Star Control
Star Control: Famous Battles of the Ur-Quan Conflict, Volume IV is an action-strategy video game developed by Toys for Bob and published by Accolade. It was originally released for MS-DOS and Amiga in 1990, followed by ports for the Sega Genesis and additional platforms in 1991. The story is set during an interstellar war between two space alien factions, with humanity joining the Alliance of Free Stars to defeat the invading Ur-Quan Hierarchy. Players can choose to play as either faction, each with seven different alien starships which are used during the game's combat and strategy sections.
The game was created by designer-artist Paul Reiche III and programmer-engineer Fred Ford. Initially, the concept was based on the space combat seen in Spacewar!, combined with the action-strategy gameplay seen in Archon: The Light and the Dark. The alternate title, StarCon, was a play on words referring to Reiche's prior work on Archon, adapted into a science fiction setting. After developing the core space combat system, Reiche and Ford created an assortment of ships, abilities, and character designs. The project was completed with additional artwork from Greg Johnson and Erol Otus.
Star Control was a critical and commercial success upon its release, leading to two sequels, Star Control II in 1992, and Star Control 3 in 1996. It has since been ranked among the best games of all time by Polygon and VideoGames & Computer Entertainment, remembered for the replay value of its combat, as well as the colorful worldbuilding that gave rise to its acclaimed sequel. Years after its release, game designers have continued to cite Star Control as an influence on their work, including Mass Effect, and Stellaris.
Gameplay
Star Control is a combination of a strategy game and real-time one-on-one ship combat game. The ship combat is based on the game Spacewar!, while the turn-based strategy is inspired by Paul Reiche III's 1983 game Archon: The Light and the Dark. Players have the option to play the full game with the turn-based campaign, or practice the one-on-one ship battles. The game can be played by one player against the computer, or two players head to head. The player can also assign the game's artificial intelligence to take over the strategy gameplay, the combat gameplay, or both.The strategy campaign consists of several selectable scenarios, with nine missions on home computers, and fifteen on the Sega Genesis. Each turn-based strategy mission begins with opposing fleets arranged on a rotating star map, with each player controlling a faction of their choice. Each player has up to three ship actions per turn, which are used to explore new stars and colonize or fortify worlds. These colonies provide resources to the player's ships, such as currency and crew. The goal is to move one's ships across the galaxy, claim planets along the way, and destroy the player's opponent's star base.
When two rival starships meet on the battlefield, an arcade-style combat sequence begins. Each battle takes place on a single screen with an overhead view, zooming in as the two ships approach each other. The battlefield includes a planet as a gravity well, which ships can either crash into, or glide nearby to gain momentum. There are 14 different ships to choose from, with unique abilities for each. Ships typically have a unique firing attack, as well as some kind of secondary ability. For example, the Yehat Terminator has a forcefield, while the VUX Intruder can launch limpets that slow rival ships down. Using these weapons and abilities will consume the ship's battery, which recharges automatically. Ships also have a limited amount of crew, representing the total damage a ship can take before being destroyed. This ties into the strategic meta-game between combat, where the crew can be replenished at colonies.
The different starships are organized into two warring factions, the Ur-Quan Hierarchy, and the Alliance of Free Stars. Each ship has different strengths and weaknesses, determined by their unique weapons and abilities, as well as their speed, battery, crew, and cost. Ship selection has a major influence over combat, and players can discover matchups that give them an advantage. While expensive ships are usually more powerful, the weaker ships can still win in the hands of a skilled player. The screen also displays a cockpit animation for each player, with unique character design for each alien and ship. The ships also have distinct sound deign, such as the barking Chenjesu drones, or the Ur-Quan Dreadnaught bellowing "launch fighters" when it initiates a strike.
As was typical of copy protection at the time, Star Control requested a special pass phrase that players found by using a three-ply code wheel, called "Professor Zorq's Instant Etiquette Analyzer".
Plot
Star Control reveals its plot through each scenario in the game's campaign, as well as the game's instruction manual. The story takes place during a war between two interstellar factions of alien species: the peaceful Alliance of Free Stars, and the invading Ur-Quan Hierarchy.Characters
The Ur-Quan is the oldest and most advanced species in known space, resembling giant predatory caterpillars with a rigid social order. As slavers, the Ur-Quan recruit other species into their Hierarchy as serfs, which includes their genetically engineered translators, the Talking Pets. The mollusk-like Spathi are cowardly by nature, and were easily coerced into the Hierarchy. The fungoid Mycon joined the Hierarchy freely and fanatically, while the blobbish Umgah joined out of boredom, amused by the war as a great interstellar prank. Two Hierarchy species hold a grudge against Earth, including the humanoid Androsynth who escaped Earth as renegade clones, and the one-eyed VUX, who were insulted by a human during their first contact.The Chenjesu are the most powerful members of the Alliance, a species of crystalline philosophers who consume electrical energy. Earth joined the Alliance as a multinational crew under their planetary defense organization, Star Control. The Alliance includes the marsupial Shofixti, a brave warrior species who were technologically uplifted by the Yehat, a militant species of avian dinosaurs. The allied Mmrnmhrm are robots with transforming ships, while the Syreen are female humanoids who use their psychic abilities to hypnotize enemy crew. The Arilou are a race of "space elves" with hyper-jump capable vessels, who also have a history of "tormenting" Earth.
Throughout the campaign, each side discovers powerful relics belonging to the Precursors, an unknown lost species who once inhabited nearby space, hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Story
Humanity encounters a first alien contact near their Ceres outpost, where they receive an urgent warning from the Chenjesu. The crystalline aliens explain that the Ur-Quan Hierarchy is annihilating them and their allies. The Alliance council previously decided that Earth was not strong enough to make a difference, but now the Ur-Quan slavers and their minions have broken through the Alliance defenses, and are approaching the Solar System. The diplomats of Earth agree to join the Alliance, earning a position on the Alliance council, and an Alliance pact to defend Earth and its space colonies.The campaign begins with a lone Syreen Penetrator vessel attempting to stop the Androsynth from redeploying. The first full battle breaks out where both spheres of influence meet with a mix of combatants, followed by a single Ur-Quan dreadnaught trying to stamp out a fleet of Shofixti scouts. The next encounter takes place in an uncolonized sector between Hierarchy and Alliance starbases. By the fifth and sixth scenarios, the war has escalated to multi-ship battles, including an Ur-Quan armada rampaging towards an Alliance stronghold. The final encounters of the campaign feature a Spathi assault on a Mmrnmhrm mining cluster, and two battles between all members of each faction, with and without starbase support.
The Sega Genesis version features additional scenarios. In neutral space, an Alliance task force attempts to stop the spread of Mycon colonies. Where the Hierarchy has the advantage, they attempt to conquer Earth's surrounding solar system. Meanwhile, a lone Chenjesu Broodhome finds itself outnumbered by a Hierarchy force, while the Hierarchy tries to defend its colonies from an invading fleet of Syreen Penetrators. There are also scenarios that favor the Alliance, where they defend a stronghold against a VUX incursion, and also confront a Hierarchy fleet pressing deep into Alliance territory.
Development
Conception
Star Control was created by Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford, who both attended the University of California Berkeley around the same time, and both entered the video game industry in the early 1980s. Reiche had started his career working for Dungeons & Dragons publisher TSR, before developing PC games for Free Fall Associates. After releasing World Tour Golf, Reiche created an advertising mock-up for what would become Star Control, showing a dreadnaught and some ships fighting. He pitched the game to Electronic Arts, before instead securing an agreement with Accolade as a publisher, thanks to Reiche's former producer taking a job there. Meanwhile, Ford had started his career creating games for Japanese personal computers before transitioning to more corporate software development. After a few years working at graphics companies in Silicon Valley, Ford realized he missed working in the game industry. At this point, Reiche needed a programmer-engineer and Ford was seeking a designer-artist, so their mutual friends set up a gaming night to re-introduce them. The meeting was hosted at game designer Greg Johnson's house, and one of the friends who encouraged the meeting was fantasy artist Erol Otus.Star Control began as an evolution of concepts that Reiche created in Archon: The Light and the Dark and Mail Order Monsters. The project would adapt the action-strategy gameplay of Archon into a science fiction setting, where unique combatants fight space battles using distinct abilities. Also called StarCon, the title was a play on words. According to Ford, "StarCon is really just Archon with an S-T in front of it", pointing to the one-on-one combat and strategic modes of both games. Star Control would base its combat sequences on the classic game Spacewar!, as well as the core experience of space combat game Star Raiders.
This was the first collaboration between Ford and Reiche, who decided to limit the game's scope to establish an effective workflow. Releasing the game under their personal names, they also began referring to their partnership as Toys for Bob. Programmer Robert Leyland and artist Erol Otus had both worked with Ford at his previous place of employment, and joined him as he began work on Star Control.