>One solution might have been to tie the evolving galaxy to the player’s progress through the plot rather than the wall clock, a technique pioneered in Infocom’

>One solution might have been to tie the evolving galaxy to the player’s progress through the plot rather than the wall clock, a technique pioneered in Infocom’s Ballyhoo back in 1986 and used in countless narrative-oriented games since. It can convey the impression of rising danger and a skin-of-the-teeth victory every time without ever having to send the player back to square one. In the end, the player doesn’t care whether the exhilarating experience she’s just had is the result of a meticulous simulation coincidentally falling into place just so, or of a carefully manipulated sleight of hand. She just remembers the subjective experience. Ugh, I've played many games like this, and while it's true that they do have advantages, I think they're a poor choice in open-world games like Star Control II, where there are many different things you can do at any one moment. If I can just ignore the world-ending threat and mess around with side quests with zero consequences, it really makes me not take the threat seriously. Plus it's much less immersive when the evolving galaxy doesn't evolve independent of my actions - it's easy to perceive games that only progress the world when I hit some specific milestone in the main story. IMO, "the world only moves when you do" is the safe and boring choice when it comes to stories. A truly independently evolving world like Star Control II's is radical and much more interesting - and if it was more common for games to evolve in wall-clock-time, you wouldn't have this issue of players having their playthrough unexpectedly ruined.