Space
Quest 6 Fun Facts
Josh
originally wanted to call the SQ6 documentation "Janitalia:
The Magazine of Space Janitors", but management wouldn't let
him, so it was changed to "Popular Janitronics". In the
words of Leslie Balfour, "Josh is a very bad lad".
The
music played in Sharpei's Quarters is the exact same music played
whenever the evil genie appears in King's Quest 6.
In
the basement of Orion's Belt, to the far left there's a spider on
one of the pipes in the foreground. Click the HAND-icon on it. It
will fall screaming to the floor. This can only be done ONCE per
game.
When
the game was in development (and Josh Mandel was still on the project),
the Marketing Director was a bit concerned about the DeepShip 86
being formed as a jockstrap. He tried to get Josh and Scott to turn
it into a "normal" ship, but they ignored him. Then, when
the first advertisement for SQ6 comes out, what picture did they
use? The DeepShip jockstrap!
 The
insignia of the DeepShip 86 reads "DEEPSHIP 86", and below
that in small types, "LSL6 BFD". The latter part means
"Leisure Suit Larry 6: Big Fucking Deal".
One
of the random exit-messages of the Windows version is "Aren't
you glad your middle name isn't Lawrence?" This is actually
a poke at designer Josh Mandel, inserted by a programmer, whose
name currently remains unknown. The reason: Josh's middle name is
Lawrence.
The
only replicator code, that produces a response, is the Bjorn Chow
code from the Space Quest 6 demo. (Number 7469410)
To
the joy of many Space Quest fans, Gary Owens was once again contracted
to do the voice acting of the game's narrater after having done
a great job on it for Space Quest 4.
Scott
has a short argument with the "director" of Space Quest
6 in the game. The argument can be found in the contractor's office
in cyberspace. BEFORE taking the number card, look at them. It doesn't
work AFTER you've taken the card. Scott says: "I also played
myself in a brief discussion/argument between the director (played
by William Hall) and the writer (me). I even (lamely) did my lines
in French and German for the dubbed versions. (Ugh.) To those of
you who speak either of these language, I apologize for it."
In the bridge section of dialogue, there’s a tiny bit where
Roger’s voice actor (out of character) mumbles something about
messing a line up and wanting to try it again. It’s not a
real knee-slapping blooper, but it’s amusing nonetheless.
There’s
a fairly humourous line in the Cyberspace office that must be a
result of “interacting” with one of the deceased people
in some way, though it doesn’t seem to show up in the actual
game. The Narrator says: “Guess this guy never quite recovered
from KQ7. He’s getting a bit moldy…”
Scott
Murphy and Josh Mandel -
The Andromeda Slip Up
Josh
Mandel was the original designer of Space Quest 6, but when the
game was nearing completion he had to leave the project because
of management problems. Scott Murphy took over from where Josh had
stopped. This had several major influences on the project as a whole:
Some
game's puzzles were extremely hard to figure out. For instance the
Inner Body part of the game was extremely hard and obsecure. Josh
did an enormous amount of research for it. But when Scott took over
as designer, he didn't placed the much-needed hints into the game
that Josh had in mind. This certainly explains the impossible complexity
of the tiny time pills for instance.
The
marketing guys market the games as a "Scott Murphy solo job"
(as can be seen on the rear box). As Scott Murphy himself tells
us: "The 'solo job' thing I honestly had no clue about until
I got my packaged copy of the game." Also, the Popular Janitronics
documentation that came with the game only gave Josh writer credits
when in fact he had designed the whole game.
Josh
Mandel explains the copyright protection: "It was designed
to be present on one of the disks in Singent and Nigel's place,
paired with a wonderful comic strip that I still hope to include
in an SQ game some day. The only reason it wasn't is that Scott
didn't understand the function of the comic strip and let that part
of the design slide. It was in a conversation I had with him a few
weeks before the game was due to be finalized, in which I asked
him how the comic was coming along, and he said they'd never gotten
around to it. I asked him how anyone was going to know how to solve
the Datacorder puzzle, and he yelped, "$h-t! Is THAT what that
was for?" They hurriedly got it into the documentation. If
it hadn't been for that phone call, there wouldn't have been any
clues at all. So once it appeared in the documentation, people kinda
assumed it was copy protection. It wasn't. But that might not have
stopped Sierra from TELLING people it was, just to be contrary."
A funny note: Sierra didn't supply the Datacorder puzzle answers
in some versions of the game, which pushed Sierra to release the
"copyright protection" after many people complained they
couldn't solve it.
Josh
Mandel wrote Doctor Beleauxs' office, the Ascend-o-Pad (which actually
has an overflooding of messages) and the entire DeepShip. One of
Josh's favourite hobbies is to write those small humerous messages
and if you look carefully, roughly all these scenes have different
messages to all the icons. The rest of the game (with a few minor
exceptions) was written by Scott Murphy and it's clear that he isn't
very big on writing those messages. While on the subject, here's
a fun fact: Josh's game, "Callahan's Cross Time Saloon"
(Legend Entertainment) is about the size of a 1000 page novel. And
that's dialogue ALONE, narration messages unaccounted for. Auch!
Beatrice
Wankmeister was originally supposed to have a minor role in Space
Quest 6, which involved a quick conversation between her and Roger.
When Scott Murphy took over the project, he left that scene out,
partly because both him and Josh felt, that this whole Beatrice-thing
had taken a turn for the worse.
The
ending for SQ6 was originally supposed to have been entirely different.
It involved the beaches of Polysorbate LX with Stellar and Roger
riding on the back of a gigantic horseosaurus, in a sort of romantic
setting. They come across a statue, which indicates that Polysorbate
LX is much more than meets the eye. For it quite clearly resembles....
Well, actually, that's the reason why it's not in the game. Josh
and Scott couldn't decide what it should resemble.
And
last but not least: Scott Murphy made a colourful statement in a
message board years ago: "Scott (that being me) didn't understand
A LOT about Space Quest 6 and STILL doesn't. That's a game that
should have been aborted when Josh left. I am about as far from
proud as someone can be about their work where Space Quest 6 is
concerned. The way it's appearing to me from what I'm hearing from
others, I should've called it a career after Space Quest 3! Someone
just shoot me PLEASE!!! I would but I don't have a gun handy. Email
me and I'll be glad to provide directions to anyone who does!"
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