The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

A fairly large group of programmers here in Michigan with over 10 years of professional game programming experience are looking at producing a marketed spin-off "inspired" game from the Star Control universe. We want to get feedback from you, the community, to see the level of interest for such a product, and while this would not be part of the official franchise, we are hoping to get Toys for Bob's blessing on the project. Also, does anyone know if we would be able to use information like races, story, and items from the game without legal issues? Obviously we would not directly use any direct content like images, music, etc for our project.

If I were you, I'd try to contact TfB more directly on the permissions issue. If you're going to make money off of it, that changes some things. If you can convince them that you're going to treat it well, that'll help, I suppose. You might pitch it as a test of the market, that could convince a major developer to greenlight a real sequel.

By the way, those 10 years of professional game programming experience are not in total, but each, right? Because split up amongst a 'fairly large group', that can be nearly arbitrarily unimpressive

Hah, yes, each of us have 10 years. We have enough manpower and know-how to remake the original Star Control 2 (or 3)  if we wanted. I will try to get into  contact with Toys For Bob soon, but I wanted to get everyone's current opinion first. We have lots of exciting ideas for expanding the gameplay if we can get the greenlight!

Does "marketed spin-off" mean "commercial game"? In that case methinks you might not get a TFB blessing very easily, or at all.

Depending on the level-of-blessing, we will most likely be going with a free-to-play model so there isn't any immediate concerns in that regards.

Imo approach them by saying you won't enhance established canon/plot, just make it a spinoff with the races and have the PC as an alternate Captain (alien captain?) that is dragged into events which may have already occurred in the SC universe.

Some of us folks here can also help out too with race concepts and storyline etc, several topics are in the forum sort of related to this and some folks might generally help out with a SC esque project (I wouldn't mind either). Personally if you ask me though, I'd rather start up a new universe with a SC influence (and some easter eggs relating to it) so you have total control over your game, as well as selling rights if you need to profit from it.

I don't know about the legalities of using story elements when you have the right to use the game content which uses these story elements (whichever jurisdiction you're under), but regardless, the UQM content is distributed under a non-commercial license, which does not authorise any use where you make money off it, regardless of whether it is "free-to-play".
So you would probably need to ask for explicit permission from TFB (which would be a good idea anyhow, as a courtesy if nothing else). And if you're going to make money off it, I would expect them to want a piece of the pie too. That is, if they allow it at all. After all, a badly executed spin-off could be bad for the SC "franchise", and they still seem to want to make a SC sequel themselves.

What made star control special as far as games go is the story and the mystery.  Exploring a universe and finding out different things.

I'd love to play a game that recaptures that with the same feelings.

I would probably buy a game that was like star control, star flight... But it has to get a good review before I buy.

I'm even making a little star control fan game myself (just for fun, not for money).

I think the hardest thing get right is the writing.  I mean a lot of people think they can write because they have a good imagination.   But good writing is a skill.  If the story draws me in and keeps me hooked like SC could then I'd very much enjoy it.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts! I will consider all of this in the next few days.  :)

Personally I would love to see a game that is SC-themed, and resembles Star Control 1 -- but without the melee combat. That is to say, entirely a strategic game, with an element of randomness in combat. It would be a mix of SC1, Wing Commander: Privateer [campaign mode] and Settlers of Catan. I would prefer short games (0.5-3 hours per campaign) instead of long ones (a game of Master of Orion can be 5-10 hours, as long as a Civilization game).

Each race could have various abilities on the map and perhaps in combat too. Collect resources, move ships, pick a strategy (main race, select commanders, select tech upgrades) and win by destroying the enemy's starbase or by building or discovering a precursor relic.

I say go for it!

Yeah, I kinda wondered why no one ever thought of doing a Star Control 1 remake, it would have been fun trying to battle the Slave War with some buddies on side.

Ahem (http://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=4218.0). For more pretty pictures and current project stuff, look here (http://starcontrol.classicgaming.gamespy.com/forum/index.php/topic,1660.msg27250.html#msg27250).

:)

The second link is dead.

Works fine for me. Be patient, there's a lot of stuff there, it can take some time to load. If it doesn't work, classicgaming could be blocked at your computer I suppose.

Yeah, my school computer had it blocked, sorry :/.

But on the subject, I find it fantastic that professionals are interested!

After some debate, we may proceed with a Star Control "inspired" game that takes place in a separate universe. This way we do have flexibility with the story and there's less legal issues to be concerned over. Thanks for everyone's input!

Great! Keep us updated on the progress! :)

So... another dead project? :-\

I guess I stumbled on this late (and only because of a recent comment).

I don't know about dead...maybe...but I'm pretty sure games (especially good, well executed games that don't "build" upon other games. Completely new graphics since its not like an expansion) take a few to many years to complete.  I guess its a little long for an update, but I think maybe not.

If the project is being produced (and whoever is on jadbox hasn't forgotten their account) I hope they give us an idea of where they're headed, and I wish them good luck.

Also, if they're making an "inspired" game that doesn't actually use any direct SC/UQM material then they might have decided to go for-profit after all.  In that case, the project may have been slowed down a bit with whatever copyright applications or other legal mumbo jumbo needs to be dealt with.  They also may not be willing to be as open about their progress as the fan-made projects around here are, since leaking info about their game could cause legal issues in a for-profit venture - not to mention the risk of someone stealing their ideas, making another game faster and then claiming they "did it first" when this game finally comes out.

Point being, quiet doesn't necessarily mean dead, especially considering jad's last comment in the thread.  I agree it would be nice to hear some kind of update, though, even if it's just "yeah we're still working on it."