Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter
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| Space Quest : The Sarien Encounter | |
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| Developer(s) | Sierra |
| Publisher(s) | Sierra |
| Designer(s) | Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy |
| Engine | AGI |
| Release date(s) | 1986 |
| Genre(s) | Adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Platform(s) | DOS, Macintosh, Amiga, Atari ST |
| Media | 3.5" Floppy Disk or 5.25" Floppy Disk |
| System requirements | 8088/8086 CPU, 256KB RAM, CGA, EGA, Hercules, or Tandy/PCjr Graphics, PC speaker or Tandy/PCjr Sound Card |
| Input | Keyboard or Joystick |
Space Quest or more formally Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter 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).
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[edit] Synopsis
(Players of the original game are never told the hero's name, but are instead asked to enter their own. The default name of "Roger Wilco" became the de facto name of the hero in the later games of the series.)
Roger is a member of the cleaning crew onboard the scientific spaceship "Arcada", which holds a powerful experimental device called the "Star Generator" (a thinly-veiled reference to the Genesis Device from Star Trek II). Roger emerges from an on-duty nap in a broom closet to find the ship has been taken over by the sinister Sariens. He must make his escape, survive a crash-landing on the desert planet Kerona, and ultimately sneak aboard the Sarien starship Deltaur to stop the vicious aliens from using the Star Generator against Roger's home planet of Xenon.
At the end of the game his efforts are awarded when Roger receives the Golden Mop as a token of eternal gratitude from the people of Xenon and becomes an instant celebrity.
[edit] Details
The game was programmed using Sierra's AGI engine and featured a pseudo-3D environment, allowing the character to move in front of and behind background objects. The primary means of input in Space Quest I, as in many other AGI games, was through the use of a text parser for entering commands and use of the keypad or arrow keys for moving Roger Wilco around the screen. The Amiga, Apple IIGS, and Mac versions of the game offered basic mouse support for movement as well. The game had a 160×200 resolution displaying 16 colours. Sound cards were not available in 1986, so sound was played through the PC's internal speaker; owners of Tandy 1000, PCjr and Amiga computers would hear a three-voice soundtrack, while Apple IIGS owners were treated to a fifteen-voice soundtrack with notably richer sound.
A precursor of this game is an interactive fiction game by the name of Planetfall, created by Infocom, whose player-character is a lowly "Ensign Seventh Class" who does the lowest form of labor aboard a spaceship and who appears on the cover with a mop. Just as King's Quest adapted the text-adventure puzzle games set in a medieval world to a visual display, Space Quest did the same for the space puzzle game.
[edit] Remake
| Space Quest I : The Sarien Encounter | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Sierra |
| Publisher(s) | Sierra |
| Designer(s) | Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy |
| Engine | SCI1 |
| Release date(s) | 1991 |
| Genre(s) | Adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Platform(s) | DOS, Macintosh, Amiga |
| Media | 3.5" Floppy Disk or 5.25" Floppy Disk |
| System requirements | 8088/8086 CPU, 640KB RAM, EGA, MCGA, Tandy/PCjr, or VGA Graphics, Adlib, Game Blaster, MPU-401 MIDI, PC speaker, Pro Audio Spectrum, Sound Blaster, Tandy DAC (TL/SL), or Tandy/PCjr sound card. |
| Input | Keyboard, Joystick or Mouse |
Space Quest I was eventually remade using Sierra's newer SCI language, which allowed the game to upgrade from its original EGA graphics to VGA. This version was released on August 20, 1991; in addition to the new VGA graphics, which were drawn in 50's B-movie style, it now featured digitized sounds. The game's interface was also changed, with text-entry being replaced by a standard icon interface which would be used by many SCI games. Curiously, the VGA remake featured the taste and smell icons, which were rarely used during gameplay and were only featured in one Sierra game after Space Quest I, namely Space Quest IV, where they were as rarely used.
[edit] Easter eggs
As many other comical-satirical games, Space Quest features also a number of easter eggs and injokes, usually referring to other science fiction works, mainly Star Wars and Star Trek, and of course, other Sierra games.
- One of the many easter eggs of the game is the one that happens by pressing the "Don't touch" button in the escape pod. Roger ends up inside another Sierra adventure game. In the original, it is King's Quest. In the SCI remake, it is Conquests of the Longbow.
- The player can step around the left side of Droids B Us. If they walk as far north from there, and then step partially behind it and then type "take leak", they will get one of three funny messages. There are also five buckazoids there (not in version 1.0X).
- Typing "scott" in the game, will output: "Hello Roger Wilco, I've been expecting you. You're obviously a person of dubious taste. Drop me a line at Sierra and let me know if you've enjoyed playing." This does not work in version 1.0X.
- From the escape pod screen, Roger can die in the desert: A meteor will crash-land exactly on top of his head or a Sandworm from Arrakis will devour him.
- The player has to buy a droid in a store called "Droid 'B' Us", obviously a parody on "Toys 'R' Us". In the very first release (Version 1.0X), it was called "Droids 'R' Us", before Toys 'R' Us sued and Sierra changed the name. Sierra also had legal trouble over a "band" that appeared in the 1991 remake; the band was very obviously modeled after ZZ Top, and even played a somewhat recognizable version of their hit song Sharp Dressed Man.
- The band playing in the bar in the original version seems to be strongly modelled after The Blues Brothers, and a rendition of one of their songs plays in the background. They are also seen with blue skin performing in the bar in the 1991 version. Attempting to talk to them Roger is told, "They don't have the time to talk to you, they're on a mission from God."
- It is believed that the game may have been strongly inspired by Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. The Arcada being taken over is similar to the scene where Tantive IV is taken over. The desert planet Kerona is similar to Tatooine. The craft that flies through the desert during the arcade section is similar to a Landspeeder.
- The name of the planet Kerona is a pun on a Mexican beer called "Corona", which was the favorite beverage of the Two Guys from Andromeda.
- When the player approaches the Deltaur, the inside view of the ship with your droid resembles scenes from the Battle of Yavin.
- The weapons droid aboard the Deltaur looks similar to Marvin the Paranoid Android from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The weapons droid is, just like Marvin, always depressed and saying the same stock sort of lines.
- The Sarien Spider Droid is actually derived from the Imperial Scout Droid from the Empire Strikes Back.
- The building of Tiny's Used Spaceships at Ulence Flats has a similar design to Luke Skywalker's home on Tatooine.
- The mugger at Ulence Flats looks like Greedo.
- A Sarien guard aboard the Deltaur, happens to be a King's Quest fan. He mentions King's Quest II, which awards the player points, and the player can also talk with him about King's Quest III. According to Scott Murphy, these references were additions by Ken Williams.
- The keycard makes reference to "Beek Security", a reference to the 1983 movie "Trading Places".
- The "Droids B Us" store is home to numerous cameos of famous robots in the 1991 remake; some of the droids for sale include Daleks from Doctor Who, the drones from Silent Running, and robots from Castle in the Sky. An Ultron head is seen resting on the counter, and the droid that works the loading dock looks just like Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet.
[edit] 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.
| Preceded by None |
Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter 1986 |
Succeeded by Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge |
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| Games | Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers Space Quest V: The Next Mutation Space Quest 6: The Spinal Frontier |
| Characters | Roger Wilco • Two Guys from Andromeda |
