The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

A Fan Game. Of Star Control. "Gasp!"

Seriously, I got thinking about the recent "death" of timewarp and had a go at Star Control 1, the game was awesome but felt weird as there were less races in it than Star Control 2 (which I had played first).

So like I said, I got thinking about it, and then I came up with a few ideas and clustered them up, which I'll post now.

Star Control - Greatest War (name subject to change) is basicly the story tracking the great efforts of the Allied Forces against the Heirachy after the destruction of the Sa-Matra

Following the Destruction, the Alliance celebrates their victory and continue in their goal to free the other enslaved races. As they approach Beta Julius they recieve a message from a previously unknown alien race. This race were enslaved by the Heirachy and selected the White Staff because they could not bear to lose their honour, the message then goes to explain that they finally rose up and destroyed the shield from the inside, and that Inquisitors are coming to their ships for friendly negotiation.

This race turns out to be the Fjorn, a race of honourable people who act and speak much like the medieval knights of old. They are shocked and ashamed at themselves when they hear that the Sa-Matra was already destroyed, and vow to make up for their "cowardice" by joining the Alliance.


Meanwhile, the Heirachy begin to panic. They are losing power in the cosmos, and their battle-thralls are being weakened. the Ur-Quan form a temporary truce with the Kzer-Ah and begin to amass their forces. The Ur-Quan begin to "free" enslaved planets for them to become Battle Thralls, some of which wanted to but were considered too "Dangerous" by the Ur-Quan. One of these races is the Globis, a hive mind of microbular viri that wiped out the native sentient species on the planet they are currently on. They infest their victims, and begin moulding their bodies into horrifying beasts, huge colonies of these viri can turn an innocent animal into a mutant sack of flesh which can take of into space, it's not known if these were artificialy made or that they evolved and gained sentience by chance.


And so the Alliance and the Heirachy begin the greatest war ever of the galaxy.
But as they fight, other forces watch eagerly...



What I'm aiming for is a SC1&2 hybrid. You would be able to go across hyperspace, and talk to alien species, but you would also have to fight tacticaly across solar systems (like in SC1) finding relics and establishing space bases and so on.

Now I'm not a very good coder, but I've had experience in making sprites and other graphics for more than two years, and I can help write the script and so on.

If anyone's interested in helping with this, or has a few ideas of their own, please post your remarks to this, I'd love to get a proper sequel, or just a decent fan game out for all the fans here :).


[EDIT]

Here's an example work for the Fjorn Inquisitor.

(http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/6551/fjorninquisitorrs6.png)

Sounds like a fun ieal. I think the knights in space concept.
Here's a spin. What if yo uwere allowed to play either side? Going
back to the SC1 base where you could be on the side of the Ur-Quan or
the Alliance.

Ah, that is a good idea. Maybe if we had two main characters, one being a human, the other Ur-Quan or something, so you could get a different view on the situations >: ).

Yeah, I'd love to get this kicking, but I'm not too sure where to start, I'm guessing I should create a forum for people who are interested in helping, but then we'd need to get the system working. I'm not sure if we could use the source for Ur-Quan Masters but with some parts playing like SC1 and the new races, it might be hard...

I would recommend a more modern programming language then C (The language UQM is written in.) If you aren’t really into programming then I would recommend you get some kind of game maker or high a level game engine.

If you use an engine or maker a lot of work will have already been done for you, making the game develop faster.  If you use one you will have to pay close attention to the license.

I did my game the hard way I quite literally wrote all the code (except for the SDL.net stuff or .Net itself) for my game from scratch.  I would not advise this route unless you want a very hard but great learning experience.

Also to get developers onboard you will have to show them that they will not waste their time. So you will have to get this game to a point were you show it’s not a waste. I would recommend more then just a forum, but some kind of playable proof of concept. You also have to posses the ability to work and communicate with people. Organizing people to develop any kind of project is feat onto itself.

Bwehehe, how true, but I'm trying to avoid Game Maker 6 due to the fact you need to register it to get online capabilities, particle effects and so on.

But yeah, your right. It'll be hard getting developers attentions to such a project, what would you advise? I would love to make a web page but I don't know any free hosts (if any at all), and suggestions?