Space Battles! Explosions! Mutiny! Defect Hits Kickstarter

[StewShearerOld]

Space Battles! Explosions! Mutiny! Defect Hits Kickstarter

[kickstarter=749930024/defect]

Build custom space warships in Defect and then take them down after their crews turn against you.

On the long list of universal nerd dreams, captaining your own starship is one of the one's that probably ranks highest. After all, who wouldn't want to take the stars, exploring the galaxy and overcoming danger? The thing that these fantasies usually leave out, of course, is the part where your crew, tired of you red-shirting them in the name of your own personal glory, mutinies and takes the ship for itself. Hoping to explore that idea a bit further the fine folks at Three Phase Interactive have recently launched <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/kickstarter>a Kickstarter for their space game Defect.

Following the adventures of the galaxy's most unlucky <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/117095-Take-Our-Which-Starship-Best-Fits-You-Quiz>starship captain, Defect tasks players with building powerful warships from components that they can then use to complete challenging missions. The catch is that at the end of each mission, the crew of your ship will mutiny, forcing you to face down and destroy your own creation in the next level. The developer's hope is to create a unique cycle where players have to consider not just the objective at hand but the future difficulties they might make for themselves if they build a ship that's too powerful to beat when it inevitably switches sides.

To make Defect, Three Phase is currently asking for a total of $31,088. If they can reach this, they should have enough funds to create a finished product that includes a single player campaign, a challenge mode where players will be able to pilot their ships in a more free-form sandbox environment where you'll even be able to fight the ship creations of your fellow gamers. If <a href=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/749930024/defect>the Kickstarter campaign exceeds that initial goal, the team will be able to add extra ship components, themed components and more. The studio's current target is to finish the game by May 2016, after which it will receive a full release for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android.

Source: <a href=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/749930024/defect>Kickstarter


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[Fdzzaigl]

The designer looks cool, but having your crew mutiny regardless of what you do after every single mission sound like a really repetitive and stupid thing to happen.

In fact, any type of mission based system doesn't really sound appealing with this system. Some sort of open ended galaxy like Escape Velocity combined with the building and mutinies under certain conditions would be awesome though.

 

[Karadalis]

I fail to see the fun in loosing your self made ship every single time you complete a mission?

Is there something about this concept that i dont get? I mean the editor looks like you can spend hours in it... and the game design sabotages its own editor by basically punishing you for designing good ships?

Sorry but that seems not fun at all.

 

[CrystalShadow]

I fail to see the fun in loosing your self made ship every single time you complete a mission?

Is there something about this concept that i dont get? I mean the editor looks like you can spend hours in it... and the game design sabotages its own editor by basically punishing you for designing good ships?

Sorry but that seems not fun at all.

I don't know if it works out in practice, (depends on the limitations on ship design, and whether you can run into an 'optimal' design that's impossible to improve upon), but it basically looks like a thematic way to pressure you into improving your own design skills.

Think of it like this:
Build ship A.
Do mission
Ship A is now your enemy
Build ship B to be capable of defeating ship A.
Do mission
Ship B is now your enemy
Build ship C to defeat ship B.

If handled correctly, this has an innate 'puzzle' element without explicitly defining a puzzle. (figure out how to beat yourself at designing something.)
If handled badly, it's just going to be annoying and frustrating...

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

I have to agree with everyone else. It sounds cool at first glance, but the moment I think about it, I'd hate that. One of the best parts of games like these is building up your cool unique ship, but to have it taken away every mission for one throwaway mechanic (seriously, removing a major part of a game for one minor mechanic seems ass backwards) seems stupid. Maybe a chance for mutiny would be great fun, but every mission, no matter what you do? Eh.

 

[GabeZhul]

I fail to see the fun in loosing your self made ship every single time you complete a mission?

Is there something about this concept that i dont get? I mean the editor looks like you can spend hours in it... and the game design sabotages its own editor by basically punishing you for designing good ships?

Sorry but that seems not fun at all.

I don't know if it works out in practice, (depends on the limitations on ship design, and whether you can run into an 'optimal' design that's impossible to improve upon), but it basically looks like a thematic way to pressure you into improving your own design skills.

Think of it like this:
Build ship A.
Do mission
Ship A is now your enemy
Build ship B to be capable of defeating ship A.
Do mission
Ship B is now your enemy
Build ship C to defeat ship B.

If handled correctly, this has an innate 'puzzle' element without explicitly defining a puzzle. (figure out how to beat yourself at designing something.)
If handled badly, it's just going to be annoying and frustrating...

But you could achieve the exact same result without the whole "mutiny" gimmick by just having an enemy force that is characterized by copying and quickly replicating your ship designs (while having zero creativity to create their own) to turn them against you, so that you would have to constantly come up with new ship designs. That way you would pretty much have your cake and eat it too.

 

[CrystalShadow]

I fail to see the fun in loosing your self made ship every single time you complete a mission?

Is there something about this concept that i dont get? I mean the editor looks like you can spend hours in it... and the game design sabotages its own editor by basically punishing you for designing good ships?

Sorry but that seems not fun at all.

I don't know if it works out in practice, (depends on the limitations on ship design, and whether you can run into an 'optimal' design that's impossible to improve upon), but it basically looks like a thematic way to pressure you into improving your own design skills.

Think of it like this:
Build ship A.
Do mission
Ship A is now your enemy
Build ship B to be capable of defeating ship A.
Do mission
Ship B is now your enemy
Build ship C to defeat ship B.

If handled correctly, this has an innate 'puzzle' element without explicitly defining a puzzle. (figure out how to beat yourself at designing something.)
If handled badly, it's just going to be annoying and frustrating...

But you could achieve the exact same result without the whole "mutiny" gimmick by just having an enemy force that is characterized by copying and quickly replicating your ship designs (while having zero creativity to create their own) to turn them against you, so that you would have to constantly come up with new ship designs. That way you would pretty much have your cake and eat it too.

That's splitting hairs over the theming of it though, isn't it?
If the end result is that the enemy is using your ship design, what exactly does it matter what the 'plot' reason is for it?

What this accomplishes though, is that you can't simply re-use the same design constantly... Which is more the point than that the enemy uses your designs...

At least, that's what I'm getting from it.
(Also if you watch the video, there appear to be ever-increasing swarms of enemies using ALL of your previous ship designs, not just the most recent one...)

 

[GabeZhul]

But you could achieve the exact same result without the whole "mutiny" gimmick by just having an enemy force that is characterized by copying and quickly replicating your ship designs (while having zero creativity to create their own) to turn them against you, so that you would have to constantly come up with new ship designs. That way you would pretty much have your cake and eat it too.

That's splitting hairs over the theming of it though, isn't it?
If the end result is that the enemy is using your ship design, what exactly does it matter what the 'plot' reason is for it?

What this accomplishes though, is that you can't simply re-use the same design constantly... Which is more the point than that the enemy uses your designs...

At least, that's what I'm getting from it.
(Also if you watch the video, there appear to be ever-increasing swarms of enemies using ALL of your previous ship designs, not just the most recent one...)

There is a big difference though, because then it's not "You spent half an hour designing this kickass ship and now the game took it from you and you have to build a new one to destroy it" but instead "You spent half an hour designing this kickass ship, the enemy copied it and now uses it against you, so you have to upgrade your own ship or come up with a new design to counter it." It's a difference between "you have to destroy your own work" and "you have to beat the guys aping your work".
...
Which, after taking a closer look at the video, is pretty much what happens anyway, since the ship-classes keep escalating and it's not like the player has to take down their own ship... which kind of defeats the whole point of the whole mutiny nonsense. Ugh, this just makes my head hurt.

 

[FogHornG36]

oh cool, i really have been wanting to play asteroids again.