Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge

Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge
Developer: Sierra On-Line Publisher: Sierra On-Line Platforms: DOS, Atari ST, Apple II, Apple IIGS, Mac OS Classic, Amiga Released in US: November 14, 1987 This game has uncompiled source code. This game has unused enemies. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused music. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden level select. This game has a notes page

> LOOK ARTICLE

Oh. This again. Some sad, strange sap has arranged unused content from Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge on a "table".

Just go along with it. At least there's less to sift through this time.

> _

ENABLE DEBUG

Main Debug Commands

Type DBG or BACKSTAGE to enable some debugging functions. These features are disabled upon entering a new room.

Here's the complete word list:

• TP: Teleport to the appropriate room.
• POS: Set Roger's X and Y positions.
• GET OBJECT: Puts the appropriate object by ID in the player's inventory.
• OBJECT or SP: Gives status on the appropriate object.
• SET VAR: Sets a chosen variable to a given value.
• SHOW VAR: Displays the value of a variable.
• SET FLAG: Sets the appropriate flag.
• RESET FLAG: Resets the appropriate flag.
• SHOW FLAG: Displays info on a flag (Can be either set or not set).

• SHOW MEM: Displays info on memory use.

• SHOW PRI: Displays priority settings on the current room.

Other

These commands are independent from the ones above. They can be entered at any time.

• Type TESTER to display Roger's X and Y coordinates on the bottom of the screen.
• Type CLOCK to display the current game time in the upper-right corner of the screen.
• The old debug command Alt+D (or Cmd+D in the Mac version) will display the AGI Interpreter version number, but will not enable the above debug commands.

LOOK AT GRAPHICS

XOS 4

The blonde technicians have an animation like the brown-haired ones, but they never move on-screen.

This is Roger's boss. He never walks toward the screen, so this animation is never seen. Look, he even has a little badge.

Animations for the humanoid and alien turning their heads. Suspenseful!

Swamp Things

These graphics are loaded in the swamp areas of Labion. It's a pink slug thing, a bird that looks like it was taken from an Atari 2600 game, and a snake / eel.

Ship Wreckage

Ruins of two spaceships that would be used on Labion somewhere, somehow, for some reason.

(Source: SpaceQuest.net, Original TCRF research)

EXAMINE TEXT

ID	Message	Notes
General Logic
85	Leave the supporter alone!	This would pop up through some interaction with the athletic supporter.
Logic 3: Airlock Chamber
20	You open the only locker for which you have a combination. Phew! Putrid waves of stench waft forth. You can't recall the last cleaning it received.	Oddly, although this message is in the game, the locker opens without any text.
Logic 4: Transport Control Room
14	There is only a pile of useless dust here.	There's no dust in this room. Maybe CHECK CORNER would display this?
Logic 9: Hostage Transport Scene
4	CRASH ! ! !	This message was used before the crash was represented with an actual graphic.
Logic 10: Jungle Crash Site
33	Ok. To save time later, you turn it on.	The only device in this game that's powered on is the translator, and you get it in the Airlock Chamber, not here.
Logic 16: Jungle Fissure
4	You are not close enough to a tree.	An alternate message for trying to interact with the stump or log from an insufficient distance.
Logic 17: East of Fissure
2	TWANG!	This sound effect could have been used after tripping the hunter's trap.
4	As you hang here helplessly, the blood makes its way to your head.	Should have appeared before the message about passing out, but doesn't.
11	Yikes!	Think of something scary. That thing you thought of is an appropriate use for this line.
Logic 19: Hunter's Campsite
67	You'd only hurt yourself throwing it halfway there.	Trying to throw the spore in...some fashion would produce this message.
Logic 20: Spore Clearing
5	The empty spores would serve no purpose.	A message for trying to get a spore after kicking them. Thankfully, this never comes up, and the player always has a chance to get one on this screen.
Logic 26: Underwater Cavern
4	You know the way.	FIND PATH, maybe? Not much to do on this screen, really.
Logic 42: Whirlpool Room
1	You swirl toward the center of the whirlpool.	The "Show, don't tell" rule was followed and the message removed.
Logic 49: Vehicle Bay
5	Please do not exit the vehicle until it has come to a complete stop and the bay doors are closed.	Two messages for, presumably, typing EXIT VEHICLE. Roger exits automatically in the final game.
6	You climb out of the shuttle to inspect your new environment.
Logic 76: Asteroid Restroom
7	The stall door is marked "Out of Order."	In the final game, one of the stalls can be entered and the others are filled, so this message isn't needed.
9	The writing etched on the wall is in various languages. One large message you can read says "Vohaul Sucks!" Someone has tried, in vain, to cross it out.	This was replaced with a set of randomly picked grafitti messages, though "Vohaul Sucks!" is one of them.
21	During your close encounter with the toilet paper, you theorize that this brand of wipe was designed to thwart overuse and theft.	Based on where this is in the code, this would pop up when Roger is, uh, using the toilet. Possibly eliminated due to matters of taste.
60	The sinks are nice sinks, nothing fancy. Faucets sit above them.	At one point SINK and FAUCET might have been different words in the game's dictionary. As it is, typing LOOK SINK brings up the (used) faucet message.
Logic 86: Alarm Hall Airlock
35	Way to go, <name>! You've stopped the launch of the salesman. Now get off this rock while there's still time.	This could, and probably should, have been used after aborting the salesman launch. It's not though.
Logic 88: Inside Life Support System
13	That's a waste of time.	Many things are a waste of time. See how many you can think of. Caution: This exercise is also a waste of time.
Logic 93: Escape Pod
12	To Be Continued...	Replaced with the "THE END for now" graphics.
Logic 100: Death Handler
3	Thank you for playing Space Quest. Too bad you've failed miserably and doomed all your people to a horrible death.	Of the five random generic death messages written for this game, this one didn't make the cut. A good decision, really.
Logic 106: Generic Jungle Logic
8	You are not near any gatherable leaves.	The player can't pick up any leaves in the game. There's no leaves in the OBJECTS list either. What these leaves would be used for is a secret to the Two Guys.
13	You already have some leaves.
Logic 107: Generic Swamp Logic
6	Glub Glub, eh?	Could be meant for trying to talk while submerged in the water.
Logic 119: Wandering Alien Handler
2	It leaves, apparently satisfied.	A message for when the alien leaves after giving Roger a big ol' smooch.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

COMPARE TEXT

Early	Final	Notes
Logic 13, Message 1 You are standing at the edge of the forest near an eerie swamp.	Logic 13, Message 2 You are standing at the edge of an eerie swamp. You can hear the croaks and moans of swamp life, none of which you are eager to encounter.	The final description was given that rich Space Quest 2 flavor with a hint of danger.
Logic 13, Message 8 You notice some odd eyes barely protruding from the water.	Logic 108, Message 1 You must be seeing things.	The final message is stored in the global jungle logic, while the older messages is for this room only.
Logic 19, Message 16 You don't have a key.	Logic 19, Message 20 You don't have anything to do that with.	The game now assumes that the player is trying to open the door in some non-key fashion.
Logic 45, Message 27 You don't have one to throw.	Logic 45, Message 46 You just can't bear to part with your glowing gem. It's too heavy anyway. If only you had a small stone.	The Glowing Gem is guaranteed to be in the player's inventory at this point. So, the command THROW STONE without possessing the Stone object was rewritten accordingly.
Logic 53, Message 1 Well, I'll be! I didn't know Stevie Wonder played graphic adventure games!	Logic 53, Message 3 That's been done already. Are you sure that your monitor is turned on?	Another change that was possibly made for reasons of taste.
Logic 67, Message 7 Your fire and subsequent shower seems to have shorted out the burnished bullies.	Logic 121, Message 7 Your fire and subsequent shower seems to have shorted-out the burnished bullies.	Want to remove excess hyphens? Try the new and ironically named Hyphen-be-gone!
Logic 87, Message 6 You are on Vohaul's control console in a miniaturized form.	Logic 87, Message 33 You are on the surface of a console. A large (compared to you) jar sits in the middle. A hole has been cut in the side. There are some vents near the back.	Interestingly, all of these early LOOK AREA descriptions were left in the logic file. This gives a bit of info on how these games were written: The early messages are spartan but give all the needed information. The final messages were reworded and a bit of flourish was added to these plain descriptions.
Logic 87, Message 7 You are currently inside a glass container.	Logic 87, Message 29 You are trapped in a glass jar sitting on the surface of Vohaul's control console.
Logic 87, Message 8 There is a hole cut in the glass.	Logic 87, Message 45 There is a hole cut in it.
Logic 87, Message 9 The now familiar beam is shooting into the jar.	Logic 87, Message 31 A beam of light penetrates through the top.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

LISTEN SOUNDS

Standard PC	Tandy PC

Track 69 is a short tune of ill omen that never pops up in normal play.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

INSPECT CODE

During production of the 2.0D and 2.0F versions of Space Quest II, the master copy of the first disk wasn't properly formatted before use, resulting in a large chunk of uncompiled source code for Sierra's AGI interpreter (corresponding to about 70% of the total source by filecount, plus a memory map of the executable) being left over on the disk space not taken up by the game itself. The same mistake was made producing disk 1 of version 2.14 of King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human the previous year. A repository of the extracted code from both games can be found here.

(Source: Lance Ewing)