he hides when he speaks with you.

Ok, ok. No sex for items in this game. Bugger!

I spent some time trying to flirt with the guy or even give him some of what he wants to no avail. I wasn’t able to get the pliers nor access to the buttons. The only thing I could think of was eating the garlic to get bad breath and apparently it was what needed to be done. The gardener ran away. With the pliers mind you. But at least it gave me access to the buttons. I didn’t have any idea of what the four buttons did. The only one with a description was the green one which said “b*g *a*pe*”. I guessed that the “*” symbols were there to keep a PG rating so I decided to leave the buttons at the moment. The game even tells straight that as you don’t know what the buttons are for it is better to leave them alone. Who am I to disagree with the game?

He must be allergic or something. Maybe a vampire?

I left the shed screen to the right to meet another of those digitized pictures of a closed gate. With no way of opening it I kept going right to a screen with a river, a bridge and some catnip plants. I took some catnip because it was not nailed to the floor and kept going right. When I tried to cross the bridge however, Penelope lost hold of the matches, which fell to the river and got wet. That sounded like a dead end or the most weird start for a puzzle chain but as I was still exploring the screens I had access to I just kept going right.

Lo and behold the clumsiest human being in the planet!

The next screen was full of bees. They kill you on touch and it didn’t seem like I could pass through running. I tried using the matches on the bees but they were soaked, although the message left me thinking that maybe managing to cross the bridge with the matches was the solution.

Bees!! Why did it have to be bees?

I was stuck with four things to do: get the magnifying glass in the venus fly garden, press buttons in the shed, open the grate and get pass the bridge with the matches. It seemed like the buttons were the option with most opportunities so I went back and started pressing them. The red one seems to activate the shed’s light. The yellow and green ones didn’t have an immediate result, but pressing the blue one let me hear a distant cracking sound. I ran back to the gate and it was opened now. The lights were also on so I either the yellow or the green button was controlling them. I stepped inside to find… a maze.

Well. At least I knew for a fact that it was the entrance to a maze...

And one particularly boring at that. The maze is a 8x8 grid with just three items in the whole maze. With the addition that moving horizontally is quite easy, because you can tap the left or right arrow to start walking in a direction, but moving vertically is hell because the perspective makes going from bottom to top a diagonal instead of a straight line. Therefore, you have pay attention to move the slow character through a ton of empty rooms. Fun, I tell you.

Excel maps are my thing if you have not realized that yet

The three items in the maze were a gun, a bottle with SERUM written on it and a bell. Yeah, completely random items so I will try not to get any guess from them into who is the murderer. Because you may not remember it, but this game is about a murder mystery. Not blaming you, the designer certainly didn’t remember either.

I went back to the venus fly garden to get the magnifying glass. Of course none of the items worked so I tried to get past them again. After a lot of tries and saves I got the magnifying glass. Let me tell you right now that this maze is the most random thing ever and that getting the path is just a matter of try and error because you sometimes die at completely random moments in which you could swear you were not touching anything. Some of the plants seem to have quite a lot of reach.

I went back to the bees and tried to use my new items. And nothing. Absolutely nothing worked. So then I thought, well maybe getting the matches through the bridge is the answer. But no. I tried throwing the matches and got a message that Penelope was not that strong. Dropping them before crossing the bridge seemed to work but that solved nothing. In the end, I realized that sometimes I got a bit further away while crossing the bridge depending on where I tried to cross it. And then it hit me. This was another “maze”. Oh. My. God. I wanted to kill someone. This is infuriating at so many levels. Such a completely arbitrary unfair obstacle… And just to get the matches to the other side, which didn’t help me with the bees.

Ha!! I bet you were thinking you would miss this game’s art. Take a look at the gate.

There is a light in the bee screen so I thought to myself: “hey, maybe they were turned on and I turn them off when I pressed the yellow or green button”. Hence, I went back to the shed, pressed the yellow button and came back. As I was going back I noticed that the lights at the gate were off now. So that’s what the yellow button does. Back the shed, green button this time and back to the bees. No luck. The items didn’t seem to help either. I went back to every screen available and no luck. I even restarted the game to see if there was something in the starting room I hadn’t picked. Took a rest, started to watch the video I had recorded of the play session and then I noticed that at some random point I suddenly lost score points. I hadn’t done anything at that point so I started to think that maybe the green button was timed. I restarted the game but this time I didn’t press the button until I was ready to get past the bees. And that worked. The bees were all flying randomly instead of actively trying to kill me. Hurrah for me!! I wanna kill myself instead of playing this game!

Go into the light, bees! Into the light!!

Session Time: 1 hours 15 minutes
Total Time: 1 hours 15 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

By Ilmari

The first game where I realized games had developers was Space Quest 3. At one point of the game Roger Wilco found his way into a lair of evil pirates, who had imprisoned two aliens with prominent pig snouts. My 8-year old self wasn't really sure who these aliens were, until Roger finally drove them to Earth and left them to work in Sierra. Wasn't Sierra the company that had published Space Quests? And they had two pig-nosed aliens working with them? And were these aliens actually behind this game? The name Two Guys From Andromeda was then forcefully imprinted to my mind, especially as Space Quests were my favourite games at the time.

This picture spells nostalgia for me

I was then truly excited to hear that Joe Pranevich, who is currently playing Space Quest 4 for the blog, had contacted Guys From Andromeda LLC, the company in which the Two Guys are now working for their new game, SpaceVenture (sounds suspiciously familiar). Chris Pope, producer and co-founder of the company answered Joe and was happy to collaborate with The Adventure Gamer. They were willing to hand out a SpaceVenture Ace Hardway T-shirt as a prize for our ”guess the rating” -contest – so if you haven't picked the score you think Space Quest 4 will get, go and do it quickly in the SQ4 intro, if you wan't to get your hands on a piece of adventure gaming history.

Will this guy be as memorable as Roger Wilco?

Chris Pope was also willing to let our readers present questions to the Two Guys. I know there must be tons of things you've always wanted to know about the Two Guys and their games, past, present and future, so please, let your curiosity take you over in the comments and ask what you want! I got the impression that the Two Guys won't directly come here to answer, but we'll be sure to select the best comments and questions and send them through Chris Pope to Two Guys. Based on their answers we'll then do a new post. Enough talking, here’s few example questions to begin with, by courtesy of Aperama:

1) Space Quest IV was your last (up until latest) venture. Given we're presently making our way through it as a blog.. any regrets? Did the infamous time crunch that Corey Cole often tells us was rife at Sierra back then catch up to you Guys or did you really get a chance to nut everything out?

2) Hertz. So Much. Controversy is always nice and all, but did it really make much of a difference creatively? (Were you secretly demanding that you have a rider of pure-yellow M&Ms and such, or was it just a throw away joke that meant nothing?)

3) As we're about to find out, Space Quest IV takes place in several different copies of Space Quest. Given we sadly had to part at 6, we never got to find out how it would have worked - would Space Quest 12 have actually been Vohaul's Revenge II?

4) Do you believe that point and click adventures are really back in vogue (given that you're putting all of your eggs in the Spaceventure™ basket available late 2015 buy buy buy)? C'mon. You can tell us. We're rabid fans who wouldn't even care if you said no anyway.

5) Space. You Guys sure love Space. Ever consider making a game set in a medieval or modern setting? What is the appeal behind 'space'? Or janitors? You guys sure seem to have a solid line on the 'space janitor' market, to be fair.

6) So. Clearly, we've bought it anyway if we're reading this blog. But tell us. Why should we hound our family, friends, pets and non-sentient lifeforms of all other natures to buy Spaceventure?

7) Will you guys give us little production tidbits on (particularly) the SQ series? We love them.

By: Joe Pranevich

Roger Wilco’s Janitorial Log #1 - Time: the final frontier. These are the thoughts that were running through my head as I jumped through a “rip” in time to flee some murderous-looking robots. Who was that handsome young lad that pushed me into the rip? I have no idea, but some day I will have to thank him. I landed back home, Xenon, but not the Xenon I remember. This one has been destroyed by an evil AI hidden inside a copy of Leisure Suit Larry. Judging by the subtitle, this must be the work of my arch nemesis, Sludge Vohaul. With a bit of can-do Wilco attitude, I snuck into a patrol ship and nicked my very own time pod. Time to begin my long voyage home.

Reminds me of a certain cantina I could name.

We begin our story right where Space Quest III left off, albeit with better music and a more expansive color pallet. Roger dropped the Two Guys from Andromeda off on Earth to design adventure games for Sierra On-Line and now he’s returning to Xenon. Of course, there’s no hurry right? He has plenty of time to stop off at a neighborhood space-bar and throw back a few. What Roger doesn’t realize is that we’ve now started Space Quest IV and a group of unknown villains are tracking his whereabouts. They have found him at his dive bar and are ordered by their mysterious boss to go after Wilco

Is that space-Gandalf in the corner?

Of course, Roger is oblivious. He’s relaxing and telling the tales of his exploits from previous games to anyone that will listen, just as long as he pays for the drinks. The villains enter the bar, heavily armored and possibly robotic police officers. They identify Wilco and lead him outside at gunpoint.

So this isn’t about those parking tickets?

But Roger is not alone! Looking over the situation is a group of rag-tag freedom fighter-looking people. Because villains are required by contract to monologue before killing their prey, the police officers show Roger a hologram of Sludge Vohaul who reveals that he a) survived Space Quest II and b) still wants to kill him. Before the police can execute Roger, the rag-tag freedom fighter-looking people attack, rescuing Roger… at least for now. One of the men is sent away as a distraction while the other takes Roger away with him.

Excuse me... What are you doing with that hairdryer?

But there is no time to explain what is going on as the police robots have caught back up already. The stranger creates a “time rift” for Roger and tells him to jump in. Roger does as he is told and is soon flying through a technicolor vortex.

It was red and yellow and green and brown, and scarlet and black and ochre and peach...

When Roger emerges, he is no longer in Space Quest IV. Rather, he has jumped ahead eight installments to Space Quest XII: Vohaul’s Revenge II. It’s a dismal post-apocalyptic world with orange skies and imposing architecture. Most importantly, the opening sequence is over and I can play the game!

How dismal. Wait, isn’t this game supposed to be a comedy?

Wow. This breaks back memories! Or parts of memories, anyway. The interface is immediately familiar to me from my Sierra days and only slightly different from what we just saw in Kings Quest V: walk, look use, talk, smell, and taste. There is also an icon to let me access my inventory (a buckazoid!) and another slot where I can manipulate an inventory item on the screen. It’s all very straight-forward and familiar, like putting on a comfortable pair of shoes. I walk around a few screens just to get my bearings and… surprise!... Roger is approached by none other than the Energizer bunny. A few neurons fire in my brain and I vaguely remember that I need its battery for something, so there must be a way to catch it. I try to chase the thing, but the game helpfully lets me know that it “won’t go anywhere near you”. Something to figure out as I continue exploring.

Are they still making Energizer Bunny commercials?

The path to the big fortress in the background is blocked by rubble, as is any travel to the south. I really just have access to the area around one intersection. On the eastern side, there is a grate next to some dried sludge of some kind. I click just to see if something is down there, but Roger opens it up instead and I find myself in a room underground. There is no way back up, so I’ll keep exploring for now, but I am pretty sure I did not explore the whole area above. I have been playing so many older games lately that I forgot one of the key difficulties of these graphical interfaces: a lack of verbs. Click somewhere and see what it does! It makes the game much more accessible to new players and you do not have to spend time trying to guess what word the author wants you to use, but it leads to cases like this one where you do something by accident.

This grate leads you down to…

… a secret room!

The underground room seems to be an office of some kind, with a pad (transporter?), a secured door, and a table. On the table is an empty jar (which I pocket) and a blotter. I have no idea what a blotter is, but when I move it I find a button. Pressing that button reveals that the “transporter” pad is actually a hologram projector. It proceeds to give me a ton of exposition:

In the future, the people of Xenon build a supercomputer but accidentily infect it with a virus hidden in a copy of Leisure Suit Larry that they found floating in space. The virus takes over, announces that “Wilco Must Die!”, and proceeded to conquer the world, leaving only a few cyborgs and rag-tag resistance movements. Now the computer has mastered the art of time travel, but two resistance fighters were able to steal the tech and use it to go fetch you. You are Xenon’s only hope, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. This leaves me with two important querstions:

First, why did Sludge need to go after Roger from the past? Was he already dead in Space Quest XII? That would make a pretty boring game.
Second, why would the resistance fighters go after Roger at all? Sure, Sludge was after him and all, but he’s just a savior-janitor three-times over. Surely, there were others more qualified to defeat an evil super computer? By this point, King Graham and his family had saved their respective games five times. There was also a Hero I could name that would have appreciated the 256-color upgrade.

I suppose it’s good that those things happened as they did because otherwise we wouldn’t have a game.

The only exit from the room leads into the sewers and the door locks behind me, so I have to press forward. I am just starting to explore when I am chased by some seemingly-intelligent sewer-slime.

Well-camoflagued sewer slime.

I’m not sure whether my 36-year old self figured this out or if he was channeling the memories of his 16-year old self, but I get the brilliant idea to capture some of the slime in the bottle that I picked up. I select the bottle in my inventory, click on some slime, and presto! I have some slime in a bottle. Now, back to exploring.

The sewers are not much to explore, just a bunch of straight lines making a 2x2 grid with the entrance on the far east and a ladder in the far west. I make sure to hit each of the rooms individually, but before I can explore them all another batch of slime manages to catch up to me and dissolves my flesh. Game over!

I’ll stop the world and melt with you!

I restore back to the hologram room and retrace my steps, capturing the slime in the bottle again. But this time around, I guess my timing wasn’t as good because rather than capturing the slime, all I manage to do is get myself melted again. That’s death #2.

The third time, I am able both to get the slime and get to the ladder. I peek my head out of a manhole to see a ship landing not far away.

The Manhole (1988) is a game I’d like to do a Missed Classic for someday...

As I watch, four people exit the ship. Once they are away, I click on the “walk” icon and emerge into a part of the city that I did not explore before, a side street with a damaged tank. I poke my head out to explore my surroundings, but moments later some of those police officers from the intro arrive and shoot me. That makes death #3.

Barely get enough time to snap this picture before..

Dead again!

I restore back a few screens and replay, but I quickly die again for the same reason (#4). I see a hole in the side of the tank and try to check that out, but I get shot before I get there (#5). I quickly go north, but there’s a policeman waiting for me. Dead again (#6). South? There’s a broken down speeder… but also a policeman. That makes death #7. If I go east immediately, I can find the ship that the police arrived in. I get momentarily excited, that I figured out the trick, but that ends quickly as I am once again shot by quickly arriving policemen (#8).

It really seemed like I was getting somewhere...

I’m not going to make any more progress this way, so rather than die a few more times, I restart the game back to the beginning. This time around, I will explore more thoroughly before going through the grate and I hope I will find something to let me defeat the policemen. I probably just missed an item, right?

Well, it’s that or be shot at, so… yes.

After I get dumped back on the post-apocalyptic pavement again, I explore to the west and am relieved to see that the broken down speeder and the tank are connected to the area that I started in. I really did a poor job of exploring before I sent myself down that grate the last time, but no matter. My first stop is the crashed speeder in the southwest corner.

I hope they had insurance

Looking at the ship reveals a glove compartment containing a “pocket pal laptop”. The thing is huge! I guess in the future, laptops will become bigger and heavier as a means of treating the obesity epidemic. Makes sense, I suppose. I try to use it, but am told that it is “just a dumb terminal”, whatever that means. The side of the laptop has a slot which triggers one of my childhood memories: this is where the bunny’s battery goes! All the more reason to capture the bunny… if I could only remember (or figure out) how. Next stop is one screen to the north: the wrecked tank. When I peer into the hole in the side that I found earlier, I see some “unstable ordnance” and I pick that up too. I explore the rest of the screens as well, but the only other item immediately visible is a battered piece of rope in the southeast corner. Every good adventure game needs a piece of rope, right?

While I am exploring, I come across two new obstacles but thankfully they are less aggressive than the policemen: zombies and robots.

Need braiiiiinns… but youuu will doooo...

Nomad, is that you?

Fortunately, the only thing you need to deal with these annoyances are to walk very slowly and deliberately away from them. Not to compare Roger with a certain Hero I could name, but this game could really use a “run” option. A leisurely stroll away from man-eating zombies just doesn’t seem to be the best approach. Before I finish and head back into the sewers (with no obvious means of defeating the policemen found), I check if there is any way that I can interact with either of the monsters. I try the zombies first.

Uncle Zombie wants YOU to donate your brain.

When I approach the zombie, I get a brilliant close up. But before I can do anything, he screams and alerts the robot guards who come and shoot me. That’s #9, but at least this time I was pretty sure I knew what I was getting into. I also try to interact with the robot, including blowing it up with the unstable ordnance, but that line of thought just wins me deaths #10 and #11. Oh well. Time to go back to the sewers!

I confidently march to the sewer entrance and descend through the grate to the underground room. And then… boom. Apparently the fall into the room is deadly, if you are carrying high explosives. Who knew? There goes life #12.

Man, I wish I was made of liquid metal right about now.

Since I cannot go into the sewers with the unstable ordnance, I can conclude one of three things:

I missed something to do with the ordnance while exploring before descending into the sewer
I missed a way to pick up the ordnance after returning from the sewer
The ordnance is a red herring.

Since I got shot an awful lot trying to get to the tank earlier, I suspect that it is either options one or three. I elect to explore everything over again to find anything that I might have missed. In the process, I suffer death #13: I walked smack into a robot of death while changing screens. Oops.

I put the game away for a bit and come back to it with a new idea: what if I use the rope on the robot instead? I walk around at random until I find the robot and click the rope on him. Except, that does not do exactly what I expect...

Wabbit season!

Instead of capturing or destroying the robot (who just flies away, oblivious), Roger creates a lasso and throws it onto the ground. Moments later, our bunny friend comes by, walks into the loop, and then walks right back out again. I’m thrilled, but I think I just solved much of this puzzle by accident. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Capturing the bunny this way is not easy. I try thirty times and my timing is incorrect no matter when I try to click on the rope. Even if I time it so I click right before the bunny does his little spin, I still miss out on catching him. So, perhaps I have the right idea but the wrong location? I check out other screens for places to hide where I can throw the rope and I find one just across the street. When I try the trick there, I catch the bunny on my first attempt!

Just think of how much simpler it would have been if Roger could run...

I examine the bunny, now safely trapped in my inventory. If I “use” it while holding it, Roger turns it around and reveals its battery. I remove the battery and place it in the Pocket Pal. I have power now! But it seems I still do not have a place to use it. I will have to keep looking. I am making progress, at least...

I keep exploring, but do not find anything else to do. If there is some puzzle with the ordnance here, I cannot find it. I put the ordnance back in the tank (thankfully, it did not make me reload) and head back into the sewer. I retrace my steps and in no time at all I am back looking out of the manhole at the police ship.

Since I did not learn my lesson last time, I try to get the ordnance twice more and die each time, making deaths #14 and #15. Instead of dying a few more times, I head east and explore the landing craft again. This time around, I must have clicked somewhere better because Roger is able to board the craft! Problem solved? No. The ship is guarded and there goes life #16. On the bright side, it is a very funny death scene...

My favorite death so far!

I could narrate all the things I tried next, but that would bore you to tears. Just let it be said that I tried some things, failed at some things, and suffered deaths #17 through #30. But, something good did come out of this: I figured out how to get the ordnance! If I go east to the ship but immediately turn around to go back to the tank, I somehow confuse the police enough that I can search the tank and get the ordnance. Awesome! I still die because I do not move quickly enough (#24), but at least I figured out what to do.

Yet another pointless death.

While saving my game after picking up the ordnance, I discover what I think is a bug: the timer doesn’t stop while you are saving. As soon as I finish saving, a police man comes and I die even though I know I should have more time. Just as bad, you also get shot immediately after restoring. Should we deduct points for a game that penalizes saving your game? Perhaps. But for now let’s just know that I suffered deaths #25 and #26 because of this little quirk and ended up having to save my game easier so as to not get stuck.

Thinking that it might help, I turn down the game speed. My thinking is that with slower speed, my own reaction times will be better and maybe I can get moving before the police arrive. But to my shock, reducing the speed makes things WORSE (and causes death #31). With the speed reduced, I cannot even walk across the room before the police arrive and I die. Does anyone know if this is a DosBox bug or an issue with the original game? Instead of turning the speed down, I crank it all the way up until Roger power-walks at Mach 1 every time you click and that works! I can now accomplish a ton more before the police come. This just has to be a bug.

With that brilliant idea in hand, I can explore a bit more with the police running around and can even pick up the ordnance. I’m not perfect, I still died three more times (#32 through #34), but that’s better than accomplishing nothing. My next brilliant idea is to blow up the ship using the ordnance, but I hit on a better solution (again!) by accident: clicking on a different part of the ship allows me to hide with the landing gear. The ship takes off and I am delivered to the building that I could see in the distance. Time for a nice cinematic!

Kids today and their fancy animated GIFs don’t have anything on me.

Now that Roger has successfully made it into Vohaul’s base, I think this is as good a place as any to end this segment. Thus far, I am disappointed that I solved two of the puzzles more or less by accident, plus the timer issue (if it is not specific to DosBox) is a real game-breaker. But on the bright side, I am loving the graphics and the attention to detail. Even the music seems right for the locale. My brain is awash with childhood memories and I’m looking forward to seeing where Roger Wilco is headed next.

Deaths: 34

Inventory: Pocket Pal (with battery), Unstable Ordnance, Bunny (sans Battery), Jar of Goo, and one Buckazoid.

Time played: 3:00
Total time: 3:00

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

By Deimar

Penelope Journal Entry #21:Dear diary: I still don’t know where Hugo is nor Horace’s murderer nor what I’m doing walking this endless garden. Getting past the killer bees was dangerous enough but now I have had to fight a snake and a dalek. Satisfy the needs of a dog and a genie and play a game of “whodunnit”. And I have no clue of why anything is happening. If only I could know what Hugo has been doing by merely thinking about him…

Last time we have just past the bees just because it was the only place we could go. Which seems to be the motivation for all the actions Penelope does in the game. In any case, in the new screen we see an old face. The guy in the boat from Hugo’s House of Horrors. Yeah, the one who tends to ask about the name of the dog of a semi-famous TV star from the 60’s. THAT guy. And he starts to question Penelope. Again. I hope he dies a painful de… oh. Ok. Apparently David Gray also got wind of the hate this character produced and just made Penelope hit him with his own wand in what is a genuine funny moment. My faith in humanity is restored. However, the rest of the screen is completely devoid of any interaction and you have nothing to do but to choose one of the two exits that doesn’t involve killer bees.

Admit it. All of you not so secretly wanted to do this.

I took the south exit to a well which can be climbed down but that takes us to a dead end as the cave below is blocked by debris. Going back to the old man’s screen I took the east exit. Immediately after entering the screen a snake starts going towards you. I left the screen in a hurry, typed “shoot gun at snake” and went back to get sued once more by PETA. But no. That didn’t work. Somehow Penelope got to miss a snake bigger than her. And the snake bit her. Unexpectedly, that didn’t kill me although it poisoned me. I drank the liquid in the SERUM bottle as an antidote and that seemed to work. Which tell that either mr. Gray or me don’t know the meaning of the word serum.

I have had it with this m********** snakes in this m************ game!

The screen allowed two more exits to the east. I took the bottom one which brought me to the exit of uncle Horace’s mansion. Which just seems like a public park entrance. In any case I could see a phone booth and the street. I entered the booth and Penelope automatically called the police. An officer called Higgins (maybe a reference to Mary Higgins Clark, a mystery novel writer?) told me that he was too busy to solve a murder, probably Manchester United was playing, and that he would go to the mansion at 6 P.M. Yeah, right. Like this game allows me to keep track of time.

A usual English street. Now with even less people.

Exiting the screen from any direction let me to another street screen with even less to do. Well, it has something. A graffiti with a telephone number written. I ran back to the booth and called the number. The doctor answered. Doctor who?. Exactly!

Ah. The times where copyright infringement wasn’t that viciously persecuted.
Those were the times…

Yep. Ripped off directly of Inspector Spacetime. Dalek shouting “Exterminate, Exterminate” included. But at least I got to satisfy my homicidal tendencies blowing the head of the dalek with my gun. It is not an axe but I’m not complaining. The doctah gave me a sonic screwdriver and send me back to the street. Well. That was intense. With nothing else to do I went back to the snake crossroad and took the upper exit.

The new location was mainly a dog house with no exit. The dog offered some interaction although nothing worked. Not even petting him. I haven’t complained about the parser but let me do it here. Most of the items in the screen are not described in any way. If you type “Look” in any screen you get a general description and sometimes a list of the items in the room. However, this doesn’t work all the time. For example, you are not told that there is a cabinet in the kitchen. In this case, there were some sticks in the floor just in front of the dog house. I suspected as much, but couldn’t remember what the english word for “stick” was. So I spent some time trying to light what seemed like a camp fire until I looked up the word in a dictionary. This is just to say that I am very glad of leaving parsers behind and getting to interface that tell you what items can be interacted with. Even if they lead to pixel hunting. With the stick in my power, I just threw it and the dog left the dog house to allow me to get some dynamite. Mining time. Dwarf style.

He’s not very dangerous.
I wouldn’t be either having a house that is more than twice the needed size.

The dynamite allowed me to clean the cave below the wheel which put me in a four way crossroad. I feared another maze. I started with the room to the left which contained an arabic lamp. Aladdin style. I tried rubbing it but it didn’t work. I went back to the crossroad and then took the right exit this time and that took me to the bottom of a stair that went up to a trap door. The trap door was too heavy for Penelope and although I tried knocking and shouting no one opened for me. This seemed like a perfect opportunity for the sonic screwdriver but it let me down. Rubbing the lamp worked this time however and a genie appeared before me. A distant cousin of the guard in the first game I guess. He told me that he could help me escape but only if I paid him in bananas. I had a feeling about what lied in the north exit of the crossroad…

If he sings “Friend like me” all is forgiven

And surprising nobody, there was a banana in the last room of the caves. Behind a chasm. Great. Trying to jump over the river in the bridge screen had let me know that there is no jumping in this game. I was stuck. How can I possibly cross a chasm with the items I had at that moment? Was I dead ended? Well, lucky for me, I wasn’t. I noticed that some rocks were hiding the bottom of the chasm and remembering a particularly obnoxious puzzle in the first game trying to get out of the house basement by using a hidden pathway behind some rocks. I tried going to the bottom of the screen and Penelope was hidden behind the rocks. I tried passing by the chasm and… voilah!. Bananas!

Note to game designers: Don’t do this

The genie opened the trap door and I climbed up to a room with a mouse hole and a safe. The mouse hole was insensitive to my meddling but the safe surrendered to my sonic screwdriver. Inside, I found the will of poor uncle Horace. The magnifier glass allow me to read the fine print and I learned that Hugo was the only beneficiary. It seems like we are finally going to the murder mystery part of the game.

My boyfriend is gonna be rich. The horror, indeed…

I left the room and appeared in a hall with a lot of doors. The left one led me to the starting room. The one with the stairs and the door to Hugo and Penelope’s room. I used the door at the back of this room to access yet another hall with three closed doors. The first one was locked, but the second one was Auntie Hester’s room. She invited me to a drink, so she must be the Ethel of this game. I saw a paper on the table and when I tried to take it, the game told me that she wouldn’t allow it. So I accepted her invitation and she started preparing the drinks. I tried to take the paper while she was distracted but I was told it would be better to read them. Sadly, I didn’t have enough time. After reloading I managed to read the letter which was a life insurance document for uncle Horace.

If you are anything like Ethel, don’t get close to any window

I have to admit I chuckled a little

The next room was cousin Harry’s. He has a something about being the phantom of the Opera. With a huge organ included. I told him about his father’s murder and he started laughing like a maniac. Ok, nothing to do here…

He is a maniac. Maaaniac on the floor.

There were still some doors left in the hall where the door to the safe room was. I went back there and took the one at the back. The maiden was there in what appeared to be a dining room. She hid something in the cabinet behind her when she saw me enter and blocked the way. I couldn’t make her move so I left the room via the door on the left.

She seems so innocent and not murderous in any way

The kitchen again. But now it has a cook inside. With the description especially noting that the knife she was using was covered in blood. Red herrings, come at me!. But for the most part this room is also completely useless. Although I have to say it is a nice touch to reuse locations.

Subtle…

I tried the other door in the parlor and ended up in a room with a cat and… erm… something made out of stone? I’ve finished the game and I still don’t know what that is or how can I interact with it. The cat was more friendly although he was sleeping. I have to note here that there has been two things I have tried through the game in almost every room. The first one is ringing the bell. Which doesn’t do anything but in this room. It makes the maid come because she thinks uncle Horace is calling. I tried in other rooms but this was the only one that made the maid leave her outpost. The other is giving the catnip to things. Well, I haven’t tried to spam this. I tried to give the catnip to the dog and the message shown talked about a cat. It was confusing at the time and I even thought it was a joke or something. But it was clear now what to do. The only problem was how to do it. I tried tying the bell with the catnip, giving the bell, giving the catnip, using the catnip on the bell, etc… The only option was “rub catnip on bell”, and then giving the bell. I think it might be way too specific.

So… any clue about what is this?

With the maid out of the way I was able to get what she had hidden. An old photo album with pictures of Hugo as a child. There is one photo of Hugo with a young girl of the same age standing in front of a huge pointed tower and something about the girl strikes familiar. I’m guessing if it was a photo of Penelope she would recognize herself so I intended to show the album to every female in the game. And I couldn’t. I don’t know if there is a verb other than speak, talk, ask or show that works, but none of those got me anything. Lucky for me, the end game advanced quickly.

When I left the parlor I saw a police officer going into a room. I suspected that would be the end of the game so first I tried to show the album around with no success. Then I followed him. The room was full with all the characters in the game. Even the ****** snake. Everyone but Hugo and uncle Horace. Higgins presented himself and asked me the question: Who dunnit? And to be honest I had no idea who might have done it or how could I possibly have known. So I answered that Hester did and then Harry started to laugh and told me I had no idea. He started explaining the situation while Penelope decided to ignore him and started to wonder where Hugo had been during all of this.

WHO dunnit. He. Did you catch that? Is it funny yet?

He was in the laundry room, of course. Locked in more specifically. There was a newspaper with half the crossword solved and a pencil in the room. Looking through the keyhole of the only door in the room revealed the key was still inside. I slid the paper under the door and push the key with the pencil. When I left the room, I was greeted by uncle Horace who asked Hugo for help. He was rehearsing a mystery play in which he played the victim and Harry the murderer but they needed Hugo to play the investigator.

And that’s how the game ends. I guess. I mean, I ended up with 344 out of 350 points so it may be right, but somehow I feel like this is incomplete. I tried reloading and saying different names in the “whodunnit” part but I always get the same result. Maybe I’m giving the game too much credit by thinking it can’t end in such a random way that still leaves unanswered where Hugo and Horace have been during the whole game but… well… Any of you knows if there is another ending?

That doesn’t explain anything to be honest

Session Time: 1 hours 35 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours 50 minutes

Written by Alex

Hello everyone! This is Alex, a long-time lurker, sometime commenter, and now full-fledged reviewer at the Adventure Gamer. I am very excited to be helping in keeping this great blog running, as Trickster has provided me with hours of entertaining, and informative, reading. I have volunteered to take on a handful of Sierra games, being that Sierra games are mostly what I played growing up. And since nostalgia is such a powerful thing, I’m looking forward to sharing my trip down memory (or was that “mammary”?) lane with all of you, starting with Sierra’s 1991 remake of Leisure Suit Larry 1.

The Title Screen

Trickster covered the original Larry way back in 2012, so I don’t need to rehash a lot of the information covered in his original introductory post. I just want to add two personal things: I have been a fan of the Larry series for longer than I care to admit, and Al Lowe is a favorite game designer of mine.

The Title Screen: Part II

As many readers know, Sierra got it in their head sometime in the early 1990s to remake their classic adventure games with updated graphics, sound, and interfaces. The first of these was the King’s Quest 1, but Space Quest 1, Police Quest 1, Leisure Suit Larry 1, and Quest for Glory 1 soon followed suit. Sierra put the kibosh on rereleasing the rest of these series, however, leaving the remakes as something of an oddball in the Sierra library.

As something of an oddball myself, I figured it would be fun to take a look at the Larry 1 remake, so here we go!

Pop Quiz!

As with the original Larry 1, there is an age-verification mechanism at the beginning to ensure that no minors get corrupted by the mature and highly intellectual content contained within the game. First, you choose your age.

I’ll try fooling the game.

D’oh!

Alright, smart guy. You want an adult? I’ll give you an adult!

How did it know?!

Let’s be slightly more accurate.

Good to know!

It’s been a long time since my school days, but I’m ready!

Liz Taylor R.I.P.

Joan Rivers R.I.P.

Ronald Reagan R.I.P. Geez, everyone this game references is dead!

I first misread this question as “Texas.” Answer as you will.

Also, a Zappa.

Alright! With the hard part out of the way, let’s get to getting Larry some action!

Looking at him in glorious VGA, this may be harder than I realize…

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There's a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no CAPs will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. As this is an introduction post, it's an opportunity for readers to bet 10 CAPs (only if they already have them) that I won't be able to solve a puzzle without putting in an official Request for Assistance: remember to use ROT13 for betting. If you get it right, you will be rewarded with 30 CAPs in return. It's also your chance to predict what the final rating will be for the game. Voters can predict whatever score they want, regardless of whether someone else has already chosen it. All correct (or nearest) votes will go into a draw.

By Joe Pranevich

Roger Wilco’s Janitorial Log #2 - After escaping from the destroyed city, I managed to snag myself one of Sludge Vohaul’s time pods. With a bit of luck, I found myself in Space Quest XII, a strange aquatic world filled with dinosaurs, sea slugs, and very attractive women. Me-from-the-future used to date one of them (go me!), but I seem to be stuck in the friend zone now. I saved her life and now she wants to go shopping? Perhaps my leaving makes sense after all...

Roger admires the view while we have a little chat...

A Change in Plans: SQ4 Bugs

In my last post on Space Quest IV, I died a lot. More than a lot, actually. It was pretty much wall-to-wall death there for a while and that wasn’t very fun for me and also probably not all that much fun to read. Several posters commented on that as being part of a “timer” issue with the specific version of SQ4 that I am playing, the GOG.com version which is based on the CD-ROM version from 1992. There was some debate whether this problem was real or just because of faster computers, so I decided to get to the bottom of the situation through experimentation.

Searching the seedier corners of the internet, I located a download of the original floppy version of Space Quest IV and spent a few minutes playing it up to the beginning of my wall-to-wall deaths, to the point where I emerged from the manhole to try to sneak into the policemen’s aircraft.

Memories... I saw this screen a lot last post.

I lined up “identical” saved games in the GOG/CD-ROM version as the floppy version, ensured that the DosBox settings were exactly the same between the two of them, and checked the setting for game speed in the SQ4 control panel. With everything exactly the same, I confidently strolled out into this screen in both games and watched my fate unfold.

In the version that I have been playing, Roger is shot by the Sequel Police in around eight seconds after walking into the screen.

In the floppy version, Roger has 50 seconds before he is shot, plus he has a few seconds after the police arrive before they shoot.

A difference of a couple seconds could have been the developers increasing the difficulty level, but a 6x difference in time cannot be anything but a bug. If that is the case, it is a bug that all modern players have to deal with as the original version of SQ4 is no longer available. (Commenter Gregory Brown points out that a fan-made patch for this problem can be found here.)

So what does that mean for me? I am going to switch to the floppy version of the game, but not until sometime during or after the next post. This has the advantage of being a more “true” 1991 experience. Depending on whether I see any differences, I might do a fast recap or just continue the narrative uninterrupted. Either way, this post is based on the GOG version that I was playing before. We’ll figure out what this switch means for the PISSED rating when we get there.

Enough of this nonsense. Let’s get back to the game.

Time to explore!

At the end of the last post, Roger had boarded the Sequel Police aircraft and used it to sneak into Vohaul’s base. Once the ship lands and the guards leave, play resumes and we are able to explore. I first check out the ship, see if there is anything I can do with it here that I could not back in the city. Again, I am struck by how much simpler the icon interface is for doing things you don’t actually intend: “using” the ship causes Roger to board it again, the guards come, and we are whisked back to the planet’s surface. It seems that I can re-explore the first area at my leisure, but I do not find anything new or obvious that I missed. I do run into one of the zombies by accident, my first death of the post!

I restore back to the hangar deck and explore Sludge’s fortress. I’ll go right, first!

Round doors... is Vohaul a hobbit?

On the right side of the hangar deck is a round door with a keypad lock of some kind on it. Unfortunately, it is also well-guarded and I do not see a way to get there right now. Even with my speed turned all the way up, I am shot on sight. Death #2. Nothing to do here, so let’s head the other way.

Did you know Infamous Adventures (the guys behind "Quest for Infamy") did a fan-remake of Space Quest II? Maybe we'll play it when we get to 2011.

The left side of the hangar is more promising: a police dispatch station. One guard stands beside a time pod, but as Roger moves into the screen a second pod appears. A sequel policeman steps out of that pod and distracts the first guard with his report. (He had been looking for me in Space Quest II.) This looks to be a great moment to sneak into the just-arrived time machine. I use my handy “hand” icon and moments later Roger is sitting in his very own time machine!

You know, this ship seems smaller on the inside.

Sitting in the pilot’s seat, I check out the interior. There’s a button on the door, a screen, a keypad with some gibberish characters above it, and some compartments that do not open (at least not yet). I get the brilliant idea to travel where the police just came from and think I can get there by just pressing “enter”, but that idea is as stupid as it seems in retrospect as I am just transported exactly back to where I am. Smooth move, Roger.

Did I miss something in my exploration of the city? or of the base? I did not find any time coordinates, so how to do I know where to go? I press the button by the window to leave the pod, but then I remember that there are guards outside. Death #3 comes quickly and painlessly. I restore the game.

Is this copy protection? Some other puzzle? I search the manual for time codes; I even read all of the advertisements! There are a ton of places listed in the “Galaxy Galleria Mall”, but not one of the ads provides coordinates for the mall. I remember being in a mall when I played this game as a kid, so I must be going there eventually. But perhaps not yet? This is where a distant memory pinged off my brain, but I am embarrassed to say that I probably would not have figured it out without that: there is no time code here. If I enter gibberish codes enough times, Roger will stumble on one that works and get the heck out of there. I try that and sure enough, a few seconds later Roger is traveling through time!

...and ruby and olive and violet and fawn
And lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve...

Are we there.. oh... yeah, we're here.

Roger lands in an alien landscape with more ledges than should be possible. Do you think it was all caused by erosion? Am I overthinking this? There’s a path to the west and a stair to the south, so I flip a coin and head south. That doesn’t take me anywhere, just to an overlook over a bunch of other stairs. There are some little piles of rocks that seem like I should be able to push down onto someone below, but nothing appears to be manipulable. Perhaps I need to explore the other side first?

She's actually just pointing at the screen and making fun of me.

Walking to the west, a shadow of a large bird passes overhead. Are the eagles coming? I’m fairly certain that was a different series. I head down the stairs and this time I see the silhouette of some heavily armed women. The music is shrill and tense so obviously something bad is about to happen. Except… nothing happens. There’s a pool of water at the bottom of the stairs (another dead end), but apparently nothing for me to do now.

I head back up the stairs. The tense music is still playing. I get the sense that someone is watching me. And then this happens:

It's a bird... It's a plane... No... actually, yes, it's a bird. Mostly.

Time out for a second, because I have to tell you that I love the animation of this scene. As you click like mad to try to figure out something to do, the designers have a ton of things happening: the background is gradually moving, Roger’s hair blows in the wind, and his poor eyes look like they are bugging out of his head. It’s a great scene and well-done. But that doesn’t stop me from clicking like mad, trying to find a way to get out of the situation. The game does helpfully tell me “don’t mess with it” when I try to get the bird to release me, which I suspect is a hint for not doing anything to cause me to fall to my death. Considering how liberal the developers are with death scenes, it is almost surprising that isn’t one.

A few moments later, the creature’s nest comes into view and I am dropped into it, shaken but not stirred. A sequel policeman, dropped seconds later, is not so lucky: he is impaled on a sharp branch and dies instantly. This is a comedy, right? I keep forgetting.

Why does this seem familiar?

And… wait a second. Haven’t we just done this? I don’t know if you remember, but our friend TBD just faced a very similar puzzle not that long ago in King’s Quest V: the roc nest. Of course, I have nothing against Sierra reusing puzzles and locations, but still…

King's Quest V did have more interesting camera angles at times.

Since I didn’t feed any eagles on my way here, I assume that this will not quite work out the same as King Graham’s experiences. Time to see what I can do! I search the guy that dropped from the sky to find a gum wrapper, but on examining it more closely I find half of a set of time coordinates! That will come in handy, if I can find the other half or figure out a way to clean off the gum. Along the way, the text of the game helpfully tells me that these are “sequel police”, which I think I already knew but cannot recall whether I knew because I remembered or because the game actually told me. They almost all have “SP” on their helmets, so that makes sense now. But I am confused about the blood. I had thought that the policemen that I had seen so far were robots, but this guy has clearly bled out. Are they cyborgs? Are some robots and others are not?

I search the rest of the nest but find nothing except a path down… by falling. Just when I expect to see yet another death screen, I land in the water and survive. Whew! As soon as I break the surface, I am surrounded: the titular Latex Babes have arrived. They are armed and they have a submarine. The submarine is really the coolest part.

Uhh... take me to your leader?

A few helpful moments of exposition later, we discover that the apparent leader of the Latex Babes has some history with Roger: he apparently dumped her in the future to go pursue his dreams of not being tied down to an attractive lady from Estros. Perhaps we will find out some day, if the Space Quest series ever resumes and we get to the real events of Space Quest X. I am not going to be holding my breath, though.

Hello, Sweetie.

I am ordered to board the sub and you know, I really could. And I know I will. But I just have to see what happens if I don’t. Naturally, I die. In fact, I get an arrow in the knee… er… harpoon in the back for my trouble. Death #4, yes, but I think I expected something like that to happen. I restore and board the sub like a good ex-boyfriend.

Victory or Sovngarde!

The latex babes take me deep into the ocean to their underground lair:

Wait... you aren't a babe.

Oh God, no. No, no, no, no, no. I just had some terrible flashbacks there, I am sorry. Those rat mazes… all that backtracking to find items that I missed… I am still traumatized. I feel bad for Deimar because I just know that he’s never really going to be able to put Hugo II out of his mind. It will always be there for him, just under the surface, waiting to come out while he is playing better games.

Okay. I can breathe. Let me try again.

Not yellow.

It's as if the Bond girls all chipped in together and got themselves their own evil lair.

Once we arrive, one of the lovely Latex Babes strap Roger down to an uncomfortable-looking chair that seems like half dentist chair, half fetishist dream. There are instruments of torture nearby and the lady that is running the show looks like she’s awfully good at her job. One press of a button and Roger’s pant legs are fried clean off. And that’s when the true nature of my torture becomes clear: they are going to shave Roger’s legs. Perhaps, all the way off.

This doesn't look so bad.

Oh shit.

Suddenly, just as Roger is about to find out if it really shaves closer than a blade, a “roar” is heard in the distance: the base is being attacked by a giant sea monster. The women all flee, leaving Roger strapped into the chair and helpless against the creature. It’s like something out of a horror film. Where the heck did they get the design for this thing?

In retrospect, shaving seems nice.

Since this is an adventure game, the monster is more than a bit clumsy. Rather than eating me outright, it somehow manages to open my bonds using its long and very scary tongue. That gives me a chance to stun it using the same beam that blasted my pants off earlier. That leaves a mark and the monster seems to be momentarily stunned.

触手強姦

Now that I am out of the chair, I could either fight or run. I should have run to see how the monster would have killed me, but in the heroism of the moment I looked for a better way. Right near the chair, there were pressurized containers of some sort, probably oxygen or fuel tanks. I pick one up and use it on the monster, but I do not seem to do it in time. I die a martyr’s death. That makes five this post.

I restore and the next time around, I am able to push the exploding something or another into the monster’s mouth, blowing it up from the inside. It has a well-animated cartoon death and I revel in my victory. The monster slinks back into the ocean and the Latex Babes come out of hiding, acclaiming me as their hero. We apparently agree to just be friends (poor Roger) and before I know it, I’ve agreed to go shopping with the ladies. God help me.

Some days, you wish you never crawled out of your algae pool.

Yes. Yes I was.

And with that, I will end this play segment. This has been fun. While the last post felt distopian, this one feels much more like a Bond thriller. I also like the change in pace: there was less exploration and more scripted sequences. It does not hurt that the sequences are all well done graphically, either. I do not approve of all the sexism, but this was more than twenty years ago so I will cut them some slack. In the next post, I finally get back to the mall I remembered from playing as a kid. I cannot wait!

Deaths: 5 (39 total), not counting the several during my version testingInventory: Pocket Pal (with battery), Unstable Ordnance, Bunny (sans Battery), Jar of Goo, and one (?) Buckazoid, Gum Wrapper

Time played: 1:35
Total time: 4:35

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

Science Fiction References Contest!

Andy_Panthro has kindly agreed to donate a game to the commenter that posts the most obscure sci-fi reference that they can find in Space Quest IV. Man, this is a game series that just takes and adapts science fiction, so it should be a lot of fun to find the little elements that I suspect I am missing. Is the sea monster from some Japanese monster movie? Are the futuristic zombies adapted from a book? Does Roger’s uniform strongly resemble one from a certain popular series? These answers or similar might win you a game, so I hope you participate.

By Deimar

So before starting with the rating I have to state that I went back and finished the game “the right way” using Joe Pranevich’s ROT13’ed clue. To be honest, half of me wanted the game to be something else. I see some potential with the set up. The mystery might have not been great, but looking at clues like the will in the safe or the health insurance letter it could have been so much better with a little effort... But no. The “right ending” is just lazy. You can say “nobody” when Higgins ask you “whodunit” and then Harry congratulates you instead of laughing at you. I’m ecstatic. Let me show you how much by rating the game.

If you never thought I could guess it is probably because it is impossible to guess at this point without “failing” once...

Puzzles and Solvability

Hugo II has a major problem. There are not enough items to make the game interesting. In each section there is one item to interact with. Just one thing. You can have something to take. Or you may have to use something. And in some cases there is nothing to do at all. This scarcity makes the game’s puzzles really obvious. However, many of the obstacles in the game are only an obstacle because of the perspective or how to phrase the solution. For example, the venus trap garden, the bridge or the chasm in the cave. Having played the first one and reading Trickster’s rating I’m gonna give Hugo II the same points. I think the game is basically the same in this aspect, which is not a good thing.

Rating: 2

And because I hate this bridge so much...

Interface and Inventory

The interface is rather bad. I mean, it is an standard parser. However, in Sierra games or even text adventures you can look and be given a list of items in the room you can interact with. And most of the items in those games have an appropriate description. In this game there is no such thing. Or at least it is not common. There are some rooms with some of the interactive items listed, but in most of them you have to guess what is in the room. For example, the sticks outside the dog house or the cabinets. Granted, being a nonnative english speaker this is more of a problem for me than or other people so I will try not to be too harsh on the game. However, the interface is still horrendous. The parser is way too specific in my opinion. There is no need to look at any item because the description is usually just the name of the object. Navigating the “mazes” (venus garden and the bridge) is unintuitive because you don’t know what you are actually hitting to trigger the death. No improvement after 1 year of development since the last one.

Rating: 1

Not to mention navigating this maze is as boring as watching a stone evolve

Story and Setting

So this is a murder mystery without any murder nor mystery. The game starts with a promising story only to diverge to exploration for the sake of exploration and random happenings (doctah, looking at you). Padding at its best. Then it goes back to the murder mystery only to make the player do some more random things that could have pointed to clues to solve the mystery but that in reality are red herrings that the player must follow because otherwise the game won’t end. And that is even more padding. There is a story in the game, yes. But it is so nonsensical and it is often so forgotten by even the game itself that it is not worth commenting. And I’m gonna avoid commenting of the suspicious similarities with Colonel’s Bequest.

Rating: 2

So why has this mystery suddenly become The Goonies?

Sound and graphics

Little to no sound. And when there is sound you wish there wasn’t. PC Speaker at the peak of its popularity. Regarding graphics, it is still the same Paint graphics as Hugo I. There are some screens that are noticeable because they look like scanned photographs. But those are too little and the change in art style is too noticeable. They are not bad, but by comparison with the rest of the game they kind of look like they were bad. If I don’t count the animals/murderer robots there are a total of 3 different models for the characters. And that’s giving that men and women models are different beyond using different clothes because the faces are all the same. The third model is the fat guy if you were wondering, represented by the gardener and the genie. And I’m pretty sure the three models are the same as the ones in Hugo I. As with the previous categories, not a lot of improvement in this regard.

Rating: 2

Completely on par with Space Quest IV. What a big change after just one year of development!

Environment and Atmosphere

That the history feels so disconnected is in great part thanks to the environments. There are a few (house, garden, street and cave) but they have so little to do with each other that it just feels like a random mess of screens until you have a game that lasts enough. The atmosphere is also lacking for the same reasons. There is no coherence. The game failed to present me an interesting scene. Or an interesting anything. It is simply a random mess.

Rating: 1

Behold!! A completely empty and useless screen!

Dialogue and acting

I think this will be the category in which Hugo II gets the highest rating. It is not estelar, but I can say it is acceptable. More often than not it is even funny, although there is not a lot to talk with the people in the house. Even though, they do have some personality traits that get reflected into the dialogue. So, there you go. A 3 as the highest score for this game.

Rating: 3

Well. You also have dialogue like this to be honest. But let’s not beat the dead horse...

2+1+2+2+1+3 divided by 0.6 is 18.33 which makes 18 the rating for Hugo II, Whodunit?. I think that’s about right. I mean, the first game got 24 but I think it felt more of a complete coherent game that this one is. As I’ve said, this one just seems like tying screens together to get a game of appropriate length. Joseph Curwen please come to receive your prize. Lots and lots of CAPs!!

Cap Distribution:

100 CAPs for Deimar:
Blogger Award 100 CAPs For blogging his way through the game for our enjoyment

20 CAPs for Joseph Curwen:
Whodunit award 20 CAPs For guessing the game’s score

17 CAPs for Mr. Valdez
Amy award 10 CAPs For playing this excellent game with me
Alot award 5 CAPs For finding spelling errors
Cat Lady award 2 CAPs For identifying a cat scratching post

10 CAPs for Illmari
Rose award 10 CAPs For playing this excellent game with me

5 CAPs for Joe Pranevich
Poirot award 5 CAPs For revealing the murderer

5 CAPs for TBD
Genre Dissemination award 5 CAPs For mentioning a GOG sale

5 CAPs for Fry
Enigma award 5 CAPs For discovering what “b*g *a*pe*” means

5 CAPs for Jan Larres
Humanitarian award 5 CAPs For disseminating information about Mike Berlyn’s cancer fund

5 CAPs for Laukku
Double Fine award 5 CAPs For posting about Broken Age part 2

By Ilmari

Since Alex is about get his hands on the remake of Larry, I thought we might take a look at the game which it is based on. But didn’t Trickster already review original Larry way back then? Indeed, but before there was Larry, there was Softporn. Yes, we are getting back to the very source of smut, that has now, in form of Larry I, been remade three times - that’s gotta be some sort of record!

Softporn is a bit of weird one among the early Sierra adventure games, as it is the only real non-graphical text-adventure Sierra ever published. The game itself was made by Chuck Benton, a field engineer from Boston. It had begun as a programming exercise, but Benton had then got the idea of making some money with the game. This proved to be rather difficult, until Ken Williams, who happened to have purchased a copy from Benton in Applefest 1981, called and asked if On-Line Systems (the predecessor of Sierra) could publish the game. (For a more detailed story, look at the Digital Antiquarian).

Sierra didn’t really change Benton’s game in any way, although there was a talk of a graphical upgrade even back at the day. What they did was design a new game box, with a famous picture showing Roberta Williams with two other lovely ladies in a jacuzzi.

Kenny, I know what you are thinking, stop that immediately!

The game flamed the public interest, and quite predictably, the hatred of moralists, which made it even more successful. Years later, when Infocom re-introduced sex into IF with Leather Goddesses of Phobos, Sierra decided to redo Softporn wih graphics - and rest is history!

I’ve decided to play a version of Softporn ported by Gary Thompson to PC in 1991, because it should be an authentic reproduction of the original. Well, Thompson apparently got one detail wrong, since the original designer of the game is named Chuck Barret in the game. This version is also nostalgic for me, because it was included in a Leisure Suit Larry -collection I happened to purchase back in the days. So what are we waiting for, let’s start the game!

Puppet’s diary: All I wanted was a moment’s peace from the hectic life in 21rst century, but the holiday has taken a bizarre turn. I am being controlled by a mysterious entity, who forces me to indulge myself on all sorts of depraved perversions. I’ve been intoxicated with alcohol and forced to eat strange mushrooms, I’ve had to spend all my money in gambling and now I am about to be made to satisfy my carnal desires with a lady who is clearly infested with some bug. I need help!

Opening the manual reveals a curious piece of information - Softporn is scifi! The game is set in year 2020 AD, and although the sky is apparently green with plutonium, nothing much seems to have changed from 1970s - disco is still very much in vogue and inflation is rampant, interest rates doubling annually. The game even knows the word “inflate”, responding to it with “But the prime rate is already 257!!”. No wonder a glass of bad whiskey pays hundred dollars.

Adorable that even the ability to save a game is higher on the selling point list than sex and booze

The main character of the game is a nameless fellow, who has decided to spend his vacation in a gambling town “Lost Vagueness”. His aim is to fulfill his erotic dreams and seduce three different women (every time the character “scores”, your score rises by one, so there’s just three points to get). Both in the manual and in the game the character is described as a puppet, just doing what the player commands.

I am not going to make a detailed description of the plot, since the basic scenario resembles Larry 1 so much and Alex is about to play the first remake anyway. Instead, I’ll just concentrate on the similarities and especially the differences of the two games, going through the three different areas of the game.

Bar

Even the first few rooms show how similar Softporn and Larry 1 are. You begin in a sleazy bar, in which you can order beer and whiskey - no wine in Softporn, though. Also, compared to Larry, the bar is really empty and there appears to be no other customers to speak with. Then again, we are told that cockroaches run around, which I definitely did not see in Larry 1.

Note how all the interactible objects show up at the at the top of the screen.

Moving to a hallway we find drunk businessman, who is just dying for a glass of whisky and willing to give his controller unit to anyone satisfying his thirst. There’s also a desk with a rose and a magazine that explains how to play blackjack and slots.

The hallway leads to a bathroom, which even the cockroaches avoid because the horrid smell. Sink hangs from the wall by its rusty plumbing, but at least the washbasin contains a ring. And yes, there’s some graffiti on the wall.

Nice ASCII-art, but Bellybutton is a lame password

Getting back to the bar, there is no door you could knock, but there is a curtain and a button, and pressing it makes a voice ask a password. Once we get in the backroom, there’s a big dude with a pin asking us to support our local pimp. There’s also a TV set, with some interesting shows to watch.

TV shows are the only place where the scifi theme is perpetuated
(Remember that 1996 was still in the future)

They are also full of sexually loaded scenes

And this is just weird…

It’s easy to find a channel that the pimp finds interesting, but he’ll still charge 2000 dollars for going upstairs. It turns out the TV set is important only when visiting the premises a second time. The pimp wouldn’t let us see his girl a second time, so he needs to be distracted with the TV set.

Getting upstairs we find a box of candy and a funky prostitute, and unlike in Larry, Softporn insists that we take a closer look at her, because the game won’t allow us to continue to balcony without scoring with her. The prostitute has an atomic clap, which is one of the ways to get the main character killed. Sofporn is a bit lenient with death, by the way. You are given a chance to take one of three doors. One of them takes you to the same choice, one of them to hell (DOS) and one of them lets you escape death and continue from the same position, as if you’d solved the puzzle that led to your demise. So, it’s perfectly possible to use the services of the prostitute without any protection and still complete the game.

After taking care of the prostitute, the game lets us go forward to balcony, from which we can move to a window ledge, if we just have some rope to secure us. People are screaming “don’t jump”, but if we just use a hammer, we can break a window and move into another room. The room contains lot of stuff, like a centerfold and a pink bathrobe, but the only thing we can interact with is a box of pills, which we can take with us.

There's also another piece of ASCII art, this time an image of a billboard

Getting back to the balcony, we can finally go down to a dumpster. If we expect a hammer, we will be disappointed, since the only thing of interest is an apple core full of apple seeds. More on those later.

Getting out of the dumpster, we get to a street in front of the bar. A sign tells us to hail a taxi and so we do. Trickster had some problems in Larry 1 trying to determine where to go with the taxi, but in Softporn the driver helpfully tells us the three main spots of the town. You don’t want to carry any alcohol in the taxi, because the driver will take it and run over you. Let’s move to disco then!

Disco

With the disco area I can be quick. We begin with a residential street, with a bum living in there. He has a bit more history here and is apparently a previous player of Softporn, who just got caught in a programming bug. He would like some wine, although he can’t stand it much, as it makes him puke, and he is willing to part from his knife to get something to quench his thirst.

On the street, there is a pharmacy, the only merchandise of which are condoms and porn magazine. In Larry 1, the magazine contained a helpful article on the use of ropes in window cleaning, but here we learn that women like to be pampered with gifts. The pharmacy does not sell wine.

The street also has an entrance to a disco, which requires a pass card to get in. Within disco there’s a waitress selling some wine. There’s also an innocent country girl waiting for some gifts. And of course you get to do some dancing. While in Larry 1 this was a fun animation, here it is fun for different reasons…

Nice to see disco will be well alive in the future

Unlike in Larry 1, the telephone booth is within disco. The use of the phone is still similar. You can order some wine to the hotel and you can also phone to another number…

I wonder why they need these answers?

Casino

Just like with disco, the casino area has only one street, so we don’t have a separate street for the church or “Quickie Marriage Center” (alas, no guy flashing to you). The preacher is also less talkative than in Larry 1 and does nothing but winks at you when marrying a woman.

The Adventurers Hotel contains no separate cabaret with a comedian, but there are rooms for slots and blackjack. According to some walkthroughs, in the original Apple version the blackjack used a pre-determined sequence and was thus easy to beat. This appears not to be case in the PC conversion, which also has thousand dollars as a betting limit. Thus, I think slots are the best option, since they involve only pressing Y key for a long time - and they also have decently good profit margin, since triples are fairly usual and give out 1500 dollars (no wonder the inflation is so rampant).

The hotel itself is much smaller than the one in Larry 1 - in addition to the bottom and the penthouse, there’s only one floor, in which you’ll find a pass card to disco, and more importantly, the honeymoon suite, with a woman wanting some wine. The suite has also a separate balcony, where you’ll find a radio, where you can hear an ad for a wine shop, and a peeping hole.

She’s practicing a magic trick, but the Magician's Code forbids me from telling you anything more
10 CAPs for the first to tell the name of the trick

After you’ve got wine to the room, the woman ties you to bed. Surprisingly, this is all she does, and your money stays intact.

The elevator to the penthouse is guarded by a blonde with a great derriere, who loves to eat strange pills, but who also has a boyfriend. Getting rid of that problem, we get to take a ride upstairs, listening to some boring music. The penthouse is apparently full of pictures by some centuries-old artist (none of which we can interact with, of course). Moving forward, we find a living room, with a closet and something to actually inflate.

I don’t know which makes me facepalm more, the lame sex scenes or author’s incapacity to spell.

After that incident, we move to porch and phone immediately rings.

The second line ruins the joke.

But let’s get down to the main business and in jacuzzi.

Maybe she doesn’t mind!!!!! But I do!!!!! Bieng a grammar nazi!!!!

We all know what we should know - give Eve the apple. But where is it? In Larry 1, an apple was sold to us by a broke businessman, but no such luck here - closest to a fruit we’ve seen was that apple core with seeds.

This is the most original part of the game, and I am not at all surprised that Al Lowe decided to drop it. There’s a group of bushes hidden behind a plant in the hotel lobby, and entering them would apparently be kinky. The bushes lead us to a lush garden with roses and other flowers - there’s also the hammer you’ll need to break a window. The soil of the garden is just perfect for growing apple trees, so all you need is some water, which you can luckily get from a kitchen in the penthouse.

So, now we have our instant apple and the only problem is getting out of the garden, because the entrance has just vanished. Luckily among all those plants there’s a mushroom and eating that takes you to a psychedelic trip - somewhere to the bar area.

How many mushrooms had the author eaten, when he invented this puzzle?

This is indeed all there is to the game. Now it’s time to see how it fares under a close scrutiny:

Puzzles and Solvability:

Trickster noted that Larry 1 was a bit too on the easy side, and the same problem occurs in Softporn also. Even the puzzle that was not approved by Al Lowe is, in all its weirdness, quite simple - just find some soil and water to grow an apple tree. In some ways there is less hand holding in Softporn - no one is telling you to use medical stimulants with the lobby woman - but with other puzzles there is more hand holding (come on, do I have to be told in a magazine that wine and gifts work with a woman). The possibility to escape death makes the game even easier. On the bright side, the puzzles are rather logical and there is rarely any sense that you would get stuck due to a dead end or incredibly bad puzzles, mazes, guess the verbs etc. Indeed, it is easy to see how the almost same set of puzzles could have lasted for four games, as the puzzle structure is so well crafted. I am thus following Trickster here…

Rating: 5

Interface and Inventory

Softporn is a rare two-word-parser game where the limitations of the technology do not matter that much. It’s mostly about the simplicity of the puzzles again, but there’s also in some cases sincere efforts to tell the player what the correct command should be - for instance, we have a sign in a kitchen telling that WATER ON will turn water on. The separate part of the screen indicating all the interactible objects and exits in the room was also a pleasant surprise. All in all, the interface deserves a better score than all the early text adventures thus far.

Rating: 4

Story and Setting

It is in this category where the differences with Larry 1 really become apparent. Al Lowe managed to carve out of Softporn the essential and viable core: a story of an eternal loser trying to score even once in his lifetime. Problem with Softporn is that it tries to be something more, but without any clear direction. The main character is not a lovable virgin, but someone just wanting to get laid for - I don’t know - existential anxiety over living in a polluted dystopian future. Add to the underused scifi setting with its clear overtones of 70s the weird fantasy element of a garden with magic mushrooms, and the resulting mix is just confusing.

Rating: 2

Sound and Graphics

Technically I should give no points, since the game has no graphics and sounds, but I liked the occasional bits of ASCII-art that I am going to be generous.

And this might be called animation…

Rating: 1

Environment and Atmosphere

Something’s not quite clicking in the game. I already talked about the mix of different genres in the story section, but I’ve yet to say anything about the humour. Generally, it just feels like the producer wasn’t sure what level of levity and hilariousness he should pursue. There are some amusing one-liners and jokes, but the main story seems rather bleak and jokeless in its obsession with sex. I am not sure whether I am meant to laugh or get aroused with the game’s description of all the women, but I am not doing either. Al Lowe took the whole sexual innuendo thing farther than Softporn ever does and also made the sex into a major source of the jokes - heck, I think our very own Kenny knows his innuendos better than Sofporn.

Rating: 3

Dialogue and Acting

Considering that this a game based on relationships, you would suppose that you’d spend a lot of your time conversing with other characters. Not so, since this is a game with no ability to TALK. The other characters do have a line or two to say, but it is hard to get any sense of what they are like, when you don’t get their basic motivation. For instance, it is not apparent why the woman in the disco wants to marry you, and it becomes even more of a mystery, when she without any reason ties the player character to a bed, without even taking the money.

Could this be the first mention of gays in a computer game?

If so, I have to congratulate it for its neutrality

On the other hand…

Rating: 3

5 + 4 + 2 + 1 + 3 + 3 = 18, which divided by 0,6 gives 30. I am also going to give it an additional bonus point, because of one special joke that never gets too old.

No matter what the century, this is always awkward

So, the final score for Softporn is 31. I think this is very much in line with what these old text adventures have got so far.

Written by Alex

Where we left Larry

And Larry is back! After our pop quiz, Larry is ready to get to it. The conceit of this game is simple: Larry is a 38 year old bachelor who lives with his mother and is terrified of the opposite sex. One day, he decided he’d had enough with his pathetic existence, put on a leisure suit, and made his way to the city of Lost Wages to get laid. Did I mention that Larry is a virgin?

So yeah, it’s a stupid plot. It’s also based on an old text adventure game called Softporn Adventure, which I believe someone will get to on this site in the near future (Admin's note: Done!). Anyway, let’s help Larry get some!

One last note: Instead of comparing this remake with the original on a screen-by-screen basis, I’ll just point out any interesting differences or changes. Here’s one: Instead of just the usual eye/hand/walk cursors common to Sierra’s point-and-click games, the Larry 1 remake adds a zipper and a nose for further interaction. They provide humorous messages and not much else. I’ll be sure to include the good ones.

On with the show. First, let’s take stock of Larry’s inventory.

Gotta love Sierra’s point-and-click inventories!

We’ve got a wallet with $94.00 and a bunch of unusable credit cards, a bottle of breath spray, and a watch. The time is currently 10:00 p.m. Is this game timed? We’ll soon find out!

Going either to the left or right of Lefty’s takes Larry to the same place: an alley where a surly looking thug stalks towards Larry with malice in his eyes.

“Nah, I’m cool here.”

You should have listened to the narrator, Larry!

This makes it sound like hanging out in dark alleys is a habit of Larry’s.

Wait . . . who said that?

. . . the hell?

Is that . . . is that a blender?

Gross!

I’m not drinking that!

And out of the tube comes . . .

Another Larry!

Very funny, Al Lowe, very funny.

So all of that brings us back to the front of Lefty’s bar. I have to say, I enjoy this particular death in the original Larry 1, where you see other Sierra characters like Graham and the dragon from the original King’s Quest, and Roger Wilco’s droid from Space Quest 1.

In any event, let’s see what happens when we walk up from Lefty’s, instead of left or right.

Between the building and those two trash cans.

It’s another alley, complete with a dumpster and a wall I can’t climb over. The two windows above are each interesting: The one on the left emits a glow, while the one on the right is dark with something on the windowsill that Larry can’t make out from down here. The fire escape is out of reach, meaning that, if I want to see who, or what, is in the left window, I’ll likely have to do it from inside of Lefty’s.

Clicking the eye cursor on the dumpster gives the message, “Unfortunately, you can’t see much from out here.” Is that a hint that Larry needs to go inside the dumpster?

Yep!

Larry, looking way too happy to be sitting in a dumpster and getting his leisure suit all grimy, fishes through the trash and finds Lefty’s hammer (3 points). With nothing else to do in the dumpster, Larry decides to check out Lefty’s posh exterior.

The sign on the post out front reads “Taxi stand,” but I don’t think Larry wants to hail a cab just yet. Maybe he’ll have better luck with the ladies in the bar instead of outside of it.

Lefty’s is sleazy, tacky, and smells funny. Reminds me of a bunch of places in Boston. There is a bar with four dudes and one lady; this sausage party isn’t going to help Larry in his mission. Lefty tends bar, and there is a hallway in the back and a closed door on the right. There is a jukebox against the left wall, and a moose’s head on the right. Looking at the moose tells me that it’s an antique left over from King’s Quest III. Pop quiz: what other Sierra games covered on this blog also have moose heads? 5 CAPs for the first correct guess!

Well, let’s check out the jukebox.

This is kind of cool! Putting a dollar in lets you choose one of several music tracks from the game, as opposed to the original Larry 1, which merely plays the Larry theme. I think I’ll play “Taxicab from Hell,” since that sounds similar to a Frank Zappa album title.

Checking out the patrons reveals that the fat and skinny guys on the right and the dude in the white shirt on the left pounding a beer have no interest in speaking with Larry. Neither does the woman, who we’re informed isn’t exactly a looker but probably has great leg muscles. She tells Larry to piss off or else her boyfriend will beat him up when he gets back from the rest room (SPOILER ALERT: She’s lying). The fat mustachioed guy next to the woman has nothing to say, so Larry might as well sit at the bar.

Upon sitting, mustache-man turns to Larry and starts blabbing. Clicking the talk icon lets Larry tell him off, giving him a rare psychological victory but not much else.

Talking to Lefty gives the options to buy a round, champagne, wine, light beer, beer, or whiskey. I buy a round, which Lefty informs Larry costs $90.00. I do so, which the game informs Larry is another unsuccessful attempt to buy friendship. Being left with only $3.00 seems like a pretty dumb thing to do, so I restore and order wine instead. The following exchange ensues:

Larry:“May I please have a glass of your delicate white zinfandel, sir?”

Narrator: Hey, was that your voice?

Lefty:“That’ll be $5.00, please.”

Narrator: You flip five bucks onto the counter. You delicately sip the wine until it’s all gone.

Larry:“I find this impudent and sassy, with the slightest hint of impertinence.”

Narrator: He gazes at you longingly and moistens his lips!

Say! Maybe love isn’t so hard to find in Lost Wages after all!

You can get drunk and spend all your dough, but when ordering a whiskey, Larry decides to carry it with him for some reason (1 point). Let’s check out that red door!

Knocking on it causes some creep to slide open the peephole and ask for a password. Not knowing any password, Larry is quickly told to take a hike. Let’s come back here later. Right now, I want to see what’s down that hallway.

There’s a drunk, a door, and a whole bunch of clutter blocking the rest of the hallway. Again, sounds like a lot of bars in Boston!

This sounds like a pretty good place to wrap things up. I anticipate the next few posts will go a bit quicker.

Session Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.
Total Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Points: 4 out of 222.
Inventory: Wallet with $83.00, breath spray, watch, hammer, glass of whiskey.

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

I’m sure you came here today expecting to read about Space Quest IV. Well I’m afraid that’s not going to happen now. I’m reclaiming this blog for my own selfish purposes, and there really isn’t anything you, or the Two Guys from Andromeda, can do about it. As much as I’d love to spend the next few paragraphs taunting you for your inability to stop me, I sadly must focus on relaying an important message before that pesky Roger Wilco returns. That bumbling idiot has a habit of unwittingly ruining my plans for blog domination. He won’t succeed this time.

Hear my words Adventure Gamers: RETROSMACK IS UPON YOU!

This unsuspecting planet is about to feel the full force of RetroSmack, and I invite all of you to visit my domain to witness your approaching doom before the rest of humanity. It pleases me much to know that your suffering will be extended, knowingly awaiting the oncoming storm while others live in ignorance around you. As a token of my gratitude for our former allegiance, I have decided to offer you a single chance for glory. You have three days to visit www.retrosmackblog.com and join my cause. Do this, and I shall reward you with riches beyond your wildest imagination. I will allow you to trade your worthless CAPs for glorious Smacks, and you will be trained in the ways of RetroSmack so as to prepare for the upcoming Retrocalypse. Three days I give you. The clock is ticking.

The Trickster

Alex is currently blogging through Leisure Suit Larry for us and is about to become even more prolific with game playthroughs in the near future, with Leisure Suit Larry V and Police Quest III also coming soon.

My home country is… The United States of America. I am a born-and-bred New Englander currently living about 60 miles outside of Boston.

My age is… 34 later this year.

The first adventure game I played was… I think it was Space Quest I on my grandfather’s old Leading Edge computer. My uncle, who is quite a bit younger than my dad, set it up for me and my brother. We were hooked. Police Quest I, King’s Quest III, and yes, Larry I soon followed.

Another Sierra game with a remake coming up here very soon

My favourite adventure game is… This is a tough one. Gun to my head, I say Quest for Glory IV. It does everything almost right. Then again, so does the first Gabriel Knight game. Believe it or not, I didn’t play the first Monkey Island until four or five years ago, but that has to be up there.

Distinguishing them from the shadows of light?

When I’m not playing games I like to… Play with my three-year-old son and my wife, play my guitar or bass or drums, play basketball, write, read, smoke cigars, travel.

I like my games in (a box, digital format)… At this point, digital all the way. I’m running out of space in my house.

The thing I miss about old games is… The charm. There was something about the limitations of the systems back in the day, especially regarding the graphics, that made the developers compensate with design and story choices that really stoked the imagination and made the games come alive. Modern games are pretty rad, though, or so I’ve heard. I don’t have the time or money to invest in them.

The best thing about modern games is… You tell me! I think the most recent game I’ve played has been the Nintendo DS remake of Dragon Quest VI (I’m a sucker for Dragon Quest).

The one TV show I never miss is… I don’t watch much TV at all (I’m a bad American!). In fact, my wife and I cut cable about 5 years ago and survive on Skype, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. My main TV watching is sports, though, my beloved Celtics (basketball), Patriots (football), and Red Sox (baseball). I’m not a huge Bruins (hockey) fan (I’m a bad New Englander!).

If I could see any band live it would be… Well, I would have written Primus (saw twice before their most recent hiatus), Faith No More (have had tickets to see twice, never made it), or Blur (saw once, sans original guitarist), but all three of those bands released albums and are touring with their original lineups. In 2015. Am I back in high school? I suppose other than the usual answers (Beatles, Zeppelin, the Who, etc.), I would have to say the original Mothers of Invention circa 1966-1968, although I would love to see any era Frank Zappa in person. I have been fortunate enough to see his son Dweezil twice play with his Zappa Plays Zappa band, which featured members of Frank’s old groups.

My favourite movie is… Again, gun to my head, I say The Empire Strikes Back, though some days it may be It’s A Wonderful Life (yes, I’m a cornball), The Blues Brothers, or Ghostbusters. I don’t know. I don’t consider myself a “movie person.”

Movie person or not, this is a great choice!

One interesting thing about me is… Everybody thinks I look like somebody else. I have gotten, in no particular order: Harry Potter (because of my glasses), George Clooney, Ty Burrell (Phil on Modern Family), Cary Grant, Bruce Campbell (because of my chin, I guess?) and John Mayer (???), among others. People also tell me I look just like some friend or relative of theirs, but whenever I see a picture or meet the person, I look absolutely nothing like them. This happens all the time.

This is Alex's true form. He just doesn't know it yet.

By: Joe Pranevich

Roger Wilco’s Janitorial Log #3 - Shopping! Seriously, guys? The Latex Babes have left me in the Galaxy Galleria mall, one of the foremost shopping establishments of the near future, without even a decent pair of pants. Well, I managed to buy myself some pants, make a few bucks, and even buy a Space Quest IV hintbook, but I have not yet found a way to escape my mercantile prison. As Jean-Paul Sartre once said, “Hell is other people shopping.” Something like that, anyway.

The walls in the mall are totally, totally tall. Also round

Where we last left our janitorial hero, Roger had just managed to escape from torture at the hands of the Latex Babes of Estros, one of whom is his future ex-girlfriend, and then rescued them from a giant sea slug. Roger’s reward for this heroism was not make-up sex, but rather a one-way trip with the ladies to do a bit of shopping. Awesome! But before we can continue with our events in Space Quest X, we have a brief look at what’s been going on back in Space Quest XII:

Incoming message from the Big Giant Head!

In the future, Sludge Vohaul has managed to capture one of the resistance fighters that rescued Roger way back in the introductory cutscene. In typical evil villain style, rather than killing the fighter outright, he is taken to Vohaul’s lair and his giant holographic head. But this is no ordinary resistance fighter from the future. No, that handsome young man is none other than… wait for it… Roger’s son! And if he isn’t rescued in time for the “Enchantment Under the Sea” dance then… wait. Sorry, never mind.

But the real question is, why does Vohaul think that Roger will return to Space Quest XII to rescue the guy? Roger didn’t get to see the cutscene, only we did. Or is it like the way that Roger can casually check out the status bar? Where is the fourth wall in this game, anyway? Or is the question moot because he’ll be sending Roger the future equivalent of an email explaining the whole thing? I guess we’ll find out soon enough, but until then it is time for us to do some shopping!

Is anyone else thinking about the Jetsons right now?

Back in Space Quest X, the Latex Babes drop Roger off near the mall entrance, then rush off to do shopping of their own. In the rush, one of them drops her ATM card on the ground and I happily pick it up. Roger is still mostly pantsless after his little misunderstanding with the ladies in the last section, and I suspect that I will have to fix that sooner or later.

My plan for right now is to circle clockwise around the mall and explore each of the shops in turn. From my dim childhood recollections, I think it is a circle so that should be a good a plan as any.

What kind of mall has window dancers?

The first shop on the left is a women’s clothing store with dancing women in the windows. The clothes look vaguely 80s-meets-futuristic-chic, but honestly I’m not much of a judge of these things. But before I can get into the store to see what I can see, I realize the first thing I do not like about this section: the conveyor belts suck.

Rather than letting you walk around like a normal person, the mall is equipped with moving walkways with the walkway on the inside going clockwise and the one on the outside going counter-clockwise. Maybe it is my speed settings, but the conveyors are too fast and it’s quite difficult to cross from the inside belt to the outside to actually visit the stores. Roger can (very slowly) walk against the belt to get into a store that he has passed already, but with random shoppers coming down the way it is very easy to get blocked. Just getting into the first store was a challenge and I ended up looping back to the start once just to get back on the right belt. In retrospect, maybe it would have been easier to explore the mall counter-clockwise. Two attempts later, I manage to get into the store!

Oh, my goodness. It is the future 80s!

Inside of “Sacks” (an obvious parody of “Saks Fifth Avenue”) is a robot clerk, more dancing girls, and plenty of clothes. I talk to the clerk to see if there is anything I can buy, and even try my ATM card on her, but both to no avail. I can’t seem to get any of the clothes, either. If there is something to do here, I don’t see it yet.

Where’s the hoverboard rental?

Just opposite the clothing store is the entrance to the “Skate-O-Rama”, a zero-gravity roller skating rink or hoverboard park of some variety. There are lots of kids having fun, none of whom I can interact with. Since Roger doesn’t have any skates or boards or whatever, all he can do is sort of float limply and “swim” around the rink. I can cross to the other side, but otherwise there is nothing obvious to do here, either. Perhaps I come back after I find a place to rent equipment? Or is the only purpose a funny shortcut back to the other side of the mall?

Arcade: Noun. A covered passageway with arches along one or both sides.
See? You learned something today.

The next shop in my exploration of the mall is the video arcade! You don’t see many of them around anymore, but I remember as a kid always dreaming of the time when my parents would take me to one so I could blow quarters on Nintendo games. My very first NES was purchased after my grandfather realized how many quarters I was blowing on “Super Mario Brothers” and he calculated that it was cheaper just to buy the whole system. Capitalism works!

You know what this arcade needs? Terrible pizza.

Inside the arcade is two rows of games, most of which have alien children already enjoying themselves. On the left side, there is also a stage of some kind, or perhaps a platform for a game that is not there yet. There only seems to be two games in the place unoccupied, plus a change machine. I check out the first game on the left: It’s Ms. Astro Chicken! How could I have forgotten about Astro Chicken?

I want to make an obscure reference to “An Egg Scramble” (1950), the first Looney Tunes cartoon to feature Miss Prissy, but no one would get it and I’d feel bad. Just Google it.

I give the machine some of my money and the game begins. In the previous Astro Chicken game (from Space Quest III), the goal was to land your chicken safely on a target and in return you get a message that leads you on the rest of your mission. Ms. Astro Chicken is not like that at all: you guide your chicken through an obstacle course of fences, dogs, and farmers that shoot at you. You can drop egg-bombs on them which scores some points, but you only have ten eggs to start and I am not sure how to get more. I’m not sure if I need to reach a certain high score this time, but after playing for a while and having nothing happen except my gradually forgetting the plot of the game I am actually playing, I give up. It’s a nice diversion, but that may be all it is. A shame, but I suppose the developers would not want to copy off themselves more than necessary. I stopped the game with 36 points. If I need to play again to get a higher score later, I will.

No. Apparently not.

Taking a look at the change machine (which I did not have to use to play the game), I accidentally use the “hand” icon twice and the game interpreted that as Roger trying to steal money! Honestly, I had not even thought of that and it’s another reminder that when you reduce the number of verbs in the game down to essentially “use”, things happen that the player does not expect. Of course, this game also has “smell” and “lick”, but I haven’t found much that those are useful for yet. In any event, Roger tried to rob the change machine and so the natural happened: Roger was arrested and spent the rest of the game in jail on a misdemeanor theft charge? No! Roger was KILLED. Talk about judicial excess.

That is my first death of this play-session! I suppose I shouldn’t be too happy, but I restore back and resume my exploration of the mall where I left off.

You, sir, have a bright future in basketball.

The next store in my parade of capitalism is the “Big and Tall” store which, regretfully does not have an entrance that quite satisfies the needs of its clientele: as soon as Roger enters the screen, a tall alien manages to take out the top of the door with his head. Ouch! Roger is neither big nor tall, but let’s see what the store has to offer anyway.

You have no idea.

Immediately on entering, Roger is greeted by a helpful robot who wants to sell him some clothes. Expecting a rejection, either because I do not have enough money or because Roger is not tall enough, I go through with buying a pair of pants. Surprisingly, the whole deal goes off without a hitch. However much money I have, I guess it was enough! This means that Roger has pants now, although I have not yet found any reason that Roger would need them except to be fashionable and not have cold legs. I suppose time traveling space heroes should at least dress the part.

It’s been almost an entire game since I’ve had a Monolith Meal...

The next store on my grand tour is the Monolith Burger, yet another carry-over from Space Quest III. It’s actually great to feel that Space Quest is building a consistent universe; I do not remember any carry-overs from the first two Space Quest games, but I may have forgotten something (Admin's note: Sludge Vohaul, perhaps?).

Aha! This is where I needed pants, right?

This Monolith Burger is practically closed: you cannot buy anything because they have no one to make any of the food. I’m not sure if this is supposed to be social commentary, but why exactly is the manager unable to cook anything himself? Well, no matter because he clearly sees my innate line-cooking skills and offers me a job on the spot. The whole saving-the-future thing is overrated anyway, right? I’m sure I can eke out a minimum wage existence in my own future.

Joking aside, the game does something really nice at this point: it lets me skip the minigame! I am prompted to either play the game or just take the money. Because I am in this for the full experience, I want to play the game, but I have to say that I really like the option to skip. This also suggests that Ms. Astro Chicken is only a fun aside rather than plot-related as I would otherwise have had to option to skip that as well, no?

Hardcore arcade action!

In this mini-game, Roger has to make hamburgers as quickly as he can. There is a conveyor belt where partially-formed burgers come out one end and into a packing system at the other end. In the middle is my job: lettuce, tomato, ketchup, mayonnaise, and mustard. I have to apply all of the condiments to the burger before it gets packed. Miss any and the burger is rejected; have too many rejected and you are fired. Easy as that!

The game isn’t too bad, but I had a few speed challenges. When I started I still had the speed setting that I used to get past the game’s timing problems (see the note on the previous post for an explanation), but that made it all but unplayable as the burgers careened down the conveyor faster than I could consistently deal. I adjusted the speed down to around the game’s default and that gave me a much better experience. I could have made it even slower, but that felt a bit like cheating. Cheaters never prosper.

One delicious burger, ready for our customers!

The more you play, the faster the conveyor gets. But even as it was getting faster, I never felt myself having much of a challenge with the game, but my wrists were killing me. I’m using a trackpad instead of a mouse and the repetitive motion was starting to ache. After five more, I give up and deliberately lose before my hand falls off. Just like in the real world, it’s possible to injure yourself with a repetitive stress injury. The good news is that I have 35 more Buckazoids and I’m still not quite sure what I am collecting them for! If I need more, I can always either play again (if it lets you), or restore.

After I fail, my boss kicks me out of the store and back into the mall proper. He also throws a partially finished cigar at me, but it lands on one of the moving walkways and we watch as it slowly makes its way off the screen. Yeah, yeah, I get the hint. Once I move again, I follow the cigar down the walkway to the mall entrance and pick it up.

Sometimes love don’t feel like it should.

My next stop on my tour of the Galaxy Galleria mall is “Hz. So Good”, a store that I remember from my childhood as being adjusted in the CD-ROM version. The original, I believe, was called “Radio Shock” and a certain bankrupt merchandise retailer didn’t like that so much. Well, jokes on you Radio Shock because Sierra outlived… er… yeah, nevermind.

Just like the Monolith Burger, you can’t really explore this store in the classic “adventure game” sort of way. Instead, you get to navigate a text menu that is strapped to the front of a robot. How futuristic!

Do you have any CueCats?

There are a ton of items in the menu system, divided into “Specials”, “Electronic Gadgets”, “Electronic Mommy”, and “TechnoTot Toy Dept.” Unfortunately, almost every one of the items is listed as discontinued or otherwise unavailable. I can only find three items that it looks like you can buy:

Under “Specials”, the “Re-Shrinkwrap 2000” for 1033 Buckazoids. It is listed as “Dealers Only”, but perhaps there is a way to become a dealer?
Under “Electronic Gadgets”, a “PocketPal Portable Terminal” for 3406 Buckazoids. I already have one, so I doubt that I will need to buy this one.
Also under “Electronic Gadgets”, a “PocketPal Connector”. The item description suggests that this is what I will need: “If you are a proud owner of our ever-popular PocketPal Portable Terminal, you have no doubt noticed that, without the proper connector, it is virtually useless.” It is 1999 Buckazoids.

No, I hadn’t noticed yet! But I bet I would have noticed soon!

Maybe I can find a connector in some burned out hovercar someplace, too.

The very final store in the mall is a software store, but before I go in I notice that there is also an ATM outside. Well, now I know what I can do with my ATM card! I try to use the card in the machine and rather than prompting me for a password, it scans me in someplace and I am given a “hint” that I do not noot like a blond woman. This looks like a new puzzle and I have some good ideas how to approach it, but let’s finish our exploration of the mall first and then come back around.

Did You Know: In the 20th century, you had to go to stores like these to purchase software.

Before I go inside, I need to pause for a second and talk about the music: outside the store, the background music changes to a medley of Sierra soundtracks. I immediately recognize the Quest for Glory theme and others are familiar, but I do not have a very good ear for this sort of thing, especially as I often play with the sound off so as not to disturb anyone. For a fine selection of vintage CAPs, can anyone name the rest of the theme tunes?

Is this a commentary on Ken Williams’s original business plan?

The store itself is pretty empty, but there are a few items in the bargain bin that we can check out. Naturally, each of the titles seems to be a parody of a game popular at the time that Space Quest IV came out. Some of them are pretty obvious, while others are more obscure. Let’s take a look what’s inside:

Searching through the bin, I find the following classics of future video gaming:

“BOOM” - Clearly a take on Loom, which we just played in the blog not so long ago.
“Where in the World is Hymie Lipschitz” - An ethnicity- and gender-swapped version of the Carmen Sandiego games? I loved those games as a kid, but it seems that the last one came out in 2001. Hit it, Rockapella!
“Sim Sim” - A simulator simulator! Probably more interesting than “The Sims”
“King’s Quest XXXVIII: Quest for Disk Space” - An amazing future King’s Quest game (by Roberta Williams III) featuring King Graham dealing with his condo association. It takes 12 gigabytes of storage which must have seemed impossibly large in 1991, but not unusual for a big-budget console game today.
“Chuck Eggers Advanced Chicken Simulator” - An Astro Chicken version of the Chuck Yeager flight simulators that were popular back in the day. The last one of these came out in 1991.
“Checkerboard Construction Set” - Wow. I have no idea about this one. “Bard’s Tale Construction Set” was released around the same time as SQ4, so that could be it.
“It Came For Dessert” - I have absolutely no idea on this one at all.

It seems that if you have the Buckazoids, you can buy one of these fine games, but I didn’t actually try. Maybe I’ll go back and try it again later. Why not? Because of the only non-game item in the bargain bin: a Space Quest IV hintbook!

“Boy, how stupid could I have been? A moron could’ve figured that out.” - Oh yes, I’ve said that many times recently. (Curse you, Mission Asteroid for being so obvious yet so difficult!)

At a mere five Buckazoids, the hintbook is a steal. I vaguely remember having these for some Sierra titles as a kid, but I don’t remember how they worked. This one at least lets you read through headings for possible plot elements in the game and you can use a special pen to reveal the answers to each one. In the real world, they would sprinkle in fake scenarios into these books so you would not be spoiled too much, but of course this one consists primarily of fake hints.

Except, that isn’t exactly true! One of the questions is “I’m in the stupid Time Pod. Where else can I go?” and one of the answers is a partially obscured time code!

If only real life came with a hint book.

Something tells me that I can merge that time code with the one I found in the gum wrapper to get to Ulence Flats. And that information would be somewhat more useful if I actually could get back to a time pod. Oh well, I’ll just file that away for later! The rest of the answers in the book are funny, but none of them stand out as being relevant to the actual game. I have also recently ordered the real Space Quest IV hintbook and will do a comparison with this fake one. If I find anything interesting, I’ll include that in an upcoming post, assuming that it arrives on time.

And with that, I have made the full circuit and visited every shop! This seems like a good a time as any to close out this week’s post. I have a few leads to follow and next time I will try to get the Pocket Pal Connector, but I have no idea at this point how to get back to the time pod. Do the Latex Babes just come pick you back up? Do I find a new one? I guess we’ll find out when we get there. This has been a really fun segment and it seems that the Two Guys had a lot of fun building all of the parody here. I hope the rest of the game maintains this energy!

Deaths: 1 (40 total)
Inventory: Pocket Pal (with battery), Unstable Ordnance, Bunny (sans Battery), Jar of Goo, 67 Buckazoids, Gum Wrapper, a hint book, a cigar, and an ATM card.

Time played: 1:25
Total time: 6:00

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

Science Fiction References Contest!

Andy_Panthro has kindly agreed to donate a game to the commenter that posts the most obscure sci-fi reference that they can find in Space Quest IV. Man, this is a game series that just takes and adapts science fiction, so it should be a lot of fun to find the little elements that I suspect I am missing. Is the sea monster from some Japanese monster movie? Are the futuristic zombies adapted from a book? Does Roger’s uniform strongly resemble one from a certain popular series? These answers or similar might win you a game, so I hope you participate.

Written by Alex

Having to do that dumb quiz every time you load up this game gets to be kind of annoying. There’s got to be a way to skip it.

Anyway, back to Lost Wages, where we left Larry standing in a hallway in Lefty’s bar near a drunk and a door.

What happens when you use the “smell” icon on the guy.

The guy asks for a drink. I try to give him a dollar, which he takes, but says he “could really usshh . . . a good, sshhtiff belt!” Well, it’s a good think I happen to be carrying this shot glass of whiskey! Larry gives the drunk the drink, he drinks it, and gives Larry his only worldly possession, a television remote (2 points). Although Larry finds no use for it, the image of him pointing it at his junk and hitting the buttons is pretty funny.

Funny, that is, if you have the sense of humor of a ten-year-old. Which I do.

Moving along, Larry heads into the door on the right, which leads, appropriately enough, to the head.

Clicking the zipper icon lets Larry take a leak for no points, and the hand icon lets him pinch a loaf for 1 point.

In case you were wondering what it looks like. Which you were.

But don’t flush that toilet! It overflows, and instead of opening the door and leaving, Larry stands there like a dolt and lets himself drown in toilet water.

One of the grosser deaths.

A quick restore later, and Larry is less-inclined to practice personal hygiene, but still, there’s a sink in the room, so he may as well wash his hands. What’s the worst that can happen?

This is actually pretty terrible!

And what’s this? There’s a diamond ring in the sink that some dummy left behind, so into Larry’s pocket it goes (3 points).

Some of that graffiti looks interesting, and I swear I see a blurry version of the F-word. Repeatedly clicking the “eye” icon on the wall shows some of the “wittier” entries, including such gems like:

“Scott me up, Beamie!”
“Attention arcade game players: please don’t eat the urinal cakes!”
“It takes leather balls to play rugby!”
And “The password is: ‘Ken sent me’” (2 points).

Password, eh? I think I know where to use this!

In this version, as opposed to the original Larry 1 where you have to type the password out to use it, Larry writes it down himself, and it appears in your inventory as the words “KEN SENT ME” (Ken Williams, perhaps?)

Continuing on with my practice of pointing out the differences between the versions, in the original, you also start out with some useless pocket lint in your inventory; that is absent in this remake.

Leaving the foul-smelling bathroom with dirty hands but an empty colon and a diamond ring, Larry realizeshe did not notice the rose on the table in the hallway. I make it mine (1 point) and continue back to the Naugahyde door in the main barroom. Larry knocks, whispers the password, and gains entrance into the back room, where a pimp demands $200.00 to see who—or what—awaits up the stairs.

Dig the back end of the moose to the right. Clicking the zipper asks the question: “Jeez, Larry! Who has the bigger antlers, you or the moose?!”

Larry doesn’t have that kind of dough, so he needs to find an alternative method to get to the room upstairs. I see a TV, but it’s useless thanks to the lack of knobs. Good thing Larry has a remote! He stops pointing it at his crotch long enough to point it at the TV (3 points). Larry scrolls through various channels, including a soap opera, a commercial, a musical comedy, a documentary, Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, a cable sports show, Masterpiece Theatre, and a porno (8 points), each with accompanying music, which was absent in the original. The pimp walks away from the stairs to watch the dirty movie, leaving Larry free to ascend. A pimp watching a porno alone in a darkened room is pretty nasty, so let’s get out of here before things get messy.

I’ll, ah, just leave you here to, you know, work things out on your own . . .

Upstairs in the hooker’s bedroom is a table with a box of candy, which Larry snags (2 points), a hooker, and a distinctive aroma.

. . . I got nothing to say.

Ladies and gentlemen, the first two black characters we meet in this game are a pimp and a hooker! I’m not saying, I’m just saying . . .

Well, nothing left to do but hop into the bone zone! A quick save, and then. . . .

The game’s first ass-shot! And hopefully its last!

You mean the game’s not over now?

Now that Larry’s pipes are cleaned (11 points), nothing left to do but defenestrate himself!

The window takes Larry back to the fire escape in the alley of Lefty’s. A fall down into the dumpster brings Larry back to the street. Let’s take a taxi and see what else we can do in Lost Wages!

Uh oh . . .

Like true love?

Larry’s crotch blows up, and then . . . it’s gone!

Another gross death.

Uh, let’s restore, skip the hooker, and go straight to the defenestration. Larry will come back when he’s more, um, prepared.

I have to say, there’s lots of stuff to do at Lefty’s. This is one thing I appreciate about this game: each location tends to have many things to do in it.

Back out front, clicking the talk icon on the taxi sign makes Larry shout “YO! TAXI!” (as opposed to typing “Taxi” in the original), and before he knows it, Larry is riding in style!

Love the license plate (hint: read it backwards).

Talking to the cabbie gives a list of places he can take me, complete with a clickable menu: A casino with an all-night wedding chapel next door, and a disco next to a convenience store. Disco? Sounds like a good place to meet chicks! I tell the cabbie to take me there. The guy charges me $16.00, which I pay and get out (1 point).

Outside of the disco, the bouncer will not let me in without a pass. Using the zipper icon on him makes Larry ask to use the restroom as a ploy to get in. The bouncer doesn’t fall for it. Even trying to bribe the guy doesn’t work! Dejected, Larry walks one screen to the left and finds the convenience store that the cabbie told him about.

There’s the entrance to the convenience store, but I’d rather check out the pay-phone (remember those?). Clicking the “eye” icon on it makes Larry thumb through the phone book. The only legible number scribbled on the side is “555-6969”; Larry gets 1 point for discovering this information. Might as well dial this clever number (2 points).

A sex survey hotline! Remember when those were a thing? (I don’t).

Oh boy. The lady on the other end of this survey asks me a bunch of questions. Here goes nothing!

“What is your name?” The game automatically replies “Larry; Larry Laffer.” I can type the rest of the responses.
“So tell me, Larry: what is the best part of your body?” Duodenum “Oh, I so love a man with a manly, yet urbane, duodenum!”
“And Larry, what is your favorite X-rated video?” Ubangus Uranus (a little shout-out to any Adam Carolla fans reading this). “Mmmmmm, mine too! I just love that part with the two women!”
“Now tell me your favorite article of clothing.” Pocket protector. “Ahhh, and I can just picture you in it, too!”
“Now, a few questions about your favorite lover. Larry, what is your favorite sex partner’s first name?” Duet Toomey
“What’s the best part of Duet Toomey’s anatomy?” Eyebrow
“What is Duet Toomey’s sexiest article of clothing?” Girdle
“What’s Duet Toomey’s favorite object?” Haley’s Comet
“And where do you two most enjoy making love?” Haley’s Comet (duh!) “Yeah, me too!”
“And, finally, what do you and Duet Toomey like to do when you’re together?” Our taxes

And right as Larry’s about to get told what his prize is, the number cuts out. Oh well. May as well go into the store now.

Did the NSA install this guy’s cameras?

The store comes complete with a non-P.C. foreign store clerk with a sign informing me I have to ask him for “lubbers.” Might as well poke around first. Larry picks up an issue of JUGS magazine (1 point) and a gallon box of wine, for only $1.00! (1 point).

Gotta pay for this stuff, but might as well buy a condom on my way out. I think I know just where to use it . . .

Larry’s head does a 360-degree swivel before he asks the clerk for a “lubber.” There are several prophylactic-related options: Larry can choose between lambskin or latex; smooth or ribbed; colored or plain; lubricated or rough-cut; striped or plaid; peppermint or spearmint; light or heavy weight; normal or industrial thickness; plain or spermicide; large, giant, or gonzo size; before the clerk blares his choices out to the seemingly empty store (4 points).

Larry pays, giving the guy a “Thanks a lot, Saddam!” before leaving. This sequence gives Al Lowe a chance to demonstrate his patented level of highbrow, New Yorker-quality humor. On a slightly less humiliating note, Larry reads his copy of JUGS and finds an article about window washers securing themselves with a rope around the waist before working on the sides of tall buildings (1 point). A clue for the mysterious other window at Lefty’s, perhaps? If only I had some rope . . . In any event, Larry soon skips to the centerfold. Stay classy, Larry.

Larry leaves, and the phone is ringing! There’s also a drunk guy wandering around outside of the store. He asks me for change, and then for a drink. Well, I do have this box of wine, and if there’s one thing Leisure Suit Larry has taught me is that you give alcoholics what they want (5 points). The drunk informs me that he doesn’t have a remote control, but he does have a pocketknife, which he gives to Larry, warning that it just may come in handy given the prevalence of dangerous women preying on studs like him and Larry. Okay . . .

Anyway, Larry answers the ringing phone (5 points), and hears a familiar voice:

Yeah, remember when phone sex was a thing? Me neither.

With that out of the way, Larry eagerly pays another $12.00 for a taxi ride back to the hooker at Lefty’s! This time, Larry’s ready for the hooker. Quest-wise, we’ve come a long way from “Find the three magical treasures” and "Stop the Death Angel’s reign of terror,” that’s for sure.

The pimp is still watching the porno, but his pants are still on, thank God, and the room looks no worse for the wear. Larry heads upstairs, drops trou, slaps on the rubber (metaphorically, of course) (10 points), and gets down to it (11 points).

Yep!

Well, I think Larry’s done all he can do at Lefty’s for now. Let’s come back when we have some rope. In the meantime, let’s . . .

Oh, now what!

Who hasn’t done this from time to time, am I right?

I like how in the original Larry it’s Police Quest’s Sonny Bonds who makes the arrest.

It’s a good thing that clicking the “hand” icon on Larry removes and disposes of the used prophylactic in a way that the game refuses to describe (1 point). Larry can now move about free of interference from John Law. Looking at his rapidly diminishing money reserves, Larry decides a jaunt to the casino might be in order. $16.00 later, and . . .

It’s, um, majestic?

And this seems like a good place to stop for now. Larry needs cash, and this might be the place to get some.

Session Time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.
Total Time: 3 hour, 10 minutes.

Points: 69 out of 222 (how apropos).
Inventory: Wallet with $16.00, breath spray, watch (time: 10:23), diamond ring, remote control, rose, box of candy, pocketknife, issue of JUGS magazine, hammer, password.

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

By Joe Pranevich

Roger Wilco’s Janitorial Log #4 - I have finally escaped the shopping mall! Vohaul’s Sequel Police eventually caught up with me there, but I gave them the slip and nicked one of their time pods to travel back to Space Quest I. There I managed to avoid a biker gang, but not do all that much else. Now I’m on my way back to Space Quest XII to see if there is anything new I can do there. I might be stuck.

This place looks familiar...

At the conclusion of our last post, Roger had just completed a full circuit of the Galaxy Galleria mall, solving a number of puzzles along the way. We had managed to get new pants, get and lose a job at Monolith Burger, and even pick up half-a set of time coordinates hidden in a copy of the Space Quest IV Hintbook. The biggest loose end in the mall (that I know of) is the ATM card as I received a hint that I did not look enough like a woman to use it. With luck, that will make what to do next clear as I am running out of ideas.

The last time, the only store that I did not find anything to do with was the women’s clothing store. That seems as good a place as any to start this week.

Wait. I see what you did there...

This time in the store, I can talk to the robot sales clerk in the store. Roger must have the same plan I do because he immediately starts making up excuses about needing to buy some women’s clothing for a friend that happens to be just about his size and build. Artificial intelligence is pretty great in the future because the robot doesn’t fall for that for one instant, leading to some funny interactions as Roger changes into and pays for his new look. At 60 Buckazoids, it isn’t cheap! But fashion so rarely is. And Roger makes a surprisingly attractive woman! The only drawback is that I am down to 7 Buckazoids, so if I need to buy anything else in the mall, I will need to play the burger-flipping game again. (That is, assuming it will let me, but I have one of those 20-year old thoughts in my head that suggests you can do that multiple times. I doubt the Two Guys would leave you stuck if you were unable to get enough cash in one go.)

But, I need to pause here and get an important thought out of the way: the jokes about transvestism fall a bit flat today, and border on offensive though I do not think they cross the line. Cross-dressing is one of the oldest jokes in comedy. Shakespeare loved a good mistaken identity due to cross-dressing, and the tropes go back all the way to the Greeks. But something here does not sit right with me, like the game is making fun of transvestites rather than the absurdity of Roger himself wearing women’s clothing. I suppose we just live in a different time, one that is perhaps more understanding of sexual choices and less likely to make fun of them. Overall, this is a good sequence and the dialog is funny, but something felt off and I just can’t put my finger on it.

I make my way back to the ATM and notice that the software store is closed now. I suppose that proves that I will not need to buy any of the fun games after all, but I also am not sure the game wouldn’t dead end me. Admittedly, I do not think I’ve seen any “dead man walking” sections in this game so far as usually the deaths are immediate.

Remember when “2000” sounded futuristic?

Decked out in my resplendent new clothes and wig, the ATM now has no problem believing that I am the woman on the card and I get access to her bank account. Apparently, security in the future is a pretty poor thing if this worked, but perhaps this society is just more trusting. I do not dwell on it very much as I empty the poor woman’s bank account of all 2001 of her saved-up Buckazoids. That gives me 2008 Buckazoids and a hole in my heart. I really hope she wasn’t saving up for something important, like medical treatment or Christmas presents for orphans. This is a life-or-death situation for me, but that is a lot of money!

Now, what can I do with all of this hard-stolen cash? Why, buy a PocketPal Connector, of course! That was 1999 Buckazoids and I cannot believe it is a coincidence that I would be given exactly as much money as I need for it. But back at the “Hertz So Good” store, I run into a bit of an obstacle:

So it’s pretty much like the side of my Mac.

I have no idea which connector to get! With ten options, there is no way I could guess correctly. There are no hints in the manual, either. My only conclusion is that I will need to come back later.

I change back into my janitor outfit in the Sacks dressing room and realize that there is only one place I haven’t gone in the mall: the exit! I sprint back to the mall entrance and head down the escalators. Do you think anyone might have left a time pod just parked in the lot downstairs? A certain famous book series I might name had one in just such a parking lot. Unfortunately, that did not have the outcome that I had hoped for (or expected!): I died.

Especially the exits.

This is the first indication that I have that the Sequel Police have managed to track me here, though that does me no good on its own. With that last brilliant idea out of the way, I realize that I have explored everything and solved every puzzle that I can find here. I must have missed something. I will spare you the next part which consists of my re-exploring the mall, feeling, tasting, and smelling things to find anything that I might have missed. Fortunately, it does not take too long: while I am trying to futz with the machines in the arcade, the Sequel Police arrive in a time pod!

Well, that’s inconspicuous.

Their new time pod arrives on the stage-like area in the far left of the screen, while I am on the right with a bank of arcade cabinets between us. In the words of another famous time traveler, I “make like a tree and get out of there”, but not in time! The Sequel Police shoot me and I suffer the second death of this segment. Oh, this brings back such happy memories of Space Quest XII...

The more you know!

After restoring and not dallying quite as long taking screenshots and such, I manage to leave the arcade without being shot. I am home free! There are no Sequel Police in the hallway and I bolt for the main entrance. Well, that turns out to have been a colossally bad idea as there are guards in front of the escalators leading out of the mall and I manage to get shot again before I can escape. That’s death #3!

Believe it or not, I’m walking on air!

With no escape, the obvious next step is to check out the Skate-O-Rama and I do so first from the east (where I get shot immediately upon entering, death #4), and then from the west (which works). Being in the Skate-O-Rama itself isn’t enough as I manage to get myself shot a few seconds later (death #5), but at least I feel like I’m on the right track. I have a very distant memory that you can fly up in this area to escape the guards (thank you, younger me!), and so do. I still get shot again (#6), but this time I get a message that suggests that I just need to keep moving. When I try that strategy again, this time careful to keep Roger moving and not letting him be an easy target, the Sequel Police follow me up the the second level. That gives me the chance to rush back down and see that the exits to the Skate-O-Rama are now open! I make my way out and can explore the mall again, but I hardly need to because I know what to do: time to steal another time pod!

I use the two partial time codes (in the gum wrapper and hint book) and key them in together and the time machine takes off successfully! Look at that! We’re back in Space Quest I!

The triumphant return of EGA!

Truth be told, I do not remember the real Space Quest I at all. (But you can refresh your memory by reading Trickster’s review.) I have played both the original and the remake, but I do not think I’ve beaten either of them. For me, Space Quest III was the first of the series that I fell in love with and as a result, this whole section is new to me. I get out of the pod and decide to first do some exploring.

Rather than narrate screen-by-screen, here’s a summary of what I found:

Droids-B-Us, a closed store that probably sells droids.
Tiny’s Used Spaceships, now closed, complete with an impact crater where I landed way back in the first game.

Roger is huge!

A bar with some futuristic hover-bikes parked out front.
One or two mostly empty screens, one of which contains my time pod. Not much to say about those, but there is some graffiti that vaguely looks like time coordinates, but I can’t really make it out.

Does this this mean anything? Was this graffiti in Space Quest I?

Unfortunately in all of this exploring, I manage to smack myself into the forcefields twice and die (death #7). Worse, I discover that I forgot to save since landing back in Space Quest I and have to replay the final section with the sequel police in the Skate-O-Rama. That causes me two more deaths (#8 and #9) before I can get back to finish explore the Flats. I guess this is a good lesson in saving more often!

I do not have enough of a brain left to understand this.

William Shakespeare famously said, “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.” Roger is rapidly closing in on 60 this game.

In the end, I do not find anything to do in any of those areas, nor items to pick up. I bet Roger cleaned the place of all adventure-game items on his past pass through this time period. The only place left to explore is inside the bar. Once there, my eyes are immediately fixated on the blob of white pixels on the bar. A closer inspection reveals that they are matches and I am sure those would come in handy! But when I try to touch them, I am interrupted by a brief cutscene.

That’s racist.

These strange monochrome aliens insult Roger for being in VGA and kick him out of the bar. For my money, they should have been EGA aliens, but I suppose monochrome is pretty good. We are naturally upset about this breach in bar decorum and Roger happily pushes over all of their motorcycles. That doesn’t seem to win me anything except now they are very unhappy. One of them swings his bike around to hit me, but I manage to dodge behind Tiny’s and they leave the town. Whew.

Tequila!

Now that the bikers are gone, I can get back into the bar to get those beautiful matches. Unfortunately, they were not as “gone” as I had hoped and shortly after I arrive, one of them runs me down on his hover-cycle. That makes death #10, if you are keeping score. I certainly am. I play this sequence two more times before I manage to get into the bar (deaths #11 and #12), but I do eventually make it. It’s not that difficult at all once you understand the timing, but that took a couple of deaths to help me understand.

Once back in the bar, I can collect the matches. I try using them on the cigar butt that I found in the mall, but that does not seem to do anything. Talking to the bartender is equally useless as the only thing that I can get out of him is that he is still a bit unhappy that I destroyed his slot machine. Figures. This does confirm however that Roger from the past must have left relatively recently, perhaps no more than a few days ago. It’s so difficult to know!

Unfortunately, a box of matches do not really get me anywhere in the fundamental puzzles of the game and I am not sure where to go next. At least in the mall, I had some time coordinates to work off of. Now, I’m just stuck. On the lighter side, I don’t get a chance to think about that long before I am run down by another biker for death #13.

This screen perfectly sums up my experience with the Space Quest I zone: empty.

Since I do not have any better ideas, I re-explore every screen looking for something that I missed. In the process, I notice that the bikers will randomly come to chase you on every screen, and that you can dodge them on every screen. I get the rather brilliant idea that one of the screens must have something else happen when you dodge, so I try to get the bikers to come after me at least once on every screen. In the process, I get a lot better at dodging, but really not all that good since I suffer deaths #14 through #20 before I complete my circuit of every room.

Want to know what that got me? Absolutely nothing. It was a complete waste of time.

I give up and head back to my time machine. Since I do not have any new areas to explore, I decide to check out some older ones. First stop: Space Quest XII!

I can finally enter the Hobbit hole!

When I get to SQ12, all of the guards are gone and I can not only get out of the time capsule without dying (something that I could not do earlier, if you recall), but that there are no guards anywhere in the hangar areas. The big round door on the far right is also unguarded. That will be what I try to tackle next!

Overall, I’m still pretty happy with this segment. The mall puzzles were good, but the whole Space Quest I experience was a bit of a waste. Why did I go there? Just to get some matches? Really? I’ve done worse, but still not my favorite segment so far.

Deaths: 20 (60 total)
Inventory: Pocket Pal (with battery), Unstable Ordnance, Bunny (sans Battery), Jar of Goo, 7 Buckazoids, Gum Wrapper, a hint book, a cigar, an ATM card, and a matchbook.

Time played: 2:00
Total time: 8:00

Special Bonus Images - Space Quest I

I had given some thought to playing back through Space Quest I to provide some nice comparison shots between this game and the original, but unfortunately the time ran away from me and I did not get to do that. Fortunately, Trickster took two screenshots during this section and I suspect that it is fair game for me to reuse them here.

First, here’s what the outside of the bar looked like, then and now:

Other than aspect ratio differences (this was Trickster’s game #6, after all), the two environments are nearly identical.

Inside the bar show a few more differences:

Notice the writing which I initially suspected might be a timecode is on the wall in both versions, so not something added for SQ4. It looks like the slot machine that Roger had to beat in the previous game is gone, plus there is a different band playing. I believe that Space Quest I had multiple bands in this scene, so it is possible there are “Blues Brothers” in the original as well. The only other difference that I see is the view out the window.

Does anyone else have screenshots from Space Quest I to share and compare with us?

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

Science Fiction References Contest!

Latest Images