Masterpiece: <em>Starflight</em> for PC
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Thanks for bringing back the Masterpiece gaming coverage. One of the things I was hoping would continue after Ben left. It'd be nice to include the infobox/link list which references the other Masterpiece titles.
I've never even heard of this. May have to find 5.99 to throw at it...
I've never even heard of this. May have to find 5.99 to throw at it...
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I remember Starflight 2. I forget where I found it, I think it was on one of those bundle CD's from somewhere. It was pretty hard, I never made it very far since I couldn't devote the time a 14 year old could (I was in college by then). Very fun though, I loved it.
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6 bucks for those graphics? I don't care how good the gameplay is, I've been spoiled too long with current gen effects to be able to let my eyes bleed by looking at those graphics for extended periods of time. I'd give them maybe 25cents.
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This reminds me of a very similar game that I had a shareware copy of, Solar Winds
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Just going to plug FTL here. It's not as exploratory as StarFlight, but it will scratch that itch for you.
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RedGhost":2j980dl2 said:
Another good game from back in the day
That and Solar Winds 2. Ah...Epic Megagames and Safari...loved that old ASCII art intros.
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StarFlight and Elite were both great examples of how you did not need to have bleeding edge graphics to have an incredible game. The meat of the game, the story and gameplay kept me playing them for days on end.
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pblessing":2zz7nket said:
Sure you may not need them, but we can actually do them now so why the heck not? As long as the bleeding edge doesn't cut up the gameplay. In some cases it can suffer, but it's in the presentation.
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You might want to give Starflight for the Sega Genesis a go, however you can manage that. The graphics are 16 bit, obviously, and the interfaces and everything else are a lot cleaner and prettier.Anvilfang":77j8a6wz said:
Awesome game, though. I was blown away by it and the sandbox nature of it when it came out for the Genesis. Definitely a classic. What I wouldn't give for a modern game along the same lines
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The GoG version of SF1 includes both a codewheel decipherment document and also a codewheel emulator program. SF2's copy protection was based on the starmap, and both games include PDFs of the starmaps, so you're covered there.Jim Z":2td7ne7n said:
(In fact, the SF1 starmap includes all the continuum fluxes already drawn in, which kind of spoils part of the game in my opinion.)
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Never played the game, but the story sounds very interesting - sounds like something that would make for a great re-make...
Properly told, the story would beat what 99% of games are giving us - epic storytelling on a grand scale.
As it is, I don't think I could tolerate the graphics, something like Fallout (the original RPG of course) is about the lowest I can go.
L.
Properly told, the story would beat what 99% of games are giving us - epic storytelling on a grand scale.
As it is, I don't think I could tolerate the graphics, something like Fallout (the original RPG of course) is about the lowest I can go.
L.
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Starflight, Reach for the Stars, Masters of Orion, Spaceword Ho! ... man, those were the days!
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Starflight is a heck of a great game, even today - the interface isn't nearly as clunky as it seems like it should be, and it really has a great coherent setting.
That said, man is it ever finicky. Game crashes? Enjoy reinstalling. Forgot to save your game? Enjoy reinstalling. Push the wrong button at the wrong time? Better keep that install file handy, chummer.
I think (and it's been a while, someone can correct me if I'm wrong) the best way to prevent this is to copy STARA.COM and STARB.COM from the PLAY folder after a fresh install, and when something gets busted to replace the current versions with your backups. The game has a lot going on all the time (especially for when it came out) and saves on RAM by writing your gamestate to those files. It's just not a very robust system, so if something goes wrong (and it will!) you need to replace them.
SF2 sort-of-almost fixes this by auto-creating backups of STAR2A.COM and STAR2B.COM.
That said, man is it ever finicky. Game crashes? Enjoy reinstalling. Forgot to save your game? Enjoy reinstalling. Push the wrong button at the wrong time? Better keep that install file handy, chummer.
I think (and it's been a while, someone can correct me if I'm wrong) the best way to prevent this is to copy STARA.COM and STARB.COM from the PLAY folder after a fresh install, and when something gets busted to replace the current versions with your backups. The game has a lot going on all the time (especially for when it came out) and saves on RAM by writing your gamestate to those files. It's just not a very robust system, so if something goes wrong (and it will!) you need to replace them.
SF2 sort-of-almost fixes this by auto-creating backups of STAR2A.COM and STAR2B.COM.
SF1 has a three-codeword system for copy protection which is represented in the GoG release with a handy chart. SF2's copy protection (the number of stars of a certain color in a certain sector on the map) is completely disabled as far as I know, I never had any problems just putting in 0 for every prompt.
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Yeah, it can be a hassle. It's one of those systems that makes a lot more sense when you play on floppies, which is how the game was really meant to be played. You have your game disks and your save disks, and you copy as needed to make backups.Ryoshi":3jz555s0 said:
Still, you must be cautious of the menu item labeled "Quit without saving". This leaves the game in an un-resumable state. ALWAYS save when quitting.
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Best game ever. I literally spent years teasing apart the mysteries of the universe and figuring out the game. I get chills when I think of this game.
I loved accidently falling into a wormhole, and then knowing you had enough fuel to explore for a while.
I loved accidently falling into a wormhole, and then knowing you had enough fuel to explore for a while.
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This was one of the very first games I played (after text adventures, of course)--it predated my 8-year odyssey with the Amiga--and I've never forgotten it. I remember picking up the phone and calling EA about a problem I was having and actually being connected to one of the game's programming staff! (Can you imagine that today? There were no "script readers" back then.) There was eventually a bug fix made and I received a new HD floppy courtesy of the US mail. (I actually overnighted another game floppy to the developer of a different game and they overnighted a new disk right back to me! No Internet--or even BBS, really, in those days. But that's another story.)
Starflight was/is a brilliant game, but don't be fooled--if you don't have much of an imagination and you are the kind of gamer who has to "see" something before you can visualize it, then Starflight is probably not going to be for you--as the graphics are rather Pong-like. But I have a fertile imagination and found the game to be fantastic. It's really a galactic detective story, with you on an open-ended quest to find an alien artifact and save the universe, more or or less. Meantime you have to find mineral-rich planets, mine them for money, which you use to upgrade your ship's weapons, engines, shields, etc., so that if you run into some of the bad guys you can emerge intact--maybe. Other times you must use diplomacy to extract yourself from a sticky situation. There are hundreds of unique star systems to explore. What you do "next" is what you want to do as opposed to what you have to do.
Anyway--Gog should sell the Amiga version of the two games as they are much better than the DOS versions, imo. With WinUAE, which is very easy to use and set up, the Amiga version will run flawlessly on even a "slow" x86 Windows box. I first played the DOS version, and when the Amiga version shipped a couple of years later, I can remember wishing that I had put the game off until the Amiga version was published! No matter--even the DOS versions are a treat you'll remember.
The one, great, abiding mystery about the game after all these years is the fact that no one has ever done a remake of the game with up-to-date graphics and sound! It seems like a no-brainer to me, but no one ever has. Well, it's not the kind of game that would be exactly "easy" to program, I'm sure. Still, the story is so original that it would be fresh even today--can't figure out why no one's tried. Great game with a story that never gets old. Have to say I preferred 1 to 2, however. But both are worth owning.
Starflight was/is a brilliant game, but don't be fooled--if you don't have much of an imagination and you are the kind of gamer who has to "see" something before you can visualize it, then Starflight is probably not going to be for you--as the graphics are rather Pong-like. But I have a fertile imagination and found the game to be fantastic. It's really a galactic detective story, with you on an open-ended quest to find an alien artifact and save the universe, more or or less. Meantime you have to find mineral-rich planets, mine them for money, which you use to upgrade your ship's weapons, engines, shields, etc., so that if you run into some of the bad guys you can emerge intact--maybe. Other times you must use diplomacy to extract yourself from a sticky situation. There are hundreds of unique star systems to explore. What you do "next" is what you want to do as opposed to what you have to do.
Anyway--Gog should sell the Amiga version of the two games as they are much better than the DOS versions, imo. With WinUAE, which is very easy to use and set up, the Amiga version will run flawlessly on even a "slow" x86 Windows box. I first played the DOS version, and when the Amiga version shipped a couple of years later, I can remember wishing that I had put the game off until the Amiga version was published! No matter--even the DOS versions are a treat you'll remember.
The one, great, abiding mystery about the game after all these years is the fact that no one has ever done a remake of the game with up-to-date graphics and sound! It seems like a no-brainer to me, but no one ever has. Well, it's not the kind of game that would be exactly "easy" to program, I'm sure. Still, the story is so original that it would be fresh even today--can't figure out why no one's tried. Great game with a story that never gets old. Have to say I preferred 1 to 2, however. But both are worth owning.
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Plugging a similar game from 93, Protostar: http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/536/P ... ntier.html
The abadonia doesn't have the game CD (in Redbook format) which had the awesome soundtrack that still plays in my head.
The abadonia doesn't have the game CD (in Redbook format) which had the awesome soundtrack that still plays in my head.
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Borno, gone relativistic. See you in a hundred years. Xenon.
This was the first PC game I ever played, on a suitcase sized Compaq "luggable" hooked up to the TV so we could have colour.
It's a must play, but if you just can't deal with mid-80s EGA graphics then you may want to jump ahead to Star Control 2 / The Ur-Quan Masters, which mixes Starflight's strategic gameplay with arcade-style space battles. And Frungy, the Sport of Kings.
This was the first PC game I ever played, on a suitcase sized Compaq "luggable" hooked up to the TV so we could have colour.
It's a must play, but if you just can't deal with mid-80s EGA graphics then you may want to jump ahead to Star Control 2 / The Ur-Quan Masters, which mixes Starflight's strategic gameplay with arcade-style space battles. And Frungy, the Sport of Kings.
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The closest you're going to get is Star Control II/UQM. Sadly, the gaming world seems far more fascinated with RTS/4X titles than true space exploration CRPGs like Starflight. It's terribly disappointing, but it's just kind of how things have organically developed.WaltC":1sml7xkb said:
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I'm sooo glad you guys decided to write about probably the best game ever created. I can still remember the day I picked up my copy (for the Sega) and spent the next few months religiously keeping notebooks worth of information invaluable to my interplanetary mission.
Even as an adult I still long for a game that captures the same level of exploration and discovery. Truly, the game doesn't hold your hand at all in explaining the goal or guiding the player along. If you lack the skill then you WILL lose. Sadly, I have yet to find anything remotely comparable.
Great article, Ars!
Even as an adult I still long for a game that captures the same level of exploration and discovery. Truly, the game doesn't hold your hand at all in explaining the goal or guiding the player along. If you lack the skill then you WILL lose. Sadly, I have yet to find anything remotely comparable.
Great article, Ars!
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I'd love to know how the story concludes, but I can't seem to find a write up and I really don't feel like buying a copy. It was slightly before my generation as far as PC games go, though only just... And I for one don't want to relive those days...
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theshadow99:3r58iyjo said:
DO NOT READ THIS UNLESS YOU WANT THE ENDING OF THE GAME FULLY AND TOTALLY SPOILED.
As you get further in, you begin to locate hints about the source of the flares: they are controlled by the Ancients from the Crystal Planet, which you might accidentally stumble upon as part of your travels--when you enter the Crystal Planet's system, your hull begins to overheat and you have to GTFO. You can locate an artifact that will nullify the Crystal Planet's defenses, and then another artifact that can pinpoint the Crystal Planet's control nexus; you must land there with a Black Egg artifact (a world-destroying explosive) and blow up the Crystal Planet.
When you land on the Crystal Planet, you see that there are Ancient ruins and Endurium deposits (the material used as fuel for your and everyone else's starships) as far as the eye can see. The CP's control nexus contains a message, left thousands of years earlier by the last attempt to destroy it, revealing that the Ancients are actually Endurium, and all of the galaxy's other sentient races have been burning them for fuel for thousands of years. They have an incredibly slow metabolism and communication is impossible; this sentient race has had no recourse except to destroy all other intelligent life in the galaxy to save itself.
You must then blow up the Crystal Planet to save the galaxy, but it's a bitter, sad victory--the crisis that has been threatening the galaxy has been the last, final effort of self-defense that the Ancients have had against being tossed into the engines of everyone else's starships.
When you land on the Crystal Planet, you see that there are Ancient ruins and Endurium deposits (the material used as fuel for your and everyone else's starships) as far as the eye can see. The CP's control nexus contains a message, left thousands of years earlier by the last attempt to destroy it, revealing that the Ancients are actually Endurium, and all of the galaxy's other sentient races have been burning them for fuel for thousands of years. They have an incredibly slow metabolism and communication is impossible; this sentient race has had no recourse except to destroy all other intelligent life in the galaxy to save itself.
You must then blow up the Crystal Planet to save the galaxy, but it's a bitter, sad victory--the crisis that has been threatening the galaxy has been the last, final effort of self-defense that the Ancients have had against being tossed into the engines of everyone else's starships.
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I'm really tempted by this. I was actually thinking of it the other day, but couldn't remember the title. I am slightly afraid that it will be one of those things that I remember being a lot better than I find them to be when I try them again.
Not sure why $5.99 seems a bit steep though. Probably worth it, but just seems high.
Not sure why $5.99 seems a bit steep though. Probably worth it, but just seems high.
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Shameless plug for one of my favorite (not quite as old) old school space games: WarPath
Still available for free, from the people who made it (I suggest warpath 97 as opposed to classic it's pretty much the same but actually runs without compat issues)
http://www.synthetic-reality.com/warpath32.htm
And My current Space game addiction: Eve online (15 dollar Monthly sub)
http://www.eveonline.com/
Is it against the comment policy to make a shameless plug to join eve and join my corp(guild)? They are all EU, I need more US time zone people to play with =P
Still available for free, from the people who made it
(I suggest warpath 97 as opposed to classic it's pretty much the same but actually runs without compat issues)http://www.synthetic-reality.com/warpath32.htm
And My current Space game addiction: Eve online (15 dollar Monthly sub)
http://www.eveonline.com/
Is it against the comment policy to make a shameless plug to join eve and join my corp(guild)? They are all EU, I need more US time zone people to play with =P
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To.This.Day. I still miss this game and still have to every once in a while trot it out.
It was genius.
It has never been rivaled.
Someone needs to take up that flag.
It was genius.
It has never been rivaled.
Someone needs to take up that flag.
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The only thing this game has in common with Homeworld is that they both involve spaceships. Starflight is a sandbox exploration RPG with dialog trees, landing on planets, mining for minerals, acquiring credits, training crew members, and piecing together an epic plot.atfp":w1ygxku5 said:
Homeworld is a space RTS with good music and a great story, but it's still just yet another RTS.
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Warpath (fun as it was) and Homeworld cannot be compared to Starflight. Different genres / gameplay altogether.
(And as I linked above; Protostar is the last of its type I remember. (I still have the CD somewhere in my parents' place)) (Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=darmS1t9aeI , includes footage from the game )
(And as I linked above; Protostar is the last of its type I remember. (I still have the CD somewhere in my parents' place)) (Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=darmS1t9aeI , includes footage from the game )
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I still play Starflight I & II once a year or so. Sure, the graphics are ridiculously dated, but no one has captured the sheer scale and cohesiveness of the universe they generated. The Star Control series was great but still felt like Starflight Lite.
If I had the chops I would be developing and Kickstarting a new game in the genre. I am continually amazed no one has done so already.
If I had the chops I would be developing and Kickstarting a new game in the genre. I am continually amazed no one has done so already.
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Yes, I remember this game well and played the heck out of it. I think I still have the original box somewhere but I'm not sure where my map is. I had marked up the map pretty well with new coordinates.
I played SF2 but their ridiculous method of backing up games screwed up and I lost a lot of progress. I never did finish it.
I wish there was an updated version of this. Mass Effect is similar but nothing matches up to the original.
This and Tie Fighter were my favourite games of yesteryear.
I played SF2 but their ridiculous method of backing up games screwed up and I lost a lot of progress. I never did finish it.
I wish there was an updated version of this. Mass Effect is similar but nothing matches up to the original.
This and Tie Fighter were my favourite games of yesteryear.
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Holy shit, I remember this game! Only got to play for a few hours total, but man, does it bring back memories.
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