STARDROP Preview
STARDROP is the brainchild of Joure Visser an independent game developer. Inspired by his family, Visser’s goal is to create a game that can be enjoyed by young and old. His wife’s love of the Zelda games and the extra desire of wanting to create a game that his three old daughter will be able to play in a couple of years for Visser meant filling a void in the gaming market – a nonviolent and family friendly game. His intent is avoid the cartoony silliness of many children games and craft a game with a more mature look and feel. He also wants to make a game that could convey philosophical concepts via story and character and avoid any preachy elements. STARDROP is meant as game of experience and of fun.
These desires have been become a tangible and physical object with the development of STARDROP. The game takes place in the far future where the exploration and exportation of space have become big business. Space is vast and filled with unknown dangers and despite the best safety features, ships are still lost. A satellite industry – space salvage and rescue – has arisen. Across this backdrop, the game introduces us to two characters – John Kindley who pilots and maintains the ship and ship owner, Aryn Vance. Vance has a prospector’s sixth sense that allows her to find salvage – often in the form of ships – better than anyone else.
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“The game controls fine – though the slow pace of walking, and the limited ability of being able to sprint for short distances, end up being a drag on pacing.”
The aesthetics of the game invokes a variety of SF memories. On the visual side the game has a very primary colours Lego style mixed with the design sensibilities of Rob Cobb, who did a ton of Alien visualizations. Everything on Aryn’s ship is modular and heavy machinery in look – all sharp lines and bulky looking. This is definitely a ship designed for heavy work and little in the way of luxury. On the movement side, once Aryn dons her spacesuit, you get a 2001:Space Odyssey vibe from the Dave Bowman sequences where he was space suited with the sound of the suit respirator and his breathing emphasized. Aryn also moves with clump-clump of magnetic boots. Her visor provides multifunction display functions as well for scanning and alternative visual tracking in hard to see areas. She communicates with John over her suit comms and has a PDA-like device which provides reference and goal objectives at a key press.
STARDROPÂ is a Kickstarter project and from there you can find a demo to download in either 32 or 64 bit configurations. The demo contains what boils down to a training session which allows the player to familiarize themselves with the game mechanics via a narrative through line of an unknown ship being discovered and Aryn suiting up, fixing some mechanical issues on her ship and then ends with her entering the airlock to board the unknown ship. The game controls fine – though the slow pace of walking, and the limited ability of being able to sprint for short distances, end up being a drag on pacing.
The story and character background are intriguing and, as appropriate for a narrative based game, the demo leaves you wanting to learn more about the characters and the mystery at hand. One creepy element of the game, intentional or not, were the crash test dummy androids that service the home ship. With their bright white glowing eyes and orange overalls, they make for eerie moments as I half expected them to randomly start attacking me. The demo also includes a bonus level where you have to stealth you way past several androids to restore power.
Be sure to check out the demo as at the time of writing is a little over a week left in the Kickstarter campaign. The game promises VR support and non-repetitive narrative game play.
