Interview

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Space Quest Historian

Adventure, underdogs and imaginings: Troels Pleimert aka The Space Quest Historian talks retro point-and-click games and Magic Map Studio’s new vision for the King’s Quest V OST

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Space Quest Historian

“When he announced that he was reworking King's Quest V, the complete soundtrack, I was thrilled for two reasons,” says so-called “Space Quest Historian” Troels Pleimert on musician Erik Elsom. “One, because he was doing an amazing job, and I really wanted his project to succeed. And number two, people would stop asking me to do it.” Talking with typical tongue-in-cheek humour via a video call from his home in Denmark, the video game YouTuber is discussing the latest game soundtrack re-orchestration to be released via his own Two Guys Records.

Pleimert admits that the King’s Quest video games themselves, first released in the early 1980s by Sierra Entertainment, are something of a “favourite whipping horse” for him, preferring the underdog atmosphere of the famed developer’s other offerings. “I gravitated towards the sort of cynical, downtrodden kind of punk rock spirits adventure game in a way,” he comments. “Whereas King's Quest is more like a chivalry, 'let's ride some horses and save princesses' kind of thing.” Continuing, Pleimert explains that by comparison in the Space Quest adventure game "you're a janitor. No one likes you. No one cares about you. The Universe hates you, and you triumph against all odds, including your own shortcomings.” Nevertheless, 1990’s King Quest V soundtrack—composed by Sierra’s legendary Mark Seibert and Ken Allen—was ripe for the picking with its memorable themes. When Elsom, aka Magic Map Studio, reached out through Pleimert’s Discord server of “like-minded weirdos”, a connection was made around Elsom’s submission for a recent Two Guys Records compilation of King’s Quest chillout remixes. He was working on a more ambitious soundtrack recreation at the time, which would become King's Quest V: Songs of Serenia, with a vinyl campaign now on Qrates. Reanimating the game’s score using its original MIDI data, Elsom has managed to breathe new life into the soundtrack with a sonic richness once unimaginable for the technical parameters of the day.

Space Quest Historian

For Pleimert, a fascination with the worlds of Sierra stem back to his teenage years.

“When I was growing up in the early ‘90s, they were sort of omnipresent,” Pleimert recalls. “Adventure games were the AAA titles of the time, and Sierra were absolute masters.” This catalogue included not only King’s Quest, but other influential and memorable games such as Leisure Suit Larry, Gabriel Knight and, later, Phantasmagoria. Pleimert’s favourite from the developer, Space Quest—from which he released his own soundtrack re-orchestration on Qrates last year—became an enduring passion that would continue to shape his life and work to this day. As a YouTube content creator, he is known by the Space Quest Historian handle, however his days of sharing game news and information online under this moniker date back to the early web when Pleimert was a teen. “My friend will claim to have created not just the first Space Quest fan site on the internet, but the first fan site for a computer game ever, and I was one of the early contributors to his website,” he notes. “I started writing a Space Quest FAQ. Back in those days FAQ’s were long text documents. They're basically encyclopaedias of something.” It was here that the title he would go by to this day first stuck. “I sort of ironically, but also not, called myself the Space Quest historian. My first little taste of online fame, as it were."

I gravitated towards the sort of cynical, downtrodden kind of punk rock spirits adventure game in a way.

Space Quest Historian

Delving into vinyl soundtrack releases and remixes is a more recent venture for Pleimert, and he remembers the idea forming at a PAX West video game conference a few years back.

“I saw the indie mega booth where they had video game soundtracks on vinyl. This is something I didn't know was a thing,” he recalls. “I was like, well, that's interesting. You’ve got Undertale and Grim Fandango soundtracks. I came home with the soundtrack to Doki Doki Literature Club but I was thinking, 'why haven't we got all the point-and-click adventure game soundtracks on vinyl?'” This planted the seed for a Qrates campaign of the Space Quest IV soundtrack, re-orchestrated by Pleimert, from which he was buoyed by public interest and spawned his new label: “I kind of just stuck Two Guys Records on the sleeve as a joke because the original designers of Space Quest were called the ‘two guys from Andromeda.’” 


Space Quest Historian

At the heart of a present day boom in video game soundtrack re-orchestration is the potential for reimagining composers’ original visions were they not working within the technical restrictions of the times.

Namely, the audio capacities of ‘80s and ‘90s PC sound cards, such as the Sound Blaster and the Roland MT-32. As Pleimert comments, “The MT-32 sounded amazing for the time, but it does sound synthetic today, which obviously it is.” He continues, “These days, you would have a real orchestra playing the soundtrack to Assassin's Creed.” Availability of these games’ original MIDI data means that musicians such as Pleimert and Elsom can now import the game’s original melodies into the vastly more powerful digital audio workstations of today. “It's fun to load up a MIDI file with the restrictions that they had, how many voices they can have at the same time and go through it doubling up some instruments, adding some orchestral whooshes and build up.” The possibilities of sampling open further doors too. “There's one huge crash in the Space Quest IV overture,” Pleimert recalls of his reworking, “right when the thing kicks in and goes boom, for an Easter egg, I snuck in the sound of an actual car crash.”

I was thinking, why haven't we got all the point-and-click adventure game soundtracks on vinyl?

Space Quest Historian

It’s no surprise that with the level of care and attention Elsom and Pleimert are applying to these cult soundtracks, their original authors, Sierra’s old music director Mark Seibert and chief composer Ken Allen, have given their blessing.

Allen in particular has in recent years struck up a friendship and ongoing rapport with Pleimert, and from the outset “was on board and thought the whole thing was a kick-ass idea.” For King’s Quest V: Songs of Serenia, Elsom’s musicianship and classical background has helped reinvigorate the soundtrack, true to its original vision. “Ken is a classically-trained composer and so apparently is Erik, who actually played the real violin on his re-orchestration.” He continues, “What Erik is doing is the same thing that I did to Space Quest IV a few years ago, which was to make it sound as epic as it did in Ken's head back at the time. Listening to his music come alive with the proper instrumentation that Erik is doing—Ken’s loving every bit of it.”

By Jared D

March 17, 2022

NOW ON QRATES

Magic Map Studio / King's Quest V - Songs of Serenia is now available on Qrates.

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