Space Quest: Chapter II - Vohaul's Revenge
Introduction/Story
Sludge Vohaul is an ugly, evil genius and original brain behind the Star Generator of Space Quest Chapter 1. He's got a bit of a grudge against the people of Xenon for re-purposing the Star Generator into a mechanism to sustain life instead of being used as the weapon Vohaul originally designed it to be. Vohaul is also slightly peeved toward Golden Mop recipient, Roger Wilco (aka TAS), for foiling his plan of having the Sariens steal the Star Generator back for him. Mr. Sludge devises a new plan to infest Xenon with an army of robot Insurance Salesmen, which he somehow believes will sap the desire of life out of the people of Xenon. Vohaul also kidnaps Roger to prevent him from again foiling the plan.
Unfortunately, as he did with the Sariens in Space Quest 1, Vohaul doesn't hire the brightest goons; and Roger is marooned on the planet Labion. Will Roger survive? Will he escape the planet? Will he be able to stop the evil mastermind of Vohaul? STAY TUNED!
Game objectives
- Aims for fastest time.
- Speed/Entertainment trade-offs:
- The speed eliminates nearly all possibility of reading the humorous text that would theoretically add entertainment value.
- Possible trade/off in caverns (see below)
Emulator used: c-square's modified JPC-rr 11.2 with mouse and typing support
Game Version 2.0F
Challenges and Opportunities
Text Entry
The game doesn't display typed text every frame. However, multiple keystrokes can be buffered into emulator memory on a single frame and will all be displayed when the game polls for this input. This rarely hinders progress as text input can usually be accomplished during periods of movement unlike games as Quest for Glory or Space Quest 3 where the text input box can pause movements.
Desyncs
As c-square has mentioned before, JPC-rr is horrible for being able to splice in changes after the fact. Making a change causes many desyncs down the line. Therefore, it is imperative to make sure every screen is fully optimized before moving on to the next.
Area Specific Comments
Space Station: This is basically an interactive prologue to the game, but there are necessary items that must be collected from the lockers in the airlock to complete the game. One of the few skipable events happens here. I don't look at Roger's communicator watch when signaled at the very beginning.
The Mugging:
This is all story exposition.
Labion - Crash site to Canyon Rope:
There are a couple actions skipped here. I don't turn off the alarm beacon in the crashed ship. I also don't free the alien before getting berries. This saves time by not having to watch the alien pick berries or demonstrate rubbing them on himself to avoid being eaten by the water creature.
- Side Note: I was absolutely floored that I was able to navigate the root maze at 'fastest' game speed without dying or having to change speeds.
Labion - Caverns and Canyons:
I have not tested this theory, but it may be possible to navigate the secondary set of cave tunnels without re-acquiring the glowing gem (after you drop it falling through the first cave). This would, however, force the player to navigate those tunnels without the gem in Roger's mouth; resulting in as a series of plain black screens which--while being technically more impressive--would be less entertaining as there would be nothing to see. So this is potentially a very minor speed/entertainment trade-off. EDIT: Radiant confirmed that this is not a possibility.
Labion - Back on the surface: The slingshot method is used to kill/knock out the guard at the platform instead of waiting around for him to be in a position to be unable to see Roger entering the elevator.
Labion Escape & Travel to Vohaul's Asteroid: This is the insanely long portion of this TAS! It's roughly three and a half minutes of watching Roger sit in one place. He takes the shuttle off the planet and tries to escape but has the shuttle controls overridden by Vohal which brings Roger to the asteroid. It's a really boring portion to watch...I highly recommend fast-forwarding it or watching the clipped encode instead.
Vohaul's Asteroid:
Surprised that there's no goons waiting for him upon arrival, Roger goes off exploring the Asteroid's various floors and finds....the janitor's closets. Once a janitor....never mind. He also briefly stumbles into a unisex bathroom before finding his way to Vohaul's control chambers.
Vohaul's Control Room:
Though being shrunk and imprisoned by Vohaul, Roger manages to escape while simultaneously cutting off Vohaul's life support and getting himself re-enlarged. Unfortunately Vohaul is able to initiate the launch of the Robot Insurance Salesmen before he expires.
Escape the Asteroid:
Roger makes a run for it and manages to find the escape pods...which for some stupid reason are guarded by a robot. Unable to both open a pod and enter before being caught, Roger must flee the robot. Once it stops chasing him, he makes another run for it to the escape pod.
The End:
Roger has safely escaped the asteroid and can breathe a sigh of relief...but wait...no...there's precious low oxygen in the pod and Roger must put himself into cryo-sleep to survive. Asleep and drifting alone through the universe...Roger's fate is unknown.
Potential Improvements
- Moving at the 'Fastest' pace is extremely difficult, and hard to end up where you want to go. There may be better movement patterns which I have not found.
- There's also not much choice in different paths to take, the game is fairly linear. Exceptions below:
- In the cave tunnels after meeting the alien king, there are multiple path options, but few. I've chosen the one I perceived as fastest.
- The upper levels of the asteroid can be accessed from elevators on either side of the shuttle bay. I chose the side that got me to the needed rooms/closets the fastest while also avoiding the lip-alien (not seen in this run).
- There are a couple places where alternate methods of solving a problem exist; I've chosen the actions I found fastest. i.e. the slingshot to the guard.
- If there is a way of shortening the shuttle flight sequence without altering game files, over half this run could potentially be eliminated.
Other Comments
- There are no arcade sequences in this SQ game. (The only SQ game not to have one unless you count the root maze.)
- THANKFULLY this game has very little RNG that affects the run.
- EVEN BETTER...THERE'S NO SLOT MACHINE to overcome.
- As this game foregoes a mere 2 point gathering opportunities, it's not a 100% run.
- An earlier SQ1 TAS was canceled due to a text display glitch with Sierra's AGI interpreter. This glitch has been overcome as is demonstrated in this submission which also uses the AGI interpreter.
- A new run of SQ1 is in the works with anticipated time improvements over the cancelled submission as well.
- I'm hoping we can get at least one run of each official game in the SQ series published on the site. Official SQ1 VGA remake included.
Suggested Screenshot
[dead link removed]
Files:
HDD
TRACKS 16 - SIDES 16 - SECTORS 63
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