[Series] Space Quest

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."



History of Space Quest
source: wikipedia

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.



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, starring a janitor.



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."

The End of Space Quest

Development of Space Quest VII was underway in 1996 when Sierra released The Space Quest Collection. Scott Murphy said during development that Space Quest VII would contain some 3D elements. 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. Shortly after Vivendi Games took over Sierra, Space Quest VII was canceled.


Another attempt at Space Quest 7 was announced on February 7, 2002. Development proceeded for almost a year and a half before this project was canceled as well. This "gutted" SQVII would not have been an adventure game at all and would have been only for the Xbox and PS2 consoles.

Re-Birth of Roger Wilco?

The series has remained popular with fans, and several active community website are stfan 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.

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