I played the first Starflight back in college, and the hype here is real: it’s one of the seminal science fiction exploration games. It had space exploration, diplomacy, combat, planetary resource management, an elaborate backstory, a difficult moral quandary at the crux of the game, and an absolutely merciless save system if you didn’t have a hard drive on your computer. Yes, it was that long ago. This is a pure nostalgia hit, folks: true-quill and injected right into the vein. Forget buying it: I’m trying to keep myself from investing in the game.
That’s apparently Fig’s shtick: you can back projects, or invest in them. $250 gets you a share in whatever profits accrue. What’s stopping me? Well, aside from the obvious: I don’t know anything about video game investing, which means that I’m a prime candidate for losing my shirt over doing so.
Still. Starflight 3. Woo-hoo!
I’ve been looking for a worthy successor to Starflight for a long time. Star Control 2 comes close, and The Long Journey Home certainly tries (though its unforgiving difficulty level keeps me from getting very far). We’ll see whether Starflight 3 is the successor Starflight deserves.