Everything about Roger Wilco Space Quest totally explained
Space Quest is a series of six
science fiction computer games that follow the adventures of a hapless
janitor named Roger Wilco, as he campaigns through the galaxy for "truth, justice and really clean floors."
Initially created for
Sierra On-Line by
Mark Crowe and
Scott Murphy (who called themselves the "Two Guys from Andromeda"), the games parodied both
science fiction properties such as
Star Wars and
Star Trek, as well as pop-culture phenomena from
McDonald's to
Microsoft. The series featured a silly sense of humor heavily reliant on puns and wacky storylines. Roger Wilco, a perpetual loser, is often depicted as the underdog who repeatedly saves the universe (often by accident) - only to be either ignored or punished for violating minor regulations in the process.
Origin of the series
Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe, who had already worked together on the Sierra game
The Black Cauldron, wanted to create a funny science fiction adventure game. They also wanted it to star a janitor (a choice possibly inspired by the mop-wielding main character from Infocom's humorous sci-fi text adventure
Planetfall).
Scott Murphy comments that "Sierra was in a mindset where everything was medieval and it was all fairly serious. I wanted to do a game that was more fun. We even liked the idea of 'fun death'! I mean, if the player is gonna die or fail, they should at least get a laugh out of it. So we came up with the idea of making death amusing. Let's face it, most adventure games involve a good deal of frustration for the player. But we felt that if we made failure fun, to an extent, you might have players actually going back and looking for new ways to die, just to see what happens!"
Mark Crowe notes, "We wanted to do two things for the player. One, we wanted him to feel as if he were in a movie, where he could just sort of kick back and enjoy the scenery. We also wanted the player to feel as if he really was the character on the screen."
Although skeptical,
Ken Williams gave the idea a shot. Scott and Mark created a short demo, which ended up becoming the first four rooms of
Space Quest I, at which point Ken gave the project a green-light.
Games
Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter
The original
Space Quest game was released in October of 1986 and quickly became a hit, selling in excess of 100,000 copies (sales are believed to be around 200,000 to date, not including the many compilations it has been included in). It was remade and re-released in
1991.
Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge
Roger, with his newfound status of Hero, is transferred to the Xenon Orbital Station 4 and promoted to head (and only) janitor. All is quiet until he's abducted by
Sludge Vohaul, who was behind the original Sarien attack of the
Arcada. As Roger is being transported to the Labion labour mines as punishment for thwarting Sludge's original plan, the prison ship crash-lands in a nearby jungle upon the planet. Our hero manages to escape his pursuers and the dangers of the Labion jungle and soon reaches Sludge's asteroid base. Once again, it's up to Roger alone to stop Vohaul's evil plan: to eradicate sentient life from Xenon by launching millions of cloned insurance salesmen at the planet.
Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon
Roger's escape pod from the end of
SQII is captured by an automated garbage freighter. He escapes the robot-controlled scow by repairing an old ship, the
Aluminum Mallard (a play on
Howard Hughes' "
Spruce Goose" and
Star Wars'
Millennium Falcon). He eventually discovers the sinister activities of a video game company known as ScumSoft run by the "Pirates of Pestulon".
Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers
In this installment, Roger embarks on a wacky time-travel adventure through
Space Quest games both past and future. A reborn Sludge Vohaul from
Space Quest XII chases Roger through time in an attempt to finally kill him. Roger also visits
Space Quest X: Latex Babes of Estros (whose title is a parody of
Infocom's game
Leather Goddesses of Phobos) and
Space Quest I; in the latter, the graphics and music revert to the style of the original game and Roger is threatened by a group of monochromatic bikers who consider Roger's 256 colors pretentious.
Space Quest V: The Next Mutation
In
Space Quest V, Roger is now a cadet in the StarCon academy. He graduates (or rather, cheats through the final exam) and is appointed captain of his own spacecraft (actually a space garbage scow). The main plot is to stop a mutagenic disease that's spreading through the galaxy by discovering its source, and fighting everyone that got infected. In the end, the disease infected the crew members of the
SCS Goliath, a powerful warship, whose commander, Raemes T. Quirk (a rather blatant spoof of
Captain Kirk, as portrayed by
William Shatner), subsequently attacks the
Eureka. In the end, Roger sacrifices his ship to get rid of the plague - and suddenly, if temporarily, becomes the commander of the fleet's flagship.
Space Quest 6: The Spinal Frontier
This game was the last to be released in the Space Quest series. Having defeated the diabolical pukoid mutants in
Space Quest V, Captain Roger Wilco triumphantly returns to StarCon headquarters - only to be court-martialed due to breaking StarCon regulations while saving the galaxy. He's busted down to Janitor Second Class, and assigned to the
SCS DeepShip 86 (a parody of ), commanded by Commander
Kielbasa, a
Cowardly Lion look-alike whose name is taken from the polish sausage as well as being a play on the names of both the feline
Kilrathi from the computer game series
Wing Commander and of the character
Mufasa from the animated motion picture
The Lion King. His voice is a parody of Captain
Jean-Luc Picard from . The main villain in the game is a wrinkly old lady named Sharpei, a pun on the dog Shar Pei, a wrinkly dog.
The game's subtitle comes from the final portion, in which Roger has to undergo miniaturization and enter the body of a shipmate and romantic interest. (This segment also provided the game's original subtitle,
Where in Corpsman Santiago is Roger Wilco?, which wasn't used due to legal threats from the makers of the
Carmen Sandiego products.)
"Future" sequels
In
Space Quest IV, Roger travels into both the past and future of the game's timeline. Interestingly, even in-game characters are conscious of living in a computer game, and refer to eras with sequel numbers, not temporal units (such as years), even though specific years are named elsewhere in the Space Quest
canon. Portions of the game took place in the time frames of the following "sequels":
These games were never actually created, and only exist within the plot of
Space Quest IV.
Planned games
Space Quest VII: Return to Roman Numerals
Sierra has tried on several occasions to revive the series for another episode, with a working subtitle of "the Return to
Roman Numerals", since the previous game was titled
Space Quest 6, not
Space Quest VI. Sierra went as far as contracting developer Escape Factory to storyboard and begin coding before withdrawing funding.
Development of
Space Quest VII was underway in 1996 when Sierra released
The Space Quest Collection, which consisted of
Space Quest I through
6 and included a brief trailer of
Space Quest VII (consisting of Roger strapping a giant rocket to his back and using it to push himself forward on roller skates). Little was released regarding story line, interface, et cetera, although there was speculation that the game would introduce a multiplayer aspect. Scott Murphy said during development that
Space Quest VII would contain some
3D elements, but wouldn't require the use of a 3D accelerator card. Due to poor sales of
Grim Fandango, a high-profile adventure game by
LucasArts, there was a perception that humorous adventure games were no longer viable, so when
Vivendi Games took over Sierra,
Space Quest VII was canceled.
Another attempt at creating a new
Space Quest was announced on
February 7,
2002. Development proceeded for almost a year and a half before the project was cancelled. According to Space Quest 6 designer Josh Mandel, the SQVII designers were forbidden from using story elements from the original
Space Quest games or from even playing the games. This isn't indisputable, since other sources claimed the developers had played the games before. Website FYI.com, also claimed that this "gutted"
SQVII wouldn't have been an adventure game at all and would have been released only on game console platforms such as the
Xbox rather than the
PC. Since then the Vivendi's Product Manager Bruce Goodwill, has confirmed that the title was going to be released only on console platforms.
Space Quest
Space Quest was being developed by Escape Factory for the Microsoft Xbox video game console. The game was planned as a departure from the main Space Quest series, starring a new character named "Wilger". Though it would have maintained a comedic theme in space, no plan was made to connect it to the original series. It was cancelled around 2003.
More information can be found at the Space Quest 7
and Escape Factory articles on SpaceQuest.net
Collections
The Space Quest Saga (1993) – This collection contained games I (VGA remake), II, III and IV (floppy disk version).
The Space Quest Collection (1994) – Released for Sierra's 15th anniversary, this contained games I-V plus a video featuring the Two Guys from Andromeda and a complete history of the game series.
Roger Wilco Unclogged (1995) – All the above, plus Roger Wilco arcade games and a humorous "Inside Space Quest" video, but without the Two Guys video
Space Quest Collection Series (1996) – All 6 games, plus a preview of episode VII.
Space Quest Collection (Fall 2006) – Released by Vivendi Universal Games and contains all 6 games (only the VGA version of SQ1).
Fall 2006 releases
Vivendi Universal has re-released the Space Quest Collection (originally named Space Quest Compilation) that's compatible with Windows XP. The collection was released September 15, 2006.
The Space Quest games were made compatible by the licensing of DOSBox, a free program that allows users to play old DOS games on Windows XP.
Comics
Adventure Comics (a division of Malibu Graphics Publishing Group) released three issues in 1992 of a comic based on Space Quest I under the name The Adventures of Roger Wilco. The first was written by John Shaw and was in full colour. The other two were written by Paul O'Connor and were black and white. The print run was very small and the books are very hard to find now.
Fan-made games
The series has remained popular with Sierra fans, and several fan pages are still active and maintain a community dedicated to the games. There have been several attempts to create a Space Quest fan game, such as the SQ7.org project, and two fan games using era-specific graphics have been released.
Finished games
Space Quest 0: Replicated - A prequel to Space Quest I.
Space Quest: The Lost Chapter - An interquel set between the second and third games.
Unfinished games
Space Quest 2 Remake: Vohaul's Revenge - A remake of Space Quest 2 in the style of Space Quest IV is currently in the works by underground developers Infamous Adventures.
Space Quest 7 - A work-in-progress sequel, including Space Quest 6 designer Josh Mandel as a designer. The project was put on hold officially on the 19th of October after intervention from Vivendi.
Space Quest: Vohaul Strikes Back - The "other" hi-res full-scale Space Quest fangame in progress, taking place after Space Quest VII.
Space Quest 2X: Vohaul's Mines - An alternate version of Space Quest II where Roger is taken into the Orium mines (Cancled until further notice).
Games influenced by Space Quest
Cosmos Quest - Adventure game influenced by Space Quest.Further Information
Get more info on 'Roger Wilco Space Quest'.
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