Just creating this post for anyone who has any questions.

You ask, we'll answer!

Greetings!

This is the LAST month for monthly Star Control updates before release....because now we're moving into weekly updates because things are moving so fast.

The Menkmack arrive!

FINISHING

We will be announcing our official release date soon.  You may have heard that we will have a big E3 presence and we anticipate announcing the final release date then.  For those of you who are familiar with Stardock, you know we tend to run a bit "hot".  With Star Control: Origins, being that it's a role playing game, we actually have to "finish" the game this month.  That is, the..how would you guys describe this? The GAME part.  That's because we need lots of time to iterate on the story.

Star Control is a space RPG that focuses on the story. It's not exploration for exploration's sake
even though it's in a very big universe.

Continue Reading...

Greetings!

This is the LAST month for monthly Star Control updates before release....because we're now moving into weekly updates because things are moving so fast now.

The Menkmack!

FINISHING

We will be announcing our official release date soon.  You may have heard that we will have a big E3 presence and we anticipate announcing the final release date then.  For those of you who are familiar with Stardock, you know we tend to run a bit "hot".  With Star Control: Origins, being that it's a role playing game, we actually have to "finish" the game this month.  That is, the..how would you guys describe this? The GAME part.  That's because we need lots of time to iterate on the story.

Star Control is an RPG game that focuses on telling very good stories about a very rich universe.

The living universe is built upon a powerful, AI-driven simulation. You are the captain of a ship in a very busy universe.

THE STORY

Think of your favorite story-driven games of all time.  Star Control II, my favorite story-based game of all time (Knights of the Old Republic is pretty close though) was a wonder of pacing in its day.  So for the next few months, we have to really focus on iterating on story pacing.

Our lead writer, Chris Bucholz, was the first person we hired for Star Control: Origins.  You may have read his work on Cracked.com.  RPG games live and die on writing.  Star Control, in particular, absolutely relies on having a great story.  No other part of the game has gotten as much attention as the story.  The entire game design and engine was created around what we wanted to do with the story.

But story and gameplay are not the same thing.   For instance, how far, in seconds, should players spend traveling?

Much of our iteration focuses on pacing. The distance between stars and planets for instance.

We have metrics and focus groups that pore over things like how long should it take to fly to Neptune at the start? How long should it take to explore a planet? How many side quests should players run into? How many different, fully developed pathways to winning should there be and how much should those paths mix together? Here's one from last week: How bumpy should a planet be? Detailed planets make great screenshots but you have to be careful not to make them tedious to explore.

Stardock Fans, Classic Fans, New Fans

No challenge has been on our mind more than balancing the game for these three similar but definitely distinct groups. 

Stardock has millions of fans and they tend to expect deep, massive, strategy games.  Star Control: Origins is not a strategy game. At all. We did not take the Star Control 3 route but rather focused on story and adventure. But...the game does run on top of a multicore AI engine. You are most definitely part of a living universe. There are no random events. At all. None. Zero.  But that doesn't mean things are scripted either.  They are determinative.  So your actions will change the universe.  When you visit a star system, there might be a dozen ships traveling around.  Freighters, Transports, civilian travelers, smugglers, pirates, military escorts, etc.  They are driven by AI and are given their own priorities to accomplish and they don't even realize that you aren't simply another AI ship (obviously they don't know they're AI either).

Stardock fans expect Stardock games to come with big sandboxes to play in.

Stardock fans also expect to be able to create their own stories and their own ships.

Then there are the Star Control classic fans.  They come in many forms from super passionate about the lore from the classic series and wanting to know if it will manifest in Star Control: Origins all the way up to people who remember the game but mainly as a fun space adventure game.  Star Control: Origins takes place in a different universe from the Ur-Quan universe that Star Control I/II take place in.  That means it has a completely different history.  But that doesn't mean that the Star Control aliens won't show up eventually. It is all driven by the story.  Star Control: Origins takes place in 2088.  In Star Control: The Ur-Quan Masters, humans don't encounter any classic species until 2112.  So the answer here is that even though Star Control is a different universe, don't expect to run into classic aliens in Origins but some of them are definitely out there and not necessarily the ones you expect given the changes to history.

Fans of the classic Star Control series from long ago expect a universe with deep lore and loving care to the writing, story and characters.

Lastly, you have new people.  I believe there are a lot of gamers who would like to see a space RPG.  Last year, Divinity: Original Sin II was a massive success.  Great story. Wonderful writing. Epic presentation.  That tells us that story-driven role playing games are in demand.   Many people are already somewhat aware that Mass Effect is considered a remake of Star Control II (with enough changes to keep the copyright and trademark gods happy).  The question will be whether the Star Control way of delivering a story (top down versus first person) will appeal to today's gamers.

New Star Control fans expect a game that is innovative and different from other games out there.

Gamers have shown that they want more space adventure games. But they want them to have a point, not simply exploration for exploration’s sake.

Next up

I will be quietly tapping some people to ask them if I can ruin the game for them.  That is, a handful of people to play the full adventure game under NDA and give us feedback on areas to help with pacing and user experience.  If you are interested, respond here.  Note that I won't be asking many people. We will put you in the credits, it's the least we can do to rewarding your sacrifice!

More soon!

Who is Bradley Wardell?

Brad Wardell is the founder of Stardock. Stardock is a hobby that…got out of hand. 

Brad is best known for his work on user experience software such as Object Desktop, Fences, Groupy, Start8, WindowBlinds, DesktopX and more which he helps develop in his role as President of Stardock Software. Brad wears another hat as the President of Stardock Entertainment where he has been designing and developing games for over 25 years starting with Galactic Civilizations and most recently on Ashes of the Singularity and Star Control: Origins.

More recently, Brad has been working with amazingly talented people (people far more talented than he is) and co-founded Oxide Interactive, Mohawk Games, Mothership Entertainment, EdgeRunner and others where he has held positions ranging from CEO to President to Vice President depending on how he can help in his goal to “play it forward”.

Brad is also infamously opinionated on a wide range of topics.  For instance, Brad has a special place in his gnarled heart for gamers.  When copy protection was getting out of hand, Brad wrote the Gamers Bill of Rights and used Stardock’s Impulse digital distribution platform to help enforce these rights to discourage developers from treating gamers as thieves.  Brad’s unapologetic support of gamers has also hurt his reputation in certain circles due to his support of #GamerGate’s stated goals of increasing transparency in game journalism, an area he feels has become excessively politicized.  His views can be read here.

Over the past 25 years, he built the company from being a one-man endeavor out of his college dorm room to a company with over 100 employees today. He has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, Nightly Business Report, CNN, MSNBC, Time, US News, The Detroit Free Press, Cranes and elsewhere for his entrepreneurial and business/technical skills. Mr. Wardell continues to be active in software development, designing and/or coding on most of the key Stardock programs.

Mr. Wardell's other activities include being a, Author (Elemental) Microsoft MVP, podcaster and featured columnist. Wardell has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Western Michigan University.

Hobbies: Bee-keeping, developing and blogging.

Interests: History, technology, biology, games.

Add Brad to your daily tech dosage:

• Brad Wardell's Blog
• @draginol
• Brad’s biggest tech mistakes (complete with terrible picture)
• Dealing with frivolous sexual harassment lawsuits

Star Control: Origins continues to head towards its September 2018 release date!

Here's the week in screenshots!

The galaxy is a busy place

We will be keeping these journals spoiler free.  With that in mind, the year is 2088.  Earth exists in a part of the galaxy called Orion's Spur ("The Spur").  It has recently become a much busier part of the galaxy and you will be uncovering why that is.

Star Control is a single player RPG where you command a single ship but the galaxy is filled with characters with their own agendas.

Players travel from star system to star system via Hyperspace.  Hyperspace is a hyper dimension that forms an alternative space-time adjacent to what we call "true space".  It can be a bit..trippy to travel through it but it allows for travel between stars in a faction of the time it would take to go via true space.

This week we updated the visuals in hyperspace to give a better sense of movement when no stars are around.

There are a lot of different alien species in the Scryve sector alone (let alone the outer spur).  Humanoids are quite exotic due to their rarity.  Beings are fascinated in seeing a hairless bipedal ape.

The Phamyst are the classiest aliens in the known galaxy. 

Much of our focus right now is in polishing and iterating on the story and the AI.   There are thousands of planets but also thousands of other ships running around doing their thing as well. 

On a personal note, this week my design work has been spent on helping with story and pacing which meant I have to...gasp, travel the worlds without any cheat keys.  This was particularly enjoyable but also embarassing because the AI controlled aliens really want nothing to do with us because...well, we're newbies on the galactic scene.  This means that they tend to avoid us and our early game ship just can't intercept them because..well, we're newbies.  But it's highly enjoyable to see the subtle but definite effort the aliens put in to avoid me.  It's so effortless and insulting simultaneously.

Greetings!

So recently we asked you what makes Star Control....well...Star Control?

If you have never played the classic series before, fear not as Star Control: Origins starts at the very beginning in a fresh new universe that we will all explore and learn about together.

Star Control is unique.  The closest thing to it is probably Mass Effect which some argue was a remake of the classic series.

So what is special about Star Control? Why do we think it's going to be such a major game-changer for role playing games?

Here's why?

Story-Driven Open Universe

The Star Control universe is rich in lore, history and depth.  But it is an open universe. You are not on rails. You can go out and explore the galaxy and affect how things go.  

You are the captain of a single ship.  It's not like Sins of a Solar Empire or Galactic Civilizations where you can simply order the construction of fleets and colonization of planets.  In fact, in the year 2088, humans are so far behind the curve that they don't start with FTL technology.  Your mission is to save the Earth and Earth is willing to...ahem...look the other way and let you decide how to do that.

Why other games don't do this now? A big part of the reason has to do with the tech.  The original Star Control series was actually pretty linear.  Star Control: Origins works on a state machine basis.  This is only possible because we do require 4 CPU cores (which you all probably have easily now adays but most games are written assuming a single CPU core).  We are, in effect, an RPG riding on top of a simulation.

I want to give credit where credit is due:  Classic games tried to touch on this. Notably, Ultima IV and Ultima V for starters.  Even the original Baldur's Gate touched on this.  In Star Control: Origins, we're doing thousands of planets with thousands of unique characters all controlled by AI.

Gameplay

As deep as it is, it wouldn't matter if playing wasn't fun.  And Star Control's big challenge has always boiled down to mixing 4 very different game designs together: Planet Exploration, Ship Combat, Space Exploration and role playing.

Think about your favorite recent RPG.  The combat and exploration and the role playing all are pretty much part of the same "scene".  That's not how it is in Star Control.  The planet exploration is a completely different experience from the space exploration which in turn is different from the combat.  This is why we had to develop a new game engine just for this game.   Imagine the challenge of having a first person mode + a strategy mode + a 4X leader scene mode and you get the idea.

When combined together with a lot of time for iteration (4 years +) you and up with something pretty awesome.

Consequences

This is similar to the idea of a story-driven open universe but it also means that we don't tell you how to play.  There is no tutorial.  If you want to go around murderin' that's your business.  You gotta do what you gotta do.  We don't punish players for doing "the wrong" thing because there is no "wrong" thing.  There are simply things that will have logical consequences.  

Writing

We've had over four years to weave together and edit terrific prose in this game that is then superbly voice acted.  Near the end of this Summer, we think you will find a game that makes you feel a wide range of emotions.  The universe is simultaneously ludicrous, tragic and horrible.

Atmosphere

Whether we're talking about a music sound track that would be worth the price alone (there's a lot of music in this game, more so than most games you get) or the small touches to the thousands of unique planets that you occasionally find a spot where someone has carefully crafted a moment for you, Star Control makes it obvious that its creators care about it and that each moment has been thought of. 

You won't see the Stardock team brag about "procedural generation".   This is a massively single-player game.  Some of the side-quests will be too difficult for 95% of players.  And that's ok.  You can all play together to try to figure out the depths of the universe.  There are no random encounters.  No random events.  No random anything.   Everything in this universe is for you.  You are the star.

Soon...

End of Summer is when we expect to make this available to everyone.  You can play the Fleet Battles (the combat game) now though if you want to pre-order at a discount and help support our development.

New Barren class world are..well, like Ceti Alpha V.  Not pleasant but survivable.

Metal class worlds are cool if you can survive lightning strikes.

Reduction worlds are well beyond our technology right now to land on.  Which is a shame because they're so rich...

Using no more than 5 descriptors, what do you think is the most appealing thing about Star Control?

I'll start:

1. Non-Linear story

2. Great writing

3. Exploration

4. Great music

5. Memorable characters

What about you guys?

The yellow dwarf

Around 8 kiloparsecs from the galactic core is a yellow dwarf star.  Its location is quite outside the the area of the galaxy that anyone would really care about.

This is a map of the milky way galaxy.  It’s probably unlike any map you’ve seen before.  That’s because unlike most maps, this is a map designed to show you the geography of the milky way galaxy.  Our galaxy is made up of several different arms.  What matters to us – and this is important – is that our arm jets out of Sagitarius arm like a spur.  We call it “Orion’s Spur” and we’re kind of at the end of a one-way path.  This turned out to be very good news because we’re way behind the curve.

A late start

Around 250,000 years ago there was a galaxy-wide war known as the “Eternal Wars”.  We know very little about it but the destruction was so widespread that about 60,000 years later, the gravitational effects reached our solar system and made a slight adjustment to our orbit.  This is known as “the big chill”. It knocked the human population on Earth to less than 1,000 people. 

This catataclysm had two effects.  First, it so reduced the population that it would take 175,000 years for humans to recover.  Second, the 1,000 or did survive were the best and brightest of the species. The net result is that humans are ingenious, industrious, reckless and adventurous. 

The Precursors

No one knows what happened to the Precursors other than after the Eternal Wars, they seemed to have disappeared.   When they disappeared they left behind the Origins.  These immense structures allow ships to travel to other universes. 

Over the millennia, more than once rising civilization has discovered the secret to using the Precursor Origins.   With the power to travel to other universes, these civilizations were able to reap great rewards but also occasionally unleashed great tragedy upon our own area of space.

The Faction of Eight

Approximately 20,000 years ago, a malevolent species known as the Dnyarri rose to power, dominating much of this area of the galaxy.  Where they originated is unknown but an alliance between the remaining free civilizations, known as the Faction of Eight, rose to contest the Dynarri and drove them out of the known regions of Orion’s Spur. 

For a time, there was peace and many new species were uplifted.  One such species was known as the Scryve.  Young and idealistic, the Scryve chaffed under the restrictions set upon them by the Faction of Eight.  In time, using unknown means, the Scryve managed to banish the faction of eight from our universe.

The Scryve

Now free from the meddling of the older races, the Scryve began to expand into the Orion’s Spur.  Uplifting and befriending many civilizations.  During this time, the Scryve began to experiment with the Precursor Origin in their possession.  With it, they began to travel not just to other universes but to peek into dimensions above and below our own.  Shortly after doing so, the Scryve begin to change. 

In time, the Scryve become obsessed with order and conformity ruthlessly obliterating any species that could become a potential threat to them. 

Local Space

Approximately 600 years ago, the Scryve’s influence began to reach into the far end of the spur where the yellow dwarf star that is home to the humans.  This area had relatively little interest to the Scryve until they began to receive radio signals from a new species that was quite aggressive and advancing at an astounding speed. A threat that the Scryve simply cannot tolerate.

The Galaxy Awaits

Take command of Earth’s first and only interstellar starship whose mission is to save the world…at any cost.  Travel to distance stars, investigate exotic new worlds, engage with alien civilizations and unravel the myriad of deep intrigue that saturates our little corner of the universe.

Explore exotic new worlds

We live in the Scryve sector of the Orion Spur which is part of Orion’s Arm which is part of the Milky Way galaxy which is part of Laniakea super-cluster which is part of universe 6091.

There’s no time to visit the thousands of worlds out there.

Strange new aliens

There are thousands of planets just in the Scryve sector.  There’s not remotely enough time to visit all of them.  We need you to find out where these potential friends and enemies are and deal with them as you see fit.

Secure Earth’s Future

Your first mission for Star Control is to save the world from the malevolent Scryve who, for some reason, has interpreted our radio broadcasts to indicate that we are a very dangerous species that must not be allowed to fully realize its potential.   There are dozens of known species in this part of the galaxy, not all of whom are the thrall of the Scryve Empire.

The most powerful starship in human history

Star Control has spared no expense in constructing the most advanced space vessel in history.  Its modular design means you can update the technology on it with modules you find, borrow or steal from others. 

You are destiny’s captain

Every decision you make may have far-reaching ramifications.  There is not guide.  No bread crumbs. No map.  Strike that, yes, there’s a map. Obviously there’s a map.  But where you go is up to you.  As the only human outside the solar system, you are on your own.  How you accomplish your mission is up to you.  Be a hero. Be a villain.  The situation is desperate.

Battle hostile aliens

Even in the future we are still relying on nukes. And by future, I mean now as in 2088.   We know that any hostile you encounter will likely have technology thousands of years more advanced than ours.  You will need to upgrade your technology or find allies quickly…or learn to run away with great skill.

Travel to distant stars

Contrary to what most science-fiction or even science fact would tell you, most planets you encounter will not simply be like Earth but with more saturated-colored plant life.  There are worlds that you can’t even imagine.  Worlds that you might even say have no business existing.  But you will need to visit some of them to gather resources, find contacts, recover ancient relics or just gather clues to further your mission.

Complete your mission…no matter the cost

Star Control is not sending you out there to explore.  You’re not on a sight seeing tour.  Yes, you can go wherever you want but you have a mission to accomplish and we don’t care how you get the job done.  We’re not telling you that it’s ok to lie, cheat, steal or murder your way across the galaxy any more than we are commanding you to act with paladinian honor.  What we do know is that Earth is hopelessly outmatched by alien forces that are seeking out Earth and you are the only chance we’ve got.

System Requirements

MINIMUM

Windows 7 / 8 / 10 64-bit, Quad-core Intel or AMD processor, 4 GB RAM, Video card with at least 1GB of video memory, 12 GB available space, DirectX Compatible Sound Card.

RECOMMENDED

Windows 10 64-bit, Quad-core Intel or AMD processor, 8 GB RAM, Video card with 2GB of video memory, 12 GB available space, DirectX Compatible Sound Card.