A Science Fiction Saga [upd. 27 DEC 2011]

[david]

With less interactivity there'd be less death for the player. For instance, there's one segment where kicking a suspicious looking box will kill you, while carefully moving it by hand ensures that you live. In comparison there's also a segment where you might want to kick something away quickly, instead of taking the time to reach down, pick something up, and throw it away by hand

I like and especially look forward to this 

[Pyke]

anian, you're absolutely right, the story isn't the most original one. After all, it's basically Futurama, with a twist of Farscape. To be honest, I tried to be more original in the earlier iterations of the game, but I tried too hard and ended up with a story that was contrived, and convoluted. In the end I stuck with something easier, that I enjoyed working with and building characters around

I think that's a really good way of looking at things. Starting off with a really complicated backstory and setting only serves to throw a spanner in the works from the outset. Having a 'basic' framework in place allows you to introduce more complex plot points at your own pace.

There is this tendency with games to try and emulate films-but films dedicate at least half of the first act to setting up the story. In a 8 hour game, that would be a 1,5 hour long intro. Characters in games need goals from the outset...the first minutes. Setting up goals that make sense in a complex world without understanding what is going on is extremely difficult!

[David Ostman]

Quick update, as I'm still getting inquiries.

For the past couple of months I've been doing, and still doing, freelance work to fill the war chest with gold to keep working on this thing. It's by no means abandoned, quite the opposite, but for the moment it's slow progress as spare time is rare. My goal is to get back on this full time as soon as financially possible!

Having slowed the pace down has given me a new perspective, and I'll be doing some changes for the good of the game. Mainly I'll be looking for some feedback, so main focus will be to get a build of a 30 minute slice ready, polish that up to release quality, hopefully with voice work, and release to the community primarily for opinions on how the graphics, animations, UI, gameplay, etc, holds up.

Screenshots are all well and nice, but assuming people have time, I'd like to put something playable into their hands. I'll give more info later, so no need to commit to anything just yet