Starport 28 huh? Hmmm.... Sounds Interesting....

[oris1024]

One of these days, you're going to run out of unique genres to make games in. THEN what will you do?

today's "new" genres are themselves well forgotten past ones. that's how the word "new" works

[x4000]

Regarding Spacebase DF-9 and the effect it has had on Starport 28:

This game coming out of nowhere actually has killed off a lot of Starport 28, making us really have to shift our focus.  They're doing so much of what we were doing and planning that it was far too similar.  They are much bigger as a company than us, so it seemed likely they would trounce us.  First time it has happened where we've had to retreat from an idea because of another company doing something similar.

Fortunately we also had a lot of aspects to Starport that they do not have in their game, and we are now focusing on those other aspects to the exclusion of what they are focusing on.  It changes our game into much more of a strategy game than a simulation game, but I'm not exactly broken up about that.  Our revised game is actually stronger than our original one anyway, I think.

Wow. Well, Starport 28 will surely come out before this one I think. Glad to know that you see it as a good thing which make Starport better. And with the Arcen's touch, I bet it'll be quite unique.

I hope you look more into DF-9 because they have not done a great job of making it "dwarf Fortress in space." If you are trying to do emergent gameplay of a space simulation, I have confidence you can do it well. You can't compete with graphics, but I think you can compete with skill as far as Double Fine goes.

You should really check into what they are doing if you haven't yet.

What we were planning was nothing nearly as wide&deep as Dwarf Fortress; it was very interesting but it was more focused on commerce simulation, etc.

What we're planning now sounds way more interesting to all of us, honestly.

Yeah, it's disapointing to hear, since I'd rather play a sim game from Arcene than one from doible fine. But fair enough one have to think about their bottom line.

Josh and Keith and I all kind of looked around and were like "you know, their game sounds like something we'd rather play than our own."  Which was kind of a kick in the face.  The thing was, we had a central commerce simulation, and then a bunch of peripheral ideas with diplomacy and such.  So we took out the commerce simulation, kept the diplomacy, and added a whole slew of new bits that are really exciting.

[x4000]

The Last Federation!

Here's a sneak peek of what Starport 28 has morphed into: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,14107.0.html

[Mick]

Wow, that sounds WAY different than what I was expecting.

[tigersfan]

Wow, that sounds WAY different than what I was expecting.

I'm pretty sure it's pretty different than what WE were expecting as well

[x4000]

Well, yep -- ditto here, honestly.  We had some of those elements in the original Starport 28, but we wound up having to cut like 75% of the original Starport 28 concept because of Starbase DF-9, and then quickly build up the remaining parts from there.  Honestly we are all way more excited about The Last Federation, so it works out in the end.  It's not a simulation game anymore, though, interestingly.

[Mick]

I hope you guys don't completely abandon the idea of making some kind of simulation game in the future, because I think you could do one pretty well.

Not that this one doesn't sound interesting.

[Rekka]

Yup, I also would like a sim game with Arcen's touch. For The Last Federation, it is indeed quite different from what was expected one week ago. Now I am just waiting for more infos on this one.

[Tridus]

Looks neat, though I'm kind of concerned about the pace of new games being too high and impacting the support other games get.

[keith.lamothe]

Looks neat, though I'm kind of concerned about the pace of new games being too high and impacting the support other games get.

The main challenge to doing more support for BD, fyi, is that its sales are low.  If it was bringing in enough to at least sustain the company for a couple months then we wouldn't necessarily have to jump all staff to the next project right away.

That said, I'm still doing some work on BD.  I just have a very cramped personal schedule right now with the 5-week-old, etc.

[Shrugging Khan]

Don't feel stressed on our account. We Arcen fans are, methinks, a patient enough bunch.

[zespri]

Well, yep -- ditto here, honestly.  We had some of those elements in the original Starport 28, but we wound up having to cut like 75% of the original Starport 28 concept because of Starbase DF-9, and then quickly build up the remaining parts from there.  Honestly we are all way more excited about The Last Federation, so it works out in the end.  It's not a simulation game anymore, though, interestingly.

So Starbase SF-9 apparently proved to be a flop http://store.steampowered.com/app/246090/
It's such a pity that because of that Starport 28 have not seen the light of the day.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/09/18/double-fine-early-access-spacebase-df9/
http://www.vg247.com/2014/09/22/spacebase-df-9-development-cease-tim-schafer-response/

[x4000]

Honestly I'm glad. The game I had in mind was not nearly so ambitious as what they were doing, and I think it would have gotten in to a lot of trouble. Ours was a bit more like SimTower. The fact that this shifted us to the enormously profitable and cool Last Federation was a really really  good thing.

And, some of the better ideas from Starport 28 are in TLF and Stars Beyond Reach. I feel like both are far more interesting games.