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The Ur-Quan Masters: Open-source remake of Star Control II
- dang 3y agoRelated: The Ur-Quan Masters - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30066445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30066445 - Jan 2022 (130 comments)
- zeruch 3y agoI played the original game this was based on, and loved it. One of the best games ever made IMHO. I'm kinda glad this exists and has the kind of long-tail life most properties SHOULD be allowed to have.
- tymofiy 3y agoThere is an HD mod for The Ur-Quan Masters - UQM-MegaMod. It is beautiful and really improves the experience with redrawn graphics and crisp fonts.
- katzenversteher 3y agoPlayed it many years ago while trying out the few open source games that where out there and loved it, especially the sound track and voices.
- pebby 3y agoHey! My friend alerted me to this thread, but it's been a really nice read seeing everyone's experiences with the game. I'm one of the team working on the sequel now! If you have questions or want to learn more, please come join us: https://pistolshrimpgames.com/get-involved/ https://pistolshrimpgames.com/get-involved/ - we have a pretty active Discord, we've released our Super Melee prototype freely, and we are even making and releasing a pretty neat (I'm biased) gameplay engine that the whole thing runs on. People have made their own ships and even their own games with it!
- suprjami 3y agoI also like retro gaming and run a decently sized DOS gaming account on Instagram. But why is a 2002 remake of a 1992 game interesting to HN? Why post this again now when the previous post a year ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32426892 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32426892) gained no votes or comments? Support your submission with a comment.
- pbhjpbhj 3y agoI too dislike the link only, no comment submissions. Particularly those that are just a Wikipedia page with no added context.
- colonwqbang 3y agoI agree, I also prefer HN submissions about older stuff to come with some kind of commentary, to place it in context.
- chris_j 3y agoI played Ur-Quan Masters for the first time earlier this year. Despite its age, I found it to be one of the finest games that I'd ever played. The story, in particular, is just perfect, and has just the right mixture of seriousness and comedy, very much in the same style as another (even older) classic, Starflight. Being able to build the game from source and read through the code was a nice bonus. I highly recommend checking it out; if you can get over the rather dated graphics and gameplay mechanics then you'll find this to be a real gem.
- fullstop 3y agoIt is one of my most favorite games, and it definitely still holds up.
- shilgapira 3y agoI honestly consider it to be the best video game of all time. It holds up surprisingly well, which is pretty amazing since it's from more than 30 years ago.
- nylonstrung 3y agoAgree it is literally the best PC game ever made. Other contenders for that such as Half life, Deus ex, Morrowind all inspired slews of successors but SC2 is inimitable
- beatthatflight 3y ago*20. Started in 2002. Made me panic at my age for a moment ;) edit: oh SC2 is 30, you may have been meaning. My bad.
- JohnFen 3y agoI agree. It's one of my all-time favorites.
- AdmiralAsshat 3y agoI've tried playing through it a couple times. I always get into a sort of permanent game over mode where the Ur-Quan have started to invade my airspace and I don't have ships capable of fighting them off because I've been gathering resources. I do wish there was some way of turning off the in-game timer that triggers the invasion and let people progress at their own pace. I gather it was probably a "feature" at the time that the game story progresses whether you, the player, are progressing it or not...but it's hard to soldier on after the second or third restart and dozens of hours lost.
- brolumir 3y agoThe original team is working on a sequel: https://pistolshrimpgames.com/uqm2/ https://pistolshrimpgames.com/uqm2/
- rideontime 3y agoWow, they totally gave up on the trademark dispute? That's a shame.
- aidenn0 3y agoI can't decide if I really do or really don't want to read Lee Hutchinson's "Umgah slashfic"
- nope96 3y agoI am sad because Paul Reiche III has left the project, though it seems he did write a story before leaving -- https://pistolshrimpgames.com/2023/09/uqm2-update-summer-2023/ https://pistolshrimpgames.com/2023/09/uqm2-update-summer-202... From Fred: "Well, after 30+ years working with Paul, I would never speak for him, but he got to a point where his focus was fractured and he couldn't do justice to any of his competing interests. He stuck it out with us long enough to deliver the story/worldbuilding side and now, as always, he's trusting me and the rest of us to bring it home. Will he be able to return? Unknown. Is he still my best friend? For sure." https://old.reddit.com/r/uqm2/comments/16h50qp/uqm2_update_summer_2023/k0l2mfc/ https://old.reddit.com/r/uqm2/comments/16h50qp/uqm2_update_s...
- christkv 3y agoCheck out the new nightly of DosBox as well it's got a really cool new adaptive CRT monitor emulation that seems to do the right thing for EGA and VGA monitors. Also includes 3dfx Vodoo support now as well.
- lobsterslive 3y agoDo you have a link to this? I looked on their site and Sourceforge but didn't see anything about it.
- terlisimo 3y agoHe probably meant this fork https://dosbox-x.com/ https://dosbox-x.com/
- aidenn0 3y agoI love this game to death. I didn't discover it until the late '90s, but it's just tons of fun, despite (without walkthroughs) requiring multiple playthroughs to get enough "virtual clairvoyance" to beat. On top of that, the super-melee mode is a plenty-fun spacewar alike for two players.
- guntherhermann 3y agoI am not a fan of the space combat, but barring that this is a fantastic game that I discovered very late on in my adulthood. The sense of adventure and exploration is unmatched IMHO.
- JohnFen 3y agoYeah, the combat doesn't do it for me either. But the rest of the game more than makes up for that.
- kadoban 3y agoInteresting, the combat is one of my favorite parts. I'm curious what you don't like about it, if you have reasons you can give.
- Noumenon72 3y agoI played the Sega Genesis game with duels and you actually used all the abilities of every ship in the various matchups. In this game, 90% of the ships are worse than your flagship, like so much worse it isn't even fun to experiment with them.
- ahefner 3y agoYeah, it's either crushing everyone with an invincible upgraded flagship, or mastering the delicate art of the Secret Spathi butt-torpedo strafing run and save-scumming whenever you accidentally lose your 1 Spathi ship. I loved the melee mode in the original Star Control for the combat, and I love Star Control 2 for the exploration and the story.
- rkagerer 3y agoAwesome seeing this here. Star Control II still ranks as my favorite game of all time. When I was younger I hacked a new star system into the code with my girlfriend's name, then gave it to her to play and discover. Here's a post showing how - the content got a little mangled due to forum changes over the years but is still decipherable: https://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=1596.0 https://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=1596.0 This follow up shows how to add a new Melnorme trader to our system: https://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=1597.0 https://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=1597.0 Never got around to tailoring his dialog, but the idea was to add myself as an easter egg character offering a hot tip and witty dialog. Not sure I knew yet what procedural generation was, but found it clever how each solar system is generated from a random seed derived from it's X/Y coordinate.
- justinclift 3y agoDid she get around to playing and discovering it?
- MilStdJunkie 3y agoWasn't Mass Effect sort of a soft reboot of SC2? I played SC and SCII to death when I was a young 'un, many afternoons wasted blowing away friends with weird alien technology. I had one buddy who had mutant reflexes who would just bap the hell out of EVERYONE with his Arilou skiff.
- chowells 3y agoI don't think Mass Effect was exactly made as a SC2 reboot, but it definitely captured the same feeling. That's the only thing that was able to get me through the wasteland of a modern-style narrative "AAA" game. Never managed it before or since.
- djur 3y agoBoth games have a mutual influence in Starflight.
- hnthrowaway0315 3y agoI haven't played SC but ME feels a bit shallow. I played the trilogy and yes there is a ton of material but each material seems as if can be expanded into a DLC.
- jadbox 3y agoAt a GDC session, ME team acknowledged that they were heavily inspired for this title by SC2.
- MilStdJunkie 3y agoDid not know that. Huh!!
- rasz 3y agoYes, Mass Effect did much better job with that story, so does StarSector. I tried playing SC and SC2, but every time jerky, low resolution and unfun arcade space battle gameplay part turned me off. StarSector is Star Control done right. Splattercatgaming: Starsector Is the King of Sci Fi Open Galaxy RPGs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvrkZxyayO8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvrkZxyayO8 Its only $15 https://fractalsoftworks.com https://fractalsoftworks.com for hundreds of hours of fun.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jadbox 3y agoBe still my heart. Star Control II and Ultima 7 were my childhood version of Balder's Gate 3 is to this generation. No single aspect of those games was impressive for its time per-say, but the sum of the parts was an incredible experience. Star Control II felt like I was playing the perfect Star Trek RPG.
- philsnow 3y agoFrom memory (and, in my mind, with perfect inflection): "Avatar! Know that Britannia has entered into a new age of enlightenment. Know that the time has finally come for the one true lord of Britannia to take his place at the head of his people. Under my guidance, Britannia will flourish, and all the people shall rejoice and pay homage to their new.. Guardian. Know that you too, will kneel before me, Avatar. You too, will soon acknowledge my authority. For I shall be your companion. Your... provider. And.. your master!" Notably the combat in U7 was kind of lackluster compared to previous iterations, but overall it's absolutely my favorite out of the entire series.
- jbgt 3y agoU7 was amazing! My heart still belongs to Ultima V though! Meditating at the Shrines, developing virtue, learning how to talk to people ("NAME", "JOB"), truly formative experience for me. Got lost without the current day walkthroughs but it was about playing, not winning...
- Razengan 3y agoStar Control 2 is still one of the best stories and universes/settings ever.
- jadbox 3y agoWould you mind articulating the elements that make this particular story and setting uniquely good?
- philsnow 3y ago> Are you kidding? Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles... wait, wait, no that's something else. hang on. > Are you kidding? Epic space battles, mystery, exploration, enslavement, hegemony, monsters, ancient doctrinal conflict, escapes, revolution...
- MrVandemar 3y agoAnd Frungy! The game of kings! Frungy!
- User23 3y ago“Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?”
- rasz 3y agoWhy it's an extraordinary adventure with an interface of magic, stunning high-resolution, 3D landscapes, sophisticated score and musical effects. Not to mention the detailed animation and special effects, elegant point 'n' click control of characters, objects, and magic spells.
- jadbox 3y agoAre you a bot? Like... 3D landscapes and magic spells, what?
- agrover 3y agoIt's not a remake, it's based on the original source code.
- AdmiralAsshat 3y agoWhat's particularly cool about this project is that since the game is fully open source, it's just available as a package in standard Linux distros. Like, in Fedora, just do 'dnf install uqm' and you've got it.
- braincode 3y agoHas somebody tried to Emscripten the super-melee side of it and allow peers to battle using a browser? That'd be awesome :)