I’m not sure what to think of it, played it for over an hour but can’t say very much since it really seems like an early prototype with only the bare-bones to what could make a good game. I’ve extended the base towards the “black” zones and mined some asteroids and found two bases with people on them that apparently joined my crew, but as far as I can tell there’s no real “goal” there yet.

The games it reminded me most of were “Space Colony” and “Startopia”, which can both be gotten on GoG and since they’re fully built games I’d rather play those for a lengthy amount of time

http://www.gog.com/gamecard/space_colony_hd

Space Colony reminds me the most of the kind of gameplay Spacebase DF-9 is going for, it has different kind of civilians that all have their own jobs and natural predispositions to them (like Maintenance, Doctor, Scientist) aswell as their own separate personalities, the building of additional “modules” like Engineering or Sickbay handle very similar and there’s a “Peaceful” as well as a “War-like” campaign for both types of play, it recently even had a HD-Re-Release.

http://www.gog.com/gamecard/startopia

Startopia resembles more of the idea of what they were going for by building a Space Station.
The blurbs from GoG kinda display that it’s also very similar

- Nine primary character races, each with a unique look and function. Each inhabitant is an individual character, with unique moods, desires, personal history, and humorous character animations.
- Fully functioning alien society, with racial animosity and friendships, crime and punishment, leisure and entertainment, and dynamic functioning economy.
- Bio-deck with editable landscape and manageable ecosystem gives you complete control of terra-forming.

I totally loved that game back in the day and was hoping for something similar for a while. You got more people on your space station by expanding the opportunities for the alien races and their specific predispositions and you could unlock new “areas” of the station by opening up other sections as the game goes on.
Although some of the later missions I believe centered more on warfare and the likes.

%#$@&! YA STARTOPIA!!!!!!

Loved it so much I actually bought a copy. It was only $10 on amazon. God damn that game is great and holy %#$@&! THAT BIODECK MAN! Once you realize when this game was made it really blows your mind how crazy it is. I mean this game had a LOOOT of depth to it.

It is past midnight. I am sitting at home in the dark, listening to a video game podcast, Spacebase still running in the background. Spacebase - still running.

Like everyone else, I have a pile of big, flashy hot GOTY type of video games waiting, which I would like to play over the holidays. Yet, I enjoy watching *my* little dudes, running around in 1x 4x 8x 34x speed and see what they come up with. See, if there is some SpaceFace notification I have not seen yet. See, what kind of random map will be thrown at me the next time around. Pausing immediately the game, when I hear Chris Remo’s alert loop.

Say Lem worked his ass off, to build this really long floor to the unknown alien Spacebase, only to die after finishing it. “User created stories” - told through the power of game mechanics & a functioning game world.

There is no need for me to repeat the Good, the Bright and the Unfinished. This prototype is a successful proof-of-concept of what a potential full game might be. The devs knew exactly what they were doing. There was a clear idea behind this. Bold. Ambitious. Following the latest discussions of the game dev community, this sort of game, hits all the ‘right’ beats. It is interesting to ‘them’. The prototype turned out to be something also many of ‘us’ - on the other side of the AF Twitch streams - would happily see developed for real.

Jackpot! “Docked” to another shi… Spacebase.

The question remains - will it be picked? This type of game, the depth, the scope, would differ from other DF projects? It lends itself for continuous upgrades/updates. It is hard to see - as a dedicated PC gamer - how this could be anything else but a niche PC game, which means, “small audience”. Yet the combination of complicated game systems, which need to be heavily playtested and balanced AND the unique art and humor DF can bring in to this game, would make it a very promising title?

... for different platforms? This could also be a great handheld game? iPad? iPhone?!

I don’t follow “social games”, nor Facebook games, but I could imagine this in such an environment? There could be a social “hook” to this game, if they would implement the necessary mechanics? Suddenly the niche PC game sounds more interesting from a business side?

Think of Online. What if you could see other players messages in your game? Or send them yours? Think of Twitter. Think of Wii Universe. Think of Animal Crossing. Also think of language filters!

There could be different versions. Of course, this would need resources. Maybe one platform after the next. But, this prototype shows p o t e n t i a l - that’s what it had to do. And it did.

My own useless comments aside, I agree with everything Arodin said in the first post of this thread.

I spent a lot of time with this game, but I am guessing there was some last minute changes to the AI that made it harder to play than in the AF videos.  It seems that the characters get sick too often, there’s not enough of them to make up for the ones that have died to get anything done before the next disaster/murder, etc.  But who knows - maybe its my computer and how random numbers are being generated…

Its sorta a fun game, but needs more balance - I probably spent a few hours trying to get a decent outcome - saving often and backing up the saved games, etc, but I guess I was hoping to have a game close to what was shown in the video, but could never quite get there for the reasons I posted here.

most of the game play stuff i noticed has been said on page one, though i would like more say in whats built in a room. or to tell them what the most important job, like that hole into space that whats his face just walked out into.

a bug i noticed, once you zone a room and then they build something, say in a corner, and you put a door and try to expand the stuff built dose block the sims from getting there, and just stand there, no way of scraping stuff built in a room.

also once every game, usly at the start 2 people will end up in space and not on my base, they will just stay out there and often become sick, i think they become next in line and everything stops because they cant come back.
also last game i got a murder. over 1/2 of my crew were held hostage (they would not come back though that area to the mane base.) hahaha

just thinking that the secret may not be the murderer seeing as everyone has had it, i did spot an thing but forgot to pause the game and everyone died wile i was away from the computer. so i was unable to build towards it….quite possibly just a glitched tile form the lab. but i had not built one at the time of finding.