Mark Crowe SPEAKS TO THE PLAYER in Space Quest III

[@Kawa-oneechan]

You might be wondering how. When you enter a new room, be it by teleporting or by legit means, the game scripts try to load the first object in that room's script. For example, script 2 is the garbage freighter room with the pod in, and object 0 in script 2 is "instance rm002 of Room". And Room objects have "init" methods, which are then called. This causes the room's background image to appear, and all the other elements that go there. Script 23 export 0 is not a Room. It is "instance Whining of Script". And Scripts (not scripts, those are resources. capital S Scripts are objects) *also* have an "init" method to call! And that's why it doesn't outright crash even though you teleported to a room that is not actually a room in any sense. The Whining Script's "init" method causes a Mark (PicView, a sprite that's meant to be permanently baked into the background image then disposed of), a Scott (Prop, so Scott can still animate freely), and their heads (also Props) to initialize. Its "doit", which runs every single cycle of gameplay so long as it's loaded and called, checks if either of the two guys are *meant* to be speaking and sets their respective heads to a random cel. Its "changeState" method (the beating heart of a Script) then runs through the various lines of whine, making Scott and Mark turn to the player, and repeating again. In normal gameplay, Whining runs simultaneously with other scripts, like the Mallard's roomscript and the attacks.

[@spacequesthistorian]

I did wonder! And now I know! Thank you once again for a great explanation.

[@joshm7769]

Thanks for the video, some really interesting stuff there in my favorite SQ game.

[@xRocketzFighterx]

This series never fails to impress me with how many versions or secrets just lie and wait for us. This looks hell-a-like those zx spectrum games which back in those days were fun but are a bit of an eye sore when trying to play them today.

[@spacequesthistorian]

There is something truly special about the majestic awfulness of games being forced to run in way less colors than they were meant to.

[@swempytimes]

These videos are reigniting The feelings I had as a small boy hiding behind my dad as he played these games

[@spacequesthistorian]

So many wonderful images in a single sentence.

[@SanjaySharma-ec8yr]

Great reveal!

[@jbh2]

SQH is one of this galaxy's most precious treasures.

[@ldandco]

Last time i played and finished this game was back around in 1993 if I am correct. I was a teenager and loved it. Can't believe so many years later I am now watching it's got so many things I haven't seen before.

[@spacequesthistorian]

That's around the time I played it myself, too -- those early 90s. And we still keep finding new stuff in them. It's kind of amazing.

[@jhhoward]

Interestingly on my floppy version of SQ3, the 4 colour CGA driver has the classic cyan+magenta colours. It also says (Preferred) next to the 2 colour CGA driver, which I can see why as when using the 2 colour black+white driver you can see more details like the sand dunes on Phleebut.

[@Kawa-oneechan]

From personal experimentation, certain games and/or versions of them came with different CGA driver files, and it's the drivers that decide which palette to use.

[@Kawa-oneechan]

I also found two different cyan-magenta CGA drivers that remapped dark blue and probably other colors differently. I tested it on the copy protection screen in Larry 2, and the big Sierra logo up top, normally dark blue, was black in one driver, magenta in the other. I couldn't find a copy of the cyan-red-white driver shown in the video (which is technically kind of a tweakmode) but I did find one with dark red, green, and brown. Which is perhaps even more horrible to look at.

[@spacequesthistorian]

With DOSBox, using the "wrong" machine type loads SQ3 with the cyan/magenta palette. As far as we can tell, though, the cyan/magenta palette is not the mode that was intended for SQ3. If you were to run SQ3 on a DOS machine with a proper CGA graphics adapter, you should get the palette shown in this video.

[@spacequesthistorian]

Also, truly awful things happen if you supply SQ3 with a CGA driver from a different Sierra game. We have a video in the works about that. ;)

[@jhhoward]

@@spacequesthistorian ah yes just disassembled the CGA driver and it should be setting the alt palette like in your video. Must just be my dosbox settings

[@mrjimjimjimmyjim9824]

3:14 this happened to me on my play thru of the re-release of the game when all 6 games were released on cd-rom

[@darylfarrugia9623]

The stuff you keep finding in these games are great. Now I wish someone finished the remake of this game fixed the timibg and included this dialogue

[@spacequesthistorian]

If I ever get this far, I will definitely include this line.

[@darylfarrugia9623]

@@spacequesthistorian Wait are you working on the remake of Space Quest 3?

[@spacequesthistorian]

@@darylfarrugia9623 I am working on *a* SQ3 remake. The one with Nina Shanafelt's artwork (@SlashNina on Twitter). It's incredibly slow-moving, though, since I have a ton of other stuff to do as well.

[@davonc7973]

@@spacequesthistorian Yes! I was wondering if her remake was still being worked on. Do you have any idea when it will be completed?

[@spacequesthistorian]

@@davonc7973 I am still working on it, but I can't tell you when it will be done. It's one of those "when I have time" projects and lately I have had little to no time at all, even for making videos or working on my own game. Having a little kid does that, unfortunately.

[@KameariKillScreen]

This is kind of how I saw the game the firs ttime I played it

[@antsbull3370]

We only had a CGA 4MHz 8088 at the time, so I had to play SQ3, PQ2, KQ4, LSL2 and 3, Colonel's Bequest, QFG and Conquests of Camelot in 4 colors - still absolutely loved them! I eventually had saved up enough for a VGA 286 by the time KQ5, SQ4 etc came out, so was away laughing from that point

[@spacequesthistorian]

You must have had a lot of patience to play SQ3 on a 4MHz machine! Can it even run?!

[@Movieman1885]

I always thought it would be funny if Roger was able to confront The Two Guys in SQ10 "Hey Guys, where's my cut?" lol Maybe it'll happen in SpaceVenture II - The search for Roger's Buckazoids :p

[@michaelcounsell9935]

Dang, Now I know what i missed by sleeping in....

[@earthsteward70]

fucking Christ they could have just outlined the damn dunes

[@spacequesthistorian]

If only they'd had a fifth color to work with ...

[@TheTomimt]

what if you quickly go to the weapons screen, turn on the shield and exit it again. Would there be enough time to see the hidden dialogue then?

[@spacequesthistorian]

We actually tried that. Once you enable the shields, the conversation stops entirely.

[@redshirtveteran5688]

What does the Mog statue look like on the horizon in that color setting?

[@spacequesthistorian]

Awful. I'm working on a video about this right now; I will try to remember to get a shot of the statue in there.

[@redshirtveteran5688]

@@spacequesthistorian Excellent! : D

[@lasskinn474]

the question to ask is cga worse than hercules and is it possible to turn off the dithering pass in those modes?

[@Darthhelmet86]

That is an illegal colour combination.

[@spacequesthistorian]

You should see what happens if we give it the wrong CGA driver, then.

[@Kawa-oneechan]

Uncommon, undocumented by IBM, and maybe not always supported... but not illegal.

[@spacequesthistorian]

Let's go with unholy, then.

[@racer927]

0:52 That's not accurate, you need to flood the left side of the screen with a million Trihex PogChamp faces.

[@spacequesthistorian]

You are so far off my demographic, you might as well be in a different solar system. 😅

[@racer927]

@@spacequesthistorian Fair enough. Most Twitch vods I've seen where shocking stuff happens, that's usually the first emote that people put into chat.

[@spacequesthistorian]

@@racer927 Haha yeah, that's true. I was streaming this on my Discord, though, and we were all in an audio chat, so no Pogchamps were necessary. There were plenty of shocked gasps to go around. 😋

[@Kawa-oneechan]

Did you mean death by deethering?

[@spacequesthistorian]

Yes.