Firefly: The Game

[Avaholic03]

Why must people continue to insist on bringing back beloved old IPs? First of all, any new material based on old universes (like the Firefly universe) couldn't possibly live up to the nostalgia-fueled hype. And secondly, encouraging any developers to rip off old ideas rather than pressuring them to come up with something new and unique is just part of the reason why there are so many homogenized sequels these days.

 

[Fetzenfisch]

A "privateer meets fallout tactics/kotor" game would be nothing short of awesome and way to expensive for the "limited" range of customers. They still could make a game out of it if it wouldnt need to look top notch graficswise, but probably not even the fans would buy it if it looked to dated, which is stupid, with the amount of money to make it look like an AAA title, they wouldnt do it. The show has quite some fans, but really not enough to finance such a project. And if they made it mass compatible enough to sell it, you wouldnt want it anymore

 

[Beautiful End]

They're not gonna do it. What noble studio is gonna back up a movie about an old show that didn't even last two seasons and had a somewhat successful movie that no one knows about?

Hey, don't get me wrong! I love Firefly. But I think that's the way studios see it. Firefly has a strong fanbase but I don't think it's enough to guarantee a huge profit, which is what they need to take a chance on it.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Name one good movie/show-turned-game. I dare you, I double dare you.

King Kong

quite serious. Your passive agressive meme video is an exceptionally poor counter to what was a fantastic movie game

Someday I may think of a better retort, but King Kong will always be a bad game.

Since when did opinions become facts?

I for one thought the game was great. Beating the shit out of gigantic dinosaurs was awesome. V-Rex was terrifying when you were playing as Jack.

 

[Owen Robertson]

Name one good movie/show-turned-game. I dare you, I double dare you.

Star Wars Episode III and Spiderman 2 are not awful games. They're kinda fun. I don't think there's ever been a t.v. to game adaptation though.

 

[Somebloke]

Heh, every time somebody mentions Firefly, my first thought is not the TV-series, but this:


... I'm old... *sob*

 

[votemarvel]

I enjoyed FireFly and Serenity. The problem is that neither was a commercial success and that is what studios are going to look at.

If a game was made it would likely be changed so heavily from the source material, in order to appeal to a broader audience, that it would be near unrecognisable.

I wonder how many people 'get' the FireFly references they drop into Castle on occasion.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

quite serious. Your passive agressive meme video is an exceptionally poor counter to what was a fantastic movie game

It was actually a great game, you're right. The mechanics were a tad frustrating at times but the setpieces and pacing were great, plus the Kong bits were stompingly good.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

The only thing I can see them doing that'd WORK would be a Kotor style thing, in the universe with a different crew, but with sliiiightly fixed up combat. I dunno if it'd sell that badly though, Serenity and Firefly are oddly prominent for their poor box office returns.

Name one good movie/show-turned-game. I dare you, I double dare you.

Does this even need addressing or have you had enough of a kicking already about it?

 

[BrotherRool]

I actually think it could make a good game, but everyone in the thread is thinking about the wrong type (particularly the KotoR suggestions)

If we take away that characters, what was good about Firefly setting was the theme of this low tech rough edges western society where life was just a struggle to keep flying. Bits were always falling of the ship, travel was realtime and if you stole something you had to find someone who'd buy it.


So what we need, isn't a grand RTS or a fun RPG but something closer to a space roguelike. Have a set galaxy with lots of little planets and moons, big high tech core planets and small outposts, with less and less alliance presence as you get closer to the outposts. The game is about doing jobs, collecting people and their skills and keeping your ship afloat, I don't think you should ever actually be able to explore a planet and it'd actually be better if most of the decisions/missions/events happened very low tech, maybe when you visit a planet, it's just a window with lots of information and options and a picture of that planet. (or you could flesh it out, but it'd be harder, and the focus of the game should be on flying not walking so I think even fleshed out it shouldn't even walking around in 3D space). You discover places and then maybe you can begin to expand your outfit taking on more missions closer to the core and a bigger plothread to tie in.

No firefly characters, multiple spaceship choices and the big thing is about collecting crew (which are all very unique with special bonuses) and training them up and staying together. Imagine FTL but much easier, no restriction on movement and the crew is less expendable and more personalised.


That would work and it would be of a scale that I think it would catch on and be profitable, because it needs less money and wouldn't cost too much to buy and I think it would capture the heart of Firefly.



But FOX would never let the rights go for so little money in return. Maybe someone should just make a game like that and it can be the spiritual successor to a Firefly game that was never made

 

[userwhoquitthesite]

Why have they not made a Firefly game yet?

1. There is a game: Serenity RPG, and it is balls.
2. Firefly is a show about the dialogue, and does not lend itself to a game
3. Only firefly fans would buy it, and thus would be a terrible investment

 

[SonicWaffle]

Name one good movie/show-turned-game. I dare you, I double dare you.

EA's The Godfather is one of the greatest third-person shooter games ever made.

Also The Amazing Spider-Man wasn't too bad.

 

[Therumancer]

Everybody here knows about Firefly [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series)], right? OK.

Why have they not made a Firefly game yet? Both 20th Century Fox and Universal Studios have some rights (Fox to the show, Universal to the movie), and Universal at least has shown willingness to license the franchise. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_(role-playing_game)] It seems like an excellent property to develop for a video game: A franchise with a famously loyal fan base that also extends into much of the rest of geek culture (the primary buyers for video games) and they get to splash Joss Whedon's name in the marketing, which can't be bad for business. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Avengers_(2012_film)]

What's more, it doesn't have to be a AAA game with a massive investment in money: depending on where the developers get the license from, they can reskin some landscapes from other games as Persephone (basic city) and/or various Outer Planets (any wilderness they have lying around. Even the core gameplay can be a basic third-person action-adventure style, as you play a captain leading his crew in smuggling missions (or even as the crew of Serenity itself, if they feel that would be a bigger draw).

Alternatively, if they feel it warrants it, they could produce an open-world game where you explore the universe conducting deals (many of which are not strictly speaking legal). Introduce an RPG system of leveling up the player character and outfitting the ship, as well as a companion system to collect and control your cast of misfits, and you have a game with the same basic elements of Mass Effect, but with a well-established property that you can be sure will draw a lot of positive support and press (and therefore stand a better than even chance of making money).

So my question to you is in two parts:
1) Should they make a Firefly game?

2) Do you think my idea is any good, or do you have a better one for such a hypothetical game?

To be honest the basic idea of a more RPG-focused version of "Elite" is not a bad one, several companies have tried exactly that kind of thing in the past. Using the "Firefly" universe probably wouldn't work too well because the show was extremely character driven and there isn't enough world development to it if you look closely to allow that kind of free form play, especially seeing as a lot of the biggest enemies and mysteries in that universe were kind of wrapped up.

Incidently, this is also why I think we'll never see the IP return, it's simply been too long, and the cast has aged too much to just pick it up again like nothing happened. There isn't enough of a world there to really sell it without the characters that made the show what it was.

It's sort of like why I kind of doubt anyone is ever going to pick up a lot of Joss' other work for a return, like Buffy or Angel. The world and the characters are pretty much one and the same, and pretty much anything that is introduced to build on the world winds up getting wrecked/destroyed/beaten by the end of the arc, leaving pretty much just the characters waiting for the next threat. It works well for building a TV series, but not an ongoing universe that people can really play with and develop other properties. Similar kinds of set ups can be created though.

That said it would be cool if someone DID take the whole "Starpoint Gemini", "Star Wolves", (or insert other space trader/Open World/RPG hybrid Elite varient here) to the next level with AAA development costs, but really I don't see the game industry as it is now taking that kind of risk when they can just throw out another action game. Getting them to produce a real RPG without turning it into some kind of action game or shooter is hard enough without seeing them move into an entirely new genere.

I'll also say that on an MMO level something like this was attemped before with EA's "Earth And Beyond" it wasn't a bad game for it's time (and an Emu exists) but it died pretty quickly, largely because it was competing with EVE, and had some massive design flaws in the form of things like the amount of down time involved in simply warping from place to place.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Name one good movie/show-turned-game. I dare you, I double dare you.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds was a pretty decent game.

Ha, what? The game with the multiplayer mode which included randomised power-ups, one of which was "DEATH!" and instantly ended the game?

I respectfully disagree

 

[Driekan]

Will it (Or should it) be made? I'd say probably not. You'd have to really do something extraordinary to be able to make money with it: You'd need to make an adaptation of a TV Series which actually draws in people who never heard about the series in the first place. Either that or you'd need to make a niche game about some tiny chunk of the universe (Examples have been mentioned: A ship captain simulation game, a trading company simulator, a space warfare strategy game...), and you'd probably realize that having the IP slapped onto it would be hindering rather than helping.

Firefly had, overall, amazing storytelling. People mention the characters, but that is only one corner of the triangle of good storytelling, and Firefly had all 3 corners: Character, Action and Environment.

Example: Jayne is a fun character, yeah. But Jayne fixing up one of his old messes in a town full of people who think he's some Robin Hood character is amazing.

If you want to recapture the show in any way, you'd need to reproduce that. What this means is having the crew of the Firefly as the main characters, the kind of story you saw in Firefly, and the environments from the show.

To be honest, the first thing I thought of when considering how to adapt Firefly was Red Dead Redemption.

- Set the game between the series and the movie (All the crew are still there, and maybe explain how Book set that settlement up, and why Inara left the crew).
- Create several (Obviously smaller) "Open worlds", linked together by the Serenity (Hop in there and fly to another world). The Serenity itself is, of course, entirely modeled, explore-able and there's content in there. It is, after all, the most important environment in the setting.
- A Main Quest and Side-Quests you can do at your own pace. All of them keep with that "trying to make ends meet" theme from the show (No getting fabulously rich and sticking a big honking cannon on the Serenity).
- Open-World content enabling you to just break into Alliance facilities and wreak havoc or some such (Instead of enabling you to go on rampages on towns and all that).
- The strong narrative and character interaction that has already been proven to be possible in this genre.

On the hands of a very good team, and with an amazing budget, I could see this happen, seriously. But would anyone sink the kind of money needed to create an Open World game into this IP? I don't think so.

 

[SonicWaffle]

It's sort of like why I kind of doubt anyone is ever going to pick up a lot of Joss' other work for a return, like Buffy or Angel.

Just FYI, Buffy and Angel never actually went away. They just moved to the world of comic books, where the special effects budget and aging actors and various other things are no longer a concern. Angel's sixth season was fucking great, though while Buffy season 8 started well it went rapidly downhill in the last few issues and now season 9 is just madness.

 

[Rastien]

Name one good movie/show-turned-game. I dare you, I double dare you.

Lets kick it back old school here shall we

Lion King:

Spoiler

Aladdin:

Spoiler

Or for a more modern example Star wars knights of the old republic, Admittedly it didn't de-throne world of warcraft but no mmorpg has! but as it goes it was a damn good try.

Spoiler

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

snip

I keep hearing people say that the show's universe couldn't support it because the plot was character-driven, but I don't think I understand the criticism. The world has a neat mix of Western and Chinese culture, as well as one of the better Space-Western settings I've seen (proper explanation for the mix of high and low technology). Likewise, it has a lot of story hooks in the form of Alliance vs. Independence, Alliance vs. Criminals and Everyone vs. Reavers.

The game doesn't have to take place after the show or movie. If they set it up during the Alliance War, or in the decade thereafter, there are plenty of things that one can do that don't involve retconning the universe.

And I know I will catch some flak for this, but Bioware has shown that you can make new characters to flesh out a universe and provide the player with interesting interactions in a game. It seems a shame to write it off as, "Firefly was character-driven, and those character arcs ended, so we can't have a game," rather than, "Firefly was character-driven, and those character arcs ended, how can we write new characters that still capture the essence of the universe but can be dealt with within a game?"

 

[Therumancer]

snip

I keep hearing people say that the show's universe couldn't support it because the plot was character-driven, but I don't think I understand the criticism. The world has a neat mix of Western and Chinese culture, as well as one of the better Space-Western settings I've seen (proper explanation for the mix of high and low technology). Likewise, it has a lot of story hooks in the form of Alliance vs. Independence, Alliance vs. Criminals and Everyone vs. Reavers.

The game doesn't have to take place after the show or movie. If they set it up during the Alliance War, or in the decade thereafter, there are plenty of things that one can do that don't involve retconning the universe.

And I know I will catch some flak for this, but Bioware has shown that you can make new characters to flesh out a universe and provide the player with interesting interactions in a game. It seems a shame to write it off as, "Firefly was character-driven, and those character arcs ended, so we can't have a game," rather than, "Firefly was character-driven, and those character arcs ended, how can we write new characters that still capture the essence of the universe but can be dealt with within a game?"

The thing is that you could do any space opera with western themes and it would wind up being more or less the same, it's the characters that made the show what it was. The basic idea of the show was absolutly ancient since people have been doing space westerns for a very long time. Most of the factions you are talking about are ridiculously derivitive and could be replaced with an equivilent very easily. Indeed one of the criticisms of the show when it failed was specifically that it was so generic, but that was also part of it's charm.

I agree with you that they should do another "spaceship" show based on a crew of freebooters, but really whether they use that universe or not is pretty much irrelevent. Especially seeing as the universe was created largely around catering to specific character arcs, as opposed to existing in of itself with characters added into it.

At the end of the day people who want more "Firefly" aren't going to care about the reasons one way or another, and will always have an answer, no matter what they are told. I really kind of wish the show didn't die myself, but at this point neither a revival or a sequel would work especially well.

I'm also probably one of the few people who will say that if I had an option I'd probably actually go for more "Farscape" than "Firefly", not that a revival of that is practical either.

I'll also say that at the end of the day it's Joss Whedon's touch and eye for talent that made a lot of his creations so enduring, even the ones that failed. Someone else couldn't pick up his stuff and make it the same. Like it or not for all his ups and downs the guy has gone big time, and truthfully when he's involved with Hollywood it's unlikely that he's ever going to return to TV full time, especially seeing as he's not a young man. Especially seeing as according to many sources he still has a lot of enemies among TV networks for one reason or another. I'm not entirely sure he could return to TV like he was even if he wanted to.

I could be wrong, but I think Joss has a few more movies in him, that will take years, then he's liable to retire as a pitch-man (as in pitches ideas) and have his name attached to products without a lot of involvement.

 

[cmrade_Dorian]

They already have.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h1pirf1HLI