StarCon in Space Quest
(Video removed)
On March 25, there was a news post on PONAF about games from Atari being added to GOG.com and how this could affect Star Control since Atari owns the rights to the name. GOG.com is a video game digital distribution service that sells classic PC games without digital rights management. In addition, they will continue to provide support for any game they sell. This service was created CD Projekt, a developer that has also made The Witcher, which is similar to Neverwinter Nights, a game made by BioWare. In fact, they even share the same engine code, which they heavily modified.
When this was posted on PONAF, I made a post that if Star Control 1 was added to GOG.com, it would be nice to be able to legally obtain a digital copy of it and I hope that TFB gets their share of the sales.
I have been a member of GOG.com for a while and I have a fair collection of games. One of the games I purchased is the Space Quest collection (Space Quest IV, V & VI). Space Quest is an adventure game made during the “Golden Age of Adventure Games” by Sierra. It is a parody of various science fiction universes, mainly Star Trek and Star Wars.
To me, “starcon” is the command I used to enter in DOS when I played Star Control back in the day. I remember entering “cd starcon” then entering “starcon” to start the game. My dad used to refer to the game as “starcon” because of this. It is also the name of the canceled game by StarSphere Interactive.
In Space Quest, StarCon refers to the Star Confederation, which can be seen as a parody of The United Federation of Planets from Star Trek and other inter-planetary alliances. It’s just something that surprised me when I played Space Quest V for the first time. This is the first time I ever seen the word starcon used in another game. Space Quest is a funny game with well-writen humor and makes good use of the color pallet available at the time just like Star Control. However, I wouldn’t recommend these games to anyone who doesn’t like trial-and-error and trying every combination of actions to get through to the next chapter; it does not give much guidance on what needs to be done and I referred to walkthroughs very often to get through these games. I understand that it’s an adventure game with puzzle elements and it’s not something newcomers would enjoy; however, it’s fun to watch someone else play who knows what to do.
Did you know that title “Star Control” refers to the military and diplomatic group formed by the United Nations after the Androsynth rebelled and left Earth. They were contacted by the Chenjesu and Mmrnmhrm and alerted about the Ur-Quan Hierarchy. Star Control became part of the Alliance of Free Stars. In Star Control II, the captain returns from Earth from a secret Star Control science mission on Unzarvalt (Vela I), which discovered a Precursor factory for building starships.
I hope you find this interesting. Has anyone out there ever played Space Quest?
Links
Star Confederation - Space Quest Omnipedia
Star Control (organization) - Untronomicon
Let’s Play Space Quest V: The Next Mutation - Part 2 StarCon Aptitude Test
