The game was released on March 24th, 1989, and was the first SQ game to be developed using an early version of Sierra's SCI engine. It featured music composed by the Supertramp drummer, Bob Siebenberg, and was one of the first games in the world that came with SoundBlaster support. As well as this impressive sound-support, PC versions of the game now supported mouse movement and a new, heavily improved, text parser. It also featured a mini-side game inside it, called Astro Chicken.