I appreciate the answer, Brad. A little sad (I’d love to design a universe for the multiverse with some slight randomization applied to some elements), but given your design goals, crafting the Adventure Studio the way you have makes complete sense.
It does sound like branching would theoretically work, however, which is almost as good, assuming one has sufficient patience :)
You also have the game clock too. So someone creating a mission can effectively make something random. It’s just that we’re trying to avoid that.
For example, there’s no time limit in the game. The universe evolves based on events rather than time.
So, in fact there IS an easy random number generator in the tool, I can just take the current time in seconds and do a modulo 10 against it to get a random result from 0-9… :-)
I’m happy to hear this. I always felt in a hurry in SC2 to get to certain places before they got wiped off the map.
Did we know that Stardock apparently filed for the trademark for The Ur-Quan Masters as well? Paul and Fred seem to have also filed as a result.
We updated our Q+A with a section on that.
Q: Why did Stardock trademark Ur-Quan Masters?
A: Our actions continue to be in the interest of protecting Star Control and our ability to create and share more Star Control assets to the community in the future (including releasing the source code of Star Control III, which we own, as well as future Star Control Origins and content) without fear that Paul and Fred would claim that we are creating “confusion” by doing so. As background: Stardock always had the common law trademark to Ur-Quan Masters. It’s the sub-title to Star Control II after all and was, by Paul and Fred’s admission, available in commerce on GOG even before Stardock was involved.
Opening my backpack with my project
My work with Star Control takes me all over the community.
I get to meet a lot of interesting people as part of my job and get to visit fascinating places.
This week I got to go to a planet called Jupiter. Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. It is really really big and has a lot of moons.
Here is my diary of my trip to Jupiter. It was cold and hot at the same time. Then I died.
https://www.starcontrol.com/article/487813/star-control-origins---my-trip-to-jupiter
What did you do to that poor planet.
It was like that when I found it!
Here are some other shots for you guys:
Still on tract for a late Summer release.
hah! I love that last one.
Random q, @Brad. What’s the approximate difficulty of the game, vis a vis the lander segments in particular, if the gamer in question has the twitch skills of a dead cat?
I mean, not that the theoretical gamer in question here is me, of course. I mean, hah, I’ve been playing computer games since the late 80s! Surely I have great reflexes.
But yes, if I–or, more likely, someone entirely different–didn’t, how would that go?
Of course! ;)
The primary narrative won’t require very much in the way of arcade level skills but it will require either good problem solving skills or good “ask on QT3 for help” skills.
The various side missions will require various levels of skills in hand-eye coordination but even there, you can mitigate this by leveling up your landers or ships or what have you to the point where everything gets less difficult from a twitch perspective.
Case in point, someone with “mad skills” can probably land on Venus right away. I, however, am not one of those people but my son is. However, as soon as I acquire a level of inertia dampening for my lander, I can land pretty easily.
Ohhhh nice!
Very cool! Getting super pumped for this, Brad. Thanks for continuing to share with us here.
I recall in Starcon 2, I’d aim very precisely with my lander when there was a planet with exotic materials (magenta, I seem to recall). The planet would normally be super hot with tectonic activity like a bad disaster film. However, I could fairly reliably land, spin to gather what was right there, and launch. While it burned up extra fuel, it was totally worth it for those super rare minerals.
Fred & Paul share communiques between them and Stardock:
https://www.dogarandkazon.com/blog/2018/3/18/strange-settlement-on-an-alien-planet
Reportedly, Stardock offered them this settlement offer:
But earlier this month we received an unfathomable settlement offer from Stardock. Paraphrasing from legalese, it requires…
- Fred and Paul must surrender all their IP rights to the classic Star Control games to Stardock.
- Fred and Paul never again use the words “STAR CONTROL” or “GHOSTS OF THE PRECURSORS” or “THE UR-QUAN MASTERS”.
- For the next 5 years, Fred and Paul do not work on any game similar to the classic Star Control games.
- Fred and Paul issue a public apology to Stardock.
- Fred and Paul never again challenge Stardock’s rights to STAR CONTROL trademark or STAR CONTROL 3 copyright.
- Fred and Paul pay Stardock $225,000.
- Fred and Paul never again call themselves the “creators” of the classic Star Control games.
Cool. I guess once things come to legal blows, it’s just scorched earth, huh?
Oh, also, Stardock is filing for trademarks on the very content that, for awhile, they admitted was owned by F&P:
And if their intent wasn’t clear enough, Stardock has now also filed for the trademarks:“The Ur-Quan Masters”, “Melnorme”, “VUX”, Pkunk”, “Ilwrath”, “Chenjesu”, “Androsynth”, “Spathi”, “SUPER-MELEE”, “Syreen”, “Ur-Quan”, “Orz” and “Yehat”.
Both these games could be great, and both deserve to get made. What a shame that lots of money that could be spent to make both of them great will now be going to lawyers.
Absolutely. Which is why anyone with sense tries to settle things before a legal fight starts.
EDIT: To be clear, I’m not commenting about either party in this lawsuit. It was a general comment.
I wish they could take one day off from the crazy train.
This. A million times this.
Oh that’s a laugh. You clearly haven’t been paying attention.
