DAY 36 / GAME 36
Starship Titanic
There's two kinds of people in the gaming world. People who have played Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic and people who have a gaping void in their soul. This may seem like a trend, but this is yet another game that was introduced to me by my uncle. I then went on to borrow it from him and never return it, I feel terrible, and yet, it's still on my shelf. I'd probably feel better if I actually managed to beat it.
Starship Titanic was half graphic adventure half text adventure. You explored the doomed Titanic who's only inhabitants are insane robots, in an attempt to fix the ship. You had to converse with the different robots to solve most of the puzzles. I'm still amazed how well the conversation engine works in games like that. I had a blast trying all kinds of silly things to figure stuff out. I even had to sweet-talk the receptionist into giving me a room upgrade, it was a ton of fun.
The entire game is beautifully designed. Everything has a strong art-deco style, including all the robots that are typically designed as part of the surroundings. The Receptionist is a desk lamp, there's a robot in the elevator who is part of the wall and of course, there's the Succ-U-Bus. Apparently, an Oscar winning illustrator and a British architect were responsible for the games visual design. It's certainly believable.
It's also nice that even though it's a text adventure, it's all been voiced. Starship Titanic featured 14 hours of dialogue, including voice work by Terry Jones and John Cleese. I'd love to see this kind of game make a comeback. Adventure games like Myst were popular back in the 90's, but they totally fell off the map. Publishers probably feel like no-one's interested in games like these, but recent releases like The Room prove otherwise. The only trouble is games like The Room are very short and aren't nearly as deep and intricate as Myst or Starship Titanic since they are only budgeted for mobile platforms. I can only imagine how brilliant a game you could build now, not having to rely on pre-rendered video. You could do some really fun stuff with the environment and allow for some of the puzzles to be much more intricate.
I also discovered this site, which contains a ton of design material for the game.
Starship Titanic
Starship Titanic was half graphic adventure half text adventure. You explored the doomed Titanic who's only inhabitants are insane robots, in an attempt to fix the ship. You had to converse with the different robots to solve most of the puzzles. I'm still amazed how well the conversation engine works in games like that. I had a blast trying all kinds of silly things to figure stuff out. I even had to sweet-talk the receptionist into giving me a room upgrade, it was a ton of fun.
It's also nice that even though it's a text adventure, it's all been voiced. Starship Titanic featured 14 hours of dialogue, including voice work by Terry Jones and John Cleese. I'd love to see this kind of game make a comeback. Adventure games like Myst were popular back in the 90's, but they totally fell off the map. Publishers probably feel like no-one's interested in games like these, but recent releases like The Room prove otherwise. The only trouble is games like The Room are very short and aren't nearly as deep and intricate as Myst or Starship Titanic since they are only budgeted for mobile platforms. I can only imagine how brilliant a game you could build now, not having to rely on pre-rendered video. You could do some really fun stuff with the environment and allow for some of the puzzles to be much more intricate.
I also discovered this site, which contains a ton of design material for the game.
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