ScummVM 1.8.0 Is Out Now

ScummVM, the project that allows multiple point and click adventure games to be played on modern (and some not so modern) architectures, has been updated to 1.8.0. New in this release is support for ten new games:

• Amazon: Guardians of Eden
• Beavis and Butthead in Virtual Stupidity
• Broken Sword 2.5: The Return of the Templars
• Labyrinth of Time
• Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender
• Sfinx
• The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Rose Tattoo
• The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel
• Zork: Grand Inquisitor
• Zork Nemesis: The Forbidden Lands

Additionally, there are new ports for GCW-Zero and Raspberry Pi. The graphics subsystem for the Sierra AGI engine has been overhauled, and the SCUMM engine has also received some love. The original Maniac Mansion walking code for the V0 and V1 version of the game has been implemented, Maniac Mansion can now be played from within Day of the Tentacle, and lip sync animation has been improved in later Humongous Entertainment games.

There's a whole lot more new with this release, as it's been a long time coming, so head over to the ScummVM site and give it a spin.

Point and Click Adventure Review: Space Quest V

Space Quest V was a departure from the previous games in many ways.  It was the first game in the series to not be helmed by both creators of the franchise, It was also the first to be developed by a developer other than Sierra, as it was developed by Sierra's Dynamix division.  It also found Roger in a position of power for the first time.  However, despite these changes, or possibly because of them, Space Quest V is one of the best games in the series.

Roger Wilco cheats on his test at Starcon Academy and finds himself as captain of the SCS Eureka, a ship designed to vacuum space debris. He's technically still a janitor but now finds that he's no longer the lowest member of his assigned spacecraft. For the first time, he has power over the members of his crew, even if they aren't particularly enthralled to be assigned to a garbage scow. His simple mission soon gets complicated, as he finds himself in the middle of a toxic conspiracy.

This game doesn't have voice acting, despite the fact that there is voice acting in the two games that bookmark it.  Thankfully, the writing more than makes up for it, as the humor in this game is top-notch.  The previous game had a lot of funny moments, but this game breaks out all the puns and references to Star Trek and other science fiction juggernauts that it can. Thankfully, the humor isn't overbearing on the main plot, as it is rock solid here.  Roger really shines in a leadership position, and the villain that he faces is excellent and quite multifaceted.

The art style is fantastic for its time, which was always one of the strong points of Sierra, and its associated divisions.  The backgrounds have a lot of detail, and the animation of the sprites is great. The puzzles in this game are quite difficult, as is usual in Sierra's games.  Thankfully, there aren't any puzzles that don't make sense logically.  Some stretch real-world logic a bit, but within the context of the game's science fiction world, they fit in fine.  This game is definitely one of those that fit in the Sierra mantra of save early, save often.  It is very possible to die, especially in confrontations with enemies, so it would be wise to save whenever you make progress.  It's also possible to get in a dead end, and some sequences require precise timing, which can be quite infuriating at times. This player-punishing style of Sierra's games didn't age as well as their contemporaries at LucasArts, but if you're willing to play through despite the frustration, the underlying story is worth experiencing.

Final Verdict:

3½ out of 5

Gary Owens and Leonard Nimoy Have Passed Away

We have recently lost two people very familiar to people who were adventure gamers in the 1990's. Gary Owens, the narrator of Space Quest 4 and 6 passed away on February 12th. Leonard Nimoy, who played his most well known character Spock in the adventure games Star Trek: 25th Anniversary and Star Trek: Judgment Rites, passed away on February 27th.

Gary Owens was set to reprise his role as narrator in SpaceVenture, but his health declined before he could record his lines.  He did record a humorous "narrator auditions" advertisement for that game, which you can hear here, and did an interview with Chris Pope about the project and his time on Space Quest, which you can hear here.

Both actors were terrific in all of their roles and will both be sorely missed.

GOG.com teams up with IGN for a Year of Adventure

Kosta Andreadis of IGN is playing through some of the most seminal adventure games throughout 2014, as part of IGN's Year of Adventure.  He already played through King's Quest I, King's Quest II and III, and Space Quest I and II.

He will be playing through many more classic adventure games throughout the year.  When these articles go up, keep an eye on GOG.com, as they will have 48 hour promotions for the game or games that they cover, provided they have the game in their catalog of course. They're also planning on having additional events for the developers that made those games.

Kickstarter for Ken Allen's Orchestrated Sierra Music

Under the Half Dome is an album of orchestrated recordings by Ken Allen of the music that he composed while he was at Sierra (as well as some of his favorite scores from non-Sierra games).

There are some really interesting tiers to choose from (enough that the project is included on Forbes' list of the 10 Most Clever Kickstarter Rewards), including a T-shirt with the first page of the handwritten score for "Back to the Sequel", the opening of Space Quest IV at $75, the chance to write 350 words on the liner notes about your love for Sierra's music and/or games at $100, a vinyl edition of the game at $125, actually getting a chance to perform on the recording for "Space Questin" (the ZZ Top inspired song from Space Quest I VGA), and a song written by Ken Allen for you that you are free to use for any family friendly purpose at $1,000 (and much more).

There's links to the some of the original recordings of the songs at the kickstarter page if you don't remember them (but you should, as they're quite catchy) or if you never played the games and want to hear what the fuss is all about, so head over to the Under the Half Dome kickstarter and pick a tier to support the project and help it make it's stretch goals ($20,000 USD for a live recording of "Space Questin" (less than $2,000 USD to go), $25,000 USD for live musicians on key tracks (the tracks in question are specified at the kickstarter), and $35,000 USD for a music video of the band performing Space Questin').

Update: The 24 tracks for the album have been revealed. The full track-listing can be seen here. Also, Ken Allen has put out a call for people to dance to the Space Questin' track for a video he's putting together. Details can be found here (note that the deadline for submitting dancing videos has been extended to February 21, the day that the kickstarter ends).

Sequel to the SpaceVenture Fan Game Pledge Quest

The team of fans from the Space Quest fansite The Virtual Broomcloset that brought you PledgeQuest are back.

Like the original Pledge Quest was created to promote the SpaceVenture kickstarter, the sequel, Pledge Quest II: Noodle Shop of Horrors (or Vohaul the Cat's Revenge), was created to promote the SpaceVenture stretch goals through Paypal.

Pledge Quest II is three times as long as the original Pledge Quest, as it includes three rooms rather than the single room seen in Pledge Quest I, as well as animated cut-scenes. Like the original, it is chuck full of humor relating to Space Quest and Sierra's games in general. You may even spot some references to adventure games from other companies and pop culture references as well.

Thanks to the game's co-creator, Decaffeinated Jedi, for letting me know about the game. Give it a try, and try the original as well if you haven't already. They're both great throwbacks to classic adventure games, and well worth your time.

Infocom, Sierra, and Activision Adventures on Sale

GOG.com has a promotion this weekend on Activision adventure games (the referral link supports ScummVM, a program that can run most of these games on modern systems).

This includes not only the Activision developed adventure games such as Zork: Grand Inquisitor, but the properties owned by Activision such as the Infocom and Sierra catalog. There's a lot of classic games on sale here, from the aforementioned Zork series (including the original Zork text adventures/interactive fiction), to Sierra's Quest series (King's Quest, Space Quest, Quest for Glory), to the Police Quest and Gabriel Knight series, and lesser known gems such as Torin's Passage.

Pledge Quest - SpaceVenture Kickstarter Fan Game

PledgeQuest is an adventure game for Windows and Linux created by a group of fans at the Space Quest fansite The Virtual Broomcloset to stir up interest in the SpaceVenture kickstarter. The game is a single room adventure game created with Adventure Game Studio starring a woman named Bea (named after Roger Wilco's love interest Beatrice). The goal is to get Bea to visit the SpaceVenture kickstarter page to pledge support to the Two Guys From Andromeda's SpaceVenture kickstarter campaign.

The the SpaceVenture kickstarter is currently at 72% of it's goal of $500,000US, and there is only 5 days left to go. If you liked the Space Quest games, pick a pledge tier. The game may not contain the Space Quest name, but it contains all of the Space Quest humor and charm.

Space Quest Collection 75% Off On Steam

The Space Quest Collection is today's daily deal on Steam. For 11 more hours, you can pick up all 6 Space Quest games for only $5US.

This is the perfect time for the deal, as the games have the same humor and style as the upcoming SpaceVenture adventure, which is also made by the Guys from Andromeda, the creators of Space Quest. If you enjoy the Space Quest games, be sure to pick a pledge level and support SpaceVenture.

A New Game by Space Quest Creators on Kickstarter

The adventure game madness continues on Kickstarter as more famous adventure game creators return, thanks to fan support.

This time, it's the Two Guys from Andromeda, Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe, who have returned. They are known for creating the popular Space Quest series at Sierra, and they have returned to bring a humorous adventure game set in space to a new generation of gamers.

The game, titled SpaceVenture, already has a cast of famous voice actors on board on this game, including Gary Owens who was the narrator in Space Quest 4 and Space Quest 6. They plan on releasing the game on PC, Mac, Linux (in DRM-free versions), iPad and Android Tablets at the same time once the game is ready to release.

Like the other adventure game kickstarters I have covered on this blog, preordering the game costs $15 and the rewards increase with the higher tiers, including a big box release of the physical game at the $100 tier.

There are 28 days to go and approximately $350,000 left until this project becomes a reality. The game certainly seems to have all of the classic elements in place that made Space Quest a household name for Sierra in the 80's and 90's. So, if you want to support the project, choose your pledge level at the SpaceVenture kickstarter.

Thanks to mjomble, a developer of the Space Quest: Vohaul Strikes Back fan game, for alerting me to the presence of this kickstarter.

Infamous Adventures' Space Quest II Remake is Out

Infamous Adventures has released their free fan remake of Space Quest II, which is available here. The remake is made in the adventure game creation program, Adventure Game Studio. It was made in the style of Sierra's later SCI remakes, giving the game a mouse controlled interface, removing the arrow key sensitive deaths, updating the graphics (the game aims to emulate the 256 color VGA graphics of the official Sierra remakes of the 1990's, although the game features a higher color palette), as well as new music, voices and sound effects.

It is made without approval of Activision (the current license holders of the Sierra franchises), but it has the (unofficial) approval of one of the original creator of Space Quest, Scott Murphy, as well as Josh Mandel (co-creator of Space Quest 6), who performs the voice of David Letterdroid in this remake.

In other Space Quest fan game news, a new Space Quest fangame with a new storyline (also created with Adventure Game Studio) called Vohaul Strikes Back has also just been released. It's a good time to be a Space Quest fan, since the fans are keeping the franchise alive.

ScummVM 1.2.0 "FaSCInating release" Released

ScummVM, the program that lets you play 2D point and click adventure games (such as most LucasArts, Sierra, Revolution, and Adventure Soft games) on modern operating systems and video game consoles, has recieved a huge update today with over a dozen new games added thanks to the Sierra SCI engine. Now ScummVM supports every SCI game up to King's Quest VI.

Other than the SCI games, another Sierra family game has been added: Coktel Vision's Fascination. The list of supported platforms has also increased, as ScummVM is now playable on Android, Dingux, Caanoo and OpenPandora.

Sierra games continue to come out of Retirment: Phantasmagoria on GOG.com

GOG.com now has a new Sierra adventure game available: Roberta Williams' full motion video horror game Phantasmagoria.

Space Quest 3-6 are also available, but the complete 1-6 has been and still is available from Steam.