Stardock owns Star Control and is planning an "XCOM-like" reboot

And a developer - Galactic Civilizations, Sins of a Solar Empire, Elemental…

Edit - it occurs to me that you may have meant that, as a publisher, Stardock is used to funding development themselves. That may well be true, but as a publisher, they are would still be looking for ways to expand their avenues and pools of funding. Kickstarter is one such additional avenue. Plus it gets the community involved and they would undoubtedly get a serious amount of press coverage to boot.

They published Sins, Ironclad developed it. :) But my point is, usually a developer or indie will get a Kickstarter campaign going because it’s not a project that can attract publisher dollars or they do not want publisher interference in the project. Since Stardock is a publisher of both their own and other games, why would they need a Kickstarter campaign? I’d find it incredibly tacky, myself, and wouldn’t be something I would back.

The thing is Toys for Bob are owned by Activision, so I’m not sure they can work on this in any way.

I’m very leery on any Star Control game that doesn’t have the originals involvement.

I believe hiring good writers might be harder than you think, based on the general quality of humor writing in video games.

Another thing to note:

Activision bought Toys for Bob, so they are an Activision studio. Paul, Fred and the rest of the original Star Con 2 devs are all at that studio. And they make Skylanders, which is a cash cow. I doubt Activision has any intention to allow them to create anything else until the Skylanders boat has sailed… so they’re all pretty much locked up and unable to contribute.

Probably pretty safe to assume that won’t be a problem in this particular case, as they are one and the same. :)

…not a project that can attract publisher dollars…

Yep, very true, but a successful Kickstarter campaign can be just the thing to prove to other external investors that there is a market for a given genre and convince them to pony up some additional funding. I think several other Kickstarters have suggested as much (Star Citizen and Elite, from memory, have both had additional angel investment come in post Kickstarter?).

I have no idea how hard it is to hire writers, having hired exactly zero in my career. But I’m thinking Stardock has hired a few, and might be familiar with the process. So again, in terms of waiting and seeing, I’ll take the optimistic path until that proves inappropriate.

Really, cause I’m thinking Stardock has never hired any good humorists. Say what you will about their games but I don’t think anyone has ever said they were funny.

Which must mean that it’s impossible for Stardock to start now, I guess.

Stardock has contracted with writers (specifically Dave Stern, author of “Shadows in the Asylum”). But you are correct that Stardock has never hired a humorist.

There are seriously only about 10 people in the entire gaming industry who write genuinely funny prose.

And three of them are at Valve.

So you hire outside the industry. There are tons of comics living off kraft mac n’ cheese who would jump at the chance.

I believe one of my good friends and guildmates since early EQ days did some artwork and the voice for one of the races in Star Control 2. I will have to shoot him a note that this is going on just in case he or Stardock has an interest.

We are talking about good writers. Their track record isn’t so good on that end. See Elemental, or try to read its text… Ugh!

And besides, writers are one thing, but good gameplay is another. Star Control gameplay was astounding at the time and hitting such a high mark (following modern standards) and preserves the feel is not going to be easy, specially if you haven’t developed an action title before. That shit ain’t easy and it’s hard to judge how good it is without crazy play testing.

I guess what I fear is that they will deliver something 2D akin to SPAZ or EV:N in the gameplay department, and that’s just not something I’m interested in (I’ll play the original, thanks). If Star Control is to come back I want something spectacular. There are enough good enough similar games otherwise. The new XCOM was great because of the gameplay redesign. Doing something like that for Star Control (already such a simple game that streamlining wont work) is something I’d love to see.

I want a crazy, fluid, 3D and easy to control Star Control… And yes, I’m aware I’m in the minority here.

OK, so I guess this updated Star Control could go horribly wrong. Thanks for the news flash, Mr. Murrow.

Keep in mind that we’ve already seen one sequel to Star Control 2 do a poor job of recapturing what was wonderful about it, due largely to writing. Thinking about shortcomings of SC3’s writing, the fanfic analogy is a fairly decent one.

Hmmmm… how about a Star Control-skinned AI War type of game? Imagine directing a cloud of Spathi Eluders towards (and then away…) from a well-armed starbase. Neat.

Except they would be called “Apathi Preluders”.

savor the gravy

:)