As the story goes, it was when Mark's father was laid off from his mining job that the fickle finger of fate finally chose to point at the Two Guys. Mark and his family were forced to move so his father could find employment. This move turned out to be a move to Scott's home planet. As a matter of fact, the two families were neighbors. At the time, Scott and Mark were both about thirteen years old. They quickly became the best of friends, astroball teammates, (green) blood brothers--the works! More importantly, though, they also discovered a shared interest in computer gaming.
At this time, computer games were a little...sad, to say the least. This, however, didn't deter Mark and Scott. They would sit in front of a monitor, giving themselves carpal tunnel syndrome and 30/40 vision, for hours on end. They amused themselves with early games like Schlong and Puke-Man. Soon, the bouncing balls of Schlong and the "wakka-wakka" of Puke-Man could no longer excite the two. That's when they saw the advertisement that changed their lives forever.
As Mark and Scott were flipping through an issue of Space Piston Magazine, they saw an ad for Scumsoft, Inc.--a cutting-edge software design firm. The advertisement was for young prospective programmers to be trained in game design. Having learned quite a bit about programming from writing batch files to free up memory for their games, Scott and Mark jumped on the chance, sending in their applications. Lo and behold, the two were accepted into the fold at Scumsoft!
Things, however, were not as pleasant as one might assume them to be at Scumsoft. The place was a sweathouse! Elmo Pug, the CEO of Scumsoft, worked his employees endless hours in small cubicles, "motivated" by whips! Scott and Mark had made a huge mistake, but there was no turning back. They tried to concentrate on their work instead. In a week's time, they had turned out their first arcade game--Astrochicken. Scott and Mark decided that they needed a name for their programming team. Since Roberta Williams was already taken, they chose...The Two Guys from Andromeda.
Astrochicken was a hit! It was translated to the Artery 3600
and sold millions of copies galaxy-wide. The Two Guys also used a
coded message in Astrochicken as a secret means to make a pitiful
plea for help to free them from their slavery. Just as they were
putting together a sequel to Astrochicken--Miss Astrochicken--this
pitiful cry was head by the equally-pitiful space janitor, Roger Wilco.
Unfortunately, the distress message was also discovered by the folks at
Scumsoft by this time, who imprisioned the Two Guys in blocks of lime jello
to keep them out of trouble. Wilco managed to infiltrate Scumsoft's
Pestulon base and free the Two Guys from their jiggly circumstances.
As usual, however, Wilco botched the escape attempt, sending himself, Mark,
and Scott plummeting into a black hole! Was this the end of the Two
Guys?
Of course not! The black hole led to that scum ball of the universe, Earth!
Here, Roger landed his ship to find himself in the mountains of a place
called California, at a place called Sierra On-Line. The owner of
this business, Ken Williams, greeted the Guys warmly. It just so
happened that he was in the software business and he offered the Two Guys
a job. They gladly accepted and began work on what were to become
their greatest games.
On the way to Earth, Roger had bored the Two Guys with stories about his saving the universe from the Sariens and someone named Sludge Vohaul and his hordes of genetically engineered insurance salesmen. When they got ready to design their first game for Sierra, they decided to turn these stories into adventure games. With the right amount of...embellishment, they could actually be decent tales. Thus, the Space Quest series was born and the Two Guys from Andromeda became the golden boys of the software design business. Space Quest 1 spawned three more sequels, each even more wildly popular than the last. The Two Guys made it through four Space Quest episodes before the troubles began.
When it came time to start production on Space Quest V, Scott Murphy
left the duo for unknown reasons. It is speculated that he finally
found out Mark's dark secret, as would the rest of the world before long.
It was soon thereafter revealed that Mark Crowe was not actually an Andromedan
at all. In truth, he was... human! This scandal rocked the
software industry. For years, Mark had been living a lie. As
he admitted, "I am not an alien... I am a HUMAN BEING!! I just wanted
to make everyone happy." Needless to say, millions were shocked.
The media dubbed the Crowe the "One Phony from Andromeda." Was there
any future for Mark or the Space Quest series?
Luckily, Sierra was an equal opportunity employer and allowed Mark to stay on long enough to finish Space Quest V. For Space Quest VI, Sierra contracted the ever-popular Josh Mandel, a former "Two Guys Assistant" from SQ4 to handle to design chores, making him the unofficial Third Guy from Andromeda (kinda like the fifth Beatle). This was not fated to be, however. Due to some conflict (something about Chris Williams actually having a monthly column in InterAction Magazine), Josh chose to leave the project as it neared completion. Fortunately, Sierra managed to convince Scott Murphy into handling the last-minute design and writing chores. Things were finally back on track!
Scott finished SQ6, which was met with rave reviews from the software industry. He has now began work on Space Quest VII with Gal from Andromeda, Leslie Balfour. What's next for the Space Quest series? What the future holds for the "One Phony from Andromeda?" Will the Guys ever collaborate again? Is Murphy also a pithy human? Did Josh Mandel really visit the Virtual Broomcloset? Only time will tell...
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