Hope for Another Star Control Sequel?

Pluvius writes "A recent post on GameSpot's Rumor Control blog suggests that there may be a chance for a new entry in the classic Star Control series in the foreseeable future. It would be developed by Toys for Bob, the creator of the first two games in the series, and it is implied that the company already holds the rights for the franchise. Quoting from the article: 'But maybe, just maybe, if enough of you people out there send [Alex Ness, producer] e-mails requesting that Toys For Bob do a legitimate sequel to Star Control 2, I'll be able to show them to [Toys For Bob parent company] Activision, along with a loaded handgun, and they will finally be convinced to roll the dice on this thing.'"

Comments

Star Control 2

[Mprx]

If you haven't played this classic game, then go to http://sc2.sourceforge.net/ . The 3DO version source was released under the GPL and the music and art is free to distribute with the source.

Try SCTW

[Anonymous Coward]

Posted anon to avoid karma whoring...
I highly recommend the open-source "Star Control Timewarp". It's awesome:

http://timewarp.sourceforge.net/

Alex's original post

[pcgabe]

Here is a copy of Alex's original newspost on the Toys for Bob site, to which TFA references.

The petition referenced at the end of the post is old and busted, and he gave the wrong link anyway. It was part of The Pages of Now and Forever

I know it's not SOP to RTFA, but for those of you that are unfamiliar with the off-the-wall humor that comes out of TfB, you might want to check it out.

Apr 11 2006
Star Control Sequel - Get Out Of My Dreams..

You know what I haven't done in a while? Written any news. Some things have happened but nothing you would be that interested in. We've definitely hired a bunch of people in the last 6 months (See? I told you so.)

The game we've been working on for about a year is scheduled to come out in early November or so. What game are we working on? That's the funny thing. I can't tell you. I don't even know myself. What I mean is, "I don't even know, (comma) myself." Actually that doesn't make sense if I write it that way. I just didn't want you to think that I didn't know myself, even though I really don't. I wanted you to think that I didn't know what game we're working on, even though I really do.

Apparently, Activision is going to finally reveal the secret identity of our game at E3, which is about a month away. Hopefully I will know what game it is beforehand because I am supposed to be demo-ing it down at the show. If you're down there and want to say hi, just try and find me. You never will. I'm extremely difficult to find. And I won't answer to my own name (Alex). If you think you see me and call out a different name, like say, Stefan Jacobs, look for the person that doesn't turn around. That person is probably me. You may think that makes me fairly easy to find but again, you are wrong (I can't remember the first time you were wrong but I'm assuming it's happened at least once). Most people, you will notice, will turn around to the name Stefan Jacobs.

So it's taken me my usual 3 paragraphs to get to the real meat of this news article. And here it comes: A Star Control Sequel. We (I) want us to do a Star Control sequel. Back in the early 90s, Paul and Fred and some other people made Star Control 2. Personally, I thought it was pretty amazing. It was like a drug to me. Not quite as much like a drug as the drugs were but very, very close. I know there are other people that loved this game too. Sometimes you email me and ask if we'll ever do a sequel. And I always tell you that I wish we could do a sequel but it's very hard to convince large publishing companies that a new Star Control would sell very well in the current video game market. But maybe, just maybe, if enough of you people out there send me emails requesting that Toys For Bob do a legitimate sequel to Star Control 2, I'll be able to show them to Activision, along with a loaded handgun, and they will finally be convinced to roll the dice on this thing.

Will you do that for me? Your old pal, Alex? If you were working at a video game development company who had 2 founders that had worked on a classic, epic space role-playing and combat game years ago for which you had recently re-acquired rights to and were hoping to convince your new parent company to let you make a sequel by asking for the public to send in requests for said sequel, I'd email you. There's actually even a petition online. I have no idea how to sign it but here it is: http://starcontrol.classicgaming.gamespy.com/petit ion/petition_signed.shtml

Does anyone RTFA anymore?

[flithm]

A recent post on GameSpot's Rumor Control blog suggests that there may be a chance for a new entry in the classic Star Control series in the foreseeable future.

Now to quote the article:

When pressed for details by GameSpot... He said he does, of course, know what game he's working on, and it's not a Star Control sequel. "It's pretty cool and fun but has nothing to do with Star Control or space or role-playing," he said. "It should be out by the end of the year. My hope was that some time in the future, maybe the next project or maybe the one after, we would get a chance to make another Star Control game."

And to further quote the article, which after reading it, doesn't really seem to suggest all that much, they even bother to neatly sum it all up in one sentence:

Bogus or not bogus?: Bogus...for now.

Pretty weak rumor if you ask me. The guy basically says maybe in the future a project or two from now we'd like to do a sequel. How the hell is this newsworthy? In fact I kinda wish I had the minutes back it took to read TFA.

I'm starting to understand why no one reads the articles anymore. A) they suck. and B) even slashdot appears to be more about sensationalism than actual news delivery.

The funny thing is... sensationalism only works for a while. Yeah it gets people hyped up and interested in the short term, but it only causes dissent in the long term.

I have personally stopped watching or reading traditional news sources altogether simply for that fact. They can't be trusted. Might as well read a tabloid because it starting to amount to the same thing.

Re:Does anyone RTFA anymore?

[Pluvius]

Did you read the article? It makes it quite clear that Ness is referring to something else completely separate from the game that Toys for Bob is going to show at E3 this year. I even pointed this out when I submitted the article but Zonk edited that part out for some reason.

What Ness wants people to do is send him emails so he can prove to Activision that there is substantial interest for another Star Control game. If you can't see how that's newsworthy, then you're an idiot.

Rob

Well Star Control Fans

[GreggBz]

Well you Star Control people, there are plenty of non-complete projects out there that are very similar to the Star Control concept. First, there's the: incredible looking Infinity

Then there is the Starflight III game. Starflight I & II being very similar, and many feel inspirational to the Star Control series. Starflight III has been in development for bloody ages. They are making progress though, and my bets say we'll have it before long. I can't wait for it to finish.

There are others, and I've even spent about 18 months developing my own unoffical sequel to Starflight with original content. Boy is it hard, despite having basically the full requirements and design goals laid out in the best way possible, the original games. The worst part is the team's motivational considerations. It's hard to work on a game in your own time for weeks on end. I'm probably making a project that no one will play, save the few die hard fans of the old games. I had notions that there may be a wider audience, but after running the game idea past a few 13-14 year olds, I'm not sure the current generation of gamers will appreciate, or even understand a space-opera Star-Trek esq single player RPG since they are not fueled by those romantic memories of games of old. It seems if there is not some military or MMORPG element to games these days, no one wants to publish them. (there's a few exceptions)

On the other hand, there is a counter culture in game development that craves smaller independent type games. PC gamers are all getting pretty sick of 1-2 great titles each year, and the rest, which is pretty much me too crap, from the big publishers.

Some more information

[svdb]

We at the The Ur-Quan Masters project have set up a web page with some more information and a form to petition Toys For Bob from your browser.