Decaffeinated Jedi: Obviously, you're a devoted fan of the Space Quest games. Tell us a little about your personal Space Quest experience. When did you first come into contact with the series? What's your favorite Space Quest game?

    Jeff Stewart: I got Space Quest 2 for Christmas, along with a lightning fast Tandy 1000HX, and I was hooked. I enjoyed SQ1 the most, though.

    Jess: What made you decide that you wanted to design your own Space Quest game?

    Jeff: I was tired of waiting for a professional Space Quest revival. I had a bit of free time, a bit of knowledge in most basic game development disciplines, and a desire to create. Of the genres, adventure games seem to be the easiest to make, and I was just hoping to learn something along the way.

    Jeff: More recent mainstream movies like the Matrix and Star Wars were an inspiration, as well as cult hits like Heavy Metal. I pulled ideas from anything I thought I could steal from successfully.

    Jeff: The conception phase took about 2-3 weeks. Some of my designs proved to be either too elaborate (I'm lazy) or too obscure. The rest of the project kind of just flowed on from there. It took around 3 months of late evenings (when I felt like working on it).

    Jeff: I planned to have a Mario Brothers clone you could play at Monolith called "Pinkun Brothers," and Galaga-style sequence later with Roger being chased by police. These wouldn't have been too difficult to implement, but I started getting too busy at work, and wanted to finish the project before I ran out of "inspiration."

    Jeff: It's the only way to play, baby. I like the parser. It forces you to think creatively, rather than being a click-spaz. The low resolutions and simple game mechanics also meant implementation time would be tremendously reduced.

    Jeff: No. I've worked in game development for a few years now, and have a hard drive full of experimental personal ideas, but I regard it as the first "full sized" game I've produced from start to finish.

    Jeff: Call me crazy, but there seems to be a fuzzy link between making a game, and marketing a game. I tend to spend a lot of creative energy explaining an idea to people, and I think it takes that energy away from the game. The same relationship can be seen in companies that spend a lot on marketing versus those that make a good game and don't need to spend a lot of money to convince you to buy it. I think having that little "secret" to myself helped take off some of the pressure of people wanting it released, too.

    Jess: Of all the puzzles in SQ0, which one are you most proud of? Is there anything in the game that you wish you had done differently?

    Jeff: I liked the idea behind the guard ambush in the spaceport, and the light saber fight. I tried to implement more than a few different kinds of games/puzzles, something I think a good adventure game should be able to do.

    I would like to have teams of talent at my fingertips, implementing my every desire, yes. On the contrary, if you want something done right. I'm not completely satisfied with the details, but I'm proud of the game as a whole.

    Jeff: I think its safe to say that I did go to great lengths to do this, even changing the fiction in areas, to avoid the "saving and loading game." This is difficult thing to do most times for me. Hopefully the few fairly simplistic situations in this game have helped me get better at it.

    Jeff: Never. I considered this project to be a sort of "present" for fellow AGI developers, Space Quest fans, and the like, as well as a personal exercise. This was very surprising, and humbling. My buddies at work got a kick out of it, too.

    Jeff: I'm always experimenting with something, playable or not. I've personally exhausted this concept for now, but I can't say it's dead to me. I've got other things in the works, none of which are really similar, but who knows?

    Jeff: Adventure gaming is one of the simplest forms of pc gaming (excluding shooting galleries). For me, personally, these genres rotate like fashions. I like all types of games. I certainly hope that in some form, adventure games live on, if only as an integrated concept within a more complex game design. In many ways, adventure gaming never left, it only got merged into other genres.

    I personally play many more fan games than published games in a given month. Implementation is often crude in fan games, but there is an abundance of creative freedom.

    Jeff: Sleep is your friend. Put down the snacks.

    Jeff: I want to thank everyone for playing. I'd like to give a shout-out to Nick Sonneveld for helping me playtest, Jess and Dee for hosting this thing, and big kiss to my wife for being so understanding. Oh, and don't quit playing! It gets better, I promise!

Comments, questions, suggestions... jess@wiw.org