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Space Quest
Developer(s)	Sierra, Dynamix
Publisher(s)	Sierra
Designer(s)	Scott Murphy, Mark Crowe
Years active	October, 1986–1995
Genre(s)	Adventure
System(s)	MS-DOS, Macintosh, Apple IIGS, Amiga, Atari ST, Windows, NEC PC-9801
Mode(s)	Single player

Space Quest is a series of six science fiction computer games that follow the adventures of a hapless janitor named Roger Wilco, as he campaigns through the galaxy for "truth, justice and really clean floors".

Initially created for Sierra On-Line by Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy (who called themselves the "Two Guys from Andromeda"), the games parody both science fiction properties such as Star Wars and Star Trek, as well as pop-culture phenomena from McDonald's to Microsoft. The series features a silly sense of humor heavily reliant on puns and wacky storylines. Roger Wilco, a perpetual loser, is often depicted as the underdog who repeatedly saves the universe (often by accident) - only to be either ignored or punished for violating minor regulations in the process.

Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe, who had already worked together on the Sierra game The Black Cauldron, wanted to create a funny science fiction adventure game. They also wanted it to star a janitor (a choice possibly inspired by the mop-wielding main character from Infocom's humorous sci-fi text adventure Planetfall).

Although skeptical, Ken Williams gave the idea a shot. Scott and Mark created a short demo, which ended up becoming the first four rooms of Space Quest, at which point Ken gave the project a green-light.

Both Space Quests I and II were developed in Sierra´s own programming language called (Adventure Game Interpreter). Space Quest III was written in SCI (Sierra Creative Interpreter), which had 3-D capabilities. Space Quest IV marks an evolution in terms of graphics (for that time) by increasing the number of colors from 16 to 256 colors.

Games

• Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter (1986)
  • Space Quest I: Roger Wilco in the Sarien Encounter (1991 remake)
• Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge (1987)
• Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon (1989)
• Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers (1991)
• Space Quest V: The Next Mutation (1993)
• Space Quest VI: Roger Wilco in The Spinal Frontier (1995)