Gaming Prospector

[jedidia]

I discovered this a while ago, and although it's still in Alpha it's tons of fun, at least if you like roguelikes, as I know some here do.

Prospector is what you get when you ask the question "what if starflight was a rogulike, only with a lot more giant alien carnivores eating redshirts?"

You start with a small spaceship and a few officers, you can trade, smuggle, hunt pirates, but above all you can explore. Companies pay you for map data on planets, collected resources, and every now and then you stumble over an abandoned spaceship or a gloomy cave on a planet that hold secrets and artifacts (not to mention the occasional giant alien carnivore...).

The potential for FUN of roguelikes is often measured in the number of ways you can die, so here's a short list (probably not complete):
You can die of asphyxation, being buried by an earthquake, being killed by your spaceship while tryig to to provide close air support against giant alien carnivores, get eaten, trampled or otherwise killed by giant, tiny and anything in between alien carnivores, herbivores and omnivores, walking over a frozen lake on the nightside of a planet, missing the break of day and drowning in a frozen lake that just got thawed up, getting your ship impounded for not paying the berthing fee, having your ship shot down by pirates or mysterious aliens or because you accidentally opened fire on a space station, picking up unknown diseases on unexplored planets, etc.

I'm pretty sure I haven't yet explored all the ways to die in the game, I wouldn't be surprised if one of the diseases would let me die of dysentery, although highly amused. It isn't quite as hilarious as nethack, but it's definitely the best space roguelike I know (and it's not even really finished yet).

Anyways, forum link - download link

 

[Izack]

Thanks for the link. Haven't discovered anything remarkable yet, only empty rocks. Spooky. :shifty:

 

[jedidia]

Yeah, since it's all randomly generated, you can discover pretty interesting stuff right in the beginning (and die subsequently), and sometimes it seems like there's nothing interesting around...

 

[Quick_Nick]

The description sounds like Spore. :lol: I may check it out later

 

[Linguofreak]

I discovered this a while ago, and although it's still in Alpha it's tons of fun, at least if you like roguelikes, as I know some here do.

I like roguelikes well enough.

I don't like roguelikes whose Linux versions have dependencies on proprietary sound libraries (seriously, who needs sound in a roguelike?) that can't be installed through the package management systems of major distributions. I've never encountered a roguelike where sound contributed anything to the game other than annoying the rest of my family, and here I have to manually install a sound library to get the game to run :rant:.

But, having waded through the dependency issues, I'll check it out.

 

[Izack]

I like roguelikes well enough.

I don't like roguelikes whose Linux versions have dependencies on proprietary sound libraries (seriously, who needs sound in a roguelike?) that can't be installed through the package management systems of major distributions. I've never encountered a roguelike where sound contributed anything to the game other than annoying the rest of my family, and here I have to manually install a sound library to get the game to run :rant:.

But, having waded through the dependency issues, I'll check it out.

This one is no exception. The only audio is unexpected, pointless sound effects for some actions. I muted it.

Edit: And may I add that the redshirt grunt is stolen from Minecraft.

 

[mojoey]

good god, are red shirts unlimited? im loving this game!

 

[jedidia]

redshirts are limited by the crew capacity of your ship, also you need a squad leader for each group of 5 of them (the captain counts as one, so unless you hire another one 5 is all you get).

I don't like roguelikes whose Linux versions have dependencies on proprietary sound libraries (seriously, who needs sound in a roguelike?)

hmmm. Might be worth a forum post...

 

[Codz]

This game is amazing. My ship is LRF Antares. What did everyone else name theirs?

 

[Pyromaniac605]

This game is amazing. My ship is LRF Antares. What did everyone else name theirs?

The Feisty Narwhal.

 

[Codz]

The Feisty Narwhal.

My newest ship is the Columbia.

 

[Pyromaniac605]

The adventures of NCC-002 were plagued in tragedy.
The first mission was to a planet inhabited by hostile reptilian lifeforms, few resources were gained and the ship's Science Office and Pilot were killed by reptilians.
The second and third missions were successful resource collections from two uninhabited, rocky planets.
The final mission of the NCC-002 took place on a mineral rich but volcanically active planet, the ship and crew were lost when the crust of the planet collapsed, leaving them to fall into the molten rock below.


PS: Thanks, jedidia, for giving me a new obsession for the holidays. :lol:

 

[jedidia]

Dang, I just got busted by pirates... that is, because I rammed asteroids while evading them without noticing... that's what you get for turning sound off! :lol:

It was a very good going game too. 1200 turns in and only 25 crewmembers lost total.

Having your awayteam wiped out by a meteor strike is also kind of hilarious.

 

[Pyromaniac605]

Damn that sulphuric acid rain, I've lost at least three crew members to it so far. :lol:

---------- Post added 12-24-11 at 02:00 PM ---------- Previous post was 12-23-11 at 10:31 PM ----------

Can anybody help me out with landing a certain place on a planet? The game tells me to press "\Ct" but I have no idea what it means by that...

P.S: I realise that I can change the key binding, but there's so many keys that do separate things in this game I'd rather not, just in case I accidentally overwrite another key binding.

 

[Izack]

I consistently name my ship Nutters.

 

[Codz]

I consistently name my ship Nutters.

I've been naming my ships after Space Shuttles. So far Endeavour was destroyed in a wormhole and Columbia was abandoned when a giant asteroid monster ate it.:lol:

 

[Izack]

Landed on a rogue planet covered in lizards (who all died on the first turn because the planet had no atmosphere...how did that scenario come to be?) that was extremely rich in resources, then inadvertently destroyed the whole away team by wondering what 'G' does. :rofl:

 

[Codz]

Landed on a rogue planet covered in lizards (who all died on the first turn because the planet had no atmosphere...how did that scenario come to be?) that was extremely rich in resources, then inadvertently destroyed the whole away team by wondering what 'G' does. :rofl:

I just found out that apparently freighter crews don't like it when you try to take their ship's engines...:rofl:

 

[jangofett287]

Ditto :hesaid:

 

[Pyromaniac605]

My useless good for nothing pilot decided to quit (read: corroded to death), so my captain was left to crash the damn ship on an atmosphere-less planet and kill everyone else. :lol:

Edit: Gonna give the pirates life a try... :hmm: