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Topic: Professional off-shoot of Star Control (Read 5945 times)
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jadbox
Zebranky food
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Posts: 6
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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.
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Death 999
Global Moderator
Enlightened
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Posts: 3874
We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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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
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jadbox
Zebranky food
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Posts: 6
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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!
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« Last Edit: April 15, 2009, 09:07:27 pm by jadbox »
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jadbox
Zebranky food
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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.
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Elerium
*Smell* controller
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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.
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« Last Edit: April 15, 2009, 10:32:35 pm by Elerium »
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meep-eep
Forum Admin
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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.
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“When Juffo-Wup is complete
when at last there is no Void, no Non
when the Creators return
then we can finally rest.”
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Bigryan
Frungy champion
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Posts: 56
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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.
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jadbox
Zebranky food
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Thank you everyone for your thoughts! I will consider all of this in the next few days. 
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psydev
*Many bubbles*
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Why don't all races have point defense lasers?
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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.
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Huggybaby
Zebranky food
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Posts: 33
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I say go for it!
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cloneof
Frungy champion
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Posts: 76
CAN I HAS FRUNGY?
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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.
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.
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FRUNGY, FRUNGY, FRUNGY!!!
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cloneof
Frungy champion
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Posts: 76
CAN I HAS FRUNGY?
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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. For pretty pictures, look here.
The second link is dead.
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FRUNGY, FRUNGY, FRUNGY!!!
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