Space Exploration/Adventure games

[Don Peste]

I'm looking for games where you command a spaceship, explore the galaxy, solve mysteries, talk to aliens, shoot aliens etc.

 

[Owl]

Space Rogue from 1989 seems to fit the bill. The lead designer/programmer was Paul Neurath.

Space Rogue is a hybrid game that combines space flight and combat simulation with trading and RPG elements such as interaction with characters and a quest-based structure with a main plot line. Space flight takes place in two different modes: Cruise Flight, which is ideal for travelling quickly, and Newtonian Flight, which works best for combat and precision flying. There are also three different camera views for the 3D exploration and combat. Each planetary system has a variety of destinations and obstacles to travel through via a top-down navigational map. Traveling to an outpost, a space station, or any other location with the star system can be done simply by selecting it and charting a course, or in real-time 3D flight mode.

Interstellar travel between systems, is done by finding a Malir Gate and using it to reach hyperspace. While in hyperspace, the game becomes a simple 'tunnel' game where the player must manually control the ship not to hit any of the walls. Also hyperspace travel eats away at the ship, so the faster the player can get through them, the more armor the ship retains. While traveling in space the ship may get attacked, or the player may opt to assault any other ships first.

It is also possible to buy and sell various goods, earning money and spending it on outfitting the ship with weapons and various upgrades, such as for example a device that allows it to move more stealthily through space and avoid detection by hostiles. The player character has a reputation rating with various factions such as the Imperium, the pirates, and others. This rating is affected by the player's actions towards them and can be raised or lowered by helping specific factions fight others.

When docked at outposts or stations, the view shifts to top-down, and the player navigates the protagonist through the location in an adventure or RPG-like fashion, examining objects and talking to characters. Conversations may have multiple choices, and a few instances require the player to type in keywords, though for the most parts responses are selected from a menu. The game has a main plot line that requires finding, talking, and performing tasks for characters, as well as sub-quests that may result in various rewards such as money or ship upgrades.

Note that there's another Space Rogue released recently, I haven't played it, looks like an FTL-esque game with prettier graphics.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Space Rogue is way shallower and more repetitive than FTL. Not recommended.

 

[Freddie]

Space Rogue from 1989 seems to fit the bill. The lead designer/programmer was Paul Neurath.

Note that there's another Space Rogue released recently, I haven't played it, looks like an FTL-esque game with prettier graphics.

I played original Space Rogue (C64) back in the day. One of the few games I didn't properly finished because I messed up something with the plot in final stages of game.

It's scope weren't awfully big but still it was way ahead it's time and certainly worth checking out, though some segments, worm hole travel comes to mind (you must pilot your ship manually through entire wormhole) may not feel that rewarding.

I visited GOG page for this other Space Rogue, and I can say for sure it's not a remake of 1989 game, but something else.

 

[ShaggyMoose]

Didn't realise how old this thread was when I opened it. However, its interesting that since the OP in 2013 this genre has exploded on Steam. There are about five games that fit this category on my watchlist right now and more are arriving all the time. Its an awesome time for space exploration games.

 

[tindrli]

What 5 games?

 

[Morkar Left]

What 5 games?

There are a lot more of such games:

Star Traders Frontiers
Stellar Tactics
3030 Deathwar
Empyrion
No Mans Sky
Space Haven
Avorion
Elite Dangerous
X4
Space Bourne
Between the Stars
Space Rangers HD (that still counts!)
Everspace 1 + 2
...

 

[CyberWhale]

That's a bit of a stretch, most of these don't fill the requirements to qualify.

 

[Morkar Left]

That's a bit of a stretch, most of these don't fill the requirements to qualify.

From Threadopener:

I'm looking for games where you command a spaceship, explore the galaxy, solve mysteries, talk to aliens, shoot aliens etc.
Here are some examples of games that fit the profile: Star Control 2, Starflight, Nomad, Protostar, Ironseed- all from the 90's. Are there any more recent games of this sort?

The games I listed all fit the criteria.

 

[warpig]

The games I listed all fit the criteria.

Some of them don't. It was supposed to be games that are more like Star Control 2 or Starflight not Elite, X series type games (notice not Elite, X, Privateer, Freelancer as examples).

 

[ShaggyMoose]

These are from my follow list and all fit the criteria to some degree. The ones that seem the best fit are Between The Stars, Starcom Nexus and maybe Zero Falls. Most of them are early access and I can't personally vouch for any of them, but they seemed the most interesting and likely to actually be completed.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/445220/Avorion/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/727130/Between_the_Stars/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/330460/Celestial_Command/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/712190/Genesis_Alpha_One_Deluxe_Edition/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1122920/Path_Of_Aurora/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/979110/Space_Haven/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/732240/SpaceBourne/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/833360/Star_Valor/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/863590/Starcom_Nexus/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/465490/Stellar_Tactics/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/944180/Titan_Outpost/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/392080/Wayward_Terran_Frontier_Zero_Falls/

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Iron Seed...oh, OP already mentioned it. Well, I'm going to go into its virtues anyway.
In Iron Seed, you play as a group of rebels against the technocratic government of Mars, Earth being destroyed and its mention is blasphemy. The plan was to destroy Mars computer and then return 500 days later. Only someone made a rounding error, and you're somewhere far from home, with a damaged ship, and an alien vessel slowly getting closer. Oh, and the flesh that once constituted your form was used as materials by the ship, you and the crew only exist as data. Fortunately there are back-ups...unfortunately, there are only six, and your bridge crew are using them.
The gameplay of it is both interesting and a little bit tedious. You have the usual spiel, explore planets, meet aliens and kill them. However, in resource gathering planets are only good for one scavenging, what you need to do is mine them. This is accomplished by putting down a mining bot and waiting. You could always fly to and from two different galaxies, but that takes fuel. And you need to get resources, after a while you have the best weaponry, but you'll still need other things, like drugs so your crew members don't go crazy.
It also has a system for making each planet unique (graphically) and spawning a bunch of generic aliens. Its got some limitations, but its good for 1995.
The original release is freeware, but recently the dev did a remake of it. From what I can tell via screenshots, the only change seems to be better planetary graphics. Could be more, but I'm not that into the game to spend 15$ to find out.

 

[Norfleet]

Star Traders Frontiers

This game is only nominally in space. I mean, it has pictures of spaceships, and you can travel a space-painted map in your picture of a spaceship, but it basically has no actual "in space" behavior, and the parts where you do anything even vaguely in space are some of the worst-made parts of the game. On the scale of being in space:

                  (STF)                                SC2                     Tesla Roadster
     Sunless Skies  |   StarWars  StarTrek         EV:N |           KSP     COADE  |    Voyager 1
                 |  |     |         |               |   |            |        |    |    |
NOT IN SPACE [X  X  X X X X         X   X         X X   X            X        X X  X   XX] LOST IN SPACE
              |       | |               |         |                             |      |
            Poland    | StarCraft      BSG      Asteroids                    Orbiter Voyager 2
                 Stargate

 

[ShaggyMoose]

The original release is freeware, but recently the dev did a remake of it. From what I can tell via screenshots, the only change seems to be better planetary graphics. Could be more, but I'm not that into the game to spend 15$ to find out.

Here is the remake of Iron Seed mentioned above, for anyone who is interested.

https://channel7.itch.io/ironseed

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

I remember loving Iron Seed around 1996/1997. Nice that it has a remake, but asking 15USD for it is a bit much.

 

[Norfleet]

 

[Wulfric Pinewood]

Go Alien Invaders.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

I'm looking for games where you command a spaceship, explore the galaxy, solve mysteries, talk to aliens, shoot aliens etc.
Here are some examples of games that fit the profile: Star Control 2, Starflight, Nomad, Protostar, Ironseed- all from the 90's. Are there any more recent games of this sort?

Some recent games:

Outer Wilds:


Out There


Heaven's Vault


Opus series

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i will never stop whining: the world needs a modern, proper, finally decent new "whale's voyage 2".
the game had it all: starship, space combat, ship customization, trading, a party, stats, skills, weapons, exploration, dialogues... every part of it sucked, but at least it had them.

 

[JarlFrank]

i will never stop whining: the world needs a modern, proper, finally decent new "whale's voyage 2".
the game had it all: starship, space combat, ship customization, trading, a party, stats, skills, weapons, exploration, dialogues... every part of it sucked, but at least it had them.

I'm really baffled that such a game hasn't been made yet. I also really like Planet's Edge, despite how mediocre it is, because it's one of the few games that give me a "Star Trek" vibe.

Considering how popular among nerds Star Trek is (and especially was), and how many games it got in the 90s and 00s, it's weird it never got a free-form RPG or exploration-focused game where you do what the Star Trek shows are known for: exploring space, going where no man has gone before, like Kirk, Picard and Janeway.

Star Wars is also very popular and has cool space combat as well as cool planets to explore. Same here. Why isn't there a Star Wars game where you explore space and planets?

There are games that fulfill pretty much every fantasy you can think of. Being a business manager, being a dragon-slaying hero, a post-apocalyptic Mad Max, an army general, etc etc.

But there are barely any games that properly serve the fantasy of being a spaceship captain with a crew, exploring space.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

well, there're actually two contendants. star trek online and swtor. let that sink in.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Considering how popular among nerds Star Trek is (and especially was), and how many games it got in the 90s and 00s, it's weird it never got a free-form RPG or exploration-focused game where you do what the Star Trek shows are known for: exploring space, going where no man has gone before, like Kirk, Picard and Janeway.

Its incredibly weird since there have been a steady trickle of such games in the more niche field of adventure games. I'm not really paying that much attention to modern ones and even I can tell there's been a constant trickle from the '80s til now. Its not even a case of indies lacking imagination or skill. So why not the same thing for RPGs?

 

[Norfleet]

it's weird it never got a free-form RPG or exploration-focused game where you do what the Star Trek shows are known for: exploring space, going where no man has gone before, like Kirk, Picard and Janeway.

The problem with "exploring space" is that in order for exploring space to be interesting, there has to be something for you to FIND while exploring. Anything handmake quickly becomes used up and repetitive. Anything not valuable just plain isn't worth finding. That's why the episodes of Star Trek only capture the 40 minute slices where they actually find something, NOT the days, weeks, and months of flying through empty space and charting another tidally locked rock orbiting a red dwarf. That's why the "Strange New Worlds" type game doesn't actually lend itself to free-form. There ultimately has to be some Big Bad or Terrible Secret of Space to give the game final structure.