Cube Tries to Play Every Star Trek Game

[Glen-i]

On 17/08/2023 at 3:58 PM, Dcubed said:

Wow.  Star Trek Rivals' inspiration is... pretty blatant.  I kinda low-key love how brazen it is 

I mean, if you have to rip off an awful game like Final Fantasy VIII, might as well take the one redeeming thing about it.

[Cube]

Star Trek: The Next Generation – On Board the USS Enterprise

• Original Release: 2013
• Developer: Carlton Books
• Publisher: Carlton Books
• Platform: PC

This reference CD came with the book Star Trek: The Next Generation: On Board The Enterprise, written by Denise and Michael Okuda. It doesn’t mention who made the CD that came with it. The book mentions a “Breathtaking 3D Interactive Tour” which definitely oversells it. You may have noticed from the screenshot that the rooms you look at are computer generated renders. While these renders are extremely well detailed, you can’t explore them in 3D, you’re just looking at photos of the renders. Each room has a couple of 360 photos to scroll through and nothing to interact with, it’s a very limited tour.

Included in this is the Bridge, Captain’s Ready Room, the Transporter Room, Sick Bay, a corridor, Engineering and a cargo bay. With how detailed each location is, and how it was all created on a computer, it’s surprising that there are so few places to view from, as it’s much easier to create a new render with this than taking photos of the actual sets, as done in the Interactive Technical Manual.

Star Trek: Attack Wing

• Original Release: 2013
• Developer: Christopher Guild, Andrew Parks
• Publisher: WizKids
• Platform: Board Game

Star Trek: Attack Wing is the main miniature-based Star Trek game, and is sort of still going now, although mainly in the form of repackaged sets. From what I can tell, the last new ship was a Xindi-Reptillian ship in 2017, with the game also being used as a basis for a new co-op version called Star Trek Alliance.

Attack Wing does a good job at representing ship combat in Star Trek without being overly complex (although if you star incorporating many different sets, cards start overruling and contradicting each other). Each round, you both set your planned ship manoeuvre on a dial, then move on to using abilities and attacking. Not only is your ship important, but many special abilities and actions are provided by the crew you have.

There’s a lot of strategy in the game. One example is how you use shields. Some abilities require shield usage, so you have the ability to allow a shot to bypass your shield in order to protect your shield in order to use that ability. You’re also constantly moving and circling each other.

There are also a ton of missions you can get for the game, and some colossal Borg ships you can use (including one with pop out sphere). It’s a fun game and can be scaled and made more complex, or kept to a simple game with a couple of ships.

I also want to point out the superb Tabletop Simulator version, which spawn ships/cards based on fleets you design online, and also has a ton of features to help you out, such as control cards that make the ships move automatically.

Star Trek Trexels

• Original Release: 2013
• Developer: Xcube Games
• Publisher: YesGnome, LLC
• Platform: Android, iOS

This is a game that required server access to run: one of a few Star Trek games that are now unplayable due to this. I did play Trexels when it first came out, though, although I wasn’t very impressed.

After seeing Star Wars take on this formula with Tiny Death Star (which was actually good), this is Star Trek’s take on the pixelated room management game that was popular at the time. Unfortunately, greed took over on this and the game was excruciatingly slow unless you paid for premium currency. You could gain it from completing missions, but it was very slow.

The missions were extremely dull, too. Your crew generated energy cubes over time, so you had to wait for your energy to build up and press one of the two actions at the bottom of the screen. Rooms would increase this energy, as well as other resources needed. Building up a starship really could have been a lot of fun – especially as similar games have shown it can work – but Trexels missed the mark.

Star Trek: Alien Domain

• Original Release: 2015
• Developer: GameSamba
• Publisher: GameSamba
• Platform: Browser
• Not played: Servers shut down

Star Trek: Alien Domain was a browser-based MMO that had a focus on base building and resource management. It got an expansion/update in 2019 with Incursion before being shut down in 2022. Due to this, there is no way to play the game.

The game looks like a free to play game where it start off giving you lots of stuff, but then turns into a slow, hopeless grind unless you spend a ton of money to keep up with everything. The designs of everything look a bit off to me, but I can’t quite put my finger on why.

 

Star Trek: Wrath of Gems

• Original Release: 2015
• Developer: Genera
• Publisher: CBS Interactive
• Platform: Browser
• Not played: Servers shut down

After Trexels, Star Trek needed to jump straight on the next mobile gaming fad. Following on from the success of Candy Crush, Wrath of Gems is another Bejewelled clone that has some Star Trek flair stuck onto it.

You play by swapping the location of two gems in order to create matching groups of 3 or more. In basic Bejewelled gameplay, you’re doing this to get points, but Wrath of Gems adds a few spins on it. In ship combat, attack gems will let you shoot at your opponents with shields restoring health. You and your opponent take turns, so you have to be careful not to give your opponent a great move. Another type involves collecting combos of different types of gems, while another one is on ground missions where gems unlock your crew’s attacks.

There’s a TOS story and TNG story, and each settings has ships and crew to unlock and upgrade, using currency collected from various moves (or purchased). These can also be spent on lootboxes (which can also be purchased), giving you upgraded abilities.

The servers for this went down sometime in 2018 and as a result, it is not impossible to play the game, even if you have it installed.

Star Trek: Five-Year Mission

• Original Release: 2015
• Developer: David E. Whitcher
• Publisher: Mayfair Games
• Platform: Board Game

Star Trek: Five-Year Mission is a co-op dice game that uses mechanics from a simple dice game called “Roll for It” – which incidentally was a game I bought because of Wil Wheton’s TableTop show.

There are three decks of “alerts” in increasing difficulty, these have dice values and colours that need to be placed on it to complete. If you draw too many of these, you fail, and a new one is drawn at the start of each person’s turn – to make matters work, some may cause you to draw another of the next difficulty up, so you can end up with three new challenges at the start of your turn.

A turn sequence is simple: draw a new alert, collect dice (up to your maximum of 5), roll the new dice (plus any you want from last turn) and place them on the alerts to complete them.

Some of these alerts will grant you powers that can alter dice values or colours, but this dice manipulation is few and far between. With a bit more, there could have been some strategy to this, but most of the game you’re just rolling and placing dice without needing to plan or think. It’s a fun game, but a bit too simple at times.

One nice thing about the game is that you can play with either a TOS theme or TNG theme, or mix them together.

Star Trek Road Trip

• Original Release: 2015
• Developer: Tyler Brown, Mikel Fromstein
• Publisher: Aquarius
• Platform: Board Game
• Not played

Road Trip is a series of basic roll and move board games. You have to collect attack tokens in order to progress, with action and 50/50 cards giving you bonuses or making it worse for you. The goal is to get a toll pass to reach the centre of the board, fight the battled in the four corners then return back.

The Road Trip games are based on different franchises, all with the exact same board layout, rules and card results (just with different designs, names and flavour text). It sounds like a very generic and boring game.

[Choze]

Loving this.

[Cube]

Star Trek Timelines

• Original Release: 2016
• Developer: Disruptor Beam/Tilting Point/Wicked Realm Games
• Publisher: Tilting Point
• Platform: Android, iOS, PC

For extremely long and grindy pay 2 win mobile games like this, I am playing until the inevitable brick wall. Most mobile games follow the same pattern: at the start, you’ll get lots of lootboxes thrown at you, you’ll get a bit of premium currency, and progression will be nice and swift to try and “hook” you. Then suddenly, progression stops. To get further, you’ll either need to grind for weeks, or pay money.

In Star Trek Timelines, there’s a random time anomaly messing with time to enable using characters and ships from all of the shows. It’s the go-to plot for Star Trek mobile games because it means more potential for selling stuff. Your mission is to fix the time anomalies, although with a game like this, there is never actually an “ending” as it means the game would be finished, so you know everything you do will fail.

I’ll start by talking about the good thing of Timelines. For starters, the graphics are really nice. Between missions, you get to see your ship in the planetary system the mission is set in, and they all look wonderful (if a bit busy). There’s nothing to actually do with this, it’s just a backdrop to look at, so it’s a bit frivolous and seems like a colossal waste of the nice assets.

Now I’ve finished talking about the good points, it’s on to the bad: this is barely a game. The main gameplay are away missions. Your crew have stats and you pick three for an away mission. You have “choices” in the mission but it just amounts to picking the person with the highest stat. You can’t use the same person on two actions in a row, so sometimes you have to pick the second best stat. That’s the total amount of thinking you use in the game. The writing is so dry and the use of just random versions of characters makes everything feel so unimportant that I found myself not having the energy to read most of the dialogue.

The game is all about collecting, and earning random things. Unless you spend a massive amount of time or money, you’re not going to be able to use the characters you like, it’s just whoever you happen to have. You need multiples of the same character to merge and you need to collect items (randomly) to improve their stats. I reached a point in mission 3 where I simply didn’t have the required stat. The way to continue is to play random old missions until you are randomly given something that will help. I managed to get 10 “premium” lootboxes which gave me a ton of characters…none of them useful. But don’t worry, you can buy specific crew at certain times by buying bundles that go up to £92!!!

I remember playing the beta of this and it had an in-depth combat system. It was a turn-based strategy that was a bit like rock-paper-scissors where your abilities worked against certain abilities, but made your ship vulnerable to others. This system was completely thrown out during the beta and replaced with one where you tap icons when they’ve finished charging. There’s so little thought involved that there’s an autoplay button along with an option to speed up the battles.

Timelines is definitely among the worst of all the Star Trek games. It’s devoid of anything interesting, there’s no gameplay and it’s just a chore repeatedly asking you to give it a ridiculous amount of money.

 

Star Trek: Ascendancy

• Original Release: 2016
• Developer: Aaron Dill, John Kovaleski, Sean Sweigart
• Publisher: Gale Force Nine
• Platform: Board Game

Star Trek Ascendancy is a game of exploration and conquest, although you can try to avoid the conquest if you want. Each player starts on their homeworld with a base that generates the three main resources (production, science and culture) as they explore the galaxy and eventually meet up, with the goal being destroying your rivals (which is not likely) or gaining 5 ascendancy tokens, which you get by generating and spending culture.

The exploration system in this is great: you roll a dice to determine how long the “space line” is then draw a new planet, which has an event. These discs can be moved around the connecting planet if needed (to account for table space and connecting to other planets), but are firmly locked in place one connected to a second planet. That said, it also has massive downsides as you can encounter threats and hazards. One player could get a bunch of safe systems ideal for colonising, while another player encounters pulsars and black holes which ruin ships and don’t provide any opportunity to expand or increase your production (although there are rule variants to help with this).

Another issue with the game is how long turns take. Sometimes I could have walked to the beach, had a stroll and still get back and have to wait a bit for my turn. I would have much preferred a system where you took turns doing single actions rather than conducting your entire turn in one go, or at least mechanics that allow for more reactions to what the current player is doing. The way Ascendancy works means games tend to drag on, while longer games like Twilight Imperium can keep you engaged the whole time.

While Ascendancy is fairly average for a 4X board game, the components and Star Trek them really improve it. Each faction has slightly different rules that reflect the species really well: the Federation can’t conquer neutral planets, for example, while the Cardassians need to have forces by a planet for them to produce anything and playing as the Ferengi does feel like you are merchants. It elevates the game from an average one to one that, despite its flaws, is still fun if everyone is into Star Trek.

Star Trek: Frontiers

• Original Release: 2015
• Developer: Vlaada Chvátil, Andrew Parks
• Publisher: WizKids
• Platform: Board Game

Star Trek: Frontiers is a Star Trek version of the popular board game Mage Knight. It focuses on exploration of the Gamma Quadrant (although you fight a lot of Romulans and Borg). It’s suitable for up to four players, who pick between Picard on the Enterprise D, Sisko on the Definat, Lursa and B’etor on a Bird of Prey and Markok on a Negh’var.

It can be played co-op or competitively (although you still have to complete objectives. The game is very in depth with a lot of complicated rules, which means a lot of checking to see how different abilities interact. That said, all parts of the game are engaging, even if it’s a lot to wrap your head around. There’s a big list of scenarios to choose from, and the good combat mechanics (while you explore, it’s very much combat focused) are well thought out.

Frontiers also got an expansion. In following on from the Enterprise D and Defiant, it added a new playable ship: The Enterprise A. Along with a new opponent: Khan, flying in his Dominion Warship. The designer was clearly a Wrath of Khan fan and went with that even though there was still plenty of TNG era ships, such as Voyager, or other races.

 

Star Trek: Panic

• Original Release: 2015
• Developer: Justin De Witt
• Publisher: Fireside Games
• Platform: Board Game

Star Trek Panic is a Star Trek version of a popular co-op tower defence board game called Castle Panic. In Castle Panic, you defend a castle while enemies stream from all around you, you have to use your cards to repair your castle walls and defeat the advancing enemies.

Star Trek Panic isn’t simply a retheme of Castle Panic, but brings about new mechanics that suit the theme perfectly. For starters, the Enterprise is not stationary, so you can spin the ship to face your powered shields towards the enemies. You can also move forward, which is simulated not by moving the Enterprise model, but by moving the enemy ships in front of the Enterprise closet (although ships behind the Enterprise don’t move further away). This is important for another main element: the missions.

Your objective isn’t just to withstand an attack, but to complete missions along the way. Each mission is only active for a number of turns and require spending cards to fix problems or moving the Enterprise into unknown ships to investigate. This creates the choice of using cards to defend the Enterprise or to finish the mission to get closer to winning the game. As enemies attack, they’ll first damage shields, then hurt the section of Enterprise relevant to that location: you have cardboard overlays to stick on top of the cardboard Enterprise to show off the damage, and it looks really nice.

Star Trek Panic is a really nice version of an already great board game, with the new additions fitting the Star Trek theme really well. Unfortunately, the physical game never got released in the UK.

Risk: Star Trek 50th Anniversary Edition

• Original Release: 2015
• Developer: The Op
• Publisher: The Op
• Platform: Board Game

Like Monopoly, Risk is another game that has many, many different licensed versions. However, Risk changes things more than Monopoly does, and the most basic licensed versions have a different map, while some versions have their own rules and can even be completely unique games with the Risk branding thrown on for sales.

Risk: Star Trek has two ways to play: One that’s just Risk and another which adds more to it. You play as different captains from the shows (Q has pitted them all against each other, and for some reason they’re going along with it and not working out a way to cooperate). In the enhanced version of the game, you have to complete missions such as “conquer locations controlled by 2 different opponents”, “control the United Federation of Planets” and “Use abilities of all your crew in one turn”. Due to the nature of these missions, the game length can vary a lot – it can either take forever, or it can be over in three turns.

The main gameplay is just like risk: sent troops to nearby locations, fight if there opponents or neutral aliens there. This is done by rolling dice, one for each ship attacking or defending (with a maximum of 3 dice for the attacker and 2 for the defender). You can move some of your ships at the end of your turn.

At the start of each turn, you have to turn over a Q card, which causes random events, these can help you out or make you lose things, some impact the whole board. The most significant one is the Tribbles, which have two starting cards. These work similar to Pandemic where they’ll grow in numbers before multiplying to other locations. There are only 50 tribbles included in the game, and if you place all of them on the board….everyone loses.

Risk: Star Trek is an interesting take on Risk, although one that’s extremely random.

Star Trek: The Dice Game

• Original Release: 2016
• Developer: Carl White
• Publisher: Self-Published
• Platform: Board Game

This is a fan-made board game, but has really nice assets and is the most popular fan made Star Trek board game, other than Klin Zha. It heavily borrows elements from a solo board game I enjoyed a lot called Deep Space D-6.

This is a solo board game where you have to use dice to get your ship though missions and dangers. Each turn, you’ll roll the dice – which represent crew divisions and assign them to tasks to manage your ship or contribute to completing missions. One of the dice is a “threat”, which get placed on the threat meter. One you have four on here, you’ll draw an extra event.

The events can damage your ship, put crew out of commission or will stop you form performing certain actions until you complete them by assigning dice to them. It’s a really fun game and the mission structure of it makes it different enough from the original game that it’s nice to play both. The developer did get approached by multiple publishers, who pitched the game to Paramount, but never got a response.

Star Trek: Bridge Crew

• Original Release: 2017
• Developer: Red Storm
• Publisher: Ubisoft
• Platform: PS4, PC

Bridge Crew was originally released as a VR exclusive, before being patched to allow people to play it without VR. The ideal experience is to play this in VR with motion controllers with three other friends playing it in VR with motion controllers. I have played this with friends, but the VR is way beyond my budget.

The game itself borrows heavily from Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator, a LAN game where you essentially create a starship in your house, with each person having a PC to represent their station (or the viewscreen for the captain). I’ve played it at a convention and it’s a great experience, and Bridge Crew is the closest thing that can be done online.

There are four stations in this game: Captain, Helm, Tactical and Engineering. Captain is the simplest role in multiplayer: you get told the orders to pass on to your crew, answer hails and push the red alert button. Most of this role is via the voice chat, giving commands to your crew (and hoping they pay attention).

Helm gets to fly the ship and set warp and “impulse” destinations (what the game calls in-system warp), and is probably the most involved position due to this.

Tactical gets to control the phaser and shield. There’s no phaser arcs or shield arcs, so unfortunately the combat is very basic. You can disrupt enemy weapons, shields or engines via hacking.

Engineering sets power levels and prioritises repairs, this is probably the worst role to have and you don’t even get a clear idea of what is happening due to not having access to sensor data like the other three roles.

In singleplayer, you play as the captain but can give orders to the crew. The AI is very basic and some actions can reset other orders. The helm officer won’t avoid obstacles, so for some situations, you can take over the station and control it directly (although you can’t give orders from there, you have to return to the Captain’s position). It’s not the ideal way to play, but it gets the job done and is far better than not having the option.

The main (and incredibly short) 6-mission story takes place on the USS Aegis, a ship from the Kelvin timeline. The bridge itself is wonderfully made and fits the aesthetic while adapting it to work for a game like this. The missions are fine, but after this all that’s left is random missions. There’s not a lot of content in this game.

The game does include additional ships you can use in the random missions: the prime timeline original TOS-style Enterprise and (as part of DLC) the Enterprise D. The TOS bridge absolutely looks the part and is very authentic, although you definitely need to use the help overlay to work out which buttons do what. It’s difficult to use, but it gets the feel of being in The Original Series really well.

The Enterprise D bridge takes a few more liberties in its interface, mainly making the LCARS displays more game-like to help it play a lot better. This also makes the engineer’s job (renamed as “operations”) better by improving the repair side of things by assigning damage teams.

Bridge Crew is a great start for a multiplayer Star Trek game, but would have been nice with more in depth gameplay for weapons and shields, as well as far more structured missions.

Star Trek: Discovery: Away Mission

• Original Release: 2018
• Developer: Sandbox VR
• Publisher: Sandbox VR
• Platform: VR Experience
• Not played: Cost of getting to location and playing too expensive.

Star Trek: Discovery: Away Mission is a full body VR room experience. This means you need to go to one of the company’s locations, gear up in their motion sensing outfits and get set up in their special rooms – sort of like an actual Holodeck. Six people can play the game, with you all in the same room – their location in the room corresponds with their location in the game, so you can move around them as needed.

The rooms also use fans and other features to enhance the experience – for example, the suit’s rumble packs combined with the fans in the room are used to create the sense of using the transporter. It sounds like a fascinating experience.

In Away Mission, you play as a member of Starfleet on board the USS Discovery, investigating a lost Starfleet ship. Tilly acts as your guide from the mission (from Discovery). The mission involves a lot of combat, but you also get points based on how well you use your tricorder.

[Cube]

Star Trek Adversaries

• Original Release: 2018
• Developer: Puppet Master
• Publisher: Puppet Master
• Platform: PC, Android, iOS

Star Trek: Adversaries was a fast-paced card game that had a good response from critics. It was a digital collectable card game that featured some really nice starship models – and quite a lot of them. Unfortunately, the game was shut down and servers taken offline before it was even live for a full year. Booting up the game just gives you a login error.

However, this is a card game, and the information on the cards was kept on the Wiki for the game, so by figuring out the rules, creating needed tokens, I was able to recreate the game in Tabletop Simulator, just without the automation. It’s doesn’t have the fancy effects or the 3D models, but I can still try out the gameplay.

It’s a really fun game that reminds me a bit of Star Realms. Most of your cards are ships that can be enhanced by crew. You put them into play and can attack the opponents ship or their flagship – with the overall goal being destroying the flagship.

Each turn, the amount of energy you can spend on playing cards is increased every turn, leading to a game that starts out slow and speeds up massively. It also requires you to plan your deck with a balance of cheaper and more expensive cards. Leftover energy at the end of your turn becomes auxiliary energy, this can be spent on your flagships Special or Ultimate powers, which also bring into play that flagship's unique cards.

The cards cover all the shows up to Discovery, with the cards looking nice and clean with lovely artwork on them. It covers a nice variety of ships, including a lot of alien ships in the neutral cards.

Adversaries is a fun, quick game. I probably would have hated the lootbox nature of the mobile game, but the actual card game has some fun and interesting mechanics.

Star Trek Trexels II: The Next Resolution

• Original Release: 2018
• Developer: Kongreagate
• Publisher: YesGnome, LLC
• Platform: Android, iOS
• Not played: Servers down.

Trexels 2 brings the first game and gives it the very marketable “throw in everything from all shows” thing that the mobile Star Trek games love because it’s great for lootbox opportunities. The ship building is more of the same: lots of tapping and wait timers, with the ability to pay real money to make the progression qicker.

The biggest change are the away missions, which look like they could be interesting as they’re an X-COM style turn based strategy….but from reviews, it’s very shallow and you’ll eventually encounter missions where you need to grind forever to upgrade characters enough to complete, or pay money to do so.

The servers for this game were shut down, so there’s no way to play it.

Star Trek: Fleet Command

• Original Release: 2018
• Developer: Digit Game Studios
• Publisher: Scopely
• Platform: Android, iOS

Playing this game now, it very much has a crisis of identity. The game boots up with USS Voyager artwork and you’re given some of the TNG crew at the start, but then the state of the universe makes no sense and the game doesn’t look right and feels more like the Kelvin universe.

And that’s because it IS the Kelvin universe. Originally, the game had no additions from other shows. The game was about you being an “independent” in the changed world of the Kelvin timeline, dealing with a mysterious AI helping you created by Scotty. The stuff thrown in by other shows have no explanations, they’re just there, and end up making the game look like a mess (just a more marketable mess). It started off as its own coherent universe before just throwing anything in.

Fleet Command is a “press button to do stuff” game. There’s no strategy and very little choice, combat is automatic and missions are extremely repetitive. It starts out promising, looking like a strategy game with in depth base building and complex technology trees, but this is all an illusion as it soon becomes clear that everything has to be done in a specific order. Want to upgrade your drydock for more ships? You need to make sure your Academy is at the right level, which requires Operations at a certain level and so on. The entire game is like this, making it feel like you’re just doing chores for someone else.

The game is all about time management. Everything takes time, and the main collectable are speed up items that skip some of these wait timers. If you run out, you can buy more. Other upgrades, such as new crew, are via lootboxes. The crew screen looks impressive, with a good 3D model of the character, but they’re nothing more than bonus stats for your ship. It’s really baffling when part of the game is looking for Scotty when he’s sitting on on of your ships (the Kelvin universe version, too). Having these known characters detracts from the game, but it appeases those that just want to spend money to collect.

But all these increased stats, upgrades and new ships doesn’t help the gameplay of just choosing locations and going there. This is by far the most boring game I’ve ever played, and the only positive I can come up with are that the graphics are nice, especially the ship models. But even then, you can only get a good look at these in the menu as ships are a tiny dot when playing. These are nice enough that they could be ported to other games, with some nice alien ships, the USS Discovery, and the Titan-A.

You do get one reward for sticking with the game: at a certain milestone, your ship and station is marked for permanent PvP. This means that you’re now at the mercy of those who have played the game for longer and those that have paid money to upgrade their stuff. It’s very much a Pay 2 Win game so this is something that, if you can last through the boredom to reach it, will likely make many people stop playing.

This game is probably the most boring game I’ve ever experienced.

Stage 9

• Original Release: 2018
• Developer: Messy Desk
• Publisher: Messy Desk
• Platform: PC

Stage 9 was a very ambitious fan project: recreate the Enterprise D in its entirety to explore at your own leisure. The project was shut down by CBS before it was completed, so we only have a selection of areas to explore – although most major areas are covered, including some never seen in the show.

As this is a very early build, the optimisation isn’t great, so it will be sluggish on decent PCs. As it’s just exploring, it’s not an issue. NPCs look a bit freaky, but you can turn them off.

The Enterprise D interiors have been recreated in astounding detail, areas we never got to see – such as the stairs to the Observation lounge – are now something we can look at and inspect. Some consoles also have functionality, you can take control of the ship, play with cargo bay tractor beams and open shuttlebay doors.

Speaking of shuttlebays, the most impressive location in this is the Enterprise D’s main shuttlebay, which we never got to see in the show. It’s absolutely colossal, like a full size airport, and you can see why they never had the budget to create a set for it (and CGI was too early when the show was on the air). It really helps to sell the scale of the ship.

Another treat is the holodeck, which has more bridges to explore. There’s the bridge of the Enterprise form The Original Series along with different variants of the Enterprise D bridge from: the Encounter at Farpoint, Yesterday’s Enterprise, All Good Things and Generations, giving you a nice idea of how much they were changed for these episodes.

It is easy to get lost, though, and it seems obvious that a map would have been implemented later in development. You can find some neat extras such as a phaser range and a shuttle you can pilot.

It’s a massive shame that this project was shut down. The developers behind this made an officially approved interactive experience for The Orville where you get to explore the whole ship, and some of them are working on The Roddenberry Archive.

Star Trek: Galactic Enterprises

• Original Release: 2018
• Developer: Christophe Boelinger
• Publisher: WizKids
• Platform: Board game

A trading game where your goal is to make the most latinum. You all play as Ferengi as you bid on types of goods and try to sell them at the highest price. This isn’t a new game, though, it’s based on an older trading game called Fantasy Business.

Each round, one good is drawn for each player, plus one actions card. One of a time, players bid on these until each player has one card, or there are no cards left due to players passing. One glaring omission in the goods is that there are no self-sealing stembolts.

After this, each player writes down the price they want to sell at. The minimum price this could be is the base price, while the maximum is double the base price. Players can talk amongst themselves and come to agreements – however, they don’t have to honour those agreements when writing them down.

Once players have chosen their price, you go through each good. Anyone that set the highest price gets nothing, while everyone else gets their chosen price. The person that chose the lowest price also gets a bonus of 2 per card they own. If all players set the same, it counts as the lowest price and everyone gets the bonus.

After this, the goods are kept (they represent an ongoing supply) and you bid on new cards to add to your supply.

Your enjoyment of this game will depend entirely on how into negotiating everyone playing is, and how much they’re willing to screw each other over. Even then, there’s too much risk to setting the maximum price unless two people make a specific agreement, so most people just pick the maximum if they’re the only one with a good, then set the minimum if another person has it.

The original game has the same issues and nothing was every done to fix it in this version.

A Ferengi trading game sounds like a good idea. And while the cards and latinum look nice, this game just feels like accounting.

Star Trek Fluxx

• Original Release: 2018
• Developer: Looney Labs
• Publisher: Looney Labs
• Platform: Board game

The Fluxx games all play the same way, with just some minor differences. It’s a game of silly randomness and changing rules, and can be fun every now and then. I’ve owned a couple of version in the past, including Star Fluxx, which parodies multiple sci-fi shows and films. The game starts with you drawing one card and playing one card, but some cards change how much you draw and play in a turn.

Keeper cards are placed in front of you, these are usually characters of object. Goal cards will tell you which Keeper cards will win in game, but only one Goal is in play at once (although rules can change that). However, be wary about Creeper cards: these will join your Keepers when you draw them and you can’t win the game when you have one (unless that creeper is a specific goal). Action cards will also force swapping cards, let you draw and play more while surprise cards can stop actions or let you do something in their place.

The Star Trek version of Fluxx is based on The Original Series. One thing that this has that isn’t a standard part of “Fluxx” is the “Ungoal” card. If this comes out and every player has had the “Doomsday Machine” creeper and the Enterprise is not in play, everyone loses.

Star Trek: The Next Generation Fluxx

• Original Release: 2018
• Developer: Looney Labs
• Publisher: Looney Labs
• Platform: Board game

A version of Star Trek Fluxx for The Next Generation. This one is very similar, with another Ungoal card (this time with the Borg).

Alongside this was also the Bridge expansion, which adds new cards and goals for combining this with Star Trek Fluxx.

[Dcubed]

Adversaries sounds like legit fun, great to see that it has been saved from mobile hell! May have to try it out some time

Fleet Command however is basically this…

 

[Cube]

Star Trek: Dark Remnant

• Original Release: 2019
• Developer: VRStudios
• Publisher: Dave & Busters.
• Platform: VR Ride
• Not played: Cost of getting to location and playing too expensive.

Star Trek: Dark Remnant is a VR ride arcade game that was available in Dave & Buster’s. Up to four people sat on the ride, which would tilt and turn to emulate the feeling of the ship moving.

You were a member of the USS Galileo, a science ship investigating a decaying neutron star with the Enterprise. A Klingon ship arrives, wanting to destroy the Enterprise. It’s up to you and your team to defend the Enterprise from the Klingon ship.

Your control a small handheld device which is linked to the Galileo’s weapons, enabling you to aim and shoot as objects fly across your view.

Star Trek: Conflick in the Neutral Zone 

• Original Release: 2019
• Developer: Mike Elliott
• Publisher: WizKids
• Platform: Board game

A board game with a fun pun title. This is a flicking game where the goal is to collect 10 Control Points, either from destroying enemy ships or mining them from the central planet.

There are two kinds of ships: round discs are collectors. They mine dilithium or points from planets if they are still on one at the start of their turn, but are destroyed if they are knocked off. Attack ships are used to push other ships off planets or off the board to destroy them.

While it sounds simple, there’s a bunch of fiddly rules that have a lot of holes, like how asteroids work. There’s also a lot of trying to remember the location of discs in order to reset them, which makes the game a pain to play and you’ll have to agree with house rules on the fly to carry on.

Each payer starts with basic Federation or Klingon ships, but can buy ships of any faction. This means you’ll have a mixture of colours, and the names and pictures are absolutely tiny, making it a big pain to identify which ships are yours. Each non-starter ship has its own power, although these are quite random and don’t have much to do with the ship – the Defiant, for example, can move asteroids with a tractor beam. This game could be replaced with any theme whatsoever and it will make zero difference.

Flicking games can be a lot of fun, but they need to be the right kind of simple. The designer of this game has made a load of great games, but this seems like a rush job.

Star Trek Chrono-Trek

• Original Release: 2019
• Developer: Looney Labs
• Publisher: Looney Labs
• Platform: Board game

Star Trek Chrono-Trek is a Star Trek version of Chrononauts. It’s a game all about manipulating the timeline to achieve your goals.

Each card has an alternative event on the back, which players can use inverter cards to flip. Some of these can cause a ripple effect and flip over other cards – some changes need multiple prior events to be altered to impact. Each character has a list of goals on their card, which are certain timeline events (regular or alternative) or artefacts, which are found in the main deck.

Each turn you draw a card into your hand of three and then play a card – although some are events which happen by default, such as the Devron Anomaly, which moves backwards in time, wiping out humanity if it reaches the beginning.

The planning you need to make to win is unfortunately limited by the few cards in your hands. You can also only win during your turn, which means nobody can accidentally trigger a win for someone else – although if everything is right at the start of your turn, you can declare the win straight away.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Fluxx

• Original Release: 2019
• Developer: Looney Labs
• Publisher: Looney Labs
• Platform: Board game

The Deep Space Nine version of Star Trek Fluxx. This one has no “Ungoal” and only has three creepers, half as many as the TOS and TNG versions, so it’s (usually) a quicker game. It also contained rules for combining the different Star Trek Fluxx games without needing an expansion.

Star Trek 1971

• Original Release: 2020
• Developer: Making Games Per Year
• Publisher: Making Games Per Year
• Platform: Browser

This is a browser remake of the 1971 Star Trek game by Mike Mayfield, offering both touch and typing interfaces. The experience is streamlined massively, especially in terms of navigating and firing weapons.

It’s a very nice version to play, and a very simple way to experience the game without needing to use emulators. It does lose a little bit of its charm due to how automated everything is, moving is as simple as clicking your destination and firing torpedoes just has you selecting from a menu, which means you can’t miss, but it’s still a nice way to see what the original game was aiming for.

You can also play a Mirror Universe variant, which changes a few things. The objective of destroying all Klingons makes a bit more sense.

Play Here

Star Trek: Voyager Fluxx

• Original Release: 2020
• Developer: Looney Labs
• Publisher: Looney Labs
• Platform: Board game

The Voyager version of Star Trek Fluxx. This has a few more creepers than the DS9 version, but no Ungloal.

There were two more expansion packs for the various Star Trek games. The Archer expansion had cards for Archer, Daniels and the Temporal Cold War while the Porthos expansion added some random things like Porthos, Spot, Phlox and Kor.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Red Alert

• Original Release: Cancelled (Due 2020)
• Developer: GameCo
• Publisher: GameCo
• Platform: Gambling Machine
• Not played: No demo units known.

Developed as a “Video Game Gambling Machine”, this provided a mixture of both luck and skill to possibly win (but almost certainly lose) money on. It was going to be some kind of tower defence game and will pit the gambling addict up against “against antagonistic aliens and dangerous stellar phenomena”.

The game was cancelled in order to be rebranded as a Voyager gambling game.

Note: Unfortunately, there are a bunch of Star Trek slot machines. I have decided to not cover these, this cancelled one is an exception as it has an actual game element to it.

Star Trek: Legends

• Original Release: 2021
• Developer: Tilting Point LLC
• Publisher: Tilting Point LLC
• Platform: Apple Arcade
• Not played: No compatible device for playing.

Star Trek Legends was a game that was originally designed as a free 2 play game but is now subscription-based as part of Apple Arcade (which means I have no way to play without spending an obscene amount of money) similar to the Star Wars game Galaxy of Heroes.

While it’s no longer a free to paly game, the elements are still there, with lootboxes and a lot of grinding for new characters. The game is a turn based combat game, but because it’s all about how much you’ve grinded and levelled up your characters, strategy doesn’t really seem to matter – the game even has a button to play for you.

This one uses the Nexus as the reason why characters from all timelines have ended up together, with Burnham, Worf and McCoy being the main characters in the story.

[Dcubed]

Just had a thought… @Cube, will you be covering the various Star Trek pinball machines? There’s some really good ones out there, and there are digital versions of some of them that are available (such as TNG in The Pinball Arcade and Pinball FX).

[Cube]

15 hours ago, Dcubed said:

Just had a thought… @Cube, will you be covering the various Star Trek pinball machines? There’s some really good ones out there, and there are digital versions of some of them that are available (such as TNG in The Pinball Arcade and Pinball FX).

I don't know much about pinball, so I opted not to cover them. There is a Star Trek pinball board game that I'll be covering soon.

[Cube]

Star Trek: Kobayashi Maru

• Original Release: 2021
• Developer: Scopely
• Publisher: Scopely
• Platform: Browser
• Not played: Login for the game is broken

Kobayashi Maru is a browser game made to promote Fleet Captains. It let you try out the Kobayashi Maru in a choose-your-own adventure style with the game giving you multiple choices. The pixel grahpics look very nice.

Unfortunately, while the game is technically still online, the Facebook login required to play is broken, so nobody can play it.

Star Trek PICO-8

• Original Release: 2021
• Developer: Emabolo
• Publisher: Self-Published
• Platform: PICO-8

This is a port of Super Star Trek to the PICO-8 system. The PICO-8 isn’t an actual console, but rather a “fantasy console” designed to allow game designers to work within limitations similar to retro consoles, but much easier to develop for. This version of Star Trek 1971 is essentially a “what if the game was ported to a handheld”.

Super Star Trek is a text-based game, while this port was made for a system with a D-pad and a few buttons, so this version allows you to select your options from a menu. The biggest change made is how moving works. It has now been separated to impulse and warp. Impulse lets you move within a system, while warp lets you pick a sector from a map. Torpedoes are now aimed with the d-pad with a short aiming dot appearing near the Enterprise.

I feel like the “limitations” set about by the PICO-8 fantasy console have helped this game a lot, this a really lovely version of the game to play, and I would probably recommend this version for someone who is interested in playing a version of the 1971 Star Trek game.

Star Trek: Alliance

• Original Release: 2021
• Developer: Josh Derksen, Thomas M. Gofton
• Publisher: WizKids
• Platform: Board Game

Star Trek: Alliance is a new game based on Star Trek: Attack Wing. It focuses on co-operative palay with up to six people (as long as you buy the game three times). Players play though a campaign of six missions, upgrading their captain and ship as they go, completing objectives and combating the AI enemies.

The base pack contains six missions in three acts. The first mission allows for retries if you fail, while the middle four missions have you press on, gaining less experience. Experience can be spent improving your captain, getting new abilities or ships (although the better ships are sold separately). The objectives involve scanning targets, protecting allies and defeating enemies. If you fail the final mission, you lose the whole campaign, so you need to spend your experience wisely.

The most vital part of this game is the enemy AI, and this does a great job at it. The process of the enemy actions is simple so it doesn’t take too much time to figure out, but the enemies do a good job at keeping you in their targets. I think they would also work as NPC enemies in Attack Wing itself if you wanted to – the systems here could be used to mix up the previous game. You can also try designing your own scenarios.

The biggest issue with this game is that, for new players, the rule book is very complicated, covering a lot of Attack Wing itself. The game isn’t too confusing once you actually play, but starting is daunting – especially when new players need to learn Attack Wing and the new mechanics of Alliance.

Alliance is a great way to expand Attack Wing, offering a new way to play.

Star Trek: Voyager: Delta Quest

• Original Release: Cancelled (Due 2021)
• Developer: GameCo
• Publisher: GameCo
• Platform: Gambling Machine
• Not played: No demo units known.

The Deep Space Nine gambling game got turned into a Voyager game, which got cancelled. From a promotional video, it looks like a “Match 3 Puzzle game” where you match gets of gems to get clues to the location of the transwarp conduit. You would be able to unlock “exclusive scenes” from the show. The Borg are on your tail and you lose if they catch up to you.

With this being a gambling game, I suspect that you would often not have the matches available to progress.

Star Trek: Lower Decks: The Badgey Directive

• Original Release: 2022
• Developer: Mighty Kingdom
• Publisher: East Side Games
• Platform: Android/iOS

The Badgey Directive is an idle clicker game set on the USS Ceritos. Boimler is doing training in the holodeck doing menial tasks when Mariner spices things up by challenging the computer to create a task Boimler can’t win – the computer recreates Badgey who then sets the crew on tasks taken from the history banks – past missions from previous shows.

The game itself is quite simple. Icons charge up, when they’re ready you tap on it to get merit points. You spend these merit points to upgrade the icons and unlock new ones, which lead to more merit points. You can add a member of the Ceritos crew to a task to collect the merit points automatically. On top of merit points, you can get latinum (which is spent to skip requirements for buying/upgrading new things, or dilithium which is spent on upgrading characters and simulations.

What makes the game work are the little story segments you get as you hit milestones. The dialogue is extremely charming and it’s great seeing the Lower Deckers take on these missions. It’s great seeing them talk about the Kelpians and Saru, and to chase the artic explorer from the Enterprise episode “Regeneration” and realise that these unknown aliens the NX-01 faced were the Borg.

Getting in the way of this game is the adverts. If you don’t watch the adverts, your merit points are effectively halved. If the adverts were harmless, I wouldn’t mind, but I was served adverts for fake apps, apps aimed at taking advantage of gambling addicts and even adverts for games about sexually assaulting women. It massively sours the experience and it desperately needs some moderation.

I got to episode 16 before I hit the inevitable “wall” where progression turned from a few hours to weeks. At this point, the chore of playing wasn’t worth it to see more snippets of the story. I would much prefer this game in the form of a digital comic.

Star Trek Prodigy: Supernova

• Original Release: 2022
• Developer: Tessera Studios
• Publisher: Outright Games
• Platform: Xbox One/Series, PS4/5, Switch, PC

Set during episodes 10 and 11 of the TV show (not based on the season 1 finale of the same name), this game follows an adventure of the Prototstar crew as they try follow Starfleet’s principles of helping others. The story has them investigate a Dyson Sphere, where the star is being drained and on the verge of becoming supernova.

You play the game as Gwyn and Dal, either with another person in local co-op or swapping between them when you want when playing singleplayer. The game is aimed at kids and is heavily inspired by the LEGO games, although there’s no platforming in Supernova, but instead a bigger focus on puzzles.

The puzzles are the game’s highlight, and while a lot are simple, some of them, particularly later on, require a bit of thinking. The game introduces more elements as it goes on, then combines it with the previous stuff. Some puzzles also have a hidden extra puzzle on top of them, required for hunting down collectibles.

Combat is against Watchers, the machines from the show. There are different kinds of watchers, such as ones that shoot and ones that charge. They can also have other properties, such as being explosive upon defeat or having a healing circle. You can use melee attacks or shoot – with Gwyn being better up close and Dal from a distance – and you’ll need to dash a lot to avoid enemy attacks. Combat gets surprisingly frantic, considering the game is aimed at kids, but the variety in watchers unfortunately doesn’t stop it from becoming repetitive quite quickly. One of the missions also crashed a few times, requiring me to re-do some long stretches of it again.

The dialogue for the most part is pretty good. It captures the show well and hints at things that the show deals with in the second half of season 1, with some good interactions between the crew and Holo Janeway. The references, however, I did notice to be oddly specific to a degree I never noticed in the show, referencing planets and locations (such as “Romulus Death Valley”) as though they were second nature, even though they hadn’t heard of Romulus until at most a few weeks earlier.

Supernova feels like an ideal game for a parent and a child to play. It does drag on a bit as it’s repetitive, but it’s got a charming story and some interesting puzzles – including some where the two characters get split in time and the player in the past has to set things up for the player in the present.

Star Trek: Missions

• Original Release: 2022
• Developer: Bruce Glassco
• Publisher: WizKids
• Platform: Board Game

Star Trek: Missions is a game based on another board game called “Fantasy Realms”. It’s a series that I like to call “End Game Scoring: The Game”.

In this version, there are two kinds of cards: Galaxy cards and Mission Cards. Galaxy cards are characters, objects and locations and come with stats followed by how the card scores at the bottom (typically by requiring certain other cards in your hand). Mission Cards only have the scoring and nothing else. You start the game with 5 Galaxy cards and 2 Mission cards.

Each turn you draw one galaxy card or two mission cards, then discard as many cards as you draw (you must keep 1 or 2 mission cards in your hand). These cards are discarded face up in a line and may be drawn by a player instead of drawing a face-down card. Your goal is to try and form a group of cards that score well off each other.

Once 12 mission cards or 8 galaxy cards are in the discard area, the game ends and you proceed to scoring. It’s a very quick game, although the scoring part of it can take longer than the game itself.

Star Trek: Super-Skill Pinball

• Original Release: 2022
• Developer: Geoff Engelstein
• Publisher: WizKids
• Platform: Board Game

A roll-and-write pinball game with a Star Trek theme. Super-Skill Pinball is a series of similar games, and the Star Trek one brings its own twists.

Super-Skill Pinball is one of those games that sounds very complicated when trying to learn it, but is simple when you get the hand of it. Each turn, two dice a rolled and you pick one of them to “move” your pinball. You start at the top of the pinball machine and have to drop down to a lower level onto a space matching your chosen dice, which you then fill in.

Once you reach the flippers, you can then launch the ball to a space that matches the colour of the flipper, dropping down again in later turns. If there are no spaces below you that you can reach, you lose your ball. The game is played over three rounds (with one exception) and each board has unique features.

Starfleet Academy is the basic board, with one unique aspect being the “Kobayashi Maru” section which needs a roll of 7 on the dice to complete (there is a way to complete it using other parts of the board).

The Trouble With Tribbles is all about managing tribbles – you’ll keep track of your current tribbles on your backplate. You can manipulate how many tribbles you have and even transport them to other players.

Lower Decks plays differently to the others – there are no rounds. Instead, the entire board flips for every 10 points you gain. This one is a little bit broken in that you can create an infinite loop to make the game last for hours.

Borg Attack has you preparing for a Borg Invasion for two rounds, unlocking ships, torpedoes and modulations. In round three, you use what you have unlocked to fight a Borg cube, starting from the bottoms and working up to the number 6 at the top. The borg attacks your ships as the pinball bounces back and forth between your fleet and the borg.

This is a fun solo game, but I don’t think it works as well with others – due to how the game works, people will be finished and have to wait around for everyone else to finish theirs – which on some boards can be a while. Having to wait for everyone to decide what to do on their turn (everyone uses the same dice roll each turn) is also frustrating.

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One more update after this, and I'll be up to date...until Star Trek Infinite comes out a few weeks later.

[Cube]

Super Star Trek meets 25th Anniversary

• Original Release: 2023
• Developer: Emabolo
• Publisher: Self-Published
• Platform: PC/Browser

This version of Mayfield’s 1971 Star Trek game recreates the Super Star Trek version and combines it with elements of the 25th Anniversary.

The core workings behind the game are very faithful to the original Super Star Trek. In the game, you have to hunt down Klingons within a certain amount of time. Instead of a text interface, you have a point and click interface that uses the bridge from 25th Anniversary (although you can use entirely keyboard shortcuts if you want).

Navigation and firing torpedoes are the biggest changes, as these can be done by clicking where you need to go. For firing torpedoes, you have a little aim reticule that you move around the Enterprise to aim – which means you can still misjudge and miss your target, or hit stars – it takes the hassle out of it without completely removing the skill.

This is a really nice version of Super Star Trek, and even has some voice lines. It also has a few nice touch it, such as it reminds you if you enter combat with shields down.

 

The Roddenberry Archive

• Original Release: 2023
• Developer: The Roddenberry Estate, OTOY
• Publisher: The Roddenberry Estate
• Platform: Browser

The ultimate bridge explorer is finally here. The Roddenberry Archives brings up digital recreations of a ton of Enterprise bridges, including concept bridges brought to life. The website provides a lot of information about the various different version of the Enterprise, and what the digital recreation of the bridge is based on.

All of these bridges can be explored in full 3D. It uses cloud technology so that you get the full detail no matter what PC you’re running (although it does have to be a desktop with Chromium browser) and can walk around, interact with some objects, sit down in chairs or turn on a fly camera. With the vast amount of detail, it’s a phenomenal experience and it’s amazing to look at the bridges in detail.

It starts off with a concept bridge: the XCV-330, the ring ship Enterprise seen in pictures in films and in Enterprise. It uses an early concept for the original Enterprise, with a round holographic table and a science room above it before moving on to the NX-01, which I loved seeing in closer detail, even finding doors I never knew were there.

Then onto the NCC-1701, which gets by far the most love. It has versions of the bridge starting with a concept bridge from early production then showing us the set from The Cage, Discovery, Strange New Worlds, the TOS pilot, TOS Season 1, TOS Season 2, Mirror Universe, TOS Season 3, a live action version of the bridge from The Animated Series, the bridge from the cancelled Phase II show, The Motion Picture, Wrath of Khan and two versions of the Kelvin version bridge, each one showing different versions of the bridge.

Then we get a look at a recreation of a wild concept for a cancelled film called Planet of the Titans, which featured a redesigned Enterprise from Ralph McQuarrie, which ended up inspiring the USS Discovery. It’s a lovely bridge, but not very practical.

From there we see the Enterprise A, B, C, D and E (with the D having multiple extra rooms), all looking absolutely stunning, but it doesn’t end there. It’s fully up to date with the bridges of the Enterprise F and brand new Enterprise G, which looks absolutely glorious. It ends the Enterprises with a new version of the Enterprise J featuring a see-through hull with visible cities, parks and water inside.

But it doesn’t end there, there’s a bonus Voyager bridge, with more to come in the future – hopefully we see the rest of the hero ships as well as other locations on ships, and some non-hero ships as well as alien bridges.

I look forward to the future updates of this software.

Star Trek: Resurgence

• Original Release: 2023
• Developer: Dramatic Labs
• Publisher: Burner House
• Platform: Xbox One/Series, PS4/PS5, PC

Star Trek: Resurgence is a story-based “choose your own adventure” type game from Dramatic Labs, a developer made out of some ex-Telltale staff, who have been doing this kind of game for a while.

While a few known characters do show up, this game is focused on a unique cast of characters on the science ship, the USS Resolute. You play as two members of the crew: Jara Rydek, the ships new first officer, and Carter Diaz, a lower decks engineering crewman. They’re both very likable, and the dialogue options let you have some sway over their personalities – for example, Jara can choose to fully trust her captain, or can fight to do what she thinks is right.

The rest of the crew range from likable to immediate dislike but grows on you (or you end up feeling sorry for them). Most of them are well written (the only exception is the the tactical officer, who goes psycho later on), with their characters flaws serving the story and your choices in some manner. the ship suffered a disaster before Jara was brought back on board, so you have to deal with the comradery that came out of that experience.

Due to an intense ion storm, the Resolute was picked to transport an Ambassador to the Hotari system, where previously peaceful races, the brutish Hotari and the militaristic Alydians, both species with great designs that look like something that could still be achieved in live action. The Alydians have provided technology to the Hotari, while also using them as a labour face to mine the dilithium rich moon of Hotari Prime. However, this is interrupted by the emergence of an ancient and powerful civilization. I’ll leave it there for details of the story, but it was one that I loved the entire way through the game, with lots of stunning locations that you get to visit.

As for the gameplay, it changes a lot throughout the course of the game to meet the scene’s requirements. Most of it is spent on foot, walking around then pressing dialogue options and quick time events when prompted. Sometimes you’ll have to use your tricorder to scan, swapping between different modes to further analyse components, or a phaser, which is used for non-combat reasons during the walking sections.

There are some shooting sections, but in those you’re behind cover (and can occasionally swap cover), popping out to take shots. Other action sequences include piloting a shuttle and stealth sections. Some parts I absolutely loved was interacting with consoles, including a brilliant segment where you get to use the transporter, having to counter interference. It’s a really great depiction of what a transporter chief actually does during difficult transports.

While the gameplay itself is simple, it all helps the game feel immersive and works really well with the world. I’ve always disliked Telltale’s story games due to a “stiffness” about them that Resurgence manages to avoid. It’s a joy to experience the Star Trek Universe in this way and there are some meaningful references to a few episodes – even using a very disliked episode of The Next Generation in a great way.

I absolutely loved my first playthrough of Resurgence. The characters and story are extremely enjoyable, with lots of great different moments. The characters definitely make the game and I think it helps that this isn’t the “best” ship in the fleet – it gives a wonderful insight into Starfleet. You’ll also be given insight into how each character reacts to your choices, showing approval, disapproval or indifference, and I do like that it mentions that the character is a bit confused if you do flip-flop.

I did play again immediately after and the flaws of the game do show up – although it’s more the flaws of the genre. As the main story beats have to be consistent, some of the choices don’t matter. Plenty of them make smaller changes, including which characters you interact with, some character deaths or injuries and how some of them treat the main two. If you did your second playthrough after a break, it would be a better experience. Although I do think that the game should be better at punishing you – some of the actions you take can be pretty bad, but the consequences are very mild.

Resurgence is a brilliant game that captures Star Trek extremely well. It has engaging story and characters, and the gameplay, while simple, helps to compliment it all. It’s a wonderful way to experience a slice of the Star Trek universe.

Star Trek Cryptic

• Original Release: 2023
• Developer: Funko
• Publisher: Funko
• Platform: Board Game

From the makers of the worst merchandise in existence comes an escape room-like Star Trek board game where you work through three missions of puzzles.

From the few components you can see when you open the box (most parts are sealed inside envelopes), you can tell a lot of effort has gone into it. The tricorder looks great – with an ominous slot to plug in different kinds of filters – and the isolinear chips have texture to them. Also included is a big book with all the puzzles, a pen, a clear plastic sheet and merit points, which you get awarded as you complete puzzles. If you pull the insert out, you’ll also discover that the reverse is an engineering panel.

While this game is similar to escape room games, there are a few major differences. The puzzles are very linear, you go through the book a page at a time completing each one. Each puzzle also lists out which components are needed for the puzzle, which does take away one element of the puzzles as there’s no noticing that a mark on the box is important, it just tells you to use that part of the box. Another change is that many escape room games have a way to show that the answer is wrong without giving you the correct answer, while in this, you just proceed without collecting any merit points. Finally, there’s no timer to judge how well you do, so you can take your time to think.

While the methods of the puzzles are varied, they boil down to two types. One is more of a drawing challenge than a brain teaser. You use the clear sheet and place it over an image, drawing a couple of key locations. You then have to move the sheet away from the image (one market length apart) and then draw the path, comparing it against the scoring side of the artwork and losing merit points if you mess up, They’re nice to begin with, but are very repetitive.

The other kind involve working out a word. These are much more varied as the puzzles themselves are completely different, using lots of different components, figuring out mazes and lots more. Unfortunately, the first one was a colour one, which was very difficult due to being colourblind. Each one of these also has a hint you can look up. Lots of these involve discovering letters, with you having to solve an anagram at the end – you just have to keep in mind that some of these words can be technobabble.

Stringing the puzzles together is a well written storyline following your journey across three ships. It helps to tie things together and makes it feel more like a journey than just a series of unrelated puzzles. It’s a very interesting game, but I feel like it could be better with an optional app where you can input answers and be told that you are wrong instead of just being given the answer – it’s no fun working hard on a puzzle, making a small mistake and not getting a second chance.

Star Trek: Away Missions
 

• Original Release: 2023
• Developer: Andrew Haught, Mike Haught, Phil Yates
• Publisher: Gale Force Nine
• Platform: Board Game
• Not played: Only had a brief go at a convention, haven’t bought the game yet.

Star Trek: Away Missions is a 1v1 miniatures skirmish game. The base game is Federation Vs Borg, but you can get expansions for Romulans and Klingons. The miniatures have a nice style to them and are coloured based on faction, so the are easy to identify and avoid the “sea of grey” issue that some miniatures games have (unless you have the skill and time to paint them yourself).

While almost every game on this type – including previous Star Trek games – are focused entirely on combat, this one is much more objective based. Combat is still important, especially as damage can disable specific abilities to hinder your opponent’s plans for their objectives – but a lot of scenarios are done in a way that combat isn’t very helpful, and some games may have no combat at all, which fits in with Star Trek really well.

It sounds like a well made Star Trek game with nice components and a “collectable card game” style deck system.

 

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So that's it for Star Trek games. There are two more due out this year - the board game Star Trek Discovery: Black Alert and the video game Star Trek Infinite. 

[Dcubed]

Congrats on reaching the end 

It's interesting to see just how many board and card games were made for Star Trek, not as many video games as you'd think.

Which one is your favourite overall, now that you've seen 'em all?

[Cube]

Just now, Dcubed said:

Congrats on reaching the end 

It's interesting to see just how many board and card games were made for Star Trek, not as many video games as you'd think.

Which one is your favourite overall, now that you've seen 'em all?

My top three games are:

Star Trek Bridge Commander

Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force 

Star Trek Resurgence. 

 

 

Bridge Commander will always hold a special place in my heart due to the amount of modding I did with it, and assisting other modders with their mods. Elite Force is simply a very solid FPS game with the great Voyager tour, and Resurgence is just a really well done plot with gameplay that keeps you engaged in it. 

[Dcubed]

Good choices, Elite Force and Bridge Commander are solid.

Though I think I'd still choose Starfleet Academy overall... which oddly enough ties in well with Resurgance with its FMV choose-your-own-adventure cutscenes, so perhaps our tastes aren't so misalligned 

[Cube]

Star Trek: Mirror Mayhem

• Original Release: 2023
• Developer: Paramount
• Publisher: Paramount
• Platform: Fortnite

This is an “event” within the video game Fortnite, a game I know so little about that I couldn’t even figure out how to change from the default skin. It’s essentially a custom mission and not fully affiliated with Fortnite, but is an official collaboration between Star Trek and Kid Cudi.

The game starts off with Captain Styles giving you a mission briefing, but it cuts off before it finishes. There’s a Mirror Universe Captain styles using a giant laser to harm a planet and you need to assist Captain Styles in fixing it. There are Starfleet insignias floating around, but collecting these does nothing. The mushrooms pulse to the music that is playing – which is songs from Kid Cudi’s album.

After moving forward a bit, you get to shoot some robot spiders with a ray gun. The weapons are just standard Fortnite weapons from what I can tell. You don’t have to kill them, though, as if you take too long the game will just warp you to the next section. I guess it’s to keep things in time with the music, but other than the pulsing mushrooms, it doesn’t do anything special with the music.

You’ll reach a Sonic-style grinding section. Here you push forward. I was expecting something to shoot or needing to hop between rails, but you just hold forward.

Then you get to play with a Back to the Future style hoverboard. I was in the middle of figuring out how to jump properly and move tricks when the game decided I was starting to have fun, said “no” and whisked me forward to the next section.

More spiders and a generator to destroy. If you’re on your own, you gent possibly get it to half health before you’re forced to move on. So there’s nothing to achieve at all.

Then you’re flying for absolutely no reason, flying through rings like Superman 64, although there’s no negatives for missing the rings.

Then to the “main” event. You watch Captain Styles perform Kid Cudi’s loosely Star Trek-inspired song. It’s quite long and boring. You do get a flare gun to fire a single firework. This is essentially all this is: a barely interactive music video, and it has to throw in random Starfleet insignias to collect to try and remind you that it has something to do with Star Trek.

After the mission is over, you go end up on a Star Trek themed multiplayer map, with some nice quite rooms. Here you can play a really dull multiplayer game called “prop hunt” where you pick an object to transform into and then hide, with others shooting random objects trying to kill those that are hiding. The level looks nice, but is pretty poor in layout and the bridge section is completely useless for this multiplayer game.

This is one of the worst Star Trek “games” I’ve experienced, especially as it doesn’t even let you play, it just jarringly warps you to the next section.

 

---

 

Star Trek Infinite is also out, but I'm waiting for some patches/mods/sales.

[Dcubed]

Talk about a bait n’ switch! I thought this was for STI.

Gimme me money back!

[darksnowman]

On 21/09/2023 at 1:18 PM, Cube said:

Star Trek Prodigy: Supernova

• Original Release: 2022
• Developer: Tessera Studios
• Publisher: Outright Games
• Platform: Xbox One/Series, PS4/5, Switch, PC

Set during episodes 10 and 11 of the TV show (not based on the season 1 finale of the same name), this game follows an adventure of the Prototstar crew as they try follow Starfleet’s principles of helping others. The story has them investigate a Dyson Sphere, where the star is being drained and on the verge of becoming supernova.

You play the game as Gwyn and Dal, either with another person in local co-op or swapping between them when you want when playing singleplayer. The game is aimed at kids and is heavily inspired by the LEGO games, although there’s no platforming in Supernova, but instead a bigger focus on puzzles.

The puzzles are the game’s highlight, and while a lot are simple, some of them, particularly later on, require a bit of thinking. The game introduces more elements as it goes on, then combines it with the previous stuff. Some puzzles also have a hidden extra puzzle on top of them, required for hunting down collectibles.

Combat is against Watchers, the machines from the show. There are different kinds of watchers, such as ones that shoot and ones that charge. They can also have other properties, such as being explosive upon defeat or having a healing circle. You can use melee attacks or shoot – with Gwyn being better up close and Dal from a distance – and you’ll need to dash a lot to avoid enemy attacks. Combat gets surprisingly frantic, considering the game is aimed at kids, but the variety in watchers unfortunately doesn’t stop it from becoming repetitive quite quickly. One of the missions also crashed a few times, requiring me to re-do some long stretches of it again.

The dialogue for the most part is pretty good. It captures the show well and hints at things that the show deals with in the second half of season 1, with some good interactions between the crew and Holo Janeway. The references, however, I did notice to be oddly specific to a degree I never noticed in the show, referencing planets and locations (such as “Romulus Death Valley”) as though they were second nature, even though they hadn’t heard of Romulus until at most a few weeks earlier.

Supernova feels like an ideal game for a parent and a child to play. It does drag on a bit as it’s repetitive, but it’s got a charming story and some interesting puzzles – including some where the two characters get split in time and the player in the past has to set things up for the player in the present.

Feared you might take this one to the cleaners. Interesting to read that it slots in specifically between two episodes in particular as I figured it would just be a boiled-down retread of the series story in general. The helping-each-other-across-time conceit came up in an episode so it's a good call to utilise the idea in a game.

It took me a bit to get used to the characters but once you do, it's a good show with some heart to it. Glad to read the game isn't a complete miss.

[sumo73]

On 3/29/2023 at 3:05 PM, Cube said:

Star Trek II Video Game Watch

• Original Release: 1983 (Possibly)
• Developer: Collins
• Publisher: Collins
• Original Platform: Electronic Handheld
• Not played: Too expensive to get second hand.

I’ve found conflicting information on when this was released, with some places stating 1992. I think it was released in the early 80s in Hong Kong.

Enemies orbit the Enterprise in a circle and you have to aim missiles to shoot them. The game also functions as a digital watch.

 

 

 

 

I had one of these back in the mid 80s so definitely not from 1992. The strap was plastic and I think it broke after some use over time. Sadly I don't have it now.