Space Quest ]|[ Play Through!

[Tawmis]

Completed.

Just need to convert the videos and save it as one piece.

I still love this game as the best SQ - but man, two arcade sequences at the end is brutal.

[Rath Darkblade]

Yes, the Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots (and the spaceship escape) are not easy. But they're worth it!

[Tawmis]

Yes, the Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots (and the spaceship escape) are not easy. But they're worth it!

Rock'em Sock'em is difficult on Normal. Put it on the slowest speed possible - and I won it easily.

And for the spaceship escape; once I realized you could use the mouse rather than the keyboard to target - became easier.

Here's that play through - (non commentary) -

[Tawmis]

I plan on doing the commentary version today and getting that uploaded.

I love SQ3.

Although the video for SQ3 gave me some problems. The DOSBox captures were great - but Sony Vegas 13 doesn't know how to import them due to the Codec. So I used my previous fix of VLC convert.

But the scene where Roger Climbs on top of the ship - the video goes to hell. Only on the conversion. The DOSBox one is fine. So my previous fix didn't work. So I open my Sony Vegas 10 - which can import DOSBox videos. Save - I watch in the preview - and it looks sharp. Finished product is even WORSE than the VLC convert. Like watching SQ3 from the top of a full aquarium as it plays on the side.

So now I try a new idea - take the DOSBox captures (which are perfect) - play it through Windows Media Player - then use FRAPS to capture the entire play through (3 hours!). Then bring that into Sony Vegas 15 which it understands. I crop and save. It blurs it a little, but not too bad.

[Rath Darkblade]

Done watching the whole darned thing. Following are some observations.

There's the head of Optimus Prime (around 9:39). I'd forgotten you have to climb down it. And the ACME Rocket from the Warner Bros cartoons (featuring that certified genius, Wile E. Coyote). Fun!

The Aluminum Mallard? OK, the Millennium Falcon. A mallard doesn't fly like a falcon.

The small pod ("Don't call HAL!") is clearly from 2001: A Space Oddyssey. And there are some legos around (who knows why?)

What is that light-blue ship near the ACME rocket?

Roger keeps his balance remarkably well on the bars (in 15:00 onwards). In SQ, I'd have thought that the developers would've let him fall, just for the hell of it.

What is happening around 25:00? Roger keeps falling off the Aluminum Mallard and dying.

Between 39:00 and 44:00, nothing happens. Were you OK? What happened?

About 1:05:00, I liked that -- look sign. Look at sign. Look at left sign. No sh** there's two signs. (sigh) Read sign. Yes, it's frustrating.

1:09:00 or so -- RobertaLand. Haven't seen THAT before.

1:15:00 - what's with the remote control?

Wow, trying to get the pods to kill the Ah-noid is very tricky. I've never tried that one.

About 1:25:00 - as you pull into Monolith Burger - is that the Enterprise pulling away?

Hmmm -- at 1:36, what happens if you don't "put on undies"? Hmm, that came out wrong. What happens if you don't put on the ThermaWeave undies? And even with them on, how does Roger not fry in his own juices?

1:49:00 - Athletics Check DC 20. And I like the other one - men with guns! Pew pew pew!

About 1:53:00 - the ScumSoft logo is very reminiscent of SSI, don't you think?

2:12:00 or so - releasing the bridge to the two dudes from Andromeda. No way through ... or so you'd think. Other than ... "Press Button".

2:13:00 - Elmo takes you to the "ARENA" and leads away the two Dudes. OK ... except why doesn't he just get his goons to shoot all three of you on the spot? That's what I would do, if I was a Dark Lord Plotting On World Domination.

2:17:00 - yep, the Rock'em Sock'em (or Duke'em Nuke'em) Robots game is much (MUCH) easier on a slow speed. But I thought Elmo was separating you from the Two Dudes? Yet there they are in the ARENA. What? Elmo is really stooopid.

2:24:50 - Into a black hole! We're all gonna die! Mommy!

Final Observations on the Whole Thing

1. The way Roger moves across the sand dunes of Phleebutt (sp?) reminds me a lot of the way that the hero of QfG moves across the sand dunes of Shapeir in QfG2. Have you noticed?

2. The ending of SQ3 reminds me a lot of the ending of LSL3. Two software authors come out of nowhere and create computer games for Sierra.

3. One (sort of) disappointing thing: after you beat the "skull fighters" in the space battle, you don't have to solve the puzzle of how to get light-speed on again. One of the Guys from Andromeda does it for you. That's not how it should work! You should figure it out for yourself!

4. Elmo (or Pug?) is not much of a villain. He's a bit of an idiot, and nowhere near as menacing as Sludge Vohaul. He's a bit embarrassing, to be honest. What's the point of him?

Abeh-di, beh-di, beh-di -- That's All, Folks!

[Tawmis]

Done watching the whole darned thing. Following are some observations.

Oh, lawd. Man - you should watch/listen to the commentay versions because I always speed those up. So for example a 2 hour video becomes 30 minutes.

There's the head of Optimus Prime (around 9:39). I'd forgotten you have to climb down it. And the ACME Rocket from the Warner Bros cartoons (featuring that certified genius, Wile E. Coyote). Fun!

Yeah; that's why I love SQ3 so much, because of all the little references.

What is that light-blue ship near the ACME rocket?

That one goes on that screen; and the screen to the right.

I assume (to me) it looks like one of the Enterprise ships, from Star Trek.

But I just learned something new - it says "JUP" on one screen and "2" on the other - so I googled, what I assumed would be "Jupiter 2" - and sure enough - that's what it is.

But it's from LOST IN SPACE.

All of these years; since SQ3 came out I believed it to be a Star Trek reference. And today, learned something new!

What is happening around 25:00? Roger keeps falling off the Aluminum Mallard and dying.

This was one of those deaths I thought was stupid. Because it's such a small fall. But the game notes the top of the ship is "slick."

Between 39:00 and 44:00, nothing happens. Were you OK? What happened?

If I wasn't moving; I had probably gone out to get a soda from the fridge and talked to my wife. I tried to remember when I did that, to trim it. Looks like I missed one.

About 1:05:00, I liked that -- look sign. Look at sign. Look at left sign. No sh** there's two signs. (sigh) Read sign. Yes, it's frustrating.

That drove me insane.

1:15:00 - what's with the remote control?

LOL! So that's something I do post edit - where if I am doing something over and over - like the Astro Chicken - and it takes like 10 minutes to do - I speed up the video and put in that remote control to make it look like someone's fast forwarding.

You will see I do it a few times - there, Rock'em Socke'em robots, and the escape at the end.

Wow, trying to get the pods to kill the Ah-noid is very tricky. I've never tried that one.

So I only recently learned about this one, like a year or two ago. I always wondered what the Orat on a Stick is for.
So I had googled it - and found you can kill the Arnoid - using the pods.
I still don't know what the Chicken Hat (which can be bought) is used for.

About 1:25:00 - as you pull into Monolith Burger - is that the Enterprise pulling away?

Yes it is.

Hmmm -- at 1:36, what happens if you don't "put on undies"? Hmm, that came out wrong. What happens if you don't put on the ThermaWeave undies? And even with them on, how does Roger not fry in his own juices?

You melt.

1:49:00 - Athletics Check DC 20. And I like the other one - men with guns! Pew pew pew!

I try to have fun with my save game names sometimes.

About 1:53:00 - the ScumSoft logo is very reminiscent of SSI, don't you think?

Very. Just needs the "I" at the end.

2:12:00 or so - releasing the bridge to the two dudes from Andromeda. No way through ... or so you'd think. Other than ... "Press Button".

Well when I did look and such - there is NOTHING about any buttons. But when I looked at the other three bridges - I noticed they all had a panel with buttons.

So I was like "press button?"

Final Observations on the Whole Thing
1. The way Roger moves across the sand dunes of Phleebutt (sp?) reminds me a lot of the way that the hero of QfG moves across the sand dunes of Shapeir in QfG2. Have you noticed?

Yes!

2. The ending of SQ3 reminds me a lot of the ending of LSL3. Two software authors come out of nowhere and create computer games for Sierra.

I always felt because they thought that the games would be a trilogy.

Even KQ3 feels like an ending.

3. One (sort of) disappointing thing: after you beat the "skull fighters" in the space battle, you don't have to solve the puzzle of how to get light-speed on again. One of the Guys from Andromeda does it for you. That's not how it should work! You should figure it out for yourself!

Well I think if you figure it out, then it might be that you'd plot a course. They need it so that you can fix it - then go scan for a planet.

4. Elmo (or Pug?) is not much of a villain. He's a bit of an idiot, and nowhere near as menacing as Sludge Vohaul. He's a bit embarrassing, to be honest. What's the point of him?
Abeh-di, beh-di, beh-di -- That's All, Folks!

I think to show the evil of large corporations.

As I am pretty sure that's Ken and Al Lowe whipping people (the programmers).

[Tawmis]

Commentary version - Rath gets a call out.

[Rath Darkblade]

Done watching the whole darned thing. Following are some observations.

Oh, lawd. Man - you should watch/listen to the commentay versions because I always speed those up. So for example a 2 hour video becomes 30 minutes.

Thanks for the shout-out!

What is that light-blue ship near the ACME rocket?

That one goes on that screen; and the screen to the right.

I assume (to me) it looks like one of the Enterprise ships, from Star Trek.

But I just learned something new - it says "JUP" on one screen and "2" on the other - so I googled, what I assumed would be "Jupiter 2" - and sure enough - that's what it is.

But it's from LOST IN SPACE.

All of these years; since SQ3 came out I believed it to be a Star Trek reference. And today, learned something new!

Cool! I didn't know that either.

Wow, trying to get the pods to kill the Ah-noid is very tricky. I've never tried that one.

So I only recently learned about this one, like a year or two ago. I always wondered what the Orat on a Stick is for.
So I had googled it - and found you can kill the Arnoid - using the pods.
I still don't know what the Chicken Hat (which can be bought) is used for.

It's a marketing gimmick. Or maybe you can wear it and get the food at Monolith Burger for free.

Also, I'm sure you're aware -- but Monolith Burger gets to come back in "Jones in the Fast Lane". You can even work there (and get poisoned by their food).

4. Elmo (or Pug?) is not much of a villain. He's a bit of an idiot, and nowhere near as menacing as Sludge Vohaul. He's a bit embarrassing, to be honest. What's the point of him?

I think to show the evil of large corporations.

Yeah, I got that. Still ... he's just not that evil. What was his evil plan, anyway? I never got that.

As I am pretty sure that's Ken and Al Lowe whipping people (the programmers).

Yep, I noticed that. It's pretty cool. Here's something to make it cooler still:

Maybe Roberta could come in after a while and apply a soothing balm. Then the whipping would start again.

[Tawmis]

Done watching the whole darned thing. Following are some observations.

Oh, lawd. Man - you should watch/listen to the commentay versions because I always speed those up. So for example a 2 hour video becomes 30 minutes.

Thanks for the shout-out!

A shout out to you, then pump the forum's URL!

Now if I had more viewers...

What is that light-blue ship near the ACME rocket?

That one goes on that screen; and the screen to the right.
I assume (to me) it looks like one of the Enterprise ships, from Star Trek.
But I just learned something new - it says "JUP" on one screen and "2" on the other - so I googled, what I assumed would be "Jupiter 2" - and sure enough - that's what it is.
But it's from LOST IN SPACE.
All of these years; since SQ3 came out I believed it to be a Star Trek reference. And today, learned something new!

Cool! I didn't know that either.

I am just surprised I never thought to google "Jupiter 2" before. I just saw it back in 89, and it looked like the top of the Enterprise. So I assumed some obscure Star Trek reference.

Wow, trying to get the pods to kill the Ah-noid is very tricky. I've never tried that one.

So I only recently learned about this one, like a year or two ago. I always wondered what the Orat on a Stick is for.
So I had googled it - and found you can kill the Arnoid - using the pods.
I still don't know what the Chicken Hat (which can be bought) is used for.

It's a marketing gimmick. Or maybe you can wear it and get the food at Monolith Burger for free.
Also, I'm sure you're aware -- but Monolith Burger gets to come back in "Jones in the Fast Lane". You can even work there (and get poisoned by their food).

I never beat Jones in the Fast Lane. I barely remember playing it. But I remember Monolith Burgers.

I remember in my - don't laugh! - PASCAL class in College (to show how long ago THAT was!) - we had to program a "Cashier" - where there's a menu, and it adds, subtracts.

I went the extra distance; drew simple lines to form an "M" and it said "Monolith Burgers" below with a field for "Employee ID" (which was just a field, didn't care - just called the name up to say RegNam is logged into this machine).

4. Elmo (or Pug?) is not much of a villain. He's a bit of an idiot, and nowhere near as menacing as Sludge Vohaul. He's a bit embarrassing, to be honest. What's the point of him?

I think to show the evil of large corporations.

Yeah, I got that. Still ... he's just not that evil. What was his evil plan, anyway? I never got that.

Well, abduction seems pretty serious.
But his main goal, was - if I remember - messages implanted in games to take over the minds of people.
He appears again in SQ6, if I remember correctly.
Where, I think it's there, it's revealed he's related to Vohaul. I could be wrong, though.

[Rath Darkblade]

...I still don't know what the Chicken Hat (which can be bought) is used for.

It's a marketing gimmick. Or maybe you can wear it and get the food at Monolith Burger for free.
Also, I'm sure you're aware -- but Monolith Burger gets to come back in "Jones in the Fast Lane". You can even work there (and get poisoned by their food).

I never beat Jones in the Fast Lane. I barely remember playing it. But I remember Monolith Burgers.

I remember in my - don't laugh! - PASCAL class in College (to show how long ago THAT was!) - we had to program a "Cashier" - where there's a menu, and it adds, subtracts.

I went the extra distance; drew simple lines to form an "M" and it said "Monolith Burgers" below with a field for "Employee ID" (which was just a field, didn't care - just called the name up to say RegNam is logged into this machine).

I'm not laughing. I never programmed in PASCAL, but I cut my programming teeth on C64 BASIC in the late 70s. (That came in useful much, much, much later in university, when we studied Visual Basic 3 -- the horror -- and not long after uni, when I taught myself VBA). I also had to learn COBOL in uni ... the horror.

While I was being taught how to program (gee -- I was drawing algorithms at the age of 5 ), I also taught myself HTML v5, some Javascript and CSS. Later on that year (please don't laugh), I took on the classic programmer's challenge and taught the computer how to play tic-tac-toe (in Visual Basic). Did a fairly decent version of it, too. If either player won, the game played Homer Simpson's "Woo-hoo!" -- but if the game was a draw, you got Homer saying "D'oh!" instead.

I haven't programmed seriously in a long time, though. Last time was when I contracted at Linfox, an Aussie logistics company - I created web-based back-end for them to query their SAP databases, extract information and create reports. After that, I moved to accounts, where I hardly needed to program at all (except in VBA and SQL, which was hardly a challenge).

4. Elmo (or Pug?) is not much of a villain. He's a bit of an idiot, and nowhere near as menacing as Sludge Vohaul. He's a bit embarrassing, to be honest. What's the point of him?

I think to show the evil of large corporations.

Yeah, I got that. Still ... he's just not that evil. What was his evil plan, anyway? I never got that.

Well, abduction seems pretty serious.
But his main goal, was - if I remember - messages implanted in games to take over the minds of people.
He appears again in SQ6, if I remember correctly.
Where, I think it's there, it's revealed he's related to Vohaul. I could be wrong, though.

Ah yes, he planned to implant addictive subliminal messages in people's brains through bad computer games. (That's why he kidnapped the Two Dudes, too - to force them to make bad computer games).

Yes, he appears in SQ6. But he's a down-on-his-luck alcoholic. You can give him a bottle of brandy for some cheat codes, which you use to beat Stooge Fighter 3 (also made by ScumSoft). He is Sludge Vohaul's great-great-grand-clone.

(Thanks, Space Quest Omnipedia!)

[Tawmis]

I'm not laughing. I never programmed in PASCAL, but I cut my programming teeth on C64 BASIC in the late 70s. (That came in useful much, much, much later in university, when we studied Visual Basic 3 -- the horror -- and not long after uni, when I taught myself VBA). I also had to learn COBOL in uni ... the horror.

You programmed in COBOL too? I did also in College - which is odd, because COBOL was already on its way out in the late 80's.

I remember my friend had Raaka-Tu on a computer where the hard drive read from a cassette tape! And I remember, we accidentally managed to break the game - and were able to list the code. Total accident. But I took note of it.

And then programmed my own little game, where it was a two player (well, could be one player) boxing game - with health at the top (right and left).

And you press a button and a bunch of "moves" fly by - you hit - I think it was the space bar - and whatever was there - it did.

So it might be like "Body blow! 5 damage!" and it would remove 5 damage from Player 2. Then Player 2 goes, does the same thing. Until one of the boxers was KO'ed.

And then I eventually got around to programming Final Soul, a text adventure game where you need to get out of a "haunted" house with very Sierra-esque puzzles.

I do wish I still had the source code for this, to fix some bugs. But that's been long since gone. I'd planned a Final Soul 2, I still have all the code for it. Just never finished and probably never will.

[Rath Darkblade]

I'm not laughing. I never programmed in PASCAL, but I cut my programming teeth on C64 BASIC in the late 70s. (That came in useful much, much, much later in university, when we studied Visual Basic 3 -- the horror -- and not long after uni, when I taught myself VBA). I also had to learn COBOL in uni ... the horror.

You programmed in COBOL too? I did also in College - which is odd, because COBOL was already on its way out in the late 80's.

Odd. I programmed in COBOL in university as late as 1995 or so. The premise was that banks were still using COBOL for their financial systems, because COBOL is supposedly so stable and the code won't crash. By the time I graduated (1998), of course, everyone was moving online because web-based systems were "in". *shrug* Oh, well.

I remember my friend had Raaka-Tu on a computer where the hard drive read from a cassette tape! And I remember, we accidentally managed to break the game - and were able to list the code. Total accident. But I took note of it.

And then programmed my own little game, where it was a two player (well, could be one player) boxing game - with health at the top (right and left).

And you press a button and a bunch of "moves" fly by - you hit - I think it was the space bar - and whatever was there - it did.

So it might be like "Body blow! 5 damage!" and it would remove 5 damage from Player 2. Then Player 2 goes, does the same thing. Until one of the boxers was KO'ed.

And then I eventually got around to programming Final Soul, a text adventure game where you need to get out of a "haunted" house with very Sierra-esque puzzles.

I do wish I still had the source code for this, to fix some bugs. But that's been long since gone. I'd planned a Final Soul 2, I still have all the code for it. Just never finished and probably never will.

Heh. When I was 8, I remember planning and programming a "Choose Your Own Adventure" game in BASIC on the C64. It was fairly basic (pardon the pun) -- no pictures, no combat -- but it had some fairly graphic (well, for age 8) death scenes.

"Take manhole." / "You fall down the sewer and break your ankle!" GAME OVER. And a little death message: "Next time, leg it the other way."

"Eat banana." / "You cram in a big piece of banana and accidentally choke!" GAME OVER. And a little death message: "Didn't your mother ever teach you to take sensible bites?"

It's not complicated, but for age 8, it was fun. And hey -- it was a good way to learn the many uses of IF ... THEN.

[goatmeal]

In college, us science nerds learned FORTRAN in the early 1990s (we received a "Foreign Language" credit for it, too!). COBOL was for business applications. PASCAL and C/C++ were for the computer science majors.

At the time 30 years ago, our FORTRAN professor claimed NASA and General Motors still had millions upon millions of dollars invested in outdated programing systems that relied on punch cards; and even more incredibly, he insisted that they were _still_ using those punch card systems well into the early 1990s (!)...

Then he brought out a stack of about 50–100 used punch cards, and everyone received one or two to use as bookmarks for our FORTRAN manual.

========================================

This reminds me of an article I saw at the end of June:

These Old Programming Languages Are Still Critical To Big Companies But Nobody Wants To Learn Them
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/th ... earn-them/

[Tawmis]

In college, us science nerds learned FORTRAN in the early 1990s (we received a "Foreign Language" credit for it, too!). COBOL was for business applications. PASCAL and C/C++ were for the computer science majors.

C/C++ was my goal, because I'd wanted to work at Sierra. However, going from High School, straight into a Community College wasn't the best idea for me, when none of my friends went to (any) college.

I always wanted to hang out with them at the beach (downside of San Diego, too many distractions) - and so, ended up tanking all the classes I didn't care about. I did fine with English and Computer stuff; because I'd want to attend those classes. But all the other classes that were required, I bailed on.

Ended up on Academic Probation.

Then never went back because life got in the way shortly after that.

It's something I look back on and regret. But it led me to where I am now, which is all right.