Voice acting in Space Quest V

https://github.com/cdb-boop/Space-Quest-V-Voice-Acting-Mod

by elvis70 • 2 years ago

107 41 2 years ago

I absolutely love this game. Probably my favorite of the series, immediately followed by Space Quest IV (the CD-ROM talkie version).

sillywalk• 2 years ago

I agree.

I definitely loved Gary Owens as the narrator, though I've never seen Laugh in. The inclusion of the 'smell' and 'taste' "verbs" for no other reason than for laughs was also great.

bitwize2• 2 years ago

Owens was familiar to those too young for Laugh-In through his other voice work, including playing Hanna-Barbera superheroes like Space Ghost and Blue Falcon, and Powdered Toast Man from the Ren & Stimpy series (in all appearances but his first). For Xers, hearing his voice in SQIV was a real "hey, it's that guy with that voice!" moment. His distinctive voice and wit made him the perfect adventure game narrator.

deisteve• 2 years ago

same i have the whole series on CD

burnte• 2 years ago

Mine is SQ3 and then 4. :)

jandrese• 2 years ago

Timing bug fixes
Added Wait(1) to EVA pod minigame to limit FPS to 60 to prevent issues at higher cycle rates. The thrust level's doit method appears to be polled every possible cycle. (FloatObj)

When I originally played this (on a 16Mhz Mac LC) the quicktime events were all trivially easy because the game didn't adjust for the framerate. I guess this bites the other way when you run it on a modern machine.

Cthulhu_2• 2 years ago

It did on a machine from back then too, hence why PCs came equipped with a "turbo button", which were actually a "slow down" button to prevent issues with games made for a specific cpu speed.

bitwize2• 2 years ago

Even with turbo set to the slower speed, on my Pentium the CD-ROM version of SQIV still ran too fast, with the sentry droid in the first area spawning every few seconds or so, making that area damn near unplayable.

teamspirit• 2 years ago

This is great! I played nearly all the Sierra games when I was a kid and currently showing playing them with my wife. The CD talkie versions are much easier to play together though so this is perfect!

cabaalis• 2 years ago

Since this is not commercial, how does it interact with California AB 2602?

spuds• 2 years ago

Oh wow this immediately sent me back, haven't thought about this game in decades. The room I played it in, the computer (486/33 w/8mb ram?) the friend I learned about it from (terrible friend in retrospect, for unrelated reasons). Generally just loving the humor and ridiculousness of it. Definite Monkey Island vibes. Thank you for the trip down memory lane, felt good to have some reminders of the positive things from of that time in my life.

pkkkzip• 2 years ago

same used to play the heck out of this thing on an old CRT monitor

grugagag2• 2 years ago

Yeah, me too. I think I was a teenager then. Good times!

nevir• 2 years ago

Oh my god, I need to play SQ6 again

egypturnash• 2 years ago

This is illegal in Tennessee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELVIS_Act

Possibly more places, I don't feel like figuring out the current state of laws against using AI to clone voices.

rkagerer• 2 years ago

Are there any more in-depth resources for the rationale and debate behind this legislation?

I'm curious for the justification behind artists getting this special protection, but not the rest of the general population. Also why existing fraud legislation and civil suits were not considered sufficient.

afavour• 2 years ago

The inception of the ELVIS Act has been attributed to Gebre Waddell, founder of Sound Credit, who initially conceptualized a framework in 2023 that later evolved into the legislation.[5][6] Representative Justin J. Pearson acknowledged Waddell's pivotal role during the March 4 House Floor Session on the bill.[7] The act's development was a community-driven response, reflecting the collective initiative of the music industry to confront and address the challenges posed by rapid technological advancements

Sounds like artists got special protection because they asked for it.

atemerev• 2 years ago

Well you spooked them, the link is 404.

tetrisgm• 2 years ago

It’s likely this comment killed a really cool project.

CaptainFever2• 2 years ago

Anyone have a backup? This is legal in most parts of the world. Though it probably would have been easier and safer to just use completely synthetic voices.

grugagag2• 2 years ago

This brought memories. I think I’ll play some Space Quest now.

Oh wait, can this be played in SCUMM VM?

skhr06802• 2 years ago

Spqce Quest 5 is the only one I go back to. It’s funny, has well-written and memorable characters (for Space Quest), there are few unwinnable situations, and the puzzles rely mostly on human rather than adventure game logic.

On the other hand, it feels like the studio ran out of money while making it. There’s a ton of planets in the game you never visit, it’s not a talkie even though the game before was, and one of the last things you do in the game is a huge trial-and-error maze that is 100% pure padding.

HellDunkel• 2 years ago

I tuned in because as a kid i loved those sierra adventures. At first the voiceover sounded pretty good but within a few sentences i noticed something strange and it dawned on me this was AI generated. Considering voiceovers are a big thing for the adventure game community- usually requiring financial backing of some sort- i wonder…

Are peolple asking for voiceovers simply because they can‘t be bothered to read or do we knowingly or unknowingly expect more than that?

eps• 2 years ago

404 now

wodenokoto• 2 years ago

Has it already been taken down? I get a 404 when I visit

CodeArtisan• 2 years ago

It seems that the github repository, the youtube videos, and the reddit post have all been deleted by the author.

EDIT: archive of the github readme at https://archive.is/NmIh7

Cthulhu_2• 2 years ago

They possibly received a cease & desist from a representative of one or more of the voices used. You can't just use someone's voice to train an AI without their express approval.

tda• 2 years ago

    >Labor
    >Rough estimates.
    >
    >    ~100 Hours of work generating, selecting, splicing and cleaning audio files.
    >    ~30 Hours of programming with the SCI Companion.
    >    ~1/2 Hour on SCIProgramming.com.

And it's gone

Voice acting in Space Quest V

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