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PayPalClearly still a work in progress but a taste of things to come, Star Trek: Voyager - Across the Unknown now has a public demo available. Your crew. Your ship. Your command.
What is it? "Star Trek: Voyager - Across the Unknown is a story-driven survival strategy game in which the fate of the iconic starship is in your hands. Take the helm, manage the ship and resources, and make difficult decisions. Will you be able to bring home the ship and its crew?"
The new demo trailer is below:
Direct Link
So far in my early testing of it, the game works great in Proton 9 on Linux! However, the developer pretty clearly has a lot of work to do on this one.
The biggest problem for the game is the lack of voice over, there's seemingly none at all. That honestly felt a bit jarring when first going into it, with my brain trying to make up for it by hearing their voices inside my head as I read the subtitles. I think this is going to really work against it. Even if they can't get the original people to do it, some quality voice over would really help bring it to life.
Another surprise is that even though it's a licensed game, the familiar Star Trek music isn't there either. It all sounds a bit hollow and generic. A work in progress of course, so hopefully they'll improve the atmosphere as it goes on. The atmosphere is just severely lacking.
But, thankfully, other than that - it's about how I imagined it would be. A space strategy game blended with elements of a choose your own adventure (and plenty of resource management) with the Star Trek Voyager setting. The planet scanning and exploration side of it actually reminded me just a little of Mass Effect, with perhaps a little XCOM 2 vibes for the ship management but the rest is very much interactive fiction with you making constant choices to progress through it. I think they've done a good job on the interface though, it does feel very Voyager-like.
I do look forward to more of it, as I can certainly appreciate what they're going for here. As an avid Star Trek fan, I can see that there's some serious potential here but they have plenty of work to do on that atmosphere and game feel. Really, the outcome will ultimately rest on exactly what choices you're allowed to make throughout the full game and how wildly it will change things. I'm keen to see.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The biggest problem for the game is the lack of voice over, there's seemingly none at all.Lack of voice over could really mean lack of success with a wider audience.
OTOH, for an indie game with (hopefully!) plenty of dialogue, full voice overs could be too costly to pull off. And then there's the question if it isn't better to have no VO than the "wrong" VO. I remember from playing A Final Unity back in the day, that I was quite taken aback by the crew's voices, because they sounded nothing like what I was used to from (German) television. Imagine my surprise when I found out those were the actual actor's voices!
Another surprise is that even though it's a licensed game, the familiar Star Trek music isn't there either.That's rather sad. Not even for the intro? Please don't tell me it doesn't start with the canonical intro either?
Have a the opening theme from the source material to see and hear why I am underwhelmed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sns1Xj6L-Qc [External Link]
hear why I am underwhelmed
I get it - it's pretty laid-back music for Star Trek. But for me this is pure nostalgia. Monday night was about ordering our weekly take away - back then it was Pizza Hut, not Dominoes, and 8pm Voyager. Happy days.
The gameplay sounds like an interesting combination of gameplay modes, even interactive fiction can be quite fun when the choices are impactful. Reigns [External Link] is a good example of this sort of gameplay being executed well.
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