Starship Titanic

[Discoalucard]

www.hardcoregaming101.net/titanic/titanic.htm

I'd had this lying around for awhile and decided to put it in after I'd beaten Mission Critical, just to have another "wander around a spaceship aimlessly" sorta game. The game was (sort of) designed by Douglas Adams of Hitchhiker's Guide fame, and the visual design of the ship was created by some fairly noted artists. But it's also extremely difficult to play and mostly obnoxiously, especially since some of the puzzles revolve around "talking" to the shipboard robots with a text parser, who never actually understand anything you say.

[syntheticgerbil]

I have owned both the novel and the Starship Titanic game for over half a decade now and still haven't touched them. This review sounds much more in line how I'd feel the game. It just sounds like a bad chore, a failure in design. Other adventure sites have given it way more merit than it probably deserves. I've heard before about the bad interface and difficulty of the puzzles, but it's usually more of an aside.

I guess I'll probably be passing Starship Titanic for even more years then.

[Strider]

I read the book and remember thinking that it sucked; I've never played the game.

The book had Douglas Adams' name larger than the actual author's... It seemed like a pretty blatant bait-and-switch on the part of the publisher.

- HC

[Discoalucard]

I've got the book on order. I want to give it a flip through to put up a more detailed summary before this article goes live.

I'd actually remember reading reviews for a long time that this wasn't very good - playing it completely confirmed it. Total shame. I think it was one of the last things Douglas Adams was really involved with, even though he didn't actually write the book.

[Jave]

You've just got to read the FAQ for this, it's got it's moments.
www.starshiptitanic.com/game/faq.html

I just wish there was more information about the making of this game to be read somewhere. I've watched some interviews he did, but he didn't offer much insight beyond the fact that it took 2 years, was inspired by Myst, and all the usual pimp my game chitchat.

I wonder, was it just a case of Adams being given too much creative control? This was a man notorious for having fits of writer's block that sometimes lasted years at a time.

[Discoalucard]

The strategy guide that comes with the game has some random tidbits about his inspirations. They're interesting to read.

A huge chunk of the problem lies with the interface and the fact that the whole robot conversation thing doesn't work. High concept stuff, yes, but the implementation fails completely. Some of the more obscure puzzles I'm sure were his fault (The Hitchhiker's game was maddening, although who knows how much was him and how much was Meretzky) but I would put up with crazy puzzles if the rest of the game were at least funny.

[kal]

If you're getting sick of all these flawed/crummy Mystlikes Kurt you should try Obsidian - it's biggest flaw is it gets rushed towards the end.

Love the Mondrian door in Starship Titanic.

[Discoalucard]

This is the only one I've really played recently...I'm not sure if I'd stick Mission Critical as a Myst-alike.

I did hear Obsidian was quite good though. Maybe I'll give it a go.

[kal]

May 26, 2010 22:45:49 GMT -5 Discoalucard said:

I did hear Obsidian was quite good though. Maybe I'll give it a go.

Honestly I liked it more than Myst - which always had too many fiddly puzzles with cryptic solutions despite the gorgeous presentation. Obsidian sent the company bankrupt I believe and the advertisements for the game are still concerned exceptional good as far as I know.

[brianc]

Ugh. I haven't read anything from Douglas Adams, but I saw a couple of his Dr. Who episodes (Pirate Planet and City of Death) and they were good stuff. I would like to play a graphical game with his craziness, but this one sounds like a chore.

[Strider]

You haven't read anything by Douglas Adams? Man, I thought that was like a nerd rite of passage.

- HC

[Jave]

I really only ever played the demo for Obsidian, but I remember pouring over magazine articles about it. The though of a game that played like Myst but where the laws of nature were recklessly abandoned at every turn (why more Myst clones don't go that route is beyond me) was very appealing.

Plus it was made by Rocket Science, the same guys who made Loadstar and Rocket Jockey. I was a fan at the time.

The demo wasn't particularly long, I really only remember on puzzle in particular, in this enclosed environment where you could walk up all the walls. The puzzle itself was very fiddly and logic based, but a lot more self-contained than any of the ones from Myst, so you knew what you were trying to do, but I dunno if that was just because it was a demo, or if they were designed like that in general.

[derboo]

Is this not being included in the latest update intentional?

[Discoalucard]

Yeah...I wanted to read some of the book before finalizing it. It came in a few days ago but I haven't gotten a chance to go through it yet.