Meerkat, surely?
Fixed!
I think you meant like a prairie dog.
Tsk, tsk.
My lovingly written description didn’t entice enough. But name dropping one or two previous games with suddenly makes interest explode…
sadface
I think the comparison with 25th Anniversary is apt for the adventure parts, with a heavier focus on decisions and different outcomes.
Except for theme I personally don’t see The Captain as too close to Starflight though.
I’m sorry man, I stopped reading at “Point and click adventure.” I just don’t do those anymore, typically. Not your fault.
I think part of what made Starflight so amazing was the sense that anything really could happen. Just the capricious insta-death that was standard for '80s games combined with a never-been-done-before sense of vastness and exploration, under the Electronic Arts label, which, at the time, was the publisher that mattered, and for good reason. The phrase “AAA game” didn’t exist yet, because there was Electronic Arts, there was Origin, and there was Microprose. Then there was everything else. SSI felt like janky spreadsheet games for dads.
A low-budget indie pixelart cutesy thing made by Swedes is not going to feel like Starflight.
Is there random map generation in this? How long is a play through?
I’d sure love a modern version of Strange Adventures with each sortie taking an hour or so…what I had hoped Long Journey Home would be
No, it’s a fixed map.
As for my Starflight reference, I didn’t mean to get hopes up that it was the second coming or anything. I meant that it was a non linear space adventure with exploration, optional combat, and a sense that new adventures await in this new sector.
The ST 25th Anniversary comparison I think is fully apt, though with the unique aspect of multiple possible endings for the adventures, which seems designed for replay.
Some examples: there an early planet with a “escape the abandon science lab with alien horror beast trapped inside with you” plot. I rescued two people, one of which died, the other joined my crew. I got one of three endings “survive the alien”, no idea what the other endings could have been though there were unopened doors and some unanswered mysteries.
A smaller mission offered the choice of what to do with a valuable computer chip, either to get one of the foozles for the main plot, transmit the Android brain on the chip to the owner’s people, or disassemble it for one of the components necessary for saving a space station commanded by your wife. Any of which seems like it could have ramifications on the overall plot.
While it has many aspects of traditional point and click adventures, unlike many of those there doesn’t appear to be one, true, correct solution which is refreshing.
Aside from the adventure game aspect, the space layer has some interesting bits. Combat is a turn based affair of deciding how to spend your power budget for the turn. Upgrades and crew give you bonuses and special abilities, some of which are limited resources.
The overall time limit to doomsday keeps you from doing everything possible in one playthrough. And the multiple adventure endings seems geared for multiple plays. The game states that on replays you can fast forward bits of the adventure games that you have already seen; though I haven’t had a chance to try that out yet.
Would love for someone to post some gameplay of this.
Just released into an admittedly very Early Access state.
Here is the first 30 minutes of gameplay by a random youtuber. (The starting adventure on your ship and a short combat simulation after).
While I have some points of criticism the technical quality of the game is excellent still in my opinion, and I’m slightly saddened that it seems to have notable visibility problems. The generic name probably didn’t help.
Searching for “the Captain” on Steam for instance has the game as a recommended search tooltip, but only 9th in actual search results. After two Skyrim versions and Elder Scrolls Online…
I’m hoping to get a key for this to stream it soon.
This amuses me, because I am subbed to Scarlet Seeker. He tends to do first looks for games that don’t get much coverage at times, like this. No idea he had multiple channels.
Wow, I haven’t thought about that game in years. I played through that and finished it! I remember really enjoying it.
I remember enjoying the flight sections more than the on-foot sections. I can’t remember if I used a joystick for them or mouse and keyboard. I remember this was the era when I hadn’t quite put away my joysticks yet and was still yearning for more joystick games.
I only played the PS2 sequel. Still have a copy of it around here, wonder how it holds up.
Just as I was wishing for a Drakengard remake elsewhere!
Thanks for the reminder on this, i loved that game. When you were on foot it was tough going but when you got on that dragon you were like a god, roasting all the enemies alive with ease.
Apologies if it was mentioned earlier in this thread, but Heavenly Bodies is out on PC & PlayStation now.
I’m enjoying Heavenly Bodies, but I could see the QWOP-in-Space control method being frustrating for some.
I’m only four missions in but I’m starting to get a hang of just moving around fluidly and using alternating handholds to zip about. Theoretically you can use the leg controls to spring in a direction, but I’m still finding that hard to set up so I mostly ignore the legs and just use the controls to “tuck” so I can get them through narrow doors.
There’s a lot of “Well, that’s not what I intended” moments but the missions all seem to have quite a few checkpoints and if you quit the game mid-mission or lose your grip and float off into the sun mid-mission then you start back at the last checkpoint.
It does make me wonder how I manage to use my arms without thinking about it in real life though.
Oh it’s easy. Your brain is constantly solving analytically unsolvable inverse kinematics equations to determine the positions and rotations of all of your joints necessary to form the trajectories you want your appendages to travel.