Starflight 1 & 2 On GOG.com
Starflight 1 & 2 are on GOG.com
I was browsing through GOG.com and I discovered that Starflight 1 & 2 were added to GOG’s catalog. Starflight was created by Greg Johnson while he was working for Electronic Arts. This was before ToeJam & Earl was released. Paul Reiche worked with Greg on this game before Star Control. For this reason, Starflight and Star Control have things in common with one another. His experience with Starflight would eventually lead to the creation of Star Control, hence the similarities.
A long time ago, I sent an e-mail to Paul regarding his share of the pie from GOG sales. He said they came to an agreement and he is now getting royalties from Star Control sales from GOG. Although, The Ur-Quan Masters is the superior port with its remixes and speech updates. In addition, it has other touches such as rotating planets. However, if anyone wants to buy the DOS version, it’s available on GOG.com. I also noticed that Abandonia only removed Star Control 1’s download and Star Control 2 is still downloadable from there.
I sent an e-mail to Greg Johnson regarding his thoughts about Starflight being added to GOG and if a deal has been worked out between them. He replied that he does not actually own Starflight; the rights belong to Rod McConnell and that he’s “not sure he will really care, as he’s retired”. With that in mind, it doesn’t seem like there’s a big legal issue here like the time when Paul pointed out that Atari lost publishing rights of the Star Control games a long time ago.
I have purchased the Starflight Package and these games are certainly a sign of the times. Graphics technology certainly changed significantly between the 80s and 90s and the trend is continuing through the 2000s. I had difficulty displaying the Starflight 1 on my PC and I had to tinker with the graphic settings for DOSBox to get it to work.
I just noticed that in the above image is from Starflight 2. The human male is holding his hand in front of the alien’s hand with a ball of energy in between. This reminds me of the cover of Star Control 1, which was remade by Boris Vallajo for the Sega Genesis. Coincidence?
It’s nice to hear that Paul and Fred are getting something from the GOG sales now. Although, I still recommend playing The Ur-Quan Masters to get a more immersive experience of Star Control 2. For anyone who’s a fan of Star Control or retro DOS games in general, I recommend Starflight. It’s really interesting that Paul and Fred contributed to each other’s respective sci-fi games. Did you know that the Genesis port of Starflight was licensed, while the Star Control port was unlicensed, along with other ports from Accolade?
Have you ever played though either of the Starflight games? If so, what do you think of it?
Links
Starflight 1 + 2 - GOG.com
Abandonia - Star Control II
HumaNature Studios - Greg’s current dev studio
