FINALLY! Here's how to evade the Sequel Police on Estros in Space Quest IV

I knew it was possible! I knew how to do it back in 1997, but then I forgot when I tried to record a video of it two years ago. Well, thanks to the SQH Discord, we now know how to actually do it... again!
Join the SQH community on Discord: / discord
Support me via Patreon: / spacequesthistorian
#SpaceQuest #GameSecrets

[@xRocketzFighterx]

This is very educational about how the game's script is done. If I was more dedicated to playing this series I would've love to abuse the dumb AI. It's always so hilarious to see enemy AI just act stupid right in front of you and not harm you.

[@spacequesthistorian]

Indeed. There's a bit in Tex Murphy: Overseer where you go in a sewer that's being patrolled by a killer mutant. If you step in his line of sight, it's an insta-death. But if you stay behind him, you can merrily jog along with him for hours and hours (he only moves in a set pattern and always facing forward).

[@Kay13Jay]

Those latex babes made me feel something I never understood as a child...

[@spacequesthistorian]

I think we all had Zondra as our desktop picture at some point in our lives.

[@jimruthlessYT]

I found your channel just the other day and I've been watching video after video. Excellent channel. I'm a fan of old adventure games like Monkey Island and Beneath a Steel Sky. Greetings from Sweden!

[@spacequesthistorian]

Happy to meet you! Greetings from Denmark! 😅

[@TomSFox]

At least they remembered to make sure you can’t make the Latex Babes appear twice. There is a puzzle near the beginning of a game called _Bud Tucker in Double Trouble_ where you have to get a necktie in order to enter a nightclub. You are then arrested for entering a nightclub as a minor. In order to get out of prison, you have to wake up your cellmate. (He helps you escape by literally making a door appear in your cell and making a fourth-wall-breaking joke about how the programmers couldn’t come up with anything better. It was one of those games.) Problem is, you can return to the nightclub later and show the bouncer the necktie a second time, which triggers the whole sequence that ends with you going to jail again. And you won’t be able to escape this time, because your cellmate is already awake.

[@Movieman1885]

Wow! I remember this too! I remember being disappointed when you actually couldn't jack their ride because I remember reading on an ancient fansite about a fake Easter egg where you can steal their timepod and warp to a screen where you see Indiana Jones drink lava, and after a million saves and finally getting to it, they had 'the chrono-club' in place! What rubes!

[@AvSias]

I was stuck there forever before I was able to progress... fun times in the 90's. xD

[@spacequesthistorian]

I know. It is not very clear what you're supposed to do. :)

[@MagusMarquillin]

I think you're meant to go down to the water and see the ledge there is directly above it - but I wonder how many players thought "I'll escape by jumping in the water!"? Or did they fall there by accident? Or did they find some other way around the buggy S-Popo? For my part, they never even showed up in the disk version I grew up with, so I wondered why they put the time in to make all these empty screens! It's like many games back then just throw random stuff at you and maybe it turns into a exciting chase, or maybe it'll be as confusing as Leisure Suit Larry 2.

[@spacequesthistorian]

I don't think they ever anticipated you'd bother trying to get away from them. It *is* supposed to be a death sentence. Or, rather, it's kinda like the super ghost in Bubble Bobble -- you *can* technically still win the level, but it just got super hard.

[@MagusMarquillin]

@@spacequesthistorian Yet it's got to be the only reason they included dropping into the water safely; as a way to get past them (albeit with random chance). Certainly, when I played though the CD version at the same time you did, I appreciated that some attempt was made to make that portion more exciting, and I played with it quite a bit, and circumvented them with only a couple deaths. Perhaps it's best they kept it optional, since adventure game players don't always jive with these sequences and there's always the risk we wind up with another timer bug like at the Galleria. For my part I like being "chased" by scary blocky sprites, which was quite common in the Sierra games prior to this one, but was certainly pulled of the best in the Quest for Glory series.

[@spacequesthistorian]

It could also just be a saving grace if the player accidentally stepped off that cliff. There's a bit in SQ1 in the cave on Kerona near the lasers where you can fall off the ledge and survive. Same with the small cliff near the mailbox in SQ2. Maybe they just put this "fall in the water" thing in SQ4 to give the player a break. Who knows. :) I say this because the timer for making the Sequel Police appear is so long, it doesn't strike me as an intended puzzle. And if it was, you'd think they would have click events for you trying to steal their time pod.

[@MagusMarquillin]

@@spacequesthistorian Hmm, those are good points - I thought not interacting with the pod was just another another lazy oversight, and I don't remember having to wait all that long for me, just happened while exploring. But maybe falling _exactly there_ was just a death fake out, that can occasionally work to your advantage - the world may never know! I don't think I knew about the Kerona cave fall (is that in the EGA or VGA BTW?)

[@KameariKillScreen]

I'm so excited for Ken's book.

[@Kawa-oneechan]

The reason Mark can be blocked on 5:10 like that is that View objects, and thus also Actors, block each other *by default*. There's a bit that can be set on each individual View/Actor that makes them ignore other Views that may be in the way. If I were the programmer and wanted to ensure that Mark could always finish entering the screen, one lazy but effective fix could be to set Mark's ignrAct signal bit, let him enter, then clear it again the moment he's in position so that it's he who blocks Roger instead.

[@spacequesthistorian]

Nice! Yeah, AGS has the same setting per character - blocking or non-blocking. As is very evident by now, though, efficiency was not high on the list of priorities for the SQ4 CD programmers. 😅

[@Kawa-oneechan]

@@spacequesthistorian AGS has it the other way around, then. In SCI it's not "this character CAN block others", it's "this character IGNORES others". There's also the illegalBits field, which specifies which colors on the control screen that character should not be able to cross into. By default it's 0x8000, so everywhere but white.

[@jhhoward]

I only ever triggered the sequel police showing up when I had already done the Galaxy Galleria section and then went back to Estros and waited around long enough. In retrospect it makes more sense for them to appear before you meet the Latex babes since one of the sequel police gets dropped in the nest shortly after you do.

[@Gunbudder]

i also remember falling in the drink on that world, and then you can swim out of the water to some stairs

[@spacequesthistorian]

Yup, but only on that ONE screen. I cannot tell you how frustrating it was to have forgotten that over the years. 😝

[@NicholasMarkovich]

The Sequel Policeman you called Mark's actual name is Delphoid and the other's name is Buford.

[@spacequesthistorian]

That's right. I forgot that they had actual names when I made the video.

[@Rhythmicons]

I think there is a significant difference in gameplay from the original DOS version and the version that I just purchased on GOG, which I suspect is more than just the CD release.

[@spacequesthistorian]

If you mean the original floppy disk version, then yes, there are significant differences. But the version you bought on GOG and the CD-ROM version that was released in 1992 are exactly the same.

[@Rhythmicons]

@@spacequesthistorian Interesting. I know the Monolith burger line was fare more dificult on the floppy version even if one slowed the speed to its lowest level. I don't recall ever making more than 40 or so burgers with that method. However, after having made 100 burgers, I wondered if there was a limit to how many could be made. For example on Leisure Suit Larry V the game would crash if you made beyond a certain amount on the poker machine. I love your channel.

[@spacequesthistorian]

@@Rhythmicons Thanks! 😊 Yeah, SQ4 went through a complete reprogramming from floppy to CD. That's why everyone complained that the game was unbeatable back in the 90s: the timer that controls things like the appearance of Sequel Police or how long you have to get somewhere is completely screwed in the CD version... but it was fine in the disk version. The burger line in the CD version suffered from this issue as well. Either it was super easy or unbelievably hard -- it all depended on how fast your computer was.

[@toStringy]

This is something I never knew was possible.. I wonder if the programmers knew it was possible at the time..

[@spacequesthistorian]

My gut says no. If they knew, they would have written a message for trying to steal the Sequel Police's time pod. I think they just expected you to roll over and die.

[@Thegamingground]

SSDS indeed lol.

[@torchiest]

Now figure out how to evade the sequel police in the mall. ;)