Tokyo Game Show held from September 15 to 18 last month. Calypso Media was exhibiting an UNION trial at the booth German gathering German Pavilion. Report the pattern that played the beginning of the main story.
This is a simulation game that runs colonies in the space station. Inside the game corresponds to Japanese. At the Games com AWARD 2022 held on August 27, he won the Best Strategy/Simulation Games. In the demonstration version, you can experience the start of the game, Vole Engine, to expand the range of the universe at the beginning of the game.
Enchanted tutorial
When the game starts, the opening video flows. Time is 2049. A shuttle on the ground is fired, and it is a scene where the space station Tycoon is the stage of this work. Not only the beauty of the video, but also a movie, including the camera work. The visual scale is very large, so it has a strong power to draw players. The sound in the game is only English in the product version, but it seemed to be watching Western paintings with subtitles. It will not get in the way to understand the game content.
Then go to the station in the station. Even though it is a space station, it is so huge that it is incomparable to that as of 2022. Although it is divided into multiple sector, each sector alone is close to a little city. At first, you can learn the operation in the tutorial. You can rotate a 360-degree viewpoint or switch between the internal view of the space station and the external view using a wheel. This switching zoom is seamless and comfortable. The states of crews and resources are gradually decreasing, and when the viewpoint passes through the ceiling, a beautiful earth is reflected in the background. The earth, looking from outer space, was a superb view. I want to move from the viewpoint without meaning.
The mission starts when the operation tutorial is over. The first mission is to build a stored storage and collect scattered resources. In the internal view, various equipment will be built. Facilities and roads can be placed freely. Crews and robots move along the road I made. It’s fun just looking at your own layout. However, as the demonstration version progressed, there were scenes that bothered the arrangement. We want to be able to transport as much efficiently as possible in a limited space, and some equipment must be in contact with the outer wall. By the way, in the external view, the improvement of solar panels and engine is reflected in the exterior. The planetary map allows you to see a planet that can acquire resources by exploring. It is a shortage of resources that are originally scattered, so you may go to get some planetary resources.
Hardness of Space Station administrator
Resource management is important in this game, but there are three main elements that should be managed in the end. That’s the red, yellow, and blue at the top of the screen. One is the integrity of the hull. It is translated as consistency, but in short, it is the state of the station. The hull that gradually deteriorates must be repaired as appropriate. The repair requires an alloy, and the raw materials that are used must be procured from the outside. The second management element is trust from the crew. If there is not enough food and bed, there will be an event that can be applied to improve the living environment. If they do not fulfill their promises in time, the trust from them will fall. In that case, the ship does not go. The third is electricity. It is important to secure the power sources required for each equipment. A power outage occurs when supply demand exceeds the supply. Creating a solar panel can increase the supply, but there is also a limit. Some scenes are required to save frequent power. The basic trend of this work is to manage resources in this way, maintain the station, and advance to the outside world to take further resources.
I mentioned earlier that the switch between the internal view and the external view is seamless, but the seamless word can be said about the structure of the whole game. For example, food is needed to respond to the request from a crew. This is a problem that occurs in the internal view. However, it is necessary to explore other planets because it is not enough in the station. This requires reference to the interplanetary map. However, in order to make a science ship for exploration, it is necessary to consider the bite of the crews to work. Thus, the story returns to the internal view. When viewing the production line inside and outside the space station as one system, the crew’s human-like demands and the magnificent planetary exploration business have also led to the seamless. Although it is a natural design as a simulation game, I felt that the highest science and technology and the unwilling desire of the living human beings were organically connected. And deciding where and when to intervene in the system would be the real pleasure of a simulation game.
Until now, as resources, this work has more than 10 types of resources. Each of them has intuitive icons. Personally, the color coding of the icon was nice and good. In addition, I felt that the terms were underlined in the terms, and the explanations of each were confirmed by mouse over, so I felt that there was a consideration to avoid pressure on the large number of elements.
Exploring the planet, an event occurs. By choosing an option, you can acquire other resources and wisdom (needed to release skills) in exchange for resources. In such an event, it is easy to choose which options to choose in a few times, but in this work, the options increase according to the skills’ acquisition status, and the new results are new at the same event. It seems that it can be obtained. Although it could not be confirmed within the range of the demonstration version, it seems that it will not get tired even at the end of the game.
By the way, the food began to end while zooming in without meaning, watching the crew’s daily life, zooming out without meaning and watching the blue and beautiful earth. The demonstration version seemed to have limited opportunities to secure food, and the food storage was lost, and all the crews starved. The administrator had no time to make it tough. But the outer space seen in 360-degree view was really beautiful. No regrets.
motif as science fiction
This work is a simulation game set in space, but it is not only a flavor is built, but the story seems to be solid. According to the developer, the game was created with the same power on both the game system and the story. I felt that even in the range of playing the demonstration version, the setting was devised. Various experts such as doctors, engineers, CEOs, and philosopher appear in this work, but from the statements of the characters, they feel the belief as an expert. It seems that multi-ending is unusual for a colony simulation game. By the way, the story was conscious that it would make the near future foresee, not a fiction at all. The characters of the characters have heard not only the excitement of practical use of future technology, but also something like reflection on the destruction of the earth.
As an aside, I have been worried about the title Ixion of this work. Various special terms and proper nouns appeared during the work, but at least the word Ixion did not appear in the demonstration version. This word is the same as the name of the human king appearing in Greek mythology. He has been externally behaving, killing his father-in-law and insulting the goddess in a human part, but at the end of his punishment, he was tied to a ring that lasts forever. It is suggestive that such a man’s name is used in the title.
Mr. Christian Wool ford, the development staff, said, I was stimulated by art pieces created by Stanford University more than 40 years ago by Stanford University and combined with Interstellar and other science fiction. Says. According to my research, this art piece may be a space colony called Stanford Torus. This is the earliest space colony design proposed at the NASA summer seminar held at Stanford University in 1975. It was part of a serious research, but its colorful colors and novel ideas were so shocking that they had a significant impact on science fiction work. Donald Davis, who draws this art piece, has released some of those illustrations on his site. The art piece draws a space station on the wheels, and has a building in a circular tube, which leads to graphics inside and outside the space station of this work.
- Post by DOLLS’s Twitter account. The man with a bad posture in the first image is the writer.
The impression that I tried to play is that the more I can expand the inside of the station and explore the universe, the more I can do it, but there is also the frustration of the excitement that I can say, If you stand there, you will not stand. I felt that the balance was exquisitely maintained. UNION is a science fiction work and as a colony simulation game. It will be distributed on PC (Steam) on December 7.
Leave a Reply