Space Quest came to be when Scott Murphy, programmer at Sierra and Mark Crowe, graphics designer and Sierra (aka The Two Guys From Andromeda), shared the opinion that Sierra should do more than only fantasy or medieval themed games. Both gentlemen had a great love for space stories in a science fiction setting, and they also wanted to set something up that would rather satirize it. Ken Williams was very skeptic about this, but the two gentlemen came up with a good synopsis and a plan and in the end, although reluctantly, Ken Williams gave his permission to start the Space Quest game and see what it would do.

In the Space Quest series you play the role of Roger Wilco, ("Roger" meaning "understood" and "Wilco" meaning "Will comply"), although in the original versions of the first two installments the player is allowed to name him. You are a very crappy janitor who likes napping more than working and if you weren't thousands of light-years from home you'd already be sacked. Your laziness was however a stroke of pure luck since you were sleeping in a janitorial closet when aliens named "Sariens" invade your spaceship and kill the entire crew, but they missed you as you were napping in the closet. The Sariens stole the Star Generator and plan to use it to destroy your home planet and activated a destructive device in your ship. Your mission, get the hell out of here, and see if you can make those Sariens regret even considering to invade your ship.

Things do however not go well. Your escape pod lands on the desert planet of Kerona and nobody around to help you. Way to go Roger!

It's clear a new approach was sought in this game. Although the game is still written in AGI and showing it's pixelated art style plus command typing interface, the game does still set itself apart from King's Quest due to its scifi setting. The game is also one of the first Sierra games to feature a small arcade part in which you ride a "skimmer" and have to avoid rocks along the way. Getting hit too often will lead to a crash killing you.

Speaking of death, yes, you can die on countless way here, not to mention the tons of dead ends Sierra is infamous for.

And then, a very terrible part, the slots machine. Look at the prize list and you know why it is so terrible. Once again you gotta waste time to save when you win and to restore when you lose, but they upped the stakes, if you get three skulls you'll be disintegrated with a laser beam and die.

Well these were the very well-known flaws of adventure games in the time this game was released in. Despite these flaws the game is pretty fun, has good humor and in the end the game did what it was set out to do.

Playing the game in modern times

Good support in DOSBox for the DOS version, but I recommend ScummVM for these two games.
You can buy the games in a packaged containing SQ1, SQ2 and SQ3 at GOG.com.

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