Proto:Space Quest 6: Roger Wilco in the Spinal Frontier

This page details one or more prototype versions of Space Quest 6: Roger Wilco in the Spinal Frontier.

This page is rather stubbly and could use some expansion. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue this article?

Around the game's release, a playable demo was also put on the media of other games of the time such as Phantasmagoria. Many times it will be fully voiced, however a non-talkie version is available.

Designed by Josh Mandel before he left the company during the development of the full game, he had the nice idea that a game demo should be an entirely separate scenario from what you encounter in the game, that way you don't feel too much dejavu in the retail product after completing the demo. Entirely comprised of the screens he worked on, looking, touching, doing whatever with your mouth on anything generates a funny response, and even all combinations with items in any way you can think of will get you some sort of funny response, even if it doesn't exactly work.

To do: Document other general differences. The death screens. Make the page a bit nicer to look at. Like the final, there is a debug mode, activated in the same exact way.

General Differences

Demo	Retail

The demo doesn't have a scrolling option, as there are no scenes with scrolling in the demo. There is a restart option listed.

However it would seem as if the demo refuses to restart. The restart was disabled and removed in the final game because, as a developer plainly said in the resource files of a non-interactive demo if you were to look in there, it's an "outdated feature that nobody used anyway!"

(Source: Akril15)

Demo	Retail

The demo kindly asks you to purchase the game if you want the About screen.

Demo	Retail

Saving gets a similar message.

Demo	Retail

As does restoring.

Demo	Retail

One screen with obvious differences is the Deepship's shuttle bay:

• In the demo, you have a Compost (yes, really, that's what it's called) terminal. In the retail game, there's an airlock to the hallway leading to the shuttle bay.
• The console in the foreground on the bottom-left of the screen is yellow and has a slightly different design on its screen in the demo. In the retail game they painted it gray, gave the screen a redesign, added some dithering, and placed a nice light.
• A light is also installed on the F9 tower.

Graphical differences

Demo	Retail

The HUD is just a bit different in the demo:

• One obvious difference is that there is no score in the demo, rather a nice reminder that you are in fact playing a demo. Graphics for the score digits are present in the files, though.
• The scrollbar, while present in-game, isn't stored with the HUD graphics in the demo version.
• The inventory window on the right has a bit of a thicker design in the demo.

Unused Graphics

Unused	Used

Just like in the retail game, originally they went for verb options instead of body parts.

Leisure Suit Larry 6 leftovers

Some more Leisure Suit Larry 6 leftovers than what made it into the full version

Window border from Larry 6

The Cellulite death screen animation

The drowning death screen animation, which found itself also hidden in the full version

Debug Mode

As with the retail game, the debug mode is here as well. Make a blank file with no extension called "CLASSES", and debug is activated. It's a bit more limited as there is quite less game here and some options might crash the game.