Space Rogue: Won! (With Final Rating)

Space Rogue

ORIGIN Systems (developer and publisher)

Paul Neurath (designer)
Released 1989 for DOS, Apple II, Commodore 64, 

Date Started: 06 July 2013

Date Ended: 10 July 2013

Total Hours: 12

Difficulty: Moderate-Hard (3.5/5)
Final Rating: 46
Ranking at Time of Posting: 82% (86/105)

I had fun at the beginning of Space Rogue, but after the princess told me that I needed to kill a certain number of ships to become a "space ace," both my enjoyment and progress plummeted quickly (necessitating my Crown of Arthain posting). I tried desperately to kill pirates and Manchi, but my ratio was about one successful battle for every nine times they killed me. After every victory, I checked my status and I couldn't seem to budge from "unknown."

But slowly I got the hang of it and learned the most effective tactics. I learned to fire my missiles only when very close to enemies, and with the "target lock" turned off (having it on allows their countermeasures to deflect the missile), and to use Newtonian flight mode to keep the enemy from being able to buzz all around my head. As I got better at defeating ships, my enjoyment grew considerably. I was able to buy upgrades with the bounties (awarded instantly after the ship is destroyed), my reputation improved, and there is something satisfying about blowing up a ship in space, even if the graphics aren't very good at depicting it.

From there, the rest of the main quest was fun, albeit with a little too much shuttling around through Malir Gates, certainly the least enjoyable experience of the game.

A scow flies around the opening of a Malir Gate.

I also got annoyed with the frequency of combats in the late game, as pirates and Manchi took my reputation (ultimately "deadly") as not a warning but a challenge. I got attacked everywhere and constantly had to pull into ports for repairs to my shields and systems.

The video below shows some aspects of gameplay, including trade, combat (before I got good), and NPC dialogue.

I should have offered a posting between the first one and this one, but to make a long story short, these were the steps to the endgame:

1. Flew around and fought until I got a "fierce" rating. During this period, I continued to trade and solve mini-quests. I reunited two robot lovers and followed some clues to find a "neurostabilizer booster" on the ruins of an outpost where a monster attacked.

There's no way to attack while in third-person mode, so if the monster (on the left side of the garbage piles) touches me, I die. It took me a while to figure out the best path through the area.

2. Returned to Duchess Avenstar and had a long conversation with her. She indicated that Admiral Koth had been plotting to usurp the emperor, and that the previous owner of my ship, Captain Targon, had been on a secret mission to try to find out his plan. She asked me to try to track down Targon and discover what became of him.

3. I found Targon quite by accident on a mining station. The game simply introduced him as a madman, and I tried the neurostabilizing booster on him, as I'd been told it would cure madness. Once he came to his senses, he revealed himself as Targon and asked if I knew his mission's codename, which I did, thanks to the duchess. He revealed that the Scarlet Brotherhood, a band of pirates led by a man named Gut, had been raiding deep into Manchi space to deliberately kindle war between the humans and the Manchi. Admiral Koth, who'd been paying Gut through his associate, Vilanie, figured that if the humans and Manchi devastated each other, he could de-throne the emperor in the chaos. Unfortunately, after his bit of exposition, the booster wore off and Targon regressed to madness.

4. When I returned to Duchess Avenstar, I found that someone had tried to assassinate her, so she'd left the Far Arm for the capital. I never saw her again.

5. Gut wouldn't speak with me unless I destroyed an imperial titan-class ship. This was a little disturbing--the idea that I'd blow up a ship with hundreds of people just to complete a bit of intelligence-gathering. Nonetheless, I found one and eventually destroyed it after about seven tries. Titans are very large and pack a lot of firepower.

Chasing and firing at an imperial titan.

6. Once I spoke with Gut, he confirmed everything that Targon had said. Further, he said that Vilanie, the psionic leader of the Black Hand cult, had paid him a lot of money to land on the Manchi homeworld and steal an egg. He didn't know why, but he suggested that I ask a Baakili trader, as they're known to go into Manchi territory.

7. It took me forever to find one (I guess they show up randomly in space station pubs), but when I spoke to him, he told me that the Manchi are basically evolved ants, and they still have a sort-of hive mind, including the worship of a queen. When the queen senses her death, she lays a single egg to hatch the new queen. It was this egg that Vilanie had paid Gut to steal.

Oops.

8. Gut suggested that I steal it back from Vilanie, offering to attack her station and distract her guards while I did so. I got bogged down in this part for a long time. Vilanie was on a base in a secluded section of space, and she kept killing me with psionics before I could get anywhere near the egg.

The death descriptions in the game are pretty good.

Finally, I gave up and went wandering around the galaxy, re-talking to every NPC I could find. Eventually, this bore fruit. I found a man named Omas on a remote base. He said he'd lost his wife to the Black Hand cult and asked my help in finding her. I traveled back to Vilanie's base and found the woman, Nycene, but she said she didn't want anything to do with Omas anymore. I returned to Omas to give him the news, and he rewarded me with a "psionic shield" that would block their attacks. The annoying thing was that Omas's base was four Malir Gate jumps from Vilanie's, so I had to travel the path three times, for a total of 12 gate jumps. Since Malir Gates sap armor from the ship, I had to stop and repair in between each of the jumps. This episode alone took up about 20% of the total game time.

That was just cold.

9. With the psionic shield, I was able to infiltrate Vilanie's base again, ignore her attacks, and find the egg.

10. With it, I now needed a way to jump to Manchi space--difficult since none of the Malir Gates went there. Gut directed me to a scientist who was working on a warp drive, and fortunately, when I got to him, I had the "transmission coil" that he needed to complete it (I'd picked it up from a station earlier, not knowing what it was for). He asked me for the coordinates, and thanks to the screen shots I'd taken during my conversation with the Baakili, I had them.

The end game was fairly fun and challenging, as I had to navigate to the Manchi homeworld while dodging (and, unfortunately, often destroying) Manchi ships. I made it with only a little armor to spare. There was a satisfying series of endgame screen shots, describing how they gratefully accepted the egg's return and ceased their war on humanity.

I then left the Far Arm for the empire's capital, where Emperor Hiathra rewarded me. In a possible setup for a sequel, he indicated that the traitorous Admiral Koth had disappeared.

Altogether, it was a reasonably original, interesting, and satisfying plot and endgame.

A quick GIMLET:

• 6 points for the game world. The political structure of the empire wasn't well-defined, but in general the game supplied a detailed back story, an evolving world, and a compelling entry for my own character. As I hit certain plot points, the world changed--in more ways than I realized during play. A walkthrough mentions how various characters offer new dialogue options once Avenstar disappears, for instance. The "world" is also reasonably large and nonlinear.

There are occasional notes in the ships about particular asteroids and planets that, although you can't do anything with them, add flavor to the game world.

• 2 points for character creation and development. Like Starflight, the human PC is nothing. You can name him, but he has no other attributes save his reputation (something I've covered more under quests and gameplay) and equipment (for which I gave points in that category).

• 6 points for NPCs. The game is clearly an ORIGIN game in this respect. It's one of the earliest games that offers dialogue options and not just keywords when speaking with NPCs, although some of them have keywords, too. These options allow for some significant role-playing opportunities. Talking with NPCs is vital to progression in the game and understanding the game world. I like the way you can collect intel from bartenders but get drunk if you're not too careful. The only reason it doesn't get a higher score is that there just aren't many NPCs--about 30--and there aren't a lot of the dialogue options that I praise. Still, a significant step in the evolution of RPGs.

• 5 points for encounters and foes. The encounters are mostly all in the form of ships (save the monster I had to dodge on one station), and they do behave differently depending on whether they're imperial, traders, pirates, pirate hunters, or Manchi. All of these are well-described in the game manual, and dealing with them is a careful process of weighing their strengths compared to yours. It's neat how pirates will often flee but Manchi never do. More than once, a pirate hunter swooped in and killed a pirate I was trying to kill myself. These are nice touches.

• 4 points for magic and combat. No magic, of course. Space combat is reasonably tactical, with a lot of fast-thinking required as to the best times to fire missiles versus lasers, keep targeting turned on or turn it off, fight to the death or offer surrender (I think this only applies to merchant vessels), flee, or try to surrender yourself (something I never did). I hated the controls a bit, but blowing up enemy ships with missiles never did get old.

Putting a missile directly up the nose of a pirate.

• 4 points for equipment. Most of the interesting equipment in the game was ship-based: armor, electronic countermeasures, shields, beam weapons, and missile weapons. But there were also special quest-awarded items that supplemented both personal and ship effectiveness, such as the psionic shield, the stealth box, and a damper that prevents the ship from taking damage in wormholes.

I never did find out what this was for. Funny seeing the term "blog" in 1989.

• 5 points for economy. The trading aspect of the game (influenced, I guess, by the 1984 game Elite) was interesting but not extremely well-implemented, and it became unnecessary once I could get paid for killing pirates and Manchi. I did reach a point where money didn't do much for me (save the occasional repairs and restocking of missiles), but part of that was my fault for over-doing the trading in the early section.

• 6 points for quests. I thought the main quest was interesting and original, but equally important were the handful of side-quests, which usually produced some item or hint reward. A few of these featured role-playing opportunities. I could have kept the MAID droid as a repair droid on my ship instead of returning her to her lover, for instance. Also notable is the option to approach the main quest from several angles. You could get the "combat experience" required by the duchess by hunting pirates (as I did), becoming a pirate yourself, or ignoring both factions and just fighting Manchi.

It's hard to imagine being evil enough to choose the second option.

• 2 points for graphics, sound, and interface. Probably the worst part of the game. This is not an era where graphics have advanced enough for the player to truly enjoy 3D space exploration. Sound is bloopish and unnecessary. I thought the controls were awful. Yes, perhaps I should have tried harder to connect a controller instead of relying on the keypad. In any event, the keypad was unintuitive, unresponsive, and too difficult to navigate in pitched combat.

• 5 points for gameplay. Perhaps the best part is the non-linearity. I think you could do the steps of the main quest in almost any order, save a few examples such as getting the psionic shield before stealing the egg. Right at the beginning, you're encouraged to just explore the game's nine systems and all their stations, talk to NPCs, trade, fight, and start solving quests at your leisure. I'm always sucked in by such open-endedness. There is some replayability in terms of both the side quests and different paths on the main quest. I thought the interface made it frustrating at times, and the Malir Gates were just annoying, but the overall pacing was okay.

I'm going to add one bonus point for the HIVE mini-game. As a reward for delivering a letter, an NPC told me that if you get to Level 5 in the game, you start to win credits. I never got that good, but it was still an innovative addition and a nice alternate path for someone with more manual dexterity than me. From the walkthrough I consulted after winning, the rewards can be considerable.

That gives us a final score of 46, quite respectable. I think it's easily the best of the "in-between-Ultimas" offered by ORIGIN and I'm sure elements went into their Wing Commander series a few years later. For a reasonably good game, it doesn't seem to have made much of a splash at the time, although almost everyone who reviewed it gave it a good rating. In the December 1989 issue of Computer Gaming World, Omar DeWitt perhaps offered the reason:

This is not a game for the "junior joystick" class. If they survive the Manchi fighters, they must still negotiate the wormholes into another solar system. On the other hand, there is always the danger that real joystick jockeys may get impatient with trading and "social interaction" needed for success in Space Rogue.

This suggests that RPG fans found it too action-focused with annoying controls (the way that PC gamers today complain about interfaces clearly designed for consoles), and action game fans found that there were too many moments without action. In any event, DeWitt concludes that "Space Rogue is an interesting blend of arcade action, role-playing interaction, and economic strategy."

This is the second game on which long-time ORIGIN employee Paul Neurath was credited as the designer. (His first, Deep Space: Operation Copernicus was an action game I didn't play.) He would later go on to design the Ultima Underworld games and eventually form his own companies. His last credit is as creative director for a National Geographic game called Great Migrations in 2010.

It was a "minor" game, but a good one. Let's continue to push towards 1990 with Sword of Aragon.

Game 105: Space Rogue (1989)

      

Space Rogue

United States

ORIGIN Systems (developer and publisher)

Released 1989 for DOS, Apple II, Commodore 64, 

Date Started: 6 July 2013

      
A number of readers have questioned Space Rogue's RPG credentials. It is admittedly not a classic RPG: The PC doesn't gain in experience and levels, the combat is mostly action-oriented, and there's no "equipment" in the standard sense, making it fail my criteria for an RPG on the surface. However, Starflight has the same problems, and you all would have organized a DDoS attack on my site if I hadn't played it. You have to make certain allowances for the different nature of science fiction RPGs, and in this case those allowances come with recognizing the ship as part of the "character" and the equipment upgrades that come with the ship a part of "character development." Plus, the game has NPC dialogue with choices, which rarely occurs outside an RPG.
 

I confess that when I first heard the title, I imagined that it would be some version of Rogue, but set in space, which of course isn't anywhere close to what it is. Instead, it feels more like a science fiction version of Pirates! coupled with the the NPC dialogue system of 2400 A.D.

The game is set in a region of space called the "Far Arm"; a network of nine planetary systems linked through "Malir Gates," which allow access to hyperspace. The well-written back story (supplemented by a pre-game sequence) describes how the protagonist, the son of a jeweler, had always dreamed of traveling through space. When he came of age, he joined the merchant marines and was assigned to his first ship, Princess Blue. After a year experiencing the wonders of the universe and the ship's technology, the protagonist was assigned to board and investigate a derelict ship, the Jolly Roger, that the Princess Blue found floating in space. While he was aboard the empty vessel, a group of "Manchi" ships appeared and, without warning or provocation, destroyed the Princess Blue. Left alone in space, the protagonist takes possession of the Jolly Roger and heads towards the nearest starbase to start investigating what happened to his ship and friends.

Space Rogue has only a few gameplay mechanisms and dynamics. The first, and the one I explored the most during this opening session, is trade. It is unsophisticated. There are a number of outposts scattered about the nine systems, and each buys and sells various goods for different prices. The goods available to buy at specific outposts are randomized upon each visit, but there is hardly any variance (maybe 10%) in the prices from visit to visit. This means that, for instance, if you find dilithium for sale at Hiathra, it will always be around $50, and you can always sell it at MiCon for around $85. It's just a matter of taking notes. Pirates! had things like pirate raids, plagues, Indian attacks, and gold rushes that affected the price of goods at various ports over time, but there's nothing that complex here.

"X-rated holos" sell for $90 on MiCon and $160 on Hiathra. It's not that I want to be a pornographer, but I can't resist those margins.

A couple of logistical barriers keep you from getting too rich too quickly. First, you actually have to take the time to travel from one base to another. Even within a single system, the navigation and docking maneuvers can take a little while. Between systems, where you have to navigate Malir Gates, it takes a really long time and is prone to bad things happening. Second, you have very limited cargo capacity. You start with room for only three or four items at a time, and even maxing out on cargo pods at $150 each gives you room for only eight items. Trading eight units of dilithium between Hiathra and MiCon nets only about $280. You soon learn to look for the items that provide the best buying/selling ratios in terms of raw dollars.

Keeping a log of prices at each station is the way to excel at trade.

Occasionally, goods "spoil" between ports, ruining your investment for that haul. With all of these logistical barriers, it took me about three hours focusing solely on trade to make $5000, enough to buy decent weapons and shields for my ship.

Some of the items in which you can trade are contraband--risky because the authorities do a random check of your cargo every time you dock. A robot sold me some "forged cargo papers" to use in such instances, but I haven't tested them yet.

Space flight and combat make up the second major dynamic of the game. In flying, you can switch between "cockpit" mode, where you see things in 3D view and have to do all the flying yourself, and "navigation" mode, where you set a destination and let the ship plot the course and fly itself there. But when you arrive, you have to take over and go to "cockpit" mode to dock the ship, so there's no way to complete the entire game on autopilot.

Flying on autopilot to the MiCon base. That "ALERT" notice is always on my screen, regardless of whether there's an actual alert.

I find the "cockpit" mode navigation difficult and frustrating, and clearly intended for players with a joystick. On the numeric keypad, 4 and 6 adjust the yaw, 8 and 2 adjust the pitch, and 1 and 3 adjust the roll. The + and - keys adjust speed. The problem is, it's not a simple matter of holding the key the way you want to turn and then letting it go when you've turned enough. Instead, these keys control the speed at which you turn, so if you hold down the "4" key for a few seconds, you'll be in an uncontrolled counter-clockwise spin. Pressing "6" at this point doesn't cancel the spin; it just slows it. You have to hit "6" enough times to counter the effects of all the times (or seconds) you hit "4" before you finally slow down and then reverse direction. Fortunately, the "S" key stops all rotation; otherwise, I'd find the ship impossible control. As it is, it's quite difficult.

Approaching the Hiartha station. The gauge in the lower left indicates my current thrust; the one in the lower right indicates my armor. For some reason, I have a nearby corsair targeted, but I'm not going to attack it. Instead, I need to carefully maneuver between the outer "wings" of the station and land  on the gray section of the interior.

Docking with starports is a complex maneuver. You can't simply run right into them; that's "crashing." You have to identify the specific point where docking takes place, often signaled by nothing more than a different color, and aim directly for that.

The drunk pilot flies into port. This is speeded up about 2-3X.

The top-down navigation in spaceport actually mimics the shape of the station from the exterior. Note how my "dock" is on the interior ring of the station.

Combat in space is like maneuvering but with the added need to hit the SPACE bar to fire missiles or lasers. You can also enter "Newtonian" control mode during combat, allowing you to strafe enemies or suddenly turn on your axis (without affecting the direction of your thrust) to shoot at enemies behind you. I haven't had many reasons to engage in combat just yet--only a few random attacks by pirates--so I haven't fully mastered it.

Attacking the underside of a ship within an asteroid field. I can't hit the "screen capture" button quick enough to get the laser shots in there. I'll have to take video later.

Incidentally, I find it easy to accidentally hit SPACE and fire lasers while approaching a space port, at which point I get this message:

There are other objects in space. In an asteroid field, you have to shoot the asteroids to avoid losing your ship's armor. There are planets, but I don't think there's any way to productively interact with them; the manual specifically says that your ship can't take the stress of landing on them. There are stars, but you'd really have to try to fly into them.

What happened when I tried to land on a planet.

Curiously, the "Hawking Drives" on the Jolly Roger seem to require no fuel at all. There's no fuel meter nor any place to purchase fuel in the game. One logistical consideration that you don't have to worry about.

The third game dynamic involves exploring starbases in iconographic mode and talking with NPCs.

Exploring a room on the Hiartha base. There's an NPC to my lower left and lots of empty suits and bookcases to search throughout the room, but the "key card" I found in this suit was the only thing I found on the entire base.

The NPC dialogue system is not as advanced as in other Origin titles, but you do have some options, with consequences to the choices that you make.

In addition to pre-determined dialogue choices, you have an "Other" option with key NPCs, allowing you to ask about keywords given to you by other NPCs. There aren't many NPCs in the game, though--maybe four or five per station. There are a couple other things you can do while exploring stations, like interacting with shopkeepers (this is where you trade) and searching bookcases and chests and such. I hardly ever find anything. The interface here is very reminiscent of 2400 A.D. from a few years ago.

I had to break into this storage area, but I didn't find a single thing in all the containers that I searched.

In terms of the main storyline of the game, I started by getting my official "pilot's license" from the Imperium (the government that runs the Far Arm) from a functionary named Orellian on the Hiathra base (the first base you visit). Getting it involved answering some physics questions. If these ansers were anywhere in the documentation, I didn't find them, but fortunately I had Wikipedia. Getting the license allowed me to purchase equipment for my ship.

How many people know this answer? The first question was the number of light years in a parsec; the second was the spectral type of the hottest star.

On the MiCon base, an NPC named Sir Eld asked me to bring a statuette to Orellian. Once I'd done so, he gave me some trading advice ("buy low, sell high" was particularly welcome; I'd been doing it all wrong!) and a "stealth box" to help keep me hidden from pirates.

To be fair, he also gave me more targeted advice.

That seemed to exhaust my opportunities in the first sector, so I made my way to the Malir Gate to jump to the Deneb system and see if I could speak to Duchess Avenstar, whom everyone seems to adore. Navigating Malir Gates is tricky. You have to fly through a twisty wormhole. If you go outside the tunnel, the jump is rendered "faulty," and you end up back where you started but with decreased armor. And you have to navigate the tunnel quite quickly, because the "gasses" in the wormhole continually eat away at your armor. Go too slow, and your ship will be destroyed. It took me a few tries.

Flying through the rings of a wormhole. It gets a lot twistier than this, but I was too busy during those moments to take screen shots.

I found Avenstar on the Deneb Prime base, and the encounter was interesting. She made me hold a "Sphere of Truth" that she said would kill me instantly if I lied (but after the conversation, she admitted it was a hoax). After a few questions about my ship and how I got it...

...Avenstar told me that I was "the one" but she wouldn't elaborate. She sent me out the door and told me to return when I have "become a seasoned warrior."

According to the manual, my options for doing this are a) piracy and b) bounty hunting. I don't fully understand the mechanisms for either. I did destroy a pirate ship at one point (or maybe it was a Manchi ship), but no one hastened to give me a reward for it. By next time, I should know what I'm doing.

I assume that becoming a successful pirate or bounty hunter affects your "repute" and your status with the various factions.

Some other potentially-interesting plot threads and quests are developing. Some NPCs talk about a "Black Hand Cult," a group of psionic assassins, and there are rumors that Avenstar is under their spell. There is, of course, the Manchi threat; the Manchi are clearly aliens, but the game has given me no clues as to their motives or what they look like. A robot wants me to find his lost love, a maid robot, who's in danger of being reprogrammed into a trash compactor.

"Interfaced perfectly" is more than I needed to know.

The game seems to feature the right amount of difficulty. I've had some misfortune, but nothing game-breaking. You can only save in space, and there's no "load" option, which means that if you want to try different dialogue options with NPCs, you really have to want it, because you'll have to go through the process of killing the game, restarting, answering the copy protection question again, re-docking with the starport, and finding the NPC.

Finally, Space Rogue features a reasonably-complex minigame called HIVE which you can find at terminals in bars. HIVE casts you in the role of a pilot whose ship has crash-landed on an alien planet. He's immediately attacked by insects and has to blast them to escape. The gameplay is primitive--just face the enemy and shoot--but it's still a fun little diversion. I'm not sure if it serves any story purpose within the game; it feels like perhaps it was the result of an interface mechanic (planetary exploration) that never got implemented in the main game.

In general, Space Rogue feels like a minor game, with a few innovative elements, that I'll be happy to play to the end but that I hope doesn't last overly long.