Game News Daedalic's Star Control 2-inspired The Long Journey Home gets teaser trailer, coming late 2016

[Infinitron]

Tags: Daedalic Entertainment; The Long Journey Home

Codex collaborator Bubbles was pretty upset with what he saw from Daedalic Entertainment when he attended their presentations at Gamescom last August. But there was one game of theirs that he did approve of, a space exploration game called Project Daedalus: The Long Journey Home that appeared to be a true love letter to the 1992 classic Star Control 2. In the months that passed, we heard little about the game, but last month it resurfaced at Daedalic's "Daedalic Days" event in Hamburg, now called simply The Long Journey Home and rebranded as a "Space Exploration RPG" (which means I get to post news about it now). The Long Journey Home is also at GDC this week, and for this larger event Daedalic have put together a teaser trailer and unveiled a fancy new website. The press release they sent out has details:

GDC 2016 goes galactic! Daedalic Entertainment Studio West has some news and announcements for their Space Exploration RPG The Long Journey Home in store for you.

There'll be brand new gameplay impressions as well as a new website: www.tljhgame.com , which will feature all news regarding The Long Journey Home. Apart from visual impressions, various game features will be introduced as well.

The Long Journey Home takes players to the other side of the galaxy, plunging them into both the wonders and dangers of deep space. Every decision the player makes has consequences and will influence how the game unfolds. To get the space ship’s crew home to Earth safely, finesse and skill are needed. It is always a tough call to decide if it is time to pick a fight or handle matters with diplomacy…

The Long Journey Home is due for release in the second half of 2016 for PC, Mac, Linux and consoles.

Find the brand new GDC teaser right here:



About The Long Journey Home:

The Long Journey Home is a Space Exploration RPG that combines the best of classic space adventures like Starflight and Star Control II with the replayability of modern roguelikes, in a procedurally generated, endlessly surprising living universe inspired by beloved modern Science Fiction shows like Farscape and Firefly.

Your goal: to find the way back to Earth. An accident during humanity’s first jump drive test has catapulted you and your crew to the other side of the galaxy, and the only way home is through. Lead your crew as you explore new worlds in search of allies and support. Face searing storms and deadly gravity as you plunder alien worlds for their secrets and technology. Befriend alien races and earn their trust. Keep your people alive.

Do whatever it takes to get home.

Features:

• Explore a living, procedurally generated galaxy
• Guide your crew through complex quests and moral dilemmas
• Uncover ancient secrets in the ruins of distant worlds
• Fight for survival in a dangerous universe
• Chart your own course - every game, a new journey

Some people may be interested to know that Daedalic have hired Richard Cobbett, mainstream gaming journalism's premier authority™ on oldschool RPGs, to write for the game. He appears to be quite excited about it. You can learn more about The Long Journey Home in this preview over at Gamepressure.

 

[Thonius]

procedurally

Anyway sounds a lot like Out There (mobile game)

 

[Volrath]

Consoles...

 

[Morkar Left]

Doesn't sound bad, even great if done right. Still a long way to go. Cautiously optimistic.

 

[Berekän]

There goes J_C's game

 

[Jaesun]

Consoles...

What is wrong with it being on consoles?

 

[Alchemist]

Finally, the modern Starflight successor I've been waiting 30 years for! The trailer seems to be hitting all the right notes. I sure hope they can pull this off.

As for being on consoles and using procedural generation - Starflight had both of those traits and was still awesome.

 

[GrainWetski]

Consoles...

What is wrong with it being on consoles?

You'll find it when you try to play it.

 

[Excidium II]

Consoles...

What is wrong with it being on consoles?

Every game now has to be patched a dozen times to become playable. Being on consoles if major updates have simultaneous releases, I hope you like waiting.

 

[CyberWhale]

The Long Journey Home is a Space Exploration RPG that combines the best of classic space adventures like Starflight and Star Control II with the replayability of modern roguelikes, in a procedurally generated

Too fucking bad - I wanted an FTL-like game mechanics in a hand-tailored adventure ala Star Control 2. For shame.

 

[Mozg]

Great concept, don't fuck it up.

OTOH while the trailer is hitting "tug at your heartstrings" shit Starflight/SC2 really went for a cool silly-serious thing where you get yanked back and forth between goofy ant man shit to crystal species genocide to Pkunk to the Ur-Quan slave rebellion, which I think is way better in a full length game than syrupy piano sniffles.

 

[MRY]

A few thoughts:

(1) Procedural upset me initially, but I'm not sure it should. The overwhelming majority of Star Control / Starflight was filler that could be handled procedurally. The problem is, both games are great because that fluff fills in a basic plot outline that is very strong and is pre-scripted. If what they're talking about is random planet placement, small-scale random events, but large-scale pre-scripted structure, then I think it will be fine, although I'm not sure how high the replayability will be.

(2) None of what they showed is germane to what made Starflight and Star Control good. I like that they're shooting for the stars, but it's extremely early to judge. Notably, they have taken a cheap route (one that I myself have employed in my various Star Control inspired game designs) of having the game take place a la ST: Voyager beyond the explored confines of space. I note that this was not the set up for SC2 or Starflight, though it was partially true of Starflight 2 and true of Star Control III. One genius of SC2 and Starflight is the way they situate you in the middle of an established universe without a clean slate, yet managed to make it playable.

(3) As SC3 proved, one can follow the basic structure of SC2/SF and not end up with a good game.

(4) If it is in fact FTL-style "complete X jumps and reach endgame" with each sector self-contained, I fear it will be much worse than SF2/SC2. The brilliance of those games rested in large part of the open galaxy and criss-crossing routes you took through the game.

(5) I don't know whether to be happy or sad that gaming is now following the Hollywood route of mining old IP like this. It seems staggering to me that we had to wait this long for good sequels to the greats of the 90s like X-Com or SC2. But also kind of sad that after 25 years of trying, the solution is just to retread.

 

[deuxhero]

So basically Star Trek: Voyager (but hopefully it, unlike Voyager, has remotely consistent characterization)

Procedural doesn't fill me with confidence as premade stuff is easily Daedalic's greatest strength.

 

[Infinitron]

So basically Star Trek: Voyager (but hopefully it, unlike Voyager, has remotely consistent characterization)

Procedural doesn't fill me with confidence as premade stuff is easily Daedalic's greatest strength.

This game is actually being made by a new studio called "Daedalic West", so I don't know that the adventure game guys are involved at all.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Nothing in that trailer or description sounds like an rpg...

• Is there crafting?
• Are there stats?
• Can you level those stats?
• Are there Skills?
• Can you level those as well?
• Is there an inventory?
• Can you modify your ship?
• Are there character classes?

Anyways, sounds and looks like a nice short burst console or mobile game.

 

[tdphys]

Starting a rant about RPG qualities with crafting and ending with character classes is astounding.

If this is based on Star Control 2 it will have a

1. Non-linear Story with actual *gasp* time limits and meaningful game changing decisions that can cause you to lose the game if you're not careful.
2. Interesting aliens / species with cool subplots/solutions
3. *fun* arcade style combat to help you enjoy the ride - with your strategic game play decisions affecting your tactical capabilities.
4. Sandbox exploration.

3 out of those 4 qualify a game for a worthy role-playing game. The combat is the icing on the cake.

Inventory and ship modification will both undoubtedly be part of the game, as a mechanic supporting the more meaningful parts of the game.

I think what you're looking for is down the MMO grinding lane for a soul sucking $30 bucks a month.

----

The gravity sling travel paths and Einstein gravity membranes in the planet view look awesome, as does the procedural planet exploration.
Sign me up.

Nothing in that trailer or description sounds like an rpg...

• Is there crafting?
• Are there stats?
• Can you level those stats?
• Are there Skills?
• Can you level those as well?
• Is there an inventory?
• Can you modify your ship?
• Are there character classes?

Anyways, sounds and looks like a nice short burst console or mobile game.

 

[Grotesque]

So the planet exploration part of the game will play like a platformer as Mario?



In the solar system screen, I see that the ship has a trajectory around the gravity well of the planet.
It would be nice is the system travelling gameplay would include setting elliptic trajectories around planets by burning fuel and using their gravity like in Kerbal Space Program but I doubt it will be anything as complex looking at the footage

 

[Q]

Explore a living, procedurally generated boring galaxy

 

[tdphys]

I think it looked more like lunar lander...

So the planet exploration part of the game will play like a platformer as Mario?



In the solar system screen, I see that the ship has a trajectory around the gravity well of the planet.
It would be nice is the system travelling gameplay would include setting elliptic trajectories around planets by burning fuel and using their gravity like in Kerbal Space Program but I doubt it will be anything as complex looking at the footage

 

[MRY]

So the planet exploration part of the game will play like a platformer as Mario?

I can't think of any game that has handled this component particularly well -- Starflight and Star Control were all right (Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 are other examples), but very grindy, and it was fairly inexplicable why in a densely populated galaxy with myriad advanced civilizations, there would be so many valuable resources so easily gotten. Star Control III tried another approach, and it was much worse. I realize there are those who think Space Rangers did it well, but I tend to thick that level of density and slog is inconsistent with the almost arcade-like feel of SC/SF.

I actually think the best planetary landing sequences in games of this vein might be in Adventures in the Galaxy of Fantabulous Wonderment, an early AGS game by Yahtzee. Those are basically campy versions of Star Trek away missions, but they are fast-paced and (I thought) somewhat more engaging than in SC/SF. But they still really don't work in a populated galaxy. Some recent Kickstarter project for which I gave away my key seemed like it had some novel idea for how to handle it, too, although again pretty campy. [EDIT: Orion Trail appears to be the game.]

As I recall, my inability to crack this nut was one reason I abandoned my first SC2 clone. For Star Captain, I just had text adventures in lieu of planetary landing, but that's really a totally different kind of game.

 

[Junmarko]

"Mayday mayday! We are trapped on the wrong side of the GALAXY, is anyone out there?" - You're screwed mate...

 

[Bubbles]

syrupy piano sniffles.

You can blame that on Gothic fans for keeping Kai Rosenkranz in business.

 

[The Great Deceiver]

You're all asking the wrong questions. The most important one is: Will there be blue-skinned space babes?

 

[groke]

You're all asking the wrong questions. The most important one is: Will there be blue-skinned space babes?

Be very careful what you wish for:

 

[The Great Deceiver]

You're all asking the wrong questions. The most important one is: Will there be blue-skinned space babes?

Be very careful what you wish for:

That's why I specifically mentioned babes.