Discussion Sequel to Star Control 2/Ur-quan Masters is being Kickstarted!

[Barahir_MJH]

The original Star Control 2 released in 1992 for DOS and a year later on 3DO with voice acting added. It got open-sourced from the 3DO code base under the title Ur-quan Masters in 2002. Now finally Children of Infinity will be the canonical sequel from the original creators! The game isn't being called "Star Control" because of trademark complexities but is very much a full sequel, and the saga as a whole is now named "Free Stars." Free Stars: Ur-quan Masters recently re-released on Steam, still free of course.

I'm sure some people here have played SC2/UQM, but if you haven't it was hugely influential on a lot of later games - most obviously Mass Effect, but also many others. It's a space exploration action RPG (ish), where you explore a big starmap, gather resources, fight space battles, talk and conduct diplomacy with many alien species, and uncover a big epic story. It has some brilliant writing, alternately silly and serious. The space combat is pretty arcadey (and it has a multiplayer mode), but the dynamics between the ships and their diversity of abilities give it a lot of depth too.

It's been funded but I'm hoping it can reach the voice acting stretch goal. Anyway, thought I would give a heads up for those here who have played or perhaps who like the concept. They are doing regular dev streams if you're interested in dropping in.

Console versions including Switch are a stretch goal, though the PC release should run on a potato regardless.

 

[oldpuck]

It will always be Star Control 2 to me, but a rose by any other name would still be incredible. I put huge hours into it, despite the fact that I never got good enough at the combat to get far.

I get that some retro games, especially sim-y PC games, can be offputting to folks. But if it looks appealing, it's as good as it possibly could be.

Very excited about this.

 

[uncleoptimus]

Cheers for bringing this to my attention, OP

The hunger is real for this game, rocketed past 300k in 2 days. I bet they hit the Voice Acting stretch goal.

Seriously eyeballing one of the physical rewards tiers ...
I don't need a Lore Book, but DAM

Also, that last stretch goal is a first sighting for me, "we will open source the game", wow

 

[shoptroll]

I really need to give SC2 a second go. Last time I tried Ur-Quan masters it was in the wake of a big reference in Kingdom of Loathing and the devs gushing about the game. But I remember being incredibly lost in it originally, not realizing that was part of the point, and was expecting something a little more structured / hand-holdy.

I've since re-downloaded Ur-Quan via the Steam release last month so I'll give it another try at some point I'm sure.



I may throw money at this anyways just because I know how long this project has been coming and all the ups and downs the devs and community have had and it'd feel good to support it.

Also, Retronauts had a really good interview with Paul and Fred about 18 months back that was quite amusing:

https://retronauts.com/article/1955/retronauts-episode-489-inside-star-control-with-pistol-shrimp

And that was a follow-up to an earlier episode that year:

 

[Kitty Paws]

Thank you for bringing this to my attention! Haven't backed anything on Kickstarter in years, and frankly I kind of forgot it existed, but this is a project I can get behind.

Looks like we're bound to get those console ports; I just hope they know how to balance their budget to avoid a Mighty No 9 situation.

 

[Elementary]

Thank you for bringing this to my attention! Haven't backed anything on Kickstarter in years, and frankly I kind of forgot it existed, but this is a project I can get behind.

Yeah this is me. Last game I backed was... System Shock Remake, I think? And while that was a bit of a rollercoaster to release, it did finally come out, and is good.

I'll toss some cash at these folks, the universe and worldbuilding meant a lot to my development as a writer.