Free Stars: Children of Infinity, the sequel to Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters, will be releasing to Switch! The games are now being renamed as the "Free Stars" series because someone else owns the trademark "Star Control", but in every other way it is a full sequel.
In 1992 Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford released Star Control and Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters for PC, and the following year it came out on 3DO. Many older gamers remember SC2: UQM fondly as a ground breaking game that inspired many other beloved games. Reiche and Ford open-sourced it in 2002, and it has been community-maintained freeware since. Many younger gamers have discovered it and fallen in love with it since.
After nearly 30 years of making franchises like Skylanders for other companies, Fred Ford and Paul Reiche wanted to go back to their indie roots; they founded Pistol Shrimp Games in 2020 to develop a sequel to The Ur-Quan Masters.
It's a genre-defying game, but could loosely be described as an action/adventure/semi-RPG in space, with a multiplayer skirmish mode that is kind of a fighting game in space. You explore space, build up strength and resources, conduct diplomacy with all kind of aliens, fight, and uncover an epic story. The writing is simply brilliant - the dialog is often very funny, but it's also an epic high-stakes sci-fi adventure and gets more serious when it needs to. The Kickstarter for Children of Infinity is in its final day. It has been very successful and recently hit the consoles stretch goal, still trying for voice acting: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pistolshrimp/free-stars-...
I know people are hesitant about game Kickstarters nowadays, but they have shown quite a lot of transparency throughout the development process. They are doing one ending-KS stream tonight if you want to check it out. You can also download Ur-quan Masters for free if you want to get a taste of what it's like.
It’s ok - we reached voice acting in the final hours, so that’s all the realistic stretch goals (the very last one was open source at 4.4 million, but no one really expected it). And they will open up for late pledges on BackerKit in the near future!
It was a very successful Kickstarter and I think a lot Nintendo fans will enjoy discovering this sci-fi universe when the game releases.
@yttrium13
Hi and thank you for the good news! I loved the Star Control games so much in my youth that I would love to send in a pledge, late or no. BackerKit is not something I've ever used, but I'll look into it.
It was a very successful Kickstarter and I think a lot Nintendo fans will enjoy discovering this sci-fi universe when the game releases.
I'm glad the Kickstarter did so well! And I strongly suspect you are right - if Free Stars holds true to its roots, Nintendo-centric gamers who may never have played a Star Control game before will be in for a real treat!
Switch FC: SW-5760-3019-8223
(player name is Beesh)
You don't need an account right now, just give your email and a pledge and they will contact you later about payment and other details. Here is the KS page again for a description of the available rewards: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pistolshrimp/free-stars-...
@yttrium13
Thank you for the heads up! I’m now registered to be a backer. (Better late than never!)
I’ll keep a lookout for any updates and add Free Stars to my short list of most anticipated games for now! I’m not equipped for PC gaming and hopefully I can use the digital codes I receive for playing on the Switch someday, but we’ll cross that bridge later.
For now I can reminisce (Star Control was one of most-played games Sega Genesis games, so long ago) and imagine how fun it will be talking with the Orz again. 😁
Jumping peppers!! This is smiley time!
Switch FC: SW-5760-3019-8223
(player name is Beesh)
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Topic: The sequel to Star Control 2/Ur-quan Masters is coming to Switch!
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