It must have been Christmas 1991 that I found Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers under the tree and got the gift of seeing exciting new possibilities in games.
I was a fan of adventure games for sure after playing a few games in Sierra king quest Series, not to mention Lucasfilm’s brilliant and bizarre early titles like Crazy mansion and The Mystery of Monkey Island. But that was my first experience with space searchSierra’s comedic sci-fi series stars Roger Wilco, the hapless janitor in space caught in one cosmic mishap after another.
To be honest I don’t remember much about the quality of Space Quest IV‘s puzzle. What I remember is how varied and vibrant its universe seemed, with rough alien worlds, atmospheric cantinas and glittering space malls. But what really blew my mind about the game was the how Meta it was. After getting through a bit Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers himself poor Roger finds himself flung into (the non-existent). Space Quest XII: Vohaul’s Revenge II.
It’s not uncommon these days for games to break the fourth wall and knowingly wink at the player that they’re video games, that they’re tired and inspired by conventions. But wow, was that 1991 exciting for me! The game also sees you venturing into it Space Quest X: Latex Babies by Estros (an obvious nod to the 1986 Infocom adventure Leather goddesses from Phobos) and all the way back to the original space searchwhich already looked humorously primitive and pixelated compared to the cutting-edge graphics of 1991, making the high-resolution Roger Wilco all the more striking.
Space Quest IV may or may not be a great game, I honestly don’t remember it well enough to say. I just remember sitting there on my Christmas break, in awe of the clever meta closeness of it all, and my thoughts expanded on the possibilities of what storytelling and video game structure could do.
Carolyn Petit, Editor-in-Chief
