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Star Control 2 Released Under the GPL
Jagasian writes "The classic computer space adventure role playing game known as Star Control 2 has been officially ported from its obsolete mono-platform source code to modern multi-platform C++/SDL source code. The game is open source, and compiles and runs on Linux! The alpha release binaries are available for download now!"
I can only suggest the great wealth of links located at dmoz. There's pretty much everything you need to learn about the series and then some.
The title screen is fan-created, and there's a music remix project (some of the original musicians are doing the remixes... the Ilwrath music is already up at the Pages of Now and Forever). I'm pretty sure they'd accept quite a bit of fan-created stuff, as long as it's good enough. The developers are *Happy Campers*, after all :)
"But really, I think life is just a game of Mao Nomic." -Purplebob
...this is one to play. "Star Control 2" stole from the very best, "Starflight", and included a great deal of combat options for the adventure impaired. A real delight.
Chris Nelson is the main person responsable for the port; Fred and Paul (known among SC fans as "The Creators") are not very involved wit the port. It's a port of the 3do version, not the PC version - meaning that there's speech, and the 3do music (the pc music can be enabled with a commandline switch, though). That also means that the wonderful ending of the PC version is not implemented yet, but it probably will be. It's currently alpha, and there are quite a few bugs - it's actually impossible to win due to collision-detection issues, but I've gotten extremely close to the end. There is also a project underway to create new versions of the music; some of the original authors of the music are involved. The developers don't plan on making any major changes to the game (this should come as a relief): this release will focus on fixing all of the bugs, but otherwise staying as true to the original games as possible. The main ways in which they are straying from the real game is by integrating the 3do and PC versions a bit; the same story, and most of the same graphics, will be used. The name, "The Ur-Quan Masters", has to be used instead of "Star Control" due to trademark issues.
So, download it and *enjoy the sauce*!
"But really, I think life is just a game of Mao Nomic." -Purplebob
Networking is not a top priority; they are trying to get the bugs fixed right now. Timewarp is a nice melee clone with networking support, though.
"But really, I think life is just a game of Mao Nomic." -Purplebob
In my opinion the news item isn't emphasizing enough that this is still an alpha. Not everything is working yet and crashes are still frequent.
The real fans will still like it, but for the full experience, you might want to wait for at least a beta release.
We actually thought it was to early for a Slashdot announcement, but I guess it was inevitable. The timing couldn't have been worse though, as for some (probably malicious) reason, a large number of files from various SourceForge web sites seem to have been deleted.
Also worth mentioning is that the source for this port came from the 3DO version, and not the PC version (this means there are differences, such as spoken dialogs), and that the final release will include (optional) remixed tracks by the original artists.
*enjoy the sauce*
Serge van den Boom
from the Ur-Quan Masters core team
So yea. Check it out.
Wah!
Note that if you still have your original copy of Starcon2, it is possible to play it under Windows XP or 2k, with full sound, by running it under DosBox, an MS-DOS emulator.
Ironic that this bit of news gets posted to Slashdot not two days after I finish playing through the game!
It's a completely different style of game. SC2 is a 2D Space/Adventure game where you have to solve a puzzle.
The graphics are not all that if compared to today's graphics, but the Aliens (yes, you have to interact with all kinds of whacked up aliens) are incredibly fun. I remember laughing out really hard in the middle of the night playing this game.
It's hard to describe. You got to play to understand.
Actually you can, they're available as a "module". Just scroll up to the lander slots and then activate the slot to get the option of purchasing a lander.
Starflight was released in 1986. It featured CGA graphics (EGA later?), diplomacy, 80 star systems, 5 races, simple trade interstellar and planetary navigation and a plot that games today can't touch. Published by Electronic Arts.
Starflight II: Trade Routes of the Cloud Nebula, released in 1989, this was a worthy sequel. It featured more star systems, more sophisticated diplomacy, VGA graphics, moderatly complex trade and additional plot elements. Published by Electronic Arts.
Star Control, published in 1990 was a pretty cool melee game. It offered a few ships you could fly around, develop strategies for and have realtime battles with either against an opponent or an AI. Published by Accolade.
Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters, published in 1992, was what Starflight 3 should have been. It had many elements of the starmap of Starflight, many of the underlying plot elements and game engine of that series with the Star Control melee combat grafted on.
Starflight 3: Mysteries of the Universe, yet unreleased, is an Open project with many of the original Starflight crew, Binary Systems, aiding in consulting or programming.
Here's what I want to know: Is there any official link between the Starflight and Star Control families? Was there swindling involved? Was I deprived of a Starflight 3 I would have paid double for vs. a Star Control? Why oh why? As far as I'm concerned, the Open Starflight 3 will be great, no matter what, but the real Starflight 3 that seemingly "almost was" would have been worthwhile.
Apologies for the long rant it took to get here. Any responses appreciated.
Pardon me, I think I hear the Uhl whispering in my head.
One of the best things about SC2 was the thumpin' music. My friend had the Gravis Ultrasound card and the music totally ROCKED! In the PC version, the music was done in Amiga MOD format, a four-track music system based on sound samples. It was amazing what could be done with just four tracks. MODs were featured heavily in the demo scene for a while.
c .shtml.
You can imagine how pleased I was to find the music in MP3! Grab them here: http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol/3do/musi
Yes, the music blew everything else away at the time. Interesting trivia : Paul Reiche III (SC2 game designer) actually announced a music competition on Usenet in 1992 to get music for the game. See Google for an archive of the original message... $50 bucks each for the winners... hmmmm.
Also for those role players out there Paul Reiche III did a stint at TSR and amongst other contributions was the inventor of the Thyr-Kreen insectoid creatures for AD&D. See the Toys for Bob Bio for more info.
The original PC version of SC2 fits nicely on 4 floppies, and the actual game code and data is roughly the same size in the new version. However, the 3DO version (on which this remake is based), filled a CD with speech and CD-quality audio (using some rather hairy custom compression, too). The fact that they managed to squeeze this into 140 MB is solely due to the greatness of Ogg Vorbis.
Version 1.0 will also be released in a version without speech and remixed music, which ought to be under 10 MB.
rpm -i starcontrol-blah.fishcakes.rpm
a h.fishcakes.rpm
or better yet...
rpm -i ftp://ftp.sourceforge.net/pub/rpms/starcontrol-bl
anyone?
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Actually, this is not true. Yes, we are *Happy Campers*, but there will be no new fan-created things added until the 1.0 version. After that, you can expect a lot of branches.
The game material will be a mixture from the PC and the 3DO version, switchable where appropriate.
The remixes are created by a team of original musicians, and you will be able to choose whether you want the PC, 3DO or UQM remixed version, probably even per track.
The new title screen was necessary as we can't use the "Star Control" trademark, and it was created by Erol Otus, who created the original title screen as well.
Serge van den Boom
from the Ur-Quan Masters core team
I'll see your Morrowind and raise you Quake (the original, and still the best). RPGs are great fun, but for sheer time-wasting, prep'ing for a clan deathmatch on a Quake DM level could take a week just to sort out team tactics. An entire generation of students from a prominent UK university where I studied lost many early hours to that one. Some allegedly made the UK national team but failed their degrees... <sigh> :-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
you'll be thrilled to note that this is actually port of the 3do-console version, with SPEECH, remixed musics & all. i've been lusting for after this baby for years.. as it's pretty damn hard to find 3do console+this game for sale around here i'm VEEERRY HAPPY.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
If anyone reads this could you spare a mod point?
The development team didn't want this announced yet because there are still some major bugs/omissions in the alpha. The intro animations are not there yet, the game is a bit unstable (especially during dialog which has lots of colour/pallete action eg. starbase when power is low at the beginning, sylandro homeworld), the collision detection is only implemented as bounding box at the moment which has some nasty sideeffects (one of which makes it impossible to win the final battle unless you play as "cyborg").
Having said this I've played it through to the end again, so it's definately possible. Just save often.
Also, if there are any new potential players out there, this game takes major time to complete and is a huge challenge compared to many games. I'd imagine it would be almost impossible to get anywhere without any background/instructions, so I suggest you CHEAT. Yes, search the net, find a walkthrough... this game will not leave you feeling empty as it will be challenging enough to complete even if you know what you're supposed to be doing. The walkthroughs will probably seem cryptic anyway until you discover the intricacies of the story along the way. Playing it through again I shamelessly downloaded cheats and maps because although I love the game it would simply take too long to rediscover, and I don't have the time.
For potential new players I stress again : If you don't mind a challenge and enjoy humour in what you play this game is worth it...