Tester Game

Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers is Developed for Wizards of the Coast by Stainless Games, Ltd., Duels of the Planeswalkers lets players simulate the Magic: The Gathering trading card game through an interactive digital experience.

Players take on the role of a Planeswalker, a powerful wizard who battles others for glory, knowledge and conquest. Each Planeswalker has an arsenal of spells and creatures showcased by virtual cards.

Players can either choose to battle against the computer or compete online against real life opponents using Microsoft’s Window LIVE service offerings.

With endless game play scenarios, including multiplayer game mode, Duels of the Planeswalkers offers an unrivaled depth in which each game is different from the last.

system requirements:
Pentium IV 2 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 700 MB HDD, Windows XP.

Now that weve played through most of the Kings Quest canon, I feel like its time to tackle another popular Sierra 3-D Adventure series.  So this week, were looking at Space Quest I - The Sarien Encounter, designed by the famous "Two Guys from Andromeda," Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy.

Well be playing the 1991 VGA remake, included with the most recent Space Quest Collection published hastily thrown together by Universal Vivendi.  One notable shortcoming of this package is that the on-disc PDF manual is taken from an earlier 5-game release which did NOT include the VGA remake of Space Quest I.  But it does contain the essential copy-protection material we will need at certain junctures, so I wont complain too much.

The VGA edition opens with a colorful credits sequence, far beyond what the original AGI 160x200, 16-color, PC speaker edition could manage, and an expanded title, Space Quest - Chapter One, a naming convention which never quite caught on:



The setting may have been inspired by another sci-fi comedy adventure, Steve Meretzskys classic Planetfall.  The player is cast as Roger Wilco, a lowly spacefaring janitor aboard the good ship Arcada.  Space Quest was originally created as a text parser-based animated adventure using Sierras AGI system, but the industry was changing, and new computer users were not quite as keyboard-literate as the early adopters; the flexible nature of parser-based games gave way to a simple set of action icons, easier to use but also more conducive to trial-and-error puzzle-solving.  This remake is a point-and-click game, which means some of the puzzles are approached differently and more simply than they were originally, while others become more complicated.  But this is still a Space Quest game, and in my opinion the upgraded audiovisuals are worth a little bit of dumbing-down.

As always, I advise interested readers to set this post aside and play Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter (or the original AGI Space Quest)  if you have not previously done so; some of what I am about to discuss will give away the games truest pleasures, best discovered for oneself.  In other words, go savor the experience on your own if you wish, because beyond this point, sensors detect...

***** SPACE SPOILERS AHEAD! *****

Our heros ship -- well, the ship where he does his mopping up -- is under alien attack as the game begins, with a destruct timer set to fifteen minutes and counting, as the decidely mantis-like Deltaur ship wraps its claws around the plucked-and-roasted-chicken-shaped Arcada:


Our janitor hero has little insight into whats going on and remarkably little instinct for self-preservation without our guidance.  This opening act relies on lots of exploration and careful maneuvering -- the ships layout is pretty straightforward, but we have to visit most of the available areas to round up the necessary equipment to access the escape shuttle bay, leave the ship, and solve several puzzles that lie ahead.  The decks are littered with corpses, replete with organs hanging out; its a fairly dark beginning for a sci-fi comedy, and this version is more graphic than the original edition.



Navigating the ship requires a fair degree of stealth -- random deaths occur, as Roger gets shot by alien patrols, so he needs to hide in closets and rooms, duck out of sight of the guards by walking behind the scenery, and use elevators to move to another floor whenever he hears approaching footsteps.  There are lots of useful objects to hunt down, sometimes indicated only by those telltale Sierra sparkles in each location.  We can retrieve a magnetic unit attached to the now-destroyed Star Generator, here:


We can also obtain a keycard from a dead former janitorial colleague, and speak with a dying scientist who, in my playthrough, uttered "Van Allen Belts!" just before passing away; this seems like an odd choice for last words, but apparently this is part of the copy protection scheme.  We need to select the topic mentioned from a robot-staffed data cartridge retrieval system, and I assume the chosen phrase is randomized in an attempt to ensure the player has legitimate documentation on hand.

The fifteen-minute time limit isnt too tight, at least once weve figured out the basic map, solved the puzzles and made it to the Arcadas shuttle bay.  Sierras games usually feature unpredictable deaths, but at least Roger Wilco meets his fate in amusing ways.  For instance, we need to open the bay doors before starting up the escape shuttle, a consideration I failed to take into account on my first try here:


The bay door controls are onboard the shuttle, set back behind the pilots seat.  We should also grab an odd gadget from a drawer in the outer shuttle bay before boarding, as in old-school adventure tradition, we will need it later and cannot come back for it.

After crash-landing on a nearby planet, we need to salvage the shuttles survival kit and a highly reflective piece of broken cockpit glass from the wreckage.  A huge skeleton nearby covers several screens, with a sign at its tail end that we cant read from the ground.  Roger doesnt have a lot of time for sightseeing, though, as a Sarien spider droid also arrives, in hot pursuit, and explodes whenever it gets close to Roger, so were clearly going to have to deal with that situation somehow.  It moves pretty quickly and presents one of the more frustrating physical challenges in the Sierra library.

We can explore for just a bit, if we can stay out of the droids detonation range; underground-dwelling alien serpent creatures called Grell devour Roger if he wanders too far into the desert, but this is just a means of keeping the player corraled inside the map while providing the illusion of wide open alien spaces.

We clearly cant outrun the spider droid, but if we get moving right after crash-landing, we can (with a little random luck) climb up onto the skeletons backbone and push a loose vertebra onto it; the deadly robot wont follow us up there but will try to approach Roger from below, making it easy to target.

With this immediate threat dispensed with, Roger must deal with the fact he is still in an alien desert; thirst strikes shortly, and will turn Roger into desiccated powder before long.  But the dehydrated water from the shuttles survival kit can be used to keep him alive.

A creature called the Orat lives within the massive skeletons skull, but hes none too friendly.  He turns Roger into something like a basketball if approached directly, which is not good, and he doesnt smell too appealing either, according to this little meta-joke:


Another hole beneath the skeleton is intriguing, but Roger just gets eaten if he goes in there, so theres no reason to explore that area.  The sign at the skeletons tail is a sign of civilization, and if Roger takes the indicated shaft down, he finds himself in a series of underground caves with puzzles and challenges that must be navigated.

Fortunately, theyre all pretty straightforward use-item-with-object puzzles.  A bit of sticky plant allows Roger to tangle up (not with) a threatening, many-tentacled grate monster.  He can also use the tip of a stalagmite to plug a small steam geyser and open a door.  The reflective bit of cockpit glass reflects dangerous laser beams and disables them.  As long as weve picked up everything takeable along the way, there are few serious issues here.  Most of the deaths in this area are, therefore, strictly for comic effect and can easily be avoided, but part of the fun of the Space Quest games is seeing Roger purchase the agricultural establishment in various ways, so its worth experimenting just for fun.

Sierras early graphic adventures often included physical puzzles requiring tricky maneuvering, just because in the new, animated context these sorts of movement puzzles became workable.  In this game, Roger has to walk carefully to avoid acid dripping from the ceiling, and I found it easier to do with the arrow keys than with mouse clicks.  We have to actually avoid some drops as they drip, but once were past the first, most dangerous steps its not too difficult to get through the rest.

Once weve satisfied all of these arbitrary challenges, a large holographic head appears and speaks:



If Roger cannot understand its attempt to communicate, it pitches him unceremoniously back up to the surface.  To produce a more satisfactory result, we have to use the hand icon on the translation gadget from the shuttle bay to turn it on before entering.  Once we can understand the creature, we learn that it wants us to dispose of the Orat.  And sends us back to the surface again with no real new information about how to do that.

So its off to face the hideous creature we go.  Roger can hide behind a rock in the Orats cave, which buys us a little time in point-and-click mode to try various objects out on him.  Most of the available props prove useless, but throwing the dehydrated water causes the monster to swallow it and explode, and Roger can collect an unidentifiable Orat part after the dust settles.  This artifact convinces the disembodied head we have done its bidding, and now we can proceed to meet the Keronians, a wise and progressive species of four-armed aliens.



These beings possess a computer, into which we can plug in the data cartridge from the Arcada to learn about Dr. Slash Vohaul, a scientist with the Star Generator project.  He feared the Sariens might invade and stored the plans in this cartridge; the recording provides the all-important Star Generator self-destruct code, which is critical to note; when I played, the secret number given was 4793, but I would guess this is randomized.

The Keronians also provide Roger with transportation to Ulence Flats, and fortunately in the VGA remake we are given the option to Play or Skip the arcade sequence covering Rogers arduous journey across the desert.  (As it took me a few tries here, I was also able to discover that as Roger heads out, sometimes he accidentally backs up and causes a little local property damage, instead of taking off smoothly.)  The arcade sequence isnt complicated -- we just need to steer Rogers transport with the mouse or arrow keys to avoid the oncoming rocks and keep the crafts damage gauge healthy -- but its not easy either, and it gets more difficult as Roger nears his objective.  I saw this sort of screen quite a bit:


But I persevered, memorizing the early part of the trip during my repeated failures, and finally made it through the whole journey without completely destroying the transport.  We now find ourselves in the tiny desert settlement of Ulence Flats, near the Rocket Bar, a Mos Eisley sort of joint with a used-ship dealership nearby.  There are a number of interesting spaceships on display, and classic sci-fi fans will appreciate a visual and text reference to Wally Woods 1950s EC comics artwork -- This ship is a real classic - a WalWood WarpBlaster ZX.  (Theres another, more explicit Wood reference later, aboard the Sarien ship.)

The nattily-dressed purple gentleman near the bars door offers to buy Rogers vehicle for 25 buckazoids; if we turn him down, he returns and improves his offer to 30, plus a jetpack.  He also provides some coupons for area businesses, as he represents the local Chamber of Commerce.  This second offer is a deal worth taking; the coupons are good for a discount from the nearby droid dealer, as well as 5 buckazoids and a free Keronian Ale in the Rocket Bar, and if we turn him down this time, he doesnt appear to return.



Inside the bar, Roger needs to buy and consume three beers to overhear someone talking about high-tailing it out of deep space, after witnessing the Deltaur destroying a small planet in sector HA (again, during my playthrough; this is another bit of randomly-selected copy protection, so make note of the sector mentioned.)  An alien Blues Brothers act entertains onstage in the screenshot below, alternating with a Madonna-like singer and a rock band, each with its own music, so its worth making a few stops just to see and hear the bars entertainment.




The Slots o Death machine to the right is exactly what it claims to be -- Roger might win, but will most likely be vaporized by an unlucky spin.  But, unlike the Leisure Suit Larry games where we must keep gambling and saving every time we make a small gain, here we are allowed to cheat -- we can attach the magnetic widget we brought from the Arcada to disrupt the one-armed assassins workings and come up with three non-death icons every time.  How much money do we need to raise?  Well, the machine renders itself out of order after Roger wins 300 buckazoids or thereabouts, so that will probably have to do.

Of course, Roger gets held up outside the bar if hes not careful.  But if we get him safely away from the seedier part of town, he can negotiate with the automated system (with a Robby the Robot-style pick-up attendant) at Droids B Us.  Some droids cannot be bought for various reasons, or are present strictly for referential humors sake, like the Max robot that calls Disneys 1970s science-fiction bomb The Black Hole to mind.  So we will probably need to save and restore as we try to determine which one will be the most useful.  This turns out to be easier than one might expect -- we can only buy a few of the available robots, and the SUX explodes, while the Def-Tech military droid requires assembly skills far beyond Rogers abilities.  So we eventually end up with the NAV-201 navigation droid, not a bad choice if we know our Star Wars.

The used spacecraft salesman has a couple of worthy vehicles on the lot, or appears to; again, theres actually only one, the Drallion Cruiser, that is both affordable and suited to Rogers needs.  We run into the copy protection again as we take off from Ulence Flats, headed for... Xenon, I believe?  No, we have a mission: to intercept the Sarien cruiser in the sector mentioned in the bar.  We must consult the manual to translate the alphabetic sector name into the keypads symbology, and give instructions to our faithful droid:



This third act of the story is relatively brief, but we will need a few so-far-unused items acquired during Rogers travels to survive here.  When we arrive in the target sector, the robot wants to leave, but Roger refuses, donning the jetpack to approach the alien ships entry door.  Once aboard, we confirm that this is the Sarien ship Deltaur, and Roger gets zapped or trapped if we dont take advantage of an early opportunity to escape the aggressively efficient Sarien decontamination chamber.  Some stealth is required until we can use Rogers swiss army knife to enter the ships vent system, and eventually get laundry-tumbled into a Sarien guard uniform, at which point most of Rogers inventory gets lost and hes down to a single buckazoid.

An extra-big, super-tough Sarien guard keeps watch over the Star Generator, but we can see that he has a gadget of some kind on his belt.  Rogers disguise keeps him fairly safe, but he still cant attack the guards directly.  Fortunately, theres a shipboard Weapons Dispensary, staffed by a put-upon droid probably inspired by Marvin the Paranoid Android from Douglas Adams The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.  But he wont serve Roger without proper ID, which I had initially failed to pick up in the laundry room; once our papers are in order, we can steal a single gas grenade from behind the counter while the droid is fetching the standard-issue pistol belonging to Rogers assumed identity.

We can shoot random Sarien guards with the pistol, but Rogers a bit klutzy, and tends to accidentally lose his helmet in action, after which point we cant retrieve the other gas grenade from the Weapons Dispensary.  So we need to use the first grenade, replace it, and then shoot to vaporize as we work our way back to the Star Generator chamber.


At last, Roger can gas the guard, grab the remote control on his belt, enter the code learned earlier from the data cartridge, and vamoose.  But its not very easy to locate the all-important control panel in this point-and-click version of Space Quest -- I clicked all over the place before finally bringing up the closeup view allowing entry of the code.  If we try to look at it first, using the eye icon, Roger sees it, but in the process he moves to stand directly in front of it so we cant actually click on it.  It definitely makes one yearn for the simplicity of a text-based parser. 

If we give up on this unnecessarily irritating challenge and forget to set the destruct sequence, Xenon gets vaporized just as Roger approaches, so its an ending but not really a happy one:



If we managed to fight our way past the interface and eliminate the Sarien threat, a grand celebration ensues.  Roger is given a golden mop, and we are informed that there are more adventures to come (though, as it turned out, only this single VGA remake was produced.)  Xenons ruler, incidentally, looks a bit like later incarnations of King Graham from the Kings Quest series -- the ending is slightly lukewarm here, but I dont think I actually missed anything this time; Roger is just a fair-to-middling hero:


I never played the AGI version of Space Quest I -- I joined the series in progress with the first SCI entry, Space Quest III, back in the day -- but I played this VGA version when it was new and enjoyed revisiting it.  Sometime soon well take a look at Space Quest II: Vohauls Revenge, which places us squarely back in AGI territory -- its also a bit of a misnomer, as weve never really faced down anyone by that name in this game; the scientist Slash Vohaul seems to be a good guy from what we know of the family name here.  But sci-fi sequels always seem to thrive on the classic revenge motif, and Im not about to second-guess Two Guys from Andromeda.

This week, were taking a look at Curse of the Pharaoh on the Atari 400/800 computers, written by Peter Kirsch, who wrote several text adventures for Softside disk magazine.  This 1982 effort, also published by Softside, is in a different format from Kirschs other works -- its a text adventure with illustrations dominating the display, and a four-line interface window at the bottom of the screen.


Like most of the Softside games, Curse of the Pharaoh is written in BASIC, and it seems the code devoted to drawing the simple images leaves little memory for the actual game.  Text is severaly constrained -- the interface just produces a low, lengthy beep if it doesnt understand a command, which gets annoying quickly with the games incredibly limited one-word parser.

Interested readers may wish to experience this one first-hand, as it doesnt take long to finish, but it definitely merits mention that traditional commands like GET FLASHLIGHT dont work -- if theres a flashlight nearby, we are required to type GET with no object specified, and the full command is summarily rejected.  This got me stuck in the early going, and everything after that point was relatively straightforward.  Ill leave that decision up to you -- beyond this point, per usual, I will describe my playthrough from start to finish.  There isnt really much to spoil here, but there will nevertheless be...


***** SPOILERS AHEAD! *****

We begin, without benefit of title screen or credits, in a desert, on a starlit night, near a pyramid.  We can wander in the nearby desert, but we cant DIG or otherwise go anywhere but back (always W) to the pyramid.  We cant GO PYRAMID or ENTER PYRAMID or LOOK at it or EXAMINE it or... hmmm.  Maybe we can go elsewhere in the desert -- and yes, further east of the main desert "room" is a flashlight.  Now we can GET FLASHLIGHT... no, TAKE FLASHLIGHT... no, PICK UP FLASHLIGHT... ack!  This is getting ridiculous, how are we supposed to play this?  I have to say this is the earliest Ive ever had to seek out a walkthrough, and CASA contributor Juan Duc comes through again -- we can only GET, and whatever is here gets picked up.

Now we can GO at the pyramid, and discover that, to our non-surprise, its DARK IN HERE!  LIGHT FLASH actually works, though it may just be looking for LIGHT.  There are STRANGE HYROGLIPHICS here -- does that imply they are also misspelled? -- but READ just plays what sounds like a death dirge?  Okay, maybe this is a stylistic choice, and were being warned of fatal consequences ahead, in the traditional mode of warning all ye who enter here.

East (the only available direction, other than S to exit the pyramid) is a junction with passages leading in all directions (except up and down, as it turns out.)  North of the junction is a DARK CHAMBER OF WATERS IMPOSSIBLE TO CROSS (and no, we cant SWIM it either.)  S is a DAMP ROOM containing a GIANT CLAM and a DARK BEDROOM to the west.  We can MOVE (the bed) to find a ruby, and GET picks up the ruby but not the (presumably too heavy to carry) bed.  We cant OPEN the clam, at least not yet, as indicated by the sonorous beeping whenever we try.

Going east of the junction and ignoring some other possibilities along the way, we reach a DEAD END with a pushbutton on the wall and a rug.  Trying to PUSH the button actually produces one of the games very few messages back -- STRANGE...DOESNT WORK.  We can GET the rug to find a KEY; I hope we dont run out of inventory space, as theres no DROP command at all!

Heading back west to the room just east of the junction, going North leads up a staircase, and we must go U to reach a TALL ROOM with SOMETHING HANGING FROM THE CEILING that we cant GET even if we JUMP.

We can also go south from the dark bedroom (I initially allowed the illustration to influence my thinking and thought we could only go back east) to reach a DINGY CHAMBER, where we find another pushbutton on the wall.  PUSHing it doesnt do anything visible, but the confirming high-pitched beep suggests weve accomplished something.  And yes, now the SOMETHING in the tall room reveals itself to be a LADDER.  This may be one of the few pyramid-based adventures Ive played that actually considers the traditional shape of the structure!

CLIMBing the ladder leads to the west end of a LONG CORRIDOR, and traveling east leads us to another staircase... with BLOODSTAINED WALLS.  This games illustrations are extremely low-resolution and simple -- this is actually one of the more visually interesting locations, and it gets the depth cueing all wrong:



We can go U the stairs to the east end of another hall with a locked door.  We have a key, but lets first go to the west end of the hall where we see an OPEN FUSE BOX.  This pyramid has electrical power, apparently, but we dont have a fuse or anything on hand.

OPENing the locked door (presumably with the key), we find ourselves in the MUMMY ROOM, with an OPEN SARCOPHAGUS and a FEARSOME MUMMY with NO EYES.  He doesnt keep us from fleeing back south, or from trying any other verbs, so hes not presenting much of a danger.  False bloodstain advertising, I say!

What now?  The ladder retracts after we go back down it; pushing the button in the dingy chamber brings it back, but we cant GET it for use in bridging the water room.  What about the clam?  We cant PRY or TICKLE it open, or KILL or HIT the clam... but we can KICK it to reveal, in a more-egregious-than-usual instance of adventure game logic, a FUSE!  Mother of pearl!!!

We can now PUT the fuse in the fuse box... no, INSERT... no, actually, DROPping it puts it neatly into place.  So there actually is a drop verb, but its only useful for putting things in specific places.  This has no apparent effect on the mummy or the chamber of waters, but we can now PUSH the button at the east of end of the first-floor hall that wasnt doing anything before, and now the WATER HAS DRAINED.

Going north past the chamber of newly-drained waters, we find ourselves in DEEP PINK CHAMBERS, with a ROPE available.  West is an area of DEEP PURPLE CHAMBERS, where I like to think Ian Gillan is rocking out in the background, and south of that is a DARK ROOM with a DEEP, DARK PIT and a prominently featured STAKE.  TIE connects the rope to the stake and dangles it down into the pit.  CLIMB leads us down to find a green ruby, which we can simply GET before we CLIMB back up.  We cant retrieve the rope, so that must be the extent of this puzzle.

Now we have two rubies, a red and a green one (not an emerald, or zoisite even, but a green ruby) -- and a fearsome mummy with no eyes.  I thought we might be dealing with some sort of blind mummy/lights-out puzzle at the climax, but it seems all we have to do is DROP the two rubies, one at a time, to restore the mummys sight.

At least the pace picks up a bit now, as the FEARSOME MUMMY...SEES! GET OUT QUICK (apparently he was harmless with 2-D vision but is very dangerous with his depth perception enabled!)  We cant pull the fuse to cause him any problems, and we cant get the eyes back.  Why did we want to do this, other than it seemed like the only remaining puzzle?  Even now, the mummy doesnt seem to pose any real threat -- we can stand around in the mummy room, methodically poking through our inventory and trying random commands without suffering any harm at all.

But it seems that the game might want us to exit the pyramid with our ill-gotten, um, rug, so we do... and apparently, thats all thats needed here.  We could have left at any time, so why we have to restore the mummys vision instead of just keeping the rubies and heading home remains a mystery.  But if we exit the pyramid without doing that, the game isnt over, while if we have given up our hard-won treasures to restore the fearsome mummy to death-dealing life, then YOU WIN -- without so much as a celebratory exclamation point.




Curse of the Pharaoh is a primitive adventure even by 1982 standards, though the attempt to simplify the interface is interesting and could have allowed the design to work on non-computer platforms if the author had been so inclined.  But aside from some parser struggles, I didnt have any trouble finishing it in about an hour, including taking notes, and theres no real drama in the storyline, even when the parser pretends there is.  Im glad Mr. Kirsch stuck to traditional text adventures for most of his output, as the limitations imposed by adding graphics to a BASIC language program make the Curse of the Pharaoh considerably less curseworthy than it might have been.

King’s Quest was not the first adventure game I played, or even an early favorite, but it shaped how I viewed adventure gaming. I was thirteen when I first played it, one of a handful that my girlfriend introduced me to on her Tandy when I would come visit. We played the first three together. I loved the whimsy of the series, the haphazard way that the they blended familiar stories, and the joy of exploration. As I got older, I continued to view Kings Quest as something of a bellwether for adventure gaming trends. I was awed by the sound and “multimedia” experience in King’s Quest 5, then by the challenge and depth of King’s Quest 6, and finally by the simplicity and cartoon-like experience of King’s Quest 7. Each game brought something new to the formula. I regret that I never played #8 —it came out while I was in college and what little I had heard about it was less than good— but perhaps I will look it up when the blog eventually gets that far.

It was a surprise to me, and it may also be a surprise to some of you, that Wizard and the Princess, “Hi-Res Adventure #2”, is actually a King’s Quest game —or rather, takes places in the same universe as the later games. Thus, two out of two games in the “Hi-Res Adventure” series inspired later Roberta Williams games! I look forward to finding out whether that trend continues with the subsequent games. I have not played this game before, both because the PC version is quite rare and because it is a bit before my time. I did have a large number of Commodore 64 games of uncertain origin that were provided by my parents, but this was not one of them. Either way, I look forward to playing it now!

Title screen from 1986 re-release. This is the version that I played for this review. It may not be possible to have a more boring title screen.

But first, a little history: Earlier in 1980, Ken and Roberta Williams published the first game by their fledging software company, Mystery House. They had intended On-Line Systems, as it was then-known, to be a business software company, but they saw the way the wind was blowing and shifted to games instead. Mystery House was the first graphical adventure, in a time when text adventures were just hitting their stride. It was primitive, ugly, and short, but it was also successful, selling enough copies to convince the pair to keep going. Wizard and the Princess was their second attempt and was marketed as “Hi-Res Adventure #2”.

Why did Ken and Roberta call their series “Hi-Res Adventures”? The answer seems to be two-fold. The first part of the answer comes from Apple itself: they called their 280 x 192 pixel graphics mode “Hi-Res” to distinguish it from their pong-level 40 x 40 low-resolution graphics. This was a nearly 34x increase! It seems laughable now, but that must have been a big deal at the time. The second part of the answers comes from their competition: Scott Adams was marketing his “Adventure International” games as “Adventure #1”, “Adventure #2”, and so on. Whether this was a common way to market games or simply Ken and Roberta not being above a bit of consumer confusion, I cannot say, but it must have seemed like a good idea at the time. This nomenclature was kept for a further five games in the series before being retired in 1984. Scott Adams would later rebill his games as “S.A.G.A. #1” and so on during his graphical refresh in 1982. More on that later, if I get to cover some of his games for this blog.

Watch out! This WizArd is in camel case! Doesn’t this cover just scream “romance novel” to you?

Although I have not played the game yet, I know that Wizard and the Princess makes some technical innovations over its predecessor. First and most obviously: this game is in colour! In fact, Ken and Roberta moved straight past blocks of color and into dithering to provide a wider variety of colors than the Apple ][ was technically able to display. My emulator tends to show this as tight individual pixels, but I have heard that on the original systems, the pixels blended to provide a better color experience. They also added support for up to 15 save slots on a second dedicated save-game disk. Beyond that, I will find out as I play.

I know this game takes place in Serenia —the same setting as King’s Quest 5— but otherwise I am a bit rusty on connections with other King’s Quest games. It has been many years since I played any of the early KQ games and I encourage you to comment on any connections you see between this and the later games. Obviously, there is a downside to not being Trickster and having all of these games in my own recent memory.

No one could possibly buy this game twice by accident, could they?

Before I get into playing, this game has one more curious bit of history. In 1982, IBM and On-Line Systems released a version of Wizard and the Princess for the PC. Although the game appears to be the same (at least through the first several screens), it was retitled as Adventure in Serenia. Why? I am not sure, but several sources suggest that Roberta Williams was unhappy with the port. While it is usually the practice of this blog to play the PC versions when available, I have decided to play the Apple version to ensure a more authentic play experience. I want to be fair to the game, especially if the PC version is a lower quality.

IBM PC version (above) and Apple ][ version (below).

Reading through the manual, the plot of the game seems simple enough: you are a “happy wanderer” just passing through Serenia when you hear a tragic tale. The king’s daughter, Princess Priscilla, has been kidnapped by the evil wizard Harlin and taken to his castle, far to the north. Being the completely clueless wanderer you are, you head off in that direction before buying any supplies. Time to play!
Happy Wanderer Travelogue #1: Man, I hate magic. I bought a copy of “Daventry on Five Gold Coins Per Day” from a quaint little shop in Llewdor and the gnome proprietor offered to throw in some “magic transportation” to speed up my journey. I said sure! Big mistake. Next thing I know, all my money is gone and I’m in Serenia of all places with a nasty headache. Serenia! The only thing Serenia is famous for is how much sand they put in the sandwiches. I tossed the book aside just as a crowd was gathering on the other end of the square. A royal crier was spreading the new: Princess Priscilla was kidnapped by an evil Wizard. My ears perked up when I heard that the reward would be half of the kingdom! Maybe the gnome did me a favor after all. I packed up what was left of my traveling supplies and marched off to the northern desert. Princess, here I come!

Argh, a snake!

And we’re off! I start the game in the “Village of Serenia”, and it takes me only 30 seconds to become disappointed. None of the town is explorable, there are no people or shops, and the buildings are just for show. It’s a complete facade of a town and just a lazy and disappointing way to start the game. Oh well! I know from the manual that the evil wizard is off to the north, so let’s start off in that direction first.

Just to the north of town, a snake is guarding the path. Despite the miles of desert in all directions, there seems to be no way to walk around the snake and the only way further north is through it. I check my inventory: water, knife, bread, and blanket. I try to use the knife, but it is not big enough to kill the snake, but even that failure gives me a clue. How else can I kill the snake? Can I get a bigger knife? Not having the answer, I head east to see what else is around.

Twisty little maze of cacti all alike?

A few seconds later and I realize what I have walked into: a maze. This game drops you into the middle of a maze as the very first puzzle of the game. We have the snake and the town, but all of the surrounding screens are identical, in the style of a classic adventure game maze. Going west in one screen does not mean you can get back by going east, for example. The only way forward is careful mapping. Yes, I do know what to do-- this is not my first adventure game after all-- but mazes are not my favorite kind of puzzle. I restart the game to get a fixed reference and start to build my map using the four items that I started the game with. As I explore, I realize that there is a small help as not all of the screens are exactly identical. Several of them have rocks which, on further observation, have scorpions hiding behind them. I cannot pick them up without dying, but they add a bit of variance to the terrain and makes mapping it somewhat easier.

But damn. No sooner do I think that than the game throws me a curveball: some of the rooms are almost identical. In fact, I only realized that they weren’t when my maps were coming out wrong. The only way I realized was with careful screenshots, which 1980s players would not have had access to. Take a look at this:

Oh yeah. Just try to figure this out without screenshots. I dare you.

That just does not seem fair! Still, I work it out and my mapping is coming along well until I run out of items. I only started with four and so I can only map rooms with rocks and four more and the maze is clearly bigger than that. But by luck, I think I found what the end of the maze is supposed to be: one of the rocks does NOT have a scorpion behind it! In fact, I can pick it up and take it with me. Hooray! I have found a rock. From there, it takes a couple of tries to work out a path that gets me to the rock and back without dropping any items, but I succeed and am back at the starting town with one new rock in my possession. What a victory!

I head north again and “use” the rock on the snake, thumping it until dead. I pick the rock back up in case there are more snakes, but I suspect this is just the beginning. Once I get more items, I will have to go back to the maze and make sure I found everything. I do not trust this game not to hide an important object there. Already, it has proven itself to be somewhat annoying.

Thus far, I admit to being rather unimpressed. After an hour of looking at nearly identical screenshots and mapping, I have managed to solve one puzzle, and I’m not 100% sure that is the right way to do it. (Can you get by without killing the snake?) I am also not sold on starting the game in a maze. Still, there must be a lot of the game left and I am eager to see what Mrs. Williams is going to throw at me next. If there is another maze, I am not going to be pleased.

On the bright side, at least it looks like a scorpion...

Since this IS a first post for a game, do not forget that you can make wagers and vote on the final score for the game. I am also eager to hear of what King’s Quest connections you see, if any!

Session time: 1 hr
Total time: 1 hr

Time to pick up where we last left off playing through one of Sierras influential 3-D Animated Adventure series, with Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon, created once again by the original Two Guys From Andromeda, Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy and published by Sierra in 1989.  I played this one back in the day on the Atari ST, which was as far as I can see identical to the IBM PC version Im playing here; Sierras format was standardized so the same graphic and audio data and gameplay scripting could be used on all machines, with custom interpreters for each platform.

This was the first Space Quest game to use Sierras new SCI interpreter, which doubled the graphic resolution of the earlier AGI games to 320 x 200, though it remained limited to 16 colors at this time and still featured a text parser interface (later, controversially, replaced with a strictly point-and-click approach.)  The biggest advance was really in the audio department, with support for MIDI and specifically the Roland MT-32 sound module.  Most of Sierras first-round SCI games featured impressive MT-32 scores created by established composers, and this ones no exception -- the soundtrack is by Bob Siebenberg of the 1970s rock group Supertramp, and kicks the action off with a nice rock mix of the Space Quest theme.


When we last left our janitorial hero, Roger Wilco, he had settled in for a long sleep after escaping Sludge Vohaul in Space Quest II: Vohauls Revenge.  As The Pirates of Pestulon opens,
Rogers ship is scanned by a robot-piloted junk trawler and drawn in as scrap; his suspended animation interrupted, Roger awakes in the hold.

I always encourage interested readers to play these games before proceeding here, and even though its now more than two decades old, Space Quest III is still readily and inexpensively available for Windows PCs as part of the 2006 Space Quest Collection, in retail box form or via Steam.  As usual, I will be playing through the game and documenting its quirks, plotline and puzzles for historys sake, so there are certain to be...

***** SPACE SPOILERS AHEAD! *****  


This is still a parser-based game, though the text line is hidden until the player starts typing.  LOOK and EXAMINE JUNK dont reveal anything interesting, so we might as well explore the ship.  A rocket stage, fairly intact, lies to the east.


Theres a nice simulated-3D shadow effect here (cast on the wall) as Roger explores the tube.  The description doesnt really tell us much at a room level, but we can GET WIRE if we take the only decent piece of wire available toward the left side of the screen.  At the other end of the tunnel we find a large metal Battlebot head, reminiscent of a Transformer.  It has a broken window eye, and as this seems a good time to check inventory, we note that Roger is still carrying a Glowing Gem left over from Space Quest II.

And, of course, we can fall off a barely visible boundary toward the bottom edge of the screen, dying in the usual colorful Sierra manner.


We have to be careful with our keyboard or joystick-driven maneuvering to walk Roger close enough to CLIMB WINDOW and enter the Battlebots head.  Once were inside, we cant come back out -- the window somehow closes permanently, even though its broken.  I have a sneaking suspicion that were going to need to restore the game to an earlier point, but well explore while were here anyway.  Inside the Battlebots head we find a small ship and a large ship.  The small one is a pod, with "For a good time, dont call HAL!" written on it, a 2001 joke.  The large one is called the ALUMINUM MALLARD (a Star Wars joke) and has a small hatch on top.

Climbing into the Mallard presents a challenge.  It has a non-stick coating, apparently.  And trying to CLIMB SHIP in any place I tried yielded only Youre not in a good location for climbing that or You are unable to scale anything here.  So climbing isnt likely to work.  The small pod has a tiny meteoroid hole, but its too small to fit into, and we cant insert the wire or the gem into the hole or otherwise make use of it.

Restoring back to the first room, LOOK OBJECT reveals that the prominent object on the floor is a warp motivator, with a modular plug.  Its too heavy to pick up and carry, it seems.  But we can travel south from the starting location as well, to find a junked TIE Fighter, an Acme rocket a la Wile E. Coyote, and the Jupiter 2 (from Lost In Space.)  To the east is a junk conveyor tower -- Roger can walk onto the moving platforms and ride the conveyor to another belt moving horizontally.  We have to get him to STAND and JUMP to safety on a nearby railing before hes shredded by the system.  These kinds of animation-based timing puzzles were really not possible in the move-based text adventure days; while they are often annoying, especially when a plot point requires us to hide and wait for an extended period while some scripted event happens, they do up the drama level a bit and are used to good effect in the Space Quest games.  And its usually entertaining to see what happens to poor Roger when we fail, as long as we have a recent saved game to restore.


Safe for the moment, Roger can walk west into a computer room with a claw-bearing machine moving along the rail and a monitoring droid whose attention we need to avoid attracting.  We can RIDE MACHINE to take control of the grabber, and PUSH CLAW in various locations to grab interesting items from below.  We should be able to get the heavy warp motivator with this -- yes!  It takes a little time-consuming trial and error to pick it up and place it in the Aluminum Mallard. 

Getting off the machine is dangerous -- the monitoring droid tends to zap Roger with a laser if we dilly-dally for very long.  We can LEAVE MACHINE and jump down a chute that has a handy disembarcation platform, to reach another dumping room with alien rats -- they initially resemble wolves -- on watch.  There are some nice lighting effects here, as Rogers color palette shifts in certain shadowed areas.  We cant GET LAMP, even though there are lamps mentioned in the description, so theres another adventure game tradition gone out the window with these newfangled 3-D games that arent even actually 3-D.


Climbing the ladder on the right gets us back to the main area, and its upright stance makes it stick out like a sore thumb, suggesting correctly that the ladder can be taken by Roger.  Apparently theres a small reactor powering the lights, which we can find by noticing a wire running to a hole to the left, and examining the hole (or, as I did, by referencing a walkthrough after getting stuck.)  We can GET REACTOR, and after we CLIMB LADDER to escape, we can GET LADDER and take it along.  As we head back to the Battlebot to check in on the Mallard, though, a rat beats Roger up and takes the generator and wire.  And if weve already taken the ladder, we have to use the conveyor to go the long way around again.  After we reclaim the reactor and wire, the rats leave us alone without further negotiation or puzzle-solving -- so this little incident seems to be nothing more than time-wasting padding.

Now we can finally go back to the Aluminum Mallard, set the ladder at the side of the ship, and climb onto its roof, which is still dangerously slick.  With a few careful steps we can OPEN HATCH and enter the ship to find a red button, a diagnostic computer, a cockpit and a couple of passenger seats.  We can USE COMPUTER in the grand old text adventure tradition to learn that, of course, power is critically low, the reactor is not online, and theres insufficient power to even do a systems check.  We can INSERT REACTOR INTO COMPARTMENT and USE WIRE to compensate for a missing short cable.  Now USE COMPUTER establishes that everythings at NOMINAL level -- the reactor, the landing gear, and the warp motivator -- probably not ideal, but we may be able to get this bird off the ground. (Unless we entered the Battlebot without the reactor or the wire, and now have to restore and track those down before we get inside.)



We can ENTER COCKPIT to prepare for takeoff, if we can figure out how to work the cockpit computer -- the interface is fairly self-explanatory, but this may also take some trial and error.  Simply taking off causes an explosion as we hit the roof of the freighter, but our death throes provide a hint about using the ships radar.  With radar engaged, the ship hesitates before hitting the ceiling, and we can fire the ships weapon system to blow a hole in the junk trawlers hold. Unfortunately, as everything else gets sucked out into the vacuum of space, the Aluminum Mallard gets crushed as well.  We have to enable the ships rear shields before shooting, and then we get spit out like a watermelon seed, and were on our way!

But where are we going?  The ships navigation system can be used to scan and find the planet Ortega.  As Roger warps into light speed, a certain Schwarzenegger-esque robots ship materializes -- Roger is wanted for vending machine retail fraud, with orders to TERMINATE.  Justice is severe in the future.



The planet Ortega is VERY hot, we are warned.  If we insist on disembarking, Roger gets melted after taking a few steps, so we probably should not start here.  More scanning of the neighborhood reveals the existence of Planet Phleebhut, and the fast-food station Monolith Burger, a parody entity making its debut in the Space Quest series here.

Planet Phleebhut is windy -- and the Terminator-esque ship has also touched down.  The robot has a localized cloaking device, and only its footprints in the planetary dust give its movements away (another nice, animated touch that wouldnt have worked in a text-based game.)  To the south, travel is cut off by the territory of a giant snake that eats Roger whole.  To the west are some pulsating, roof-clinging pods that do very much the same, but in a more controlled fashion that will come in handy. To the east, a venomous scorpazoid menaces Roger but can be avoided with skillful keyboard maneuvering.  The planet map is fairly small -- we wrap back to the Mallard after four screens, and there isnt really that much to see and do here.


Most of the real activity on Phleebhut centers around a giant statue/robot to the north called Mog -- we could view the planet from its head, according to the sign, except it is closed for repairs at present.  We can still enter the elevator concealed in Mogs right foot and PUSH UP to ride up.  There is heavy machinery in Mogs internals; Roger can, of course, wander into the gears to be chewed up if we are careless or bored.


Further to the north, electrical storms zap Roger, providing another impenetrable navigation barrier.  But theres a World o Wonders gift shop tucked between Mogs feet, and we can observe a happy alien family exiting this obvious tourist trap.  The glass case out front contains a cute, cuddly Antarean slime devil; its not a good idea to OPEN CASE.  The gift shops proprietor, Fester Blatz, is a good-ol-alien, and hes actually one of the best-developed minor characters in the Space Quest series.  The gift shops  goods include Thermoweave underwear, useful for Ortega we might guess; an Orat-on-a-stick, which works like a reach extender; and an Astro Chicken flight hat based on the popular arcade game (in the Space Quest universe, anyway.)  He also offers entertaining postcards from Arrakis (Dune reference), Black Hole Bertha, Ortega (hinting about the underwear), a starless void, Achoron (a misspelled version of Acheron from the original Alien film) and RobertaLand -- perhaps poking fun at the EGA remake of Roberta Williams Kings Quest, then in the works: "Come join the fun at the funpark of the future! See characters from your favorite stories come to life again and again."  But Roger doesnt have any money at the moment, so well have to come back here.

Exiting the store, Roger runs into the Terminator robot.  But hes in a good mood, so he gives Roger a head start -- time enough to run to the cave to the west and get the robot disposed of by the ravenous pods.  We have to position Roger appropriately so that the robot walks through the cave, which means we should enter from the upper edge of the screen and hope that the robot enters from the right and makes a beeline for Roger through the danger zone.  After the robot is digested by the pods, his invisibility belt remains -- its directly under the pods, though, so we will probably need the Orat-on-a-stick to get hold of it safely.  We need to get some buckazoids.

The Orium (glowing gem) Roger has been carrying since Space Quest II turns out to be rather valuable on Phleebhut.  Fester is definitely interested in acquiring it:


Its not a bad idea to SAVE GAME before agreeing on a price here.  We can negotiate him up to 425, but if we try to go higher hell offer no more than 100 after that.  If we play our cards right, we can buy all three of the interesting gift shop items and still have 350 buckazoids left over.

Using the Orat toy to retrieve the belt takes some work, mostly because the animation only functions correctly in a very specific location -- I got a lot of Try approaching from a slightly different angle messages, or got Roger chewed up by the ceiling-dwelling pod creatures.  It works most reliably if we do it from the same position we took to trap the Terminator robot.

Is there anything left to do here?  Mogs workings seem only to be for getting Roger killed, although theres an alternate solution to the Terminator puzzle involving the upper levels gears.  And it seems weve solved all the available puzzles, so its time to go to Ortega.  With the ThermoWeave underwear, Roger can explore the surface and discover a couple of ScumSoft employees surveying the planet.  They have a small scout ship and are heavily armed, but they seem to be wrapping up and will leave shortly if we are patient.  The invisibility belt doesnt seem to help here; its charge is low.


We can see a broadcasting satellite antenna on a nearby planet, viewing it through the ScumSoft teams telescope. We can also take a thermal detonator from a crate, but walking over the unstable lava surface with it tends to be fatal.  And we cant seem to drop the detonator at all.  So we may be stuck.

So, lets restore and visit Monolith Burger first.  The place features a diverse lot of alien customers, including a Hutt-like creature and other assorted life forms.  One clerk (employee of the week) is available to help us.  READ MENU gives us a selection of items to choose from, though we have no choice (Yes/Yes) about buying Space Fries and Blattfruit Pie.

 

No matter what we buy, we end up with a generic Bag of Fast Food in inventory.  We can also play the restaurants Astro Chicken coin-op; its a Lunar Lander-type game, but faster paced, and if we land the chicken safely (more than five times, I think) the machine displays a coded message.  We have to EAT FOOD (Roger somehow survives this) to get a decoder ring we can use to read the message.  (Its amazing how easy it is to read the code once one gets rolling.)  The message indicates that the Two Guys From Andromeda are now Two Guys In Trouble, held captive by the ScumSoft Pirates on a small moon of the planet Pestulon.  The planet is surrounded by a force field, of unknown origin to the Guys (but we have been to Ortega so we know whats going on here) and ScumSoft security is armed with jello pistols.  Theyre counting on us, as high-scorers a la The Last Starfighter, whoever we are.

Knowing the ScumSoft team is only using jello guns, we can just charge in and... get Roger suffocated in an impenetrable block of non-Jell-O(TM) brand gelatin.  So perhaps we should use the invisibility belt?  If so, we need to charge it somehow.  I tried to take advantage of the lightning on Phleebhut, to no avail, but did note on this return visit that we can see Mog in action from a distance.  I happened to come in from the side earlier and never saw his head looming over the horizon from the south.


I was getting stumped a bit, so it was once again time to check my progress with a walkthrough.  I discovered that theres no way to charge the belt, on Phleebhut or anywhere else -- this was a self-imposed red herring, we just need to wait for the ScumSoft team to leave.  So its back to Ortega, then -- we can take the detonator, and the pole holding the anemometer to vault across the chasm and avoid the unstable rocks.  (I did note that if Roger knows what hes looking at because weve seen the Astro Chicken note from the Two Guys, we now get different, better-informed text when looking at the satellite beam through the telescope.)  We can only VAULT CHASM in the one spot -- but when I tried, the parser kept yielding Why not just walk across?  Ah -- per the walkthrough, we need to modify the chasm first, by blowing up the force field generator.

We can enter the domed complex and climb a ladder (seeing a small-scale Roger in a more panoramic view of the complex) to get to the rim.  Here, finally, we can DROP DETONATOR.  Climbing back down is tricky -- it seems nearly impossible to keep Roger on the ladder.  As it turns out, we have to CLIMB DOWN, not CLIMB LADDER; even in the animated adventure era, parsers can be temperamental.  Now we can VAULT CHASM, navigate back to the Aluminum Mallard and go on to Pestulon, as the exciting conclusion approaches.

The entrance to ScumSoft is protected by two guards, and there are not many places we can go here -- we can only stay, return to the ship, or try to enter ScumSoft.  So this seems to be where the invisibility belt comes into play.  We can use it just long enough to sneak past the guards and get inside.




Theres some nicely-handled pseudo-3D animation used here, as Roger walks the circular halls of ScumSoft, though it can be tricky to get Roger to stop walking at just the right point to access any of the doors -- its an unintentional arcade action challenge much of the time.  Entering the accounting department is fatal, as Roger is spotted as an intruder and ends up once again encased in jello.  Another interesting door requires a keycard and a facial scan.  Roger can find a janitors closet by typing LOOK after going into one of the indistinguishable doorways; we can then SEARCH CLOSET to find some coveralls, and a Mr. Garbage vaporizer.  And we leave all of our old inventory behind in the process, so the endgame must be near.

Entering accounting again, we are still spotted as "an intruder in accounting disguised as a janitor" -- dang it!  We have to maneuver quickly before we are noticed, and USE VAPORIZER on any wastebaskets we happen to pass; verisimilitude is the key here.  Theres a color copy machine in the office area, which we can use to make a copy of the life-size picture of ScumSoft president Elmo Pug posted on the nearby cubicle wall before replacing it.  Now we just need Pugs keycard.

Roger can walk past Pugs office to look out into the vehicle bay, where he sees his ship surrounded by ScumSoft fighters; this will have to wait, however.  Elmo Pug has left his office now, so Roger can snag his ID.  (I also note that one of the guards cracking the whip on the hapless ScumSoft employees appears to be Ken Williams.)

Behind the keycard-protected door, we find the jello-encased Two Guys from Andromeda, on a central platform accessible only by retractable bridges.  I failed to USE KEYPAD or EXTEND BRIDGE, but PUSH BUTTON works.  Of course, after we free them from their gelatinous prison using the vaporizer, the bridges retract and none of us can get out of here.  We cant JUMP to safety as the guards arrive, and then Elmo Pug himself shows up, with an army of ScumSoft lackeys backing him up.



Roger is escorted to an arena, while the Two Guys are separated from their would-be rescuer.  So we are not quite done yet.  Nukem Dukem Robots is the name of the game (based on the classic Rockem Sockem Robots toy, as Duke Nukem was still years away), and is a fighting game with clunky keyboard controls.  Its not hard to beat Pugs mech -- we just have to punch a lot, blocking is almost optional.  Well, at least it didnt seem hard the first time I tried -- after an initial success and a failure to save game later, I had a tough time doing it when I had to restore and replay this section!  Timing and positioning seem to have a lot to do with it -- it burns energy to punch, so we have to be diligent about blocking and finding the right opportunities to strike; but it does generally seem to work better if we are more aggressive.  With Pug down, Roger and the Guys escape in the Mallard, but we are still short 110 points (in my playthrough).  We have to use the ships weapon system to fire on the chase ships and make good our escape.



After eluding the ScumSoft ships, the grateful Two Guys from Andromeda (I think their appearance here counts as more than a cameo) offer to fix the ships disabled light-speed system, and were off to Monolith Burger.  Except we didnt get the course laid in first, so we are sucked into a black hole.  Theres no way to avoid this, its part of the plot, and we find the Mallard parking at a distinctive office building in the Coarsegold, CA area.



On the other side of the black hole, the Guys meet Ken Williams (Sierra did a lot of self-referential humor) and get hired as game designers; Sierra doesnt need a janitor, but Roger is satisfied with his mission accomplished.  Theres no explicit sequel setup at the end of this one, which is unusual for the series, but there would be several more games to come after Roger takes off for parts unspecified.

Theres a nice medley of Siebenbergs musical themes that runs during the end credits, most of which are real, some of which are just an opportunity to squeeze in a few more gags.



At the end of my run through Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon, I was still short 10 points -- I had 728 of 738 possible -- so what did I miss?  Research indicates that we can search the Aluminum Mallards pilot seat for a few extra buckazoids; I did not do that, but earned enough trading in the orium so that it was not an issue.  I thank the detailed documentation at the excellent Roger Wilcos Virtual Broomcloset site for solving this mystery!

The Space Quest games are always fun -- the games sense of humor and plentiful pop sci-fi references keep the action light and lively, and they have a better sense of pacing than some of Sierras contemporary efforts.  Ill be tackling Space Quest IV in due course.