That is the fan 'space quest 2' remake. They got a fan license to make it.

The original Space Quest 2 in its lovely 8-bit 16 color glory, is not technically legally downloadable. But can be bought her on GOG.

SQ2 is not the same thing as the Sierra Space Quest 1 VGA remake.

I prefer the remake personally, but the original has its charm too, you can witness the series in its earliest incarnation, it has the whole text parser and sixteen colors blocky graphics that a lot of people still enjoy, it also has one easter egg that is missing in the remake, and a scene in Space Quest IV may resonate with you differently if you play the original instead of the remake.

The remake has a pretty nice soundtrack, has much more writing in it, has a whole bunch of cameos from other sci-fi movies, TV shows and novels to match the style of the later Space Quest games in the series, and it visually has a retro, pulp, Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon, kind of visual style to match its plot. That being said, some people tend to find the graphics, especially in the final part of the game to be quite headache-y.

In term of puzzles, some of the puzzles have been tweaked a bit:
For those who are allergic to arcade sequences in adventure games, there is an option to skip the sand skimmer sequence (although doing so will reward you no point),
There is an alternate way to deal with the Slot-O-Death sequence,
It is possible to find buckazoids somewhere else on Ulence Flats should you lose your last buckazoid,
The coupons puzzle has been made much less obtuse now that the coupons are included in the game, and not in the game box like in the original,
And last but not least, a cartridge reader has been added in the final part of the game, in case you forgot an important detail written on the cartridge, or in case you missed the cartridge reader earlier in the game.

any chance for the vga version to be added?

It's interesting that the other Sierra games offered on GOG have both original and VGA remake - Leisure Suit Larry 1 has both, Quest for Glory has both, Police Quest has both, it's just Space Quest for some reason that is lacking the VGA version. While I have it already through the re-release they (Sierra) did a few years back; I tend to buy the games on GOG so I can easily download them on my laptop (which doesn't have a CDROM) and play them when I am on vacation.

I think the reason why the remakes have been added to the Police Quest, Quest for Glory and Leisure Suit Larry collections is because we've brought GOG's attention on the issue. Both the King's Quest and Space Quest collections were added to the library a long time ago and since at the time the only King's Quest and Space Quest collections out there included the remakes and not the original games, a lot of people congratulated GOG for having the balls to feature the originals rather than the remakes, but some people on the forum and in the comments section asked for the remakes to be included too.

And then the Police Quest collection was added and it featured the remake, but the original Police Quest game was missing, and so we asked GOG to fix that, and they eventually did, and by the time Quest For Glory and Leisure Suit Larry were added, GOG knew they needed both versions or we'd bring up the issue again. (Well actually we did bring up the issue, except this time it was for Leisure Suit Larry VI to come with both the VGA and SVGA versions)

It's a shame the King's Quest and Space Quest packs are not fixed yet. I suppose fixing those involves a lot of red tape and rights/royalties negotiations. Then again, there's so many Sierra games that deserves their place on GOG's library: The EcoQuests, Pepper's Adventure In Time, Dr Brains, Sid and Al's Incredible Toons and Woodruff for the kids, and Freddy Pharkas, Gold Rush, the Conquests, Manhunters and Laura Bows for the grown-ups.

Honestly, a long time ago, I thought "Hey, maybe they could take the remakes of King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest and Quest For Glory and bundle them together in a Sierra classic adventure taster kind of bundle, where for X bucks you could try out the first chapters of these series before buying the rest" but then the Police Quest collection was added and I'm still biting my fingers for not suggesting that to GOG earlier.

I have no idea why they don't have the VGA version. The VGA version was the one I played as a kid.

Many of the original Sierra games like Space Quest predate the mouse "point & click" interface. That's the way I originally played (and completed) SQ1, KQ1, and the others that I can't quite recall. It was a real hoot when you'd get into a guessing game with the Sierra parser in these games...and you'd hit in a scene wherein the first two words you had typed in failed but then you got it! That was a great feeling...! Moving through these games and playing like that--you and your vocabulary against the game programmers--provided a real feeling of accomplishment when you completed them. It forced you to formally think through every scenario logically in order to discover the word or phrase that would get you through to the next.

These days, of course, I much prefer "point & click" to "guess-the-word-needed-here"--who doesn't? But it was those early Sierra games on which I "cut my eye teeth" so to speak in terms of my lifelong passion for computer games and what I always knew they could ultimately become. I have to say that I was often dreaming of something like the Witcher 3 more than a decade before it was created--and am holding out hope that CDPR will do a sci-fi RPG (sort of like Space Quest, but dramatic, of course, as opposed to "zany and comedic")--and what I'm hearing is that they're working on something much like I had imagined all those decades ago!

But it was these early, early games that put most of us who are still with the craft today on the paths that we have taken! I cannot say enough good things about these early games and the critical thinking approaches they put me onto in a more effective way than anything in my formal education ever did, oddly enough.

Sure, I was born around the time it was released and I've played MUDs and stuff, but we're in 2015 now and GOG is intended to appeal to people buying games to replay their childhood but mainly people buying games to try something new regardless of year of release or graphics.

Just going to gently nudge this thread; since apparently making GOG aware before got the others completed; does anyone know how we could reach out to them to see about getting SQ1 VGA also included?

You can request it in the community wish list

https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games

I got the same response for King's Quest. I just thought... How about contacting the publisher and asking? Maybe they didn't think of it at the time. Maybe we should just flood Activision with request emails?

EDIT: I just contacted Activision (www.sierra.com) and asked. Hopefully I will get a response soon.

Been a month - don't suppose you heard back? :)

Nope. I guess their support is not very supportive.

The Space Quest Collection over on Steam appears to have been updated to include SQ1EGA, but there are reports that they didn't remove SQ1VGA. If that's true, then there's finally a definitive bundle to buy.