It's hard to describe what it was like launching the Virtual Broomcloset back in 1995. I was just starting college, and I had never even seen the internet until my freshman orientation leader took us on a tour of the campus computer lab. After a few minutes of surfing the web, I was hopelessly hooked. More importantly, I knew I wanted to contribute something to this new online world. I'd grown up a diehard fan of Sierra On-Line's adventure games and dreamed of creating my own someday. The snarky sci-fi humor of the Space Quest series had always held a special appeal, so I thought, why not make my own Space Quest site?

So, like any normal 18-year-old kid with all the free time in the world, I went to B. Dalton, bought a copy of HTML for Dummies, and started learning how to build a website. Over the next few months, I poured countless hours into writing walkthroughs, penning fan fiction, transcribing old interviews, learning how to use a pirated copy of PaintShop Pro, and failing General Chemistry. Looking back, the whole thing was a little manic, but it was exciting. I was channeling all my creative energy into a project I was deeply passionate about, and I couldn't wait to share it with the world.

When the Virtual Broomcloset finally launched on November 29, 1995, it was one of the earliest video game fan sites on the web. I'm almost certain it was the first adventure game fan site. At the time, there wasn't really a roadmap for what a fan site should be. I just kept creating the kind of content I wanted to see and hoped it would appeal to anyone who might stumble across the site.

Before long, visitors started to arrive - in numbers I never could have anticipated. My inbox was overflowing with messages from fellow fans, many of whom reached out to share their love of the series (and many more of whom needed hints for the Datacorder puzzle from Space Quest 6). Among the former category was a kid from Denmark who seemed just as obsessed with Roger Wilco's adventures as I was. We began snail-mailing 3.5" floppies filled with new material for the site back and forth across the Atlantic. That kid was Troels "The Space Quest Historian" Pleimert. Before long, he had his own site, and the Wilco World Wide Web was born.

It's probably hard to imagine from here in the far-flung future of 2025 , but there was a time in the mid-1990s when there were a couple dozen active Space Quest fan sites, mostly scattered across GeoCities and connected by webrings, constantly updating with new content. As the community grew and began to gather at the Subspace Channel, the Virtual Broomcloset's message forum, I began to build friendships with many of these kindred spirits. I'm still friends with several of them today, though I've lost touch with many more. I'd be lying if I said that part of my motivation for updating the site after all these years wasn't the hope that some of those folks might reach out and say hey.

To my surprise - and absolute delight - the Broomcloset also gave me a chance to get to know the creators of the Space Quest series. Space Quest 6 co-designer Josh Mandel was the first to reach out, just a few months after the site launched. Before long, I was getting emails from the Two Guys from Andromeda themselves, Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy. As a kid who grew up idolizing Sierra's stable of game developers, this was a dream come true. I even exchanged emails with Sierra co-founder Ken Williams! For what it's worth, everyone I met at Sierra was absolutely lovely and so generous with their time, granting me interviews and answering all my fanboy questions. Those personal connections with the people behind the games I loved really softened the blow when Sierra threatened to sue me a couple of times over copyright and trademark issues.

Eventually, though, I drifted away from updating the Virtual Broomcloset. The cancellation of Space Quest 7 and the later death and dismemberment of Sierra really hit the community hard. Things were never quite the same after that. I went on to grad school, got married, started my career, and had a kid. I never stopped caring about Space Quest, but I didn't feel like I had anything left to say about it. So, the Broomcloset began to gather dust. I never really thought of it as abandoned; the site was just napping in a janitorial supply closet until someone sounded the alarm klaxon.

What am I up to these days? Ironically enough, I'm more immersed in the retro gaming community than ever before. I stream old adventure games every Wednesday night on my Twitch channel. All my old streams are archived on YouTube, including a bunch of Space Quest playthroughs. Together with my pal Ben Vigeant, I co-host Quest Quest: The Adventure Game Podcast, a weekly deep dive in the adventure gaming genre. I'm also a professor now, and I've somehow finagled my way into teaching college courses about video games. Heck, I even conned a journal into publishing an article about why Passionate Patti was a historically important video game character!

I've also had the chance to fulfill a childhood dream and create my own adventure games. Check out Stair Quest, my critically reviewed homage to the treacherous staircases of King's Quest and other early Sierra adventures. I also designed the Pledge Quest games to support the Two Guys' SpaceVenture Kickstarter, as well as Late Last Nite, my take on a drunken point-and-click fairy tale. My collaborators on those games? Old friends I met through the Virtual Broomcloset decades ago.

It's been 30 years since I launched this site and nearly 40 years since I first played Space Quest I, and I'm still talking every day with people who love adventure games. Every now and then, I'm even able to introduce someone new to the genre. Meanwhile, I'm still learning more about these games that, in many ways, defined my childhood. And every so often, I get to serve up a TIL moment by revealing that the Keronian settlement of Ulence Flats has been one big fart joke all along.

So, what can you expect from this update? A lot of it is basic custodial stuff: tweaking the design to look better on modern displays, clearing out all the dead links, and reorganizing the archives. But there's also new content all across the site! Be sure to check out the new Publications section for downloadable copies of everything from Space Quest strategy guides to magazine reviews to print advertisements. I've also added a new Fan Games section to spotlight the amazing work fellow Space Quest fans have done to keep the series alive.

Thanks to everyone who has visited the Virtual Broomcloset over the decades. It's been a uniquely nostalgic experience stepping back into the mindset of the kid who launched this website so many years ago, and I consider myself very lucky to have the opportunity to share my work with you. Here's to another 30 years... or until the server crashes into a black hole, whichever comes first.

Best wishes!
Jess "decafjedi" Morrissette

Comments, questions, suggestions... decafjedi@gmail.com