I don’t usually write news articles, but I wanted to comment on the SpaceVenture news I heard recently.
As a big fan of the 1980s Space Quest adventure games, I was so excited when I heard about SpaceVenture, the new project from Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy. I was too late for the Kickstarter campaign, but once I was aware of it I followed development avidly. As avidly as was possible, given there were limited updates along the way. Announced in 2012 and originally set for release in 2013, various obstacles (some of a very personal nature) stalled development. It was ten years before anything emerged and backers finally got their Windows version – a buggy one at that – and nothing has been released to the general public as yet.
I’m still harbouring some excitement from that original announcement, but I’m wary. The ideas and vision in the original campaign set such exciting expectations that I wouldn’t want that marred by an unfinished, buggy game. And I can’t help feeling like I’m waiting for something that might not ever materialise; they’ve satisfied their backer pledges, so there’s really no big need to get the game out to the public and risk a barrage of negative reviews. But it seems a shame for those ten years (on and off) of development, fan support and anticipation to be thrown to the wayside. If all that’s needed is some stringent testing and polishing that’s not much of an offset against the work done on it so far. I mean, a game was released, albeit a rickety one.
Is Ken Williams getting involved?
In a recent post (6 March) on the Colossal Cave 3D site, Williams addresses rumours that he and Roberta are in talks with the SpaceVenture team:
Roberta’s and my new company, Cygnus, has experience building games for lots of platforms, and in lots of languages, and can help get SpaceVenture more widely distributed. Space Quest was always one of my favorite games at Sierra and I’d love to find a way to help them bring the game to more people.
That said, Roberta and I were happily retired prior to building this game and are not sure we want to do more.
It’s understandable that post Colossal Cave they would want to kick back for a bit. But it’s interesting that Williams has made these comments, and publicly. And who knows, maybe this is the push that SpaceVenture needs to reach its wider, and hopefully still quite receptive, audience. I think part of the problem with the campaign is that there wasn’t a huge amount of PR. Lots of Sierra/Space Quest fans are wholly unaware of SpaceVenture, and those that are have been jaded by a ten-year delay accompanied by drip-fed updates and culminating in a half-finished product. But perhaps this potential support from Cygnus would be enough to rigorously patch those bugs, refine the whole experience and meet the vision Crowe and Murphy set out to achieve in 2012.
SpaceVenture Kickstarter campaign
Musings of a nitpicking girl 