Starflight
Encyclopedia
- See interstellar travelInterstellar travelInterstellar space travel is manned or unmanned travel between stars. The concept of interstellar travel in starships is a staple of science fiction. Interstellar travel is much more difficult than interplanetary travel. Intergalactic travel, or travel between different galaxies, is even more...
for travel between the stars. - For other uses of Starflight see Starflight (disambiguation)Starflight (disambiguation)Starflight may refer to:*Interstellar travel*Starflight, a computer game*Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land, a television movie*"Starflight", a song by After the Fire on their album Der Kommissar...
Starflight is a computer game published by Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
and developed by Binary Systems in 1986. Originally developed for DOS
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
and Tandy, it was later released for the Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
, Atari ST
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...
, Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
and Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
. A fully revamped version of the game was developed for the Sega
Sega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
Mega Drive/Genesis
Sega Mega Drive
The Sega Genesis is a fourth-generation video game console developed and produced by Sega. It was originally released in Japan in 1988 as , then in North America in 1989 as Sega Genesis, and in Europe, Australia and other PAL regions in 1990 as Mega Drive. The reason for the two names is that...
in 1991
1991 in video gaming
-Notable releases:*Microprose creates Civilization, Sid Meier's most successful game .*Electronic Arts releases James Pond 2 and Road Rash for Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, starting a series of games that were popular in the 1990s....
.
Set in the year 4620, the game puts players in the role of a starship
Starship
A starship or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between the stars, as opposed to a vehicle designed for orbital spaceflight or interplanetary travel....
captain sent to explore the galaxy
Galaxy
A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...
. There is no set path, allowing players to switch freely between mining, ship-to-ship combat, and alien
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
diplomacy
Diplomacy
Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states...
. The story eventually expands to resemble a space opera
Space opera
Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in outer space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing advanced technologies and abilities. The term has no relation to music and it is analogous to "soap...
à la Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
. Self-aware humor also plays a role within Starflight, such as an encounter with the Starship Enterprise
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)
The USS Enterprise, NCC-1701, is a fictional starship in the Star Trek media franchise. The original Star Trek series depicts her crew's mission "to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before" under the command of Captain James...
, infrequent messages between a disgruntled loan shark
Loan shark
A loan shark is a person or body that offers unsecured loans at illegally high interest rates to individuals, often enforcing repayment by blackmail or threats of violence....
and a smuggler, and a hidden binary code
Binary code
A binary code is a way of representing text or computer processor instructions by the use of the binary number system's two-binary digits 0 and 1. This is accomplished by assigning a bit string to each particular symbol or instruction...
which reveals the telephone number of the developers' home office. In March 1987, Computer Gaming World
Computer Gaming World
Computer Gaming World was a computer game magazine founded in 1981 by Russell Sipe as a bimonthly publication. Early issues were typically 40-50 pages in length, written in a newsletter style, including submissions by game designers such as Joel Billings , Dan Bunten , and Chris Crawford...
declared it "the best science fiction game available on computer."
Gameplay
The ship is initially equipped only to haul minerals. It can be modified into a warship through the purchase of weapons, armor, and shields. The player hires a crew from five species to man the ship's six posts: Navigator, Science Officer, Engineer, Communications Officer, Doctor, and Captain (who has no actual role - the manual states that his abilities boost the crew's). A crewman's proficiency is determined by the relevant skill
Statistic (role-playing games)
A statistic in role-playing games is a piece of data which represents a particular aspect of a fictional character. That piece of data is usually a integer or, in some cases, a set of dice....
: a good science officer can determine more of a planet's properties and detect aliens at range, etc. Skill increases are bought. One crewman can man multiple posts, but different species have different maximum skill levels. More crew will also spread out the damage from spiky space tiger attacks and other hazards.
The hub of the game is Starport, headquarters of the Interstel corporation, and a space station
Space station
A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a crew which is designed to remain in space for an extended period of time, and to which other spacecraft can dock. A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by its lack of major propulsion or landing...
which orbits the planet Arth. Here players sell their finds, buy minerals and Endurium, recruit and train crew members, and upgrade parts of the ship. The main source of income is planet exploration: the ship is equipped with a terrain vehicle that the crew can use to look for minerals and life-forms. The most lucrative source is finding planets suitable for human life. If the science officer's analysis checks out, the player can flag a planet for colonization, and name it for no gameplay effect whatsoever.
Starflight has well over a hundred stars and several hundred planets. All star systems can be entered and all planets landed on, though in some cases this destroys the ship due to high gravity. Space is also crisscrossed with continuum fluxes, coordinate pairs that allow instantaneous travel between them. Travel via fluxes cuts down significantly on fuel costs and travel time, though it causes all but the most accomplished navigators to lose their bearings. Space is populated with a handful of spacefaring races, androids, probes, strange singing beings called Minstrels, and a number of random encounters, including the Enterprise
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)
The USS Enterprise, NCC-1701, is a fictional starship in the Star Trek media franchise. The original Star Trek series depicts her crew's mission "to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before" under the command of Captain James...
. Most alien races begin by scanning the ship for potential danger, while others merely start shooting. If the player chooses to arm weapons or raise shields prematurely, the aliens will interpret that action as aggressive and begin firing. Alternatively, the communications officer can hail the aliens and ask questions on set topics. The science officer can also scan alien ships for general data (e.g. "88 times the size of our ship, weapons armed.")
Combat is a matter of moving around to dodge enemy fire, mashing the fire button to fire missiles when far away, and mashing the fire button to fire weaker, but inescapable lasers when near. The player's ship has ablative armor and regenerative shields. It takes damage to its hull, crew members, and individual components.
When a landing is ordered, pixel
Pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel, or pel, is a single point in a raster image, or the smallest addressable screen element in a display device; it is the smallest unit of picture that can be represented or controlled....
ated map shows the various topography of each planet, as well as a cursor to select a landing point. The Terrain Vehicle can be deployed once the ship is parked on the ground, allowing the crew to drive across the terrain and scan for minerals. As is the case in outer space, a heads-up display
HUD (video gaming)
In video gaming, the HUD is the method by which information is visually relayed to the player as part of a game's user interface...
monitors the Terrain Vehicle's current fuel level, which is replenished by simply re-entering the ship. If the Terrain Vehicle is destroyed or irrevocably lost, a fee is automatically deducted for a replacement.
Setting
At the start of the game, a large construct known as the Crystal Planet is slowly moving through the galaxy. The planet causes nearby stars to flare up and destroy all carbon-based life in the system. The player must explore solar systems, gather clues, special artifacts that grant access to the planet, and ultimately find the planet and destroy it before the player's home system flares.The galaxy is composed of a number of species which can be encountered in space and five of which can be hired as part of the player's crew. (Humans apparently only exist on Arth and are not to be found among the stars other than on Interstel ships.) Other species include the Veloxi, large insects who demand bribes from ships which violate their space; androids, Interstel models which can be part of the crew, and a mechanical "race" (the Mechans) left over from the days of the Old Empire; the Elowan, a pacifistic race of sentient plants; the Thrynn, reptile creatures who are primarily interested in money; Spemin, gelatinous blobs who are known for their cowardice; the Gazurtoid, octopus
Octopus
The octopus is a cephalopod mollusc of the order Octopoda. Octopuses have two eyes and four pairs of arms, and like other cephalopods they are bilaterally symmetric. An octopus has a hard beak, with its mouth at the center point of the arms...
-like zealots who regard all "air-breathers" as infidel
Infidel
An infidel is one who has no religious beliefs, or who doubts or rejects the central tenets of a particular religion – especially in reference to Christianity or Islam....
s; and the Uhlek, a destructive fleet of ships with a hive mind.
Story
The story begins on a planet called Arth, which is a haven for the survivors of the human race (aka the "Old Empire"). Due to heavy radiation, the inhabitants have been forced to live beneath the planet's crustCrust (geology)
In geology, the crust is the outermost solid shell of a rocky planet or natural satellite, which is chemically distinct from the underlying mantle...
for centuries. In recent times, the radiation has finally dissipated from the surface, allowing the population to unearth long-lost technology belonging to Arth's original settlers. This technology allows for the building of spaceships. An independent company called Interstel is dispatching ships to mine for resources, particularly endurium, a crystalline mineral which acts as fuel for starships. In addition, Interstel employees are instructed to seek missing information about Arth's history, ancient artifacts, and planets with optimum environments for colonization. Early in the game, the crew encounters an Old Empire starship adrift in space; An endlessly repeating distress call has been transmitting from the ship for over a thousand years. Before the fall of the Old Empire, a scientific expedition known as the Noah
Noah
Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...
9 left Earth in search of Heaven
Heaven
Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...
, a paradise world to which humans could immigrate. Ultimately, the expedition never arrived, leaving a fleet of Mechan ships forever waiting for their arrival. Once their coded questions are answered correctly, the Mechans assume that the crew is, in fact, the long-awaited Noah 9.
Further investigation leads the crew to Earth, the homeworld of the Old Empire. The planet has been burned to a cinder and is devoid of all life. Additional clues are found in the "Four Seedlings", a symmetrical system made up of four suns. Centuries ago, the leaders of the Old Empire realized something was causing hostile aliens to flee from the center of the galaxy. The greatest minds from each of the races gathered at this location, where they discovered that the Crystal Planet was slowly eradicating all life. In a last act, they sent a human named Commander McConnell to end it, but he apparently failed.
At the end of the game, the player must obtain certain artifacts in order to penetrate the shielding of the Crystal Planet and destroy it. Commander McConnell's last journal entry can be found on the surface; in it, he shares his discovery that endurium is actually a race of living, sentient beings who are being burned up as fuel for interstellar travel
Interstellar travel
Interstellar space travel is manned or unmanned travel between stars. The concept of interstellar travel in starships is a staple of science fiction. Interstellar travel is much more difficult than interplanetary travel. Intergalactic travel, or travel between different galaxies, is even more...
. These Beings are revealed to be the ancients. Because their metabolism is extremely slow due to their crystalline makeup, they are not even aware of outside life and have come to view other races as a virus. The game ends after the player successfully plants the "Black Egg" artifact on the planet's surface and retreats back into space, causing the Crystal Planet to explode and ending the game, though the game can still be played after the Crystal Planet is destroyed in the Sega Genesis version.
Mega Drive/Genesis version
Sega Mega Drive
The Sega Genesis is a fourth-generation video game console developed and produced by Sega. It was originally released in Japan in 1988 as , then in North America in 1989 as Sega Genesis, and in Europe, Australia and other PAL regions in 1990 as Mega Drive. The reason for the two names is that...
in 1991. Aside from graphical upgrades, there are very few changes to the overall game. In addition to modifications made to the ship itself, several upgrades can be purchased for the Terrain Vehicle — renamed "TV" — including pontoons and snow treads (for transport over water and snow, respectively). The Shimmering Ball, an artifact which doubled as a cloaking device
Cloaking device
Cloaking devices are advanced stealth technologies still in development that will cause objects, such as spaceships or individuals, to be partially or wholly invisible to parts of the electromagnetic spectrum...
in the original DOS version, has no such ability in the remake but in fact autoscans alien ships when encountered. The option to name newly discovered planets was also removed.
Legacy
Starflight spawned a sequel, Starflight 2: Trade Routes of the Cloud Nebula, and was very much the spiritual predecessor to the more popular, but similarly themed Star Control 2. An unofficial sequel released without the Starflight name due to the inability of the designers to gain the rights to the title from Electronic ArtsElectronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
is the lesser-known Protostar
Protostar: War on the Frontier
Protostar: War on the Frontier is a 1993 science fiction space combat and role-playing game that was produced by Tsunami Media. It is the unofficial sequel to Starflight and Starflight 2: Trade Routes of the Cloud Nebula....
. It has also been confirmed that Starflight was an inspiration for the Mass Effect series
Mass Effect (series)
Mass Effect is an award-winning, bestselling series of science fiction RPG third-person shooter video games developed by the Canadian company BioWare and released for the Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows and, from the second installment, for the PlayStation 3...
developed by Bioware
BioWare
BioWare is a Canadian video game developer founded in February 1995 by newly graduated medical doctors Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk, and Augustine Yip. BioWare is currently owned by American company Electronic Arts...
.
Reception
Game reviewers Hartley and Pattie Lesser complimented the game in their "The Role of Computers" column in DragonDragon (magazine)
Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, the other being Dungeon. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The...
#116 (1986), calling it "stunning in its presentation and play".
See also
- Starflight 2Starflight 2Starflight 2: Trade Routes of the Cloud Nebula is the 1989 sequel to the successful Starflight science fiction computer game. It was developed by Binary Systems, and published by Electronic Arts, for DOS....
- Star Control 2
- Elite (1984)
- Iron SeedIron SeedIron Seed is a 1994 DOS computer game, developed and published by Channel 7. It is a real-time strategy, science fiction, space game.-Description:...
(1994)
External links
- Starflt.com – Resource page and downloads
- Starflight - The Lost Colony project
- The Starflight III Project
- Starflight JDR (in Spanish)
- Boldly Going Somewhere Better Newer Games: Starflight – In-depth review of the Genesis version of Starflight