Grifman
2041
They are using the HW2 engine for HW1. And Cata isn’t included because the source code was lost.
It astounds me that losing the source code for a giant game like that is a thing that can happen.
Being a software developer, it doesn’t surprise me at all, even if I wish people would store source code for everything. :)
Hey my beloved motherfucking beautiful people, wanna win a copy of Distant Worlds: Universe AND help a brother out? My contest to hopefully do both ends today:
Just FYI. ;)
tgb123
2045
Hey Brian -
I see that the Alpha of Predestination is now live on Steam. I saw an old video you posted, but I was wondering what your current take on it is.
I streamed a bit of it yesterday on Twich (on phone, can’t link) but I had a great time with it. Planetary management is a fun game in and of itself, I think.
Here we go I think -http://www.twitch.tv/spacegamejunkie/c/6078942
Man Twitch needs either a better app or a mobile-friendly site. Yeeesh.
Can anyone recommend any recent mission based sims that are decent?
Eterium is pretty decent. Void Destroyer is balls hard. SOL Exodus is fun if short. Er…uh…that might be it in terms of “recent”.
So for a number of years now i’ve been trying to remember the name of a game i used to play on my Amiga, and with a fair bit of digging i did get the answer, but first i wanted to post the article i found that gave me it’s name, as it is full of space game win:
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/spacewar/spacewar.htm
The game i was after came on the last page, under homebrew, as it was a freeware game in the 90’s called ‘Transplant’:
What i loved about it, apart from the two player mode (great for when a buddy was over) and graphical references to all the best sci-fi of the time (Star Wars, Star Trek and BattleStar Galactica), was that it was great simple fun to play, and huge. I think it had 256 levels, but it might have had more. I had been hoping it had seen a PC version release, but it sadly looks like it was just that Amiga (and possibly uk only?) release.
So does anyone know of a game like it for PC? I could go track down my Amiga 1200 and do it that route, or possibly if forced run an Amiga emulator (not that great last time i tried), but something like it, maybe it’s own thing on PC would do :)
Huh, there are a decent amount of shooters out now that are Asteroidsy in nature, but honestly, this is my most recent favorite, and it immediately came to mind when I saw that video:
http://www.heliocentricstudios.com/granvitreous/
Ta da! :) Thanks Brian that looks close, maybe a bit too manic early on (reminds me of Robotron 2084 in that aspect!)? Also no spinning starfield background as you move, which i love in games like that.
Anyway the issue is this is a hugely crowded genre and sorting out the good from the bad is a lot harder than i was expecting. Transplant was a sublime little game, incredibly satisfying in all aspects. I’ll try Gran Vitreous out for sure. Oh when you say it’s a twin stick shooter, what does that mean, i need two joysticks? Mouse&Keyboard not an option?
One stick moves, one stick shoots. So you can move in one direction and shoot in another. Works fine on a keyboard as WASD moves and mouse shoots in many games like this. :)
Transplant was obviously inspired by the BBC Micro classic Starship Command:
I loved this game, never had a BBC Micro, but on a couple of occasions I borrowed one for a weekend and played it basically every minute that I could. I’ve always tried to find a worthy, modern interpretation of it, but I’m still searching. It was much slower paced than Transplant, and the enemy was a lot more lethal, particularly later on when you got invisible ships that fired streams of photons at you. Ouch. The thing I loved about SC was the ability to eject from your ship just before its destruction. This was core to progressing: if you did well enough, you’d get another replacement ship. The ships were modeled after popular sci-fi ships of the time, and everything exploded in that satisfying, vector-like way.
I never discovered Transplant on the Amiga, although it looks like it differed quite a bit from SC. The other one that was similar was Awesome (a Psygnosis game that really was badly named), basically a bunch of minigames, the first of which was similar to Transplant.
I still fire up a BBC emulator every now and then to play SC. Still great fun.
Incidentally, there’s a Eurogamer article on SC here: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-08-08-starship-command-retrospective
I’d forgotten about the Kickstarter to reboot SC. Damn, I’d forgotten about that. It didn’t get much attention sadly.
Brian (and Jim, if you read this) I gotta say this most recent podcast with the Homeworld: Cataclysm guys is one of my favorites, to date. It was great hearing some guys talk about their industry experiences with a good dash of humor and the gloves semi-off. Well done.
Aaawwww, thank you for listening! It was a really fun one. :)
Aceris
2056
You could also use your escape capsule as a missile to destroy enemy ships. This got you many points, but ended your game. Or you could accidentally hit enemy ships with the escape capsule, which had the same effect :)
I didn’t know it scored you points, I just assumed you died horribly and that was that. I never went for points though, always tried to please Command enough to be awarded just one more ship.
Damn, now I’m going to have to fire up the emulator again…
zombo77
2058
WinUAE with a USB Competition Pro joystick is pretty close to the Amiga experience.
True, although the last time i used WinUAE (a while ago) it was a bit hit and miss and the control part often felt a bit ‘off’/laggy…in the end digging out my aged A1200 was the best option, but not one i sadly have now (the PSU died). I’m still searching for my perfect top down space exploration action game, Transplant is still top of the list.
And as this is a space game thread to rule them all, i found (thnx to RPS) this interesting mix of free games that could be worth looking at for some:
http://www.antholojam.com/gamesite/
