KickStarter Free Stars: Children of Infinity - upcoming Star Control 2 sequel from original creator Fred Ford

[Unkillable Cat]

in before another Stardock lawsuit or has that all been taken care of?

That's done and dusted.

I think these changes are being done to comply with the settlement and/or to avoid further lawsuits.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Ehhhh.
I'm just going to call it real Star Control 3 irl.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

The game has been renamed again: https://pistolshrimpgames.com/2023/10/introducing-free-stars-children-of-infinity/

Introducing Free Stars: Children of Infinity​

In our bubbling cauldron which is the potion that will be UQM2, we have been adding the odds and ends we need for the game. Design and audiovisual content are like ingredients which add foundational magic but are there to be enjoyed later. Sometimes, though, we add a big, phosphorus ingredient, spilling out some awesome theatrical fog that curls all over the stage. Behold:

• Our game’s official title, Free Stars: Children of Infinity
• The launch of our corresponding website.
• The upcoming re-release of The Ur-Quan Masters on Steam.

To continue our Halloween-themed metaphor, follow us, the cackling witches, as you imagine gnarled fingers beckoning you forward: “Walk with us, and inhale the wonders of our brew.”

Children of Infinity​

When we finished pre-production a few months ago, we knew we were ready to create a fitting title. The Ur-Quan Masters was a solid subtitle for the original game, describing the main threat, and evoking its epic themes about freedom versus servitude. We searched for another name that would hint at what this new story is about and how the game might feel. With the story finished, we decided on Children of Infinity to describe the adventure awaiting you after vanquishing The Ur-Quan Masters. Let the speculation begin!

Free Stars:​

For fans of UQM, we hope you’ll immediately understand the inspiration behind the name for our series. Following the Title: Subtitle paradigm, we wanted a phrase to tie our whole saga together without boxing in our story. If The Ur-Quan Masters was about the Ur-Quan, then the series is really about the Alliance of Free Stars, implying an iconic cast of characters, and their many adventures through hyperspace and beyond.

By adopting Free Stars as the name of our series and setting, we have a direct way to talk about all of our games that we’ve worked on. After all, we don’t want to claim games we didn’t work on, let alone stories that aren’t connected to our multiverse. We want to identify which stories and games are ours and continue building our saga around the Alliance of Free Stars, from The Ur-Quan Masters to Children of Infinity.

Names are Hard!​

We look forward to sharing a write-up of how we came up with these names and the hundreds we didn’t wind up using. The short version is that we tried to put a lot of thought and care into our choices. For example, the most obvious choice – The Ur-Quan Masters 2 – doesn’t make sense given our new story’s focus. Even with all that, names are inherently subjective. The same word can have different connotations and meanings as we go between cultures and languages. While we had fun trying to find some words that satisfied our own ideas, words are really about communication, and we hope it conveys our vision for this game. After all, this is the title of a game that we are making for others to play. We truly hope you’re as excited as we are.

Broadening Our Reach​

If you’re reading this, you already know at least a little about our development. Maybe you even support us on Patreon or hang out in our Discord! If you do, you must be exceedingly attractive and intelligent (we collect a lot of analytics). However, not everyone may know about Children of Infinity, much less The Ur-Quan Masters! We want to start taking opportunities to get the word out, and it’s important for us to create a presence online, so that people can have a chance to hear about us, with fun, weird, and enjoyable places to grab on to. You’ve seen some of that with our ongoing social media presence, but it’s time for something meatier (Dan is vegetarian and apologizes for not finding a suitable replacement word… veggier?).

The Ur-Quan Masters – Now on Steam​

First off, we’ve taken the steps to get the previous game on Steam, which now has the full title, Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters. While UQM was – and always can be – available elsewhere, having a presence on Steam for UQM is helpful in a few ways. It’s a place where we can showcase the work of our community in maintaining UQM and maybe even help it reach new audiences. It also lets us establish a presence for the whole series. If game number 1 is on Steam, when game number 2 is coming, we can tie them together nicely in a way both new and old players can understand. Book stores, as an analogy, usually put each book in a series sitting next to each other on a shelf, and we want to do the same.

A Game Website​

Secondly, we have an actual website for Free Stars now. It reveals at least a few things no one has seen before, and as we share more and more of Children of Infinity, we will continue to grow it with content soon. We want it to be a home for the series and take one more step to making this sequel a reality, especially for the fans who don’t even know there’s a sequel coming, or even the new fans who might learn about this series. Lastly, as we talk about the game to other people, it is a helpful tool to remind everyone of the legacy and influence of the original UQM. There’s a reason we’re all here and excited to work on or play a sequel.

Coming Soon​

Now that we have all of this in the open, we are only going to build on it. Stay tuned for more cool things coming, including our 31st anniversary next month. We need your help too! Please share links to this blog post, to UQM on Steam, and our website for Free Stars. Remember, like Will Rogers said, “Someone who hasn’t played UQM is just a fan who doesn’t know it yet.”




Thank you for reading, and please come join the discussion on Patreon, Reddit, and Discord.

They've put up their own version of Star Control 2 on Steam, in before another Stardock lawsuit or has that all been taken care of?

Steam entry for renamed Star Control 2 is gone.
New drama incoming?

edit.
It's back again.

 

[tritosine2k]

So Wardell & co can't use sc2 species confirmed ?

 

[Infinitron]

https://pistolshrimpgames.com/2023/10/dev-diary-bringing-ship-art-to-life/

Dev Diary: Bringing Ship Art to Life​

We wanted to share a little bit about the technical processes we are using to bring ships to life in Free Stars: Children of Infinity. If you’ve seen our development streams, most of our visible development effort has been in design, and we’ve recently been hard at work painting layers of content over it.

Lately, we’ve been working on ships. They’re not real ships, but we want them to feel like real ships to the player. As opposed to a painting or a video, game ships need to feel alive and present in the game world. Whether they respond to being hit by a weapon with a sound, bouncing off an asteroid, or simply to the player’s inputs, we want the player to feel like they can really inhabit the Free Stars universe. During Melee, they are the player’s (and enemy’s!) avatar, with control and agency to battle.

The most important thing is for a player to feel something. Ships aren’t just vehicles or objects, they are more like characters. They are not a part of the environment; they are its denizens.

So what goes into our ship art? How does a static painting become that character?

It’s Normal​

Our work is based on a game which was built when there wasn’t really much distinction between “2d art”, “3d art”, or “pixel graphics”. In 1992, we were still dealing with CRT monitors, very visible pixels, and low resolutions. We’ve since moved on, technologically, and can support a lot of different graphical styles and techniques in different games. We could technically produce art any possible way, but we wanted to maintain some of the charm, whimsy, and stylistic liberties one can take with 2D art while still leveraging techniques to give the illusion of depth.

As a result, our ships are all pancakes. Or, strictly speaking, focaccia, waffles, or some other sort of square, flat thing. Using game rendering (aka shaders), we create 2 dimensional images which are interpreted to have meaning in 3 dimensions. The Chmmr, for example, starts with a simple square and then adds textures which describe its color, implied depth (aka normal map), and how it interacts with lights (aka specular map). See how we layer each component and how it accumulates into something which looks like a ship.

The Chmmr you see was actually an early experiment trying to make these textures by hand. We wanted to see if we could retain some of the artistic freedom of hand-painting while producing a 3D result. That technique turned out to be too laborious, so the Chmmr represents the output of a process that we have already learned from. Now, we actually do model our ships in 3D before exporting these specialized textures, since it reduces the workload while still allowing for handmade touches. In both cases, we gain the benefit of not having to deal with making complete 3D models, but we still get a result that has an illusion of depth and can interact with dynamic parts of the game.

Dynamics​

If a ship were just a still model, it still wouldn’t have much life. We need dynamic elements based on the capabilities of a ship. At a minimum, we want them to respond to the player’s inputs and their own abilities. Our ship art is produced to sit alongside things like dynamic lights and visual effects to make, and they’re our best tool for making ships feel alive.

Some dynamic lights along with particle systems give us a simple thruster effect. We never made an engine powering the ship, but with the glow and jets of flame, we can imagine one is there inside.

Ships are nothing without their weapons, and anyone who played The Ur-Quan Masters may remember that the Chmmr is one of the most powerful ships in the Adventure game. Here’s what its mighty laser looked like back then.

It was an orange-red line, with some sparkly dots it left behind to imply a kind of ‘ionization’ effect. Hey, back in the day, this was an awesome laser. Weapons are already pretty cool because they directly impact the world, respond directly to the player’s button presses, and make some memorable sounds. Weapons give the player agency by default. For our new Chmmr, we wanted to reimagine “a red line” while still staying true to how the Chmmr laser should feel. Awesome, powerful, and lethal.

It’s gotten a lot more sophisticated than a simple, colored line! But, in many ways, it’s still quite simple. Especially since we only need to render in top-down 2D, we can use some clever tricks. The laser above can be dissected into its layers, just like the ship art.

All of these things draw together to produce an illusion!

• Scrolling textures (the red, wiggly bit) animate forward in the direction of the laser to make noise and add ‘motion’ to what would otherwise just be a red line.
• The center and glow provide a body for the laser, so the player can understand its size in space and thread area.
• The emission and contact VFX mask the otherwise funny-looking ‘hard edges’ of the textures.
• (not visible here) The emission area produces a dynamic light, which illuminates the ship.

The contact VFX are important for making the ship feel like a real inhabitant of the world. They not only tell the player they’re hitting something – important gameplay feedback – but also orient in the direction of what they’re hitting, reinforcing the ‘realness’ of the physical objects in the world. Here’s a demonstration of it sweeping across a simple, untextured sphere. (What the untextured sphere did to deserve this, we will accept any fan theories.)

Fun and Function​

The final thing we want to share is that these bits of art are shown at the closest distance, if not much closer, than the player will ever see them in-game. Under scrutiny, we can always find problems and room for improvement. Our game art is there to serve a purpose, though. Melee should be fun, and ships should feel exciting, deadly, powerful, or all the other feelings we want. They are there to serve the player, and the player is playing a game!

A huge part of making games, much less making anything, is finding constraints and compromises as well as how the whole thing fits together. To use a metaphor, one might be the most amazing drummer in the world and love to play drums, but if the point is to listen to a 30 minute symphony, the listener is likely not there to just hear the sound of those drums. The sound of every instrument working together and balancing them all is one of our challenging jobs, but we never lose sight of what we want for our game and our players. Fun!

We’re going to shift gears next month with some Ur-Quan Masters anniversary activities, and we promise to be back with more exciting updates about Children of Infinity soon after. If you enjoyed this technical exploration of some ship art, please let us know on Reddit, Patreon, or our Discord. If you want more dev diaries like this, we have a few more waiting in the wings: let us know which ship you want to see!

(Ships are not to scale. Ships are not necessarily friends with one another. The Supox are still not sure about Juffo-Wup.)

 

[Zombra]

The big focus on the new game is "making the ships look exactly like they did 30 years ago but, like, HD"? Does ANYONE care about that?

I guess I like what they're saying about combat being fun, but it was already fun back in the day.

Geez, take some risks.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

The big focus on the new game is "making the ships look exactly like they did 30 years ago but, like, HD"? Does ANYONE care about that?

I guess I like what they're saying about combat being fun, but it was already fun back in the day.

Geez, take some risks.

Yeah, include barbarians and fistfights.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

So Wardell & co can't use sc2 species confirmed ?

Star Control: Origins had the Arilou, but I'm unsure whether that's due to some kind of agreement between the two, or legal eagles finding a loophole somewhere.

The big focus on the new game is "making the ships look exactly like they did 30 years ago but, like, HD"? Does ANYONE care about that?

I guess I like what they're saying about combat being fun, but it was already fun back in the day.

Geez, take some risks.

Yeah, include barbarians and fistfights.

Giant boxing gloves on the front of the Thraddash-ships, does that satisfy your barbarian urges?

Also, it's obvious they're holding off showing us new stuff until later.

 

[Infinitron]

https://pistolshrimpgames.com/2023/11/31-years-of-the-ur-quan-masters/

31 Years of The Ur-Quan Masters​

Last year during November, we celebrated 30 years of The Ur-Quan Masters! This year, it’s not quite as big and round as 30, but it is 31. We wanted to have a quieter month but still celebrate the legacy of UQM and the wonderful community we have. We had lots of ideas! There were going to be balloons, dogs, balloon doggies. It was going to be great. Reality stepped in, and this month got away from us for a lot of reasons. Without going into specifics, 13 involved feathers, and 62 involved concrete. A story for another time.

In case you weren’t here for it, we celebrated the big three-oh last year, and the least we can do is highlight some of our favorite stuff from that time. If you didn’t get a chance to see or just want to walk down memory lane, check them out!

• The Box of Now and Forever: three decades of memories
• Reflections on UQM from Alex Mosolov, Creator of Starsector
• Reflections on The Ur-Quan Masters from Greg Kasavin, Creative Director of Supergiant Games
• Community Story Showcase – 30 Years of The Ur-Quan Masters
• Community Art Showcase – 30 Years of The Ur-Quan Masters

And, of course, our live celebration we did with x33n! (Also available on YouTube)

 

[Doctor Gong]

So the whole lawsuits boiled down to...

Stardock purchased Star Control III, the publishing rights to Star Control I and II, and the Trademark name Star Control from Atari bankruptcy sale.
The Creators/developers own Star Control I and II, and the actual content of star control, like all the funny races that make Star Control star control.
Stardock tried to get the Creators/developers to make a new Star Control game, but for various reasons they declined.
Stardock starts to make "Star Control: Origins", and the developers than say after it is getting close to ship, that they are making their own sequel to it.
Stardock says "Wait, we own the trademark, but we are willing to license it to you"
Then you have two very well off software developers (People forget that Stardock made a boatload of cash on non-gaming stuff) having a public pissing match and in the end, they all agreed to the basic facts and paid for their lawyer's kids to go to college?

 

[Infinitron]

https://pistolshrimpgames.com/2023/12/upcoming-live-streams-this-december/

Upcoming Live Streams this December​

We really miss being together with our live development streams. They’re on hold for a lot of good reasons, including the delicious spoilers we’re drowning in. In the meantime, we wanted to bring something fun back for the mandated time of seasonal festivities. Please celebrate with us, or else.

This month, we’ll be hosting a couple special live streams with other game developers who we have some things in common with: a love of The Ur-Quan Masters.

• Friday December 8th, at 1pm PT, with Brian Bucklew and Jason Grinblat from Freehold Games.
• Tuesday December 19th, at 12pm PT, with Charlie Cleveland from Unknown Worlds.

Both of these will be hosted on Twitch, and VODs will be made available for those who cannot attend.

Look forward to a fun conversation, learn about some of our insights on games and game development, and share your love of Frungy with us live on Twitch, or at your own pace on Reddit, Patreon, or Discord. We hope to help satisfy your merriment quota before the Red Festivity Demon arrives to judge us all.

 

[Spectacle]

So Wardell & co can't use sc2 species confirmed ?

Star Control: Origins had the Arilou, but I'm unsure whether that's due to some kind of agreement between the two, or legal eagles finding a loophole somewhere.

The Arilou were in Star Control 1.

 

[Black_Willow]

So, this game announced in 2017, it sure got finished by now, right?

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://pistolshrimpgames.com/2023/12/studio-updates-end-of-year-2023/

Studio Updates – End of Year 2023​

/ Announcements / By Dan Gerstein
Grab your festive drink, warm your feet by the Druuge furnace, and sit down for our seasonal end of year update. 2023 was a big year for us – 1 bigger than 2022, to be precise – with some unexpected turns, twists, and folds.
We’re winding down this year to start on some new, exciting things for 2024, so, in Dickensian style, let us walk for a moment with the spirits of the past, present, and future and hopefully scare a rich person into giving us some money.

The Present – Studio Holiday​

Pistol Shrimp is “closing” for a week from December 25th until January 2nd for some holiday break time. Since we have no physical office, Dan will just be locking a small box in his closet which contains the keys to his work computer. Don’t be surprised if you still see us lurking around on the internet, as Dan is not going galavanting anywhere this year, but instead retreating into a vow of silence to protect Fred’s remaining sanity.
We do have one special holiday gift coming over the break as a thank you to our Patreon supporters, though. Be on the lookout!

The Past – 2023 In Review​

We set out our goals for 2023 in last year’s blog post. We didn’t nail all of them, but it’s nice to look back and see where we succeeded and where we had challenges.

For Free Stars: Children of Infinity​

• We went from our working title (The Ur-Quan Masters 2) to our real name, Free Stars: Children of Infinity, and launched https://freestarsgame.com as its official home.
• We entered production, where we had a firm enough set of solutions for how we would be making what we wanted to make, not just thinking about what we could want to make.
• We released the Procedural Planet Generator which was the gateway for getting some community members involved with helping us create our real, in-engine procedural planet art solutions. They’ve made some awesome planets and are still making more.
• We finished the story map for Free Stars: Children of Infinity, complete with a strong beginning, middle, and end (no spoilers, but we’re really excited about the final act). It will continue to evolve as we implement it in the game, and we love where it’s leading.
• We know who ten of our new aliens are. We’re working with artists and writers on fleshing them out.
• After living with Dan’s “art” for too long, we finally have support from artists building our actual in-game art, especially focused on ships and planetside.
• We finished working on our proof-of-concept viewer and pivoted to using the Godot Engine as our target viewer to represent the audiovisual experience of the gameplay we had built in Simple.
• I (Dan) played the adventure game for a solid five minutes, with music, sound, art, and UI, and I had a ton of fun. It is actually a massive, challenging milestone to hit, especially for a multifaceted game like ours. It makes the game world we’re manufacturing feel truly believable as I got to actually use the starmap and experienced the feeling – as a player – of entering orbit at an unknown (even to me!) planet before landing on its surface.

Interplanetary Work in Progress (Dec 2024)

For Pistol Shrimp​

• Paul and Ken moved on from Pistol Shrimp, having completed their work on the project and the industry, respectively. This was a big change-up, and we had to spend some time recalibrating our work.
• We announced the re-release of Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters on Steam.
• While we had to stop our twice-weekly development streams, they also came back for some more sporadic showcases, including an overview of our work with Godot. Most recently, we used the channel to host talks with other developers:
  • Brian Bucklew and Jason Grinblat from Freehold Games
  • Charlie Cleveland from Unknown Worlds
• We continued to be flabbergasted (adj: lipids confusingly quivering with love and excitement) by the support from our amazing community on Patreon. Seriously, it means a lot to us, and we are still entirely self-funded with your support. In a challenging year for video game funding, we value our ability to maintain creative control without compromise, and we couldn’t do it without you.

What’s Next for 2024?​

If our crystal ball from last year was ultimately flawed, the one from this year will certainly have some imperfections. We want to let you know at least a slice of what to expect and what we’re planning for next year:

• Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters Re-Launch: UQM will re-launch on Steam. We will announce a release date soon, and there will be a *party*.
• Free Stars: Children of Infinity Details: We’ll be revealing more details for our forthcoming game, including, but not limited to: teasers of new story, characters, and gameplay; its planned release date; and more of what to expect from the final product.
• More Development Streams: We really, really miss doing open development streams with the community. We want to do it more because we like having you involved (and we think it makes the game better), especially when more details are announced and various cats are out of various bags.
• More Developer Chats & The Pistol Shrimp Podcast: You saw a couple we did this year, live, but did you know we have done a few more in pre-recorded sessions and are planning on doing even more as time goes on? We’ll be releasing these next year and also making them available as part of the old Pistol Shrimp Podcast.
• Godot Viewer for All: Just as we released our toolset, Simple, for people to play with and use to make their own games, we are planning on releasing our Godot viewer, which will enable anyone to use Simple to add art, sound, and more sophisticated interactions to anything they make in Simple.
• Discord Refresh: Yes, we know. The channels make no sense, it’s still called The Ur-Quan Masters 2, and there isn’t a place dedicated to bird photos. We’ll be giving it a fresh coat of paint.

That’s just a glimpse of our plans for next year. We don’t know what the future holds for us, which is part of what makes it exciting, but it also means that we may be surprised. This year was truly full of unexpected challenges, and we are grateful you are all here along for the ride. We hope you’re as excited about our progress as we are.
If you want to know more or get involved, please join us on Patreon, Discord, or Reddit, and be sure to follow us on Twitter while it still exists or whatever other social or anti-social places you like (even a mailing list!). Check the full list at https://freestarsgame.com.
Thank you, again, and Happy Holidays from Pistol Shrimp.

 

[Infinitron]

https://pistolshrimpgames.com/2024/01/dev-diary-procedural-planet-art/

Dev Diary: Procedural Planet Art​

Today’s episode of our dev diary is about how we’re generating our procedural planet art. It’s a big task, but we want to share the journey so far and highlight some of the amazing work we’ve been doing in what is our biggest, most collaborative undertaking so far.

Our process for planet art is following the general model from The Ur-Quan Masters which we loved. Planets serve a particular purpose in our game, and we want to be able to satisfy that big goal by being able to make many of them. First, let’s start with what The Ur-Quan Masters did.

What’s Our Goal?​

We like to think of planets as characters unto themselves. Though space is largely empty of actual life, we want the universe of Free Stars: Children of Infinity to have things which our living player will appreciate and have emotional reactions and relationships with. Planets, first and foremost, have types. Some of them are mundane, disappointing, and maybe even unappealing, but others may be more fantastical in name and appearance, like a gem world. We want players to be happy, disappointed, frustrated, and have myriad reactions to meeting these recurring characters over and over, so they need to have a little character to begin with.

Images of all the planet types from The Ur-Quan Masters. What a lineup!
Similar to The Ur-Quan Masters, there will be thousands of planets to explore in Children of Infinity. And similar to how we didn’t actually don’t know how many there were until The Ur-Quan Masters was finished and Fred wrote a program to calculate it way back in 1992, we actually have no idea how many are currently in the game despite the hundreds of stars in our galaxy. But we know the player is going to be seeing a lot of them.

Creating thousands of planets by hand would be disastrous for our budget and probably drive at least most artists insane. Procedurally generating the art is the only way, but far from piles of random planets is our actual goal: piles of planets with a distinct character. How have we gone about this?

From the Web to Godot​

The short version of this story is that we forked a procedural planet toy which someone else had made, explained why we liked it and thought it might be a suitable start for our game, and asked if anyone was interested in trying to learn about it and mold it into something we could actually use.

The UQM Planet Generator web toy.
Several members of our community just had fun making planets they thought had interesting features. A few expressed interest in trying to understand and shape the tool further. After some time spent iterating on the web version combined with announcing our shift into using Godot as our viewer solution, we asked if the planet art team wanted to make the jump with us instead of just proving more things in the web app for us to port later.

Since I had a bit of a Godot head-start, I started by building them an extraordinarily simple Godot test project which we could use as an addon in Godot, meaning it could be built and maintained on its own, and integrated later in Children of Infinity. I passed it off to the team actually doing the hard stuff, and they set about trying to rebuild the techniques they liked from the Javascript version while expanding on them or altering things to work better given the technological capabilities of Godot and the realities of how we wanted to use it in our game.

Test of a gray noise texture on a sphere.

Test of a gray noise texture on a sphere.

Test of a gray noise texture on a sphere.
If you’re unfamiliar with procedural texture generation, I can give you a very high-level overview. If you’ve ever seen fun, mathematically driven artwork like the Mandelbrot set of fractals, we use algorithms plus randomness to generate what we call noise textures. By tuning the mathematical inputs of the noise, we can create interesting curves, dots, and shapes. We map the outputs to color values, height values, and material properties (i.e. is the surface shiny, rough, etc.), and we wind up with art as a result of controlled, designed chaos. Computers are doing what they’re good at, and our artists can hand-craft things to share the space with the generated objects.

A simple noise texture making different shapes and grayscale values.
The last step is simply mapping it to a sphere properly for views in space while also supporting mapping it to a rectangular plane for Planetside. The team developed some of their own techniques on that, and we worked together to integrate it into Children of Infinity. The initial project went just as planned and was a success! The art team proved out how to make planets with base types, artistically (e.g. a rocky, mars-like planet but with different colors), how to create a planetside texture which matched the spherical view, and our workflow for integrating their changes while giving them a mini-planetside test bed where we could tune.

A test texture mapped to a rectangle and a sphere, showing how the texture can be projected to either.

Beyond the First Steps​

Rainbow world experiment, with rainbow rings. Color overload!
In the beginning phase, the planet art team was mostly figuring out just how to get things off the ground, proving how it would be done and making something good enough. While the non-procedural art crew was learning how to build and light art in Godot, we eventually wanted to merge forces. Ben, our art consultant, worked with me to actually figure out an in-engine look for Planetside, which is, as far as our game is concerned, the place players will be spending the most time looking at the planet textures.

We had enough experience so far building ship art that we weren’t concerned about that, but what about this new, procedurally generated texture? As the only non-space gameplay experience, how would it sit alongside the necessary gameplay components of Planetside like creatures, minerals, and hazards? We didn’t just need to develop a Planetside texture but also a general aesthetic for Planetside, with representative lighting, camera angles, and strategies for supporting the fun we want players to have.

A few prototype dynamic elements help us understand light and scale against the planet texture.
Down on Planetside, there’s a lot going on besides the texture! Putting it all together taught us a lot about what we needed. Lighting helped the most, including different lighting configurations for different planet types. We imagined being able to play with the lighting values as well, adding bits of nuance to different Planetside experiences.

Even the same type of planet being lit differently gives the experience unique character. Spoooooky.
Beyond that, we learned an important lesson: the planet texture which looked good in Orbit did not look good on Planetside. Put simply, Planetside is an abstraction of sizes done to satisfy its arcadey gameplay. It has an illogical size (it’s a rectangle) and objects are not represented at true sizes relative to one another. Having a very real feeling planet texture in Orbit didn’t make sense when we went to Planetside. Improving this is our current focus, but we only were able to learn what we needed to improve by bringing everyone together.

We’re by no means done, but we have our course charted!

Some of the proof-of-concept planet textures being generated so far.

Our Destination​

On this project, we’ve often used the phrase One Awesome <Insert Blank> as a goalpost. If we can prove that we can make one awesome planet texture, which is part of one awesome Planetside experience with all the components we’re using, we’ll know where the mark is. By actually trying to put all the pieces together, we truly see what works, what we need, and what we can consider polish or nice to have. This is crucial for game development, and it is always an iterative process to learn just what we have.

Working with an artistic sense of making something stylized, abstract, and emotional on Planetside alongside the programmers’ knowledge of what can actually be done and how is going to give us the best result. It helps to have many eyeballs and many disciplines contributing.

Back to the original goal: we want players to feel emotional connections with the planets. They’re exploring space, full of the unknown and surprises, but with familiarity in the different types and discovery in new ones. If each star system is a mystery candy box, the planets are the individual candies. Our game has a lot of candy boxes to unwrap, and it’s important to remember that, just like candy, they’re not supposed to be sustenance. Players will be scanning, landing, and taking off in rapid succession, all while trying to accomplish their own open-world goals driven by their own desire. Planets are a bite-size experience, and we want that experience to be satisfying in aggregate, with knobs to twist and progression on both the visual and gameplay sides to keep it interesting.

The same planet noise with randomizing material settings for interpreting it.
With the goal in mind, once we have the setup for one planet, we’ll be able to move on to making Many Awesome Planetside Textures because we have our benchmark. The planet team has already done some of their own explorations on how to do more than just we originally wanted. They’ve built things like a crater-stamp generator, rings for planets in orbit, and even proofs of concept for how to do some of our more unusual worlds like Emerald Worlds. We’ve done experiments with other layered, procedural elements in-engine which will add variety like lights and fog. But we have to have our single benchmark before we can evaluate what’s really effective!

A test of crater ‘stamping’ on a planet’s surface to add even more variety.
Last but not least, one of the special things about the procedural planets work is that it’s almost entirely community-sourced! We’re looking forward to releasing it as its own standalone addon so people can use it even in their own projects or add to it themselves. We are extremely grateful to our community team of just three folks who have been involved in pushing this forward and will be part of taking it across the finish line. It’s really fun for us to work with them on this piece, and we wanted to take a moment to highlight their amazing work. Look forward to another episode when we get further along!

Join us on Reddit, Patreon, or Discord and let us know what you think!

 

[Zombra]

I mean, sure. We can be excited about that.

 

[Infinitron]

The Ur-Quan Masters is a classic space game that is celebrated for its rich narrative, colorful characters, and vast open universe. You are the captain of the last human starship, leading the Alliance of Free Stars against the Ur-Quan and their armada of battle thralls.

The story and setting have influenced countless other game developers, and we had the pleasure of hearing some of them share their love for this sci-fi saga. To this day, a passionate fandom continues to quote its alien dialog, from the cowardly Spathi, to the menacing Ur-Quan, to the enigmatic Orz.

Special Thanks:

Tim Cain (Fallout, Arcanum, The Outer Worlds)
Charlie Cleveland (Subnautica, Natural Selection)
Mark Darrah (Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Baldur's Gate)
Henrik Fåhraeus (Stellaris, Crusader Kings)
Ken Levine (BioShock, System Shock 2)
Christine Love (Digital: A Love Story, Get In The Car, Loser!)
Chris Remo (Firewatch, Half-Life: Alyx)
Richard Cobbett (The Long Journey Home, Sunless Skies)
Andrew Hume & Richard Clifford (Space Pirates and Zombies)
Jason Grinblat & Brian Bucklew (Caves of Qud, Sproggiwood)
Peter McLaren & Garry Seto (Halcyon 6, Star Renegades)

 

[Infinitron]

Pistol Shrimp Edition of Star Control 2 coming February 19th: https://pistolshrimpgames.com/2024/...on-steam-february-19th-and-channel-44-launch/

Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters on Steam February 19th, and Channel 44 Launch​

If you’re reading this and haven’t played The Ur-Quan Masters, first… please tell us how you found us. Second, don’t worry. Everyone on Earth will be able to play Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters on Steam next week starting Monday, February 19th.

We’re releasing on Steam so more people get to play and experience the fun of Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters, and we just need you to help us get the word out. A few suggestions:

• Share the Steam page anywhere and everywhere you can. Social media, antisocial media, awkward family dinners, your local newspaper, a propeller plane towing a banner, or one of those Super Bowl blimp things with an advertisement on it. We’re not picky!
• Stream the game on Twitch under The Ur-Quan Masters category, or convince your favorite streamer to play, and help us show the game to more people! If you are streaming on launch week, tag us on Twitter and we’ll share it with our communities as well and maybe even drop in to watch.

For this mission to succeed, we will need awesome strength, both in our flagship as well as the assistance of powerful, new allies. Help us find them! The bigger the fleet we bring in to join the Alliance of Free Stars, the more our ongoing work on the forthcoming sequel will be a success. We cannot win the fight alone, Captain. We will need allies.

Channel 44 on YouTube​

Speaking of growing our fleet, we’re also excited to announce a video podcast series entitled Channel 44, where we talk with other game developers who graciously spare some of their time to talk with us about their love of The Ur-Quan Masters, game development, and anything else we were excited about. We will be posting it regularly on YouTube and distributing in audio form through the Pistol Shrimp Podcast.

Here’s the schedule of our first few discussions, with more to come too:

• February 13: Tim Cain (Fallout, Arcanum, The Outer Worlds)
• February 20: Ken Levine from Ghost Story Games (BioShock, System Shock 2)
• February 27: Chris Remo from Campo Santo (Firewatch, Half-Life: Alyx)
• March 5: Mark Darrah (Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Baldur’s Gate)
• March 11: Henrik Fåhraeus from Paradox Interactive (Stellaris, Crusader Kings)

Our Patreon supporters will receive early access links to enjoy the entire bundle — ad-free — tomorrow!

We hope you enjoy learning more about us and about other game developers who were part of making some of the games we enjoyed too. At Pistol Shrimp, we believe making games with our community is one of our greatest strengths. With no shortage of news on how many game developers are struggling, the world needs more of what we’re doing together. Help us make a success story together for the Free Stars universe, and we can ensure there will be more successes to come.

Join us on Reddit, Patreon, and Discord to be a part of the community and let us know what you think.

I like how they pretend the Star Control brand name never existed. We are Free Stars! We have always been Free Stars!

 

[Infinitron]

Fred and Dan chat with Tim Cain about his career in games, including his leadership on Fallout, Arcanum, The Outer Worlds, and more. Tim explains why The Ur-Quan Masters is one of his favorite role-playing games, and shares his insights on telling an interactive story and finding a game's tone.

0:00 - Theme music
0:14 - Introductions
1:38 - Tim and UQM
4:31 - Story and characters
10:35 - Colorblind players
13:30 - Procedural generation
17:18 - Making UQM
22:52 - Aliens and Star Trek
27:20 - Tim's start in games
30:24 - Everyone thinks they can write
35:02 - Essence of a great role-playing game
37:42 - Finding a game's tone
44:27 - Game genres diverging
46:46 - Teaching game design
49:21 - Tools and technology
59:54 - Developing UQM2
1:04:43 - Developers playing games
1:08:46 - Multiplayer and MMOs
1:18:46 - Player-driven story
1:25:06 - Tyranny at Obsidian
1:27:05 - Inspiring the player
1:28:42 - What Tim wants to play
1:33:25 - Game trends
1:36:32 - Mysteries in Fallout and UQM

 

[StrongBelwas]

1:25:06 - Tyranny at Obsidian

Excellent out of context timestamp

 

[Cohesion]

I wonder if we will ever see something like Star Control 2 or proper sequel, not remaster.

 

[Zombra]

I'm still disappointed they never made a The Unholy War 2 to develop that universe the same way Star Control became Star Control 2.

 

[DesolationStone]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2645580/Free_Stars_The_UrQuan_Masters/
WTF it's going on