Commandos-Like Stargate: Timekeepers - real-time tactics game from Slitherine

[Infinitron]

https://www.slitherine.com/game/stargate-timekeepers




https://af.gog.com/game/stargate_timekeepers?as=1649904300

Spoiler

In collaboration with leading entertainment company Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), Slitherine, a world leading producer and publisher of digital strategy games, is proud to announce that it will develop and publish Stargate: Timekeepers, the first-ever strategy PC game based on the fan favorite series, Stargate SG-1. Stargate: Timekeepers departs from the end of season 7 of the Stargate SG-1 main plot to create a wholly original story starting during the Battle of Antarctica, where Command Eva McCain and her team are tasked with supporting the SG-1 against Anubis’s fleet. The aftermath of the battle sees Commander McCain and her squad face an epic adventure that spans multiple original locations.
In Stargate: Timekeepers, players will travel through time and space, save civilians from the threats of their system lords, rescue their friends and allies from danger, and much more.

 

[Darth Roxor]

> slitherine

not even gonna poast news about this

 

[Hellraiser]

Post-battle of Antarctica what-if is a decent premise for a strategy game because it dodges the issues Ori introduce and Asgardian tech gibs would introduce. Of course the question is what they will do with it, because they showed jack shit regarding gameplay. X-Com clone would be ideal or something else with a proper strategic layer (building ships/outposts, sending them out), the IP begs for it, but unfortunately I see TIME TRAVEL mentioned which probably means itz gonna be linear skirmishes or otherwise half-assed.

BSG: Deadlock was ok for a licensed Slitherine game made based on a decade old corpse of a SyFy show (strategic layer was too barebones though, a real shame, plus it took 2 years of patches to add ship veterancy and what not basic level features), although that was developed by Black Lab games and their latest W40k game is not impressive apparently.

 

[thesheeep]

Yeah, hard to say anything about this with... no relevant information being available.

The Stargate license itself probably won't bring any hype about - roughly 20 years too late for that.

 

[Tacgnol]

> slitherine

not even gonna poast news about this

Slitherine are publishing, but apparently it's the Hard West devs who are developing it.

https://www.gateworld.net/news/2021/05/stargate-timekeepers-video-game-now-in-development/

Taking on development duties for Stargate: Timekeepers is Creative Forge Games, an independent studio founded in 2011 and based in Warsaw, Poland. CFG’s credits include Phantom Doctrine, Hard West, the sci-fi title Ancient Space, and more.

Also that raises another question, didn't they lose a bunch of people after Phantom Doctrine?

 

[Hellraiser]

Also that raises another question, didn't they lose a bunch of people after Phantom Doctrine?

I think it was worse than losing a bunch of people, something like they are the same studio in name only.

 

[Jaedar]

X-Com clone would be ideal or something else with a proper strategic layer (building ships/outposts, sending them out)

It's pretty criminal no one has made a stargate x-com clone.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Slitherine are publishing, but apparently it's the Hard West devs who are developing it.

I'm pretty certain that actual people that made Hard West and Phantom Doctrine are long gone.

 

[Tacgnol]

Slitherine are publishing, but apparently it's the Hard West devs who are developing it.

I'm pretty certain that actual people that made Hard West and Phantom Doctrine are long gone.

Yeah sounds that way. I remember some drama in the Phantom Doctrine thread.

From what Hellraiser was saying it sounds as though there isn't much left of the original team.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Slitherine are publishing, but apparently it's the Hard West devs who are developing it.

I'm pretty certain that actual people that made Hard West and Phantom Doctrine are long gone.

Yeah sounds that way. I remember some drama in the Phantom Doctrine thread.

From what Hellraiser was saying it sounds as though there isn't much left of the original team.

Yeah I think CFG got acquired by Playway(?) and they are a shovelware house now.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Mefi]

Stargate as a Commandos/Shadow Tactics clone isn't really an idea which is doing much for me.

Last I heard was that Phantom Doctrine made its money back but investors were pissed it wasn't as successful as XCom so they got rid of most of the staff before moving onto this. My expectations of the results for this are calibrated accordingly.

 

[Baron Dupek]

X-Com clone would be ideal or something else with a proper strategic layer (building ships/outposts, sending them out)

It's pretty criminal no one has made a stargate x-com clone.

With OpenXCom it shouldn't be that much of an issue now?
But no, all we get these days is just kitchen sink mods that throw as much content as possible. Meanwhile WH40k mod is still far from finished...
Did they tried to make Stargate in Mount and Blade 1/2? WAD for Doom? No? Then it's dead, Jim...

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Last I heard was that Phantom Doctrine made its money back but investors were pissed it wasn't as successful as XCom

That's a pretty dumb expectation in truth.

 

[Mefi]

That's a pretty dumb expectation in truth.

Of course, mentioned just to illustrate mismatch between reality and expectations which went on in some Polish companies looking on at the successes. Good luck to them this time round...

 

[Mefi]

Gameplay reveal is scheduled for end of September/start of October. All I've heard about it so far was that it's a Commandos/Shadow Tactics style of game so who knows what they're up to.

edit: Infinitron is asking for citations. Both are from Marco during Tea Time with Slitherine streams. Game play style was mentioned around the time I posted it back in May, the reveal schedule was today's. Marco's the chief marketing officer at Slitherine.

 

[0wca]

The Stargate license itself probably won't bring any hype about - roughly 20 years too late for that.

The Stargate fanbase is pretty hardcore when it comes to that, I think they'd be into a Stargate game (myself included).

Question is: will they royally fuck this up like they did all the shows after SG-1? My guess is: most likely.

 

[Ravielsk]

The Stargate license itself probably won't bring any hype about - roughly 20 years too late for that.

The Stargate fanbase is pretty hardcore when it comes to that, I think they'd be into a Stargate game (myself included).

Question is: will they royally fuck this up like they did all the shows after SG-1? My guess is: most likely.

I would love to be excited for this but them showing absolutely nothing of the game either means its not coming any time soon or that its crap and they are trying to obfuscate it as much as possible. What is even the point of announcing the gameplay trailer two months after the reveal trailer? Two months is not enough to make something from scratch and whatever polish they might want to apply would be barely noticeable. I have been waiting for a stargate videogame for a long time but I refuse to get my hopes up for something that at least thus far looks... underwhelming, to put it politely.

Spoiler

It also does not help that its called Timekeepers. So I expect it to feature dumb time travel mechanics and a plot centered around them.

 

[Mefi]

It's not scheduled for release til some time 2022 so it's just Slitherine being Slitherine with sharing their marketing plans months in advance. There'll be some screenshots dropped in the meantime but it'll be late September at earliest before any game footage is shared and that'll be months ahead of a release in turn.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Question is: will they royally fuck this up like they did all the shows after SG-1?

I understand the hate for SGU given its change of tone, but what do you have against SGA? It was a pretty cozy show overall.

 

[Ravielsk]

X-Com clone would be ideal or something else with a proper strategic layer (building ships/outposts, sending them out)

It's pretty criminal no one has made a stargate x-com clone.

The stargate IP is probably the most mismanaged IP in modern history. From what I read online the final season of SG1 was cut because the management of the SCI-FI channel that was producing it did not like "speculative sci-fi" (whatever the fuck that means). So they compressed it into three direct to DVD movies(both of which were great) but then scrapped the third one because... reasons. They even had games lined up but all ended up cancelled because... well the rights holder supposedly pulled out. Only to then proceed with milking the series via subpar sequels that nobody liked. The best I heard of them is that they addressed the "everyone speaks english" plothole which should give you an idea how lame they were.

Its bizzare, sequels that have little to nothing to do with the original , take all the money.
Games, movies and the final season based on the original , best is can do is 20$.

Spoiler

Here for example is footage from the 2005 game:

Spoiler

And here is some from the MMO:

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOdzw6C7Itchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOdzw6C7Itc

 

[Hellraiser]

Question is: will they royally fuck this up like they did all the shows after SG-1?

I understand the hate for SGU given its change of tone, but what do you have against SGA? It was a pretty cozy show overall.

SGA's core team lacked the appeal SG-1 had, it was hard not to like that crew, those guys were the heroes. Maybe cheesy and cliched, but it fit the adventuring tone of the series with it's ancient aliens tech looting exploration premise while aliens larping gods want to enslave mankind. The characters could carry a bad episode.

Now in SGA this likeable team of heroes is nowhere to be found. Despite being written as a dick and object of cheap laughs McKay ended up being the only character that was enjoyable to watch (when he wasn't simping for Carter with alien whales or what the hell was that episode about). Shepard ended up being more of an arrogant cunt than McKay somehow and it was a fucking pity he never got bit back in the ass for it in some karmic way, because he was the writer's designated good guy or something. Theyla was as bland as a Gulag meal. Ronon was ok but extremely flat as a character. If an SGA episode had a boring premise there were no characters that could carry it.

Also they didn't do that many interesting things with the setting (Genii and Travelers being the more interesting SGA original ideas). It had its fair share of good episodes, and it was nowhere near as bad as say ST: Voyager as far the as good to bad ratio went, but I think the writers ran out of ideas at this point and really were just doing the same thing over again. The bastard stepchildren of a space lifeforce vampire bug and norwegian black metal band rejects I could forgive as retarded as that was, especially considering the a lot more retarded part which was that those guys somehow managed to win against the fucking Ancients! Also we fucking didn't need fucking replicators again, those were the worst part of SG-1 and a Pegasus clone of them (Asurans) was just highlighting how SGA was just a rehash worse than what it was rehashing.

Finally I'll add that SGU's problem was not the premise which was actually pretty interesting due to the mystery, but the absolutely horrible characters and their plotlines straight from a teen drama show and all the other CW aping, like pop-rock songs. The plotlines not from teen drama are a cheap attempt to do a BSG inner-fleet conflict that is not even 1% as well thought out as what Moore did with Adama's vs Roslin's clashing visions of how the fleet should work in their post-ITZ situation. With Adama and Roslin I could see why one or the either thought they were right about this or that issue, the conflict didn't feel forced.

There are like two characters in SGU that aren't completely annoying fucking morons all the time, Rush who despite his cartoon villain-ish scheming and shady agendas was interesting to watch (TBH I think he saw he's on a ship full of morons so he stopped giving a fuck) and the Chinese lady (I guess).

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Stargate SG-1 was basicaly an X-COM: The TV Show (along with the Dark Skies), it always surprised me that nobody ever made a decent vidya with the IP (you could really do all kinds of things, from full-on X-COM clone to pure shooter to a SWAT-like tactical game). I used to dream about an RPG in which you would play a leader of another SG team that would sometimes interact with SG-1 on a mission or while hanging out at the base.

I will definitely keep an eye on this, if only for the nostalgia´s sake, if they actually manage to produce an interesting game that would be all the better.

 

[thesecret1]

Finally I'll add that SGU's problem was not the premise which was actually pretty interesting due to the mystery, but the absolutely horrible characters and their plotlines straight from a teen drama show and all the other CW aping, like pop-rock songs.

Not just that, most of the cast straight up couldn't act. Rush carried the fucking show all on his own, but placing him next to those morons also served to really highlight just how shit they were. It's a real shame though, the ideas behind SGU seemed pretty solid, but the absolutely retarded drama plots and shit acting dragged it down. I've no idea why the writers throught that what people want from a Stargate series is personal dramas among retards.

 

[Harthwain]

I used to dream about an RPG in which you would play a leader of another SG team that would sometimes interact with SG-1 on a mission or while hanging out at the base.

What would you use as a baseline for such game (in terms of perspective, mechanics, etc.)?