Why I like StarCrawlers
I love how innovative and promising the StarCrawlers experience looks.
There are so many aspects it gets right in my point of view. First, I can’t recall, at least in recent memory, of a game combining first person dungeon crawling with a sci-fi theme.
Influences that come to mind are wizardry, might and magic, system shock and a little bit of cyberpunk to make the mix even more interesting. Needless to say, the strategic turn based combat only makes me even more enthusiastic about the game.
Now I’ve always loved dungeon crawlers and from Asimov to Frank Herbert, I’ve read it all as far as sci-fi is concerned. The underlying conspiracy theme involving megacorps (Shadowrun vibes) makes it more intriguing. One thing that makes me extremely excited about the plot is that the team we create is not about heroes or good guys; this alone breaks some old tropes of the RPG genre. These are individuals with extremely shady intentions (and the classes portray that very well). It’s about who pays the most, morals be damned! And you know what? That’s the kind of variety we need nowadays.
These are examples of some very right chords this game struck within me.
Speaking of chords, the game soundtrack is being made by Ben Prunty, the composer and producer of the excellent Faster Than Light Original Soundtrack. That alone makes the aural experience that much more engaging. I expect the atmosphere of the game to be incredibly engrossing.
To me, this is a novel experience which is shaping up to be a very nice mix of interesting themes, concepts and gameplay systems. I can only hope the implementation is smooth (looking at you, procedural generation) and works because the pitch really got me hooked.
