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General Discussion / About Natural Dreams
« on: November 11, 2023, 12:11:56 AM »
In short, this topic is about (but not only) proper and large-scale text quests for Starsector. Would you want them? Maybe as a mod?
Now, to more explanation:
This game is not from this world. Okay, maybe it is - but... If we start talking about gameplay, there's nothing even close. And it's easy to see the result of several productive years of development with the idea and passion. In my list of favourite games it'd be ranked as 2-3 place. Comparing games of totally different genres is not a good thing to do, but, aside from the overwhelming positive experience Starsector(tm) has to provide, there's one small itch that it somehow... didn't cover? Should it even? Starsector is what it is, it is perfect that way it is, the missile knows where it is at all times, but I still want to share.
There are open-world space games I've played before that are astonishingly good. I am from Russia, this may be relevant, because, most likely, you wouldn't hear about these games: Space Rangers (1, 2, and 'A War Apart', though last one is definitely broken, and please don't try any mobile versions, like 'quest'), Parkan: The Imperial Chronicles (1997). They are (at the very least, first one) part of Post-CIS culture, a "Nostalgia for a future that never came". They both are open-world, but different in gameplay terms and scale, even genres, they both have some wacky gameplay moments, but also... they both have that one thing in common - in-game atmosphere is on another level.
Now I'll provide some examples based on Space Rangers only.
You'll find a lot of different dialogues based on who you are. If you do pirate activities more, you'd most often referred accordingly, you'd have more quests (text adventures) related to your 'job', and vice versa. You will be judged by your “appearance”, judged by your rating, military rank. Different parties (civillian fleets, military fleets, independent rangers) will have their opinion based on a lot of metrics. You may try to rob someone, and the success of the persuasion will depend on your ship's strength and speed. Military bases will provide dialogues with the context of current galaxy situation in mind. They will be brave if a war is in stale and the galaxy is split equally, and desperate, if the war is almost lost. What I mean, there're a lot of contextual dialogues. I've seen occasional context-dependent dialogues in Starsector, of course, but... different games, different genres, yeah.
Yet there's also something that could be in Starsector right now. Large text adventures. Not everyone likes these, so it's good to keep them optional, although in the right hands these could provide much more immersion to the game.
There's a Persean Chronicles mod that somewhat close to what I want to see, but those quests are still relatively small. E.g. in Space Rangers game text quests have HUGE branches, a lot of possible choices, some of them are complete mini-games that make them replayable, though they are not necessary, most of what they do is... Atmosphere. While music adds to it.
It's hard to find good videos on English about these quests because of the reason mentioned in 2 paragraph of prologue. My favourite one was a "Cybermind", where you've sent by some government to fix a problem on some distant AI-driven complex, and it already delivers from the start. You find it pretty much abandoned, except from the one scientist that tells you about rogue AI problem. And then that rogue AI activating its comms and says that... the scientist is the problem. It has a lot of branching and minigames, and a lot of ways to die, of course. They may be hours long, like Proprologue, that sends player in the past and emulates the game in the text format, although this is overkill.
These quests add a lot to world design and creating in-game atmosphere in general. Also music works, in Starsector it's usually serious, but sometimes also feels boring and repetitive, though it's whole other point and some will already throw hats at me. Right now, there are some quests in Starsector that involve some text navigation, and I love them. I simply wish for more.
Now, should we, as a mod community, find some writers that are willing to make some full text adventures? I also feel like there'd be a need for a framework in this case.
...and some music:
Now, to more explanation:
This game is not from this world. Okay, maybe it is - but... If we start talking about gameplay, there's nothing even close. And it's easy to see the result of several productive years of development with the idea and passion. In my list of favourite games it'd be ranked as 2-3 place. Comparing games of totally different genres is not a good thing to do, but, aside from the overwhelming positive experience Starsector(tm) has to provide, there's one small itch that it somehow... didn't cover? Should it even? Starsector is what it is, it is perfect that way it is, the missile knows where it is at all times, but I still want to share.
There are open-world space games I've played before that are astonishingly good. I am from Russia, this may be relevant, because, most likely, you wouldn't hear about these games: Space Rangers (1, 2, and 'A War Apart', though last one is definitely broken, and please don't try any mobile versions, like 'quest'), Parkan: The Imperial Chronicles (1997). They are (at the very least, first one) part of Post-CIS culture, a "Nostalgia for a future that never came". They both are open-world, but different in gameplay terms and scale, even genres, they both have some wacky gameplay moments, but also... they both have that one thing in common - in-game atmosphere is on another level.
Now I'll provide some examples based on Space Rangers only.
You'll find a lot of different dialogues based on who you are. If you do pirate activities more, you'd most often referred accordingly, you'd have more quests (text adventures) related to your 'job', and vice versa. You will be judged by your “appearance”, judged by your rating, military rank. Different parties (civillian fleets, military fleets, independent rangers) will have their opinion based on a lot of metrics. You may try to rob someone, and the success of the persuasion will depend on your ship's strength and speed. Military bases will provide dialogues with the context of current galaxy situation in mind. They will be brave if a war is in stale and the galaxy is split equally, and desperate, if the war is almost lost. What I mean, there're a lot of contextual dialogues. I've seen occasional context-dependent dialogues in Starsector, of course, but... different games, different genres, yeah.
Yet there's also something that could be in Starsector right now. Large text adventures. Not everyone likes these, so it's good to keep them optional, although in the right hands these could provide much more immersion to the game.
There's a Persean Chronicles mod that somewhat close to what I want to see, but those quests are still relatively small. E.g. in Space Rangers game text quests have HUGE branches, a lot of possible choices, some of them are complete mini-games that make them replayable, though they are not necessary, most of what they do is... Atmosphere. While music adds to it.
It's hard to find good videos on English about these quests because of the reason mentioned in 2 paragraph of prologue. My favourite one was a "Cybermind", where you've sent by some government to fix a problem on some distant AI-driven complex, and it already delivers from the start. You find it pretty much abandoned, except from the one scientist that tells you about rogue AI problem. And then that rogue AI activating its comms and says that... the scientist is the problem. It has a lot of branching and minigames, and a lot of ways to die, of course. They may be hours long, like Proprologue, that sends player in the past and emulates the game in the text format, although this is overkill.
These quests add a lot to world design and creating in-game atmosphere in general. Also music works, in Starsector it's usually serious, but sometimes also feels boring and repetitive, though it's whole other point and some will already throw hats at me. Right now, there are some quests in Starsector that involve some text navigation, and I love them. I simply wish for more.
Now, should we, as a mod community, find some writers that are willing to make some full text adventures? I also feel like there'd be a need for a framework in this case.
Random images from text quests
[close]
...and some music:
