Space Quest series naming convention

General chat related to ScummVM, adventure gaming, and so on.

Moderator: ScummVM Team

Post Reply
Wesker
Posts: 36
Joined: Fri Apr 10, 2009 3:03 am

Space Quest series naming convention

Post by Wesker »

Maybe this is a little nitpicky, but I like paying attention to these details so I feel like bringing this up.

The Space Quest series had two distinctive naming conventions going on during their time. First were the "Space Quest: something" games and then the "Space Quest: Roger Wilco something" games. The latter one was introduced when the parser interface was abandoned with Space Quest IV, which is correctly referenced in ScummVM as "Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers".

However, the subsequent "Space Quest: Roger Wilco something" games aren't referenced in ScummVM as such, despite those being their official names both in the outern box, the title screen and the status screen.

The SCI remake of Space Quest I should be "Space Quest I: Roger Wilco in the Sarien Encounter" but it's shortened to just "Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter" like the original AGI version, and only a SCI reference is introduced to point out it's the remake version. Doing this would also help to disambiguate it even further with the original.

Image

Image

Image

Space Quest V should be "Space Quest V: Roger Wilco - The Next Mutation" but it's shortened to just "Space Quest V: The Next Mutation". It's true that the in-game status line references it as "Space Quest 5: The Next Mutation", but if you go to the roman numeral title, then it should be the "Roger Wilco something" like it can be seen in both the outern box and the title screen.

Image

Image

Image

And Space Quest 6 should be "Space Quest 6: Roger Wilco in the Spinal Frontier". In this game, like in the SCI remake of the first one, all references in the outern box, the title screen and also the in-game status screen this time are this way.

Image

Image

Image

(I use the Spanish versions of the games for the screenshots so that's why some instances are translated or half-translated)

So, could these be corrected in subsequent ScummVM versions? I don't think it's something very complicated to do.
lwbqnt
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2016 1:35 am

Post by lwbqnt »

I don't have any opinion on the request, but Sierra was probably trying to
reduce their reliance on the Space Quest trademark, after it turned out they
had to license permission to use it from another party.
GateKeeper
Posts: 37
Joined: Thu Dec 14, 2017 10:40 am

Post by GateKeeper »

I don't think they had any real guidelines for naming them.

Even those screenshots show how they use different naming conventions for the same game, like "Space Quest V" and "Space Quest 5".

The same goes for "Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter". Adding the number to the title makes sense as it separates the remake from the original one, but if you look at those screenshots from the title sequence, they not only replace I with 1 (or "one", take your pick...), but also add the word "chapter" in there. So the full title would be "Space Quest Chapter One: Roger Wilco in The Sarien Encounter"?

I think unless someone finds some internal Sierra documentation, we can only guess what's the REAL name for each game is...
User avatar
MusicallyInspired
Posts: 1136
Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2007 8:03 am
Location: Manitoba, Canada
Contact:

Post by MusicallyInspired »

GateKeeper wrote:The same goes for "Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter". Adding the number to the title makes sense as it separates the remake from the original one,...
The original was also called Chapter One right on the box (right back to the original black box release).
Post Reply