Space Quest I - The Sarien Encounter VGA

Roger Wilco finds himself on the brink of falling into an endless abyss, barely equipped with anything useful, and facing eight more hours of airborne danger ahead. This game never has time for mercy — a mistake in the second room sends you to the grinder, and then you get to enjoy dying over and over again until you learn to cheat.

Space Quest I is a point-and-click adventure where the puzzle-master behind King's Quest handed the brush to an up-and-coming Williams. You end up on the abandoned ship Pulsating Zit, which pirates want to buy, and you have a modest goal: survive and reach safety. The path leads through various locations filled with absurd logic that behaves as if it was dreamed up by someone in the middle of their third drink.

Playing means clicking on things and trying every possible combination. Your inventory is as useful as a brick in a swimming pool — you find these scissors and wait half an hour before discovering you should have bitten something else instead. The dialog sometimes pays off, playtime drags on and it's frustrating in a way that doesn't entertain but hurts. The game kills you without warning and then you have to replay it from the start.

That's exactly the flavor we remember from the eighties and nineties — intentional puzzle design that requires either a guide or eight hours of replaying. The VGA version is at least clearer than the original EGA release, the colors work and the character drawings have an occasional weird charm.

Space Quest I today serves more as a museum piece — you can start it in your browser and understand what was interesting about it back then, but only a masochist can play it to completion in chunks without a guide. If you want to soak in the period atmosphere and aren't trying to beat it without Wikipedia, it's a glimpse into the beginnings of our genre. But approach it with the right expectations.