"what if NPF commanded the Enterprise?" ARTEMIS!

[Bells]

Let me draw a picture for you guys:

Imagine the following. 6 People band together to Drive and control a Big Spaceship in outer space. Their mission? Explorer and defend. Enemy ships are coming for the space stations and they must be stopped.

Now, your ship crew is made by 5 unique stations and takes 3-6 players:

Helm, Weapons, Science, Engineering, and Comms

Each player takes one station. Here is the catch... each player only sees THEIR OWN STATION, you have NO access to the others, and you can't see the screen of the other stations. And the captain has access to NONE, he only sees the outer space unless he requests to see something. Everything is about team collaboration and communication

The captain for example can request that Engineering put their stats on the main screen so that he may see it, and give orders and request action depending on what he is seeing, and the stations must comply in order to win... or not!

So if you are handling the weapons of the ship, that's all you have control over, Same with Comms, same with science, same with engineering.

The demo only let's you play with Helm and Weapons (which are the bare minimum requirements to play) so it doesn't take 6 players to experiment.

The game is made to be played in Lan mode with multiple players in the same room, however you CAN play over the internet by hosting a server. And communication is done with any voice com you have avaliable.

Am i the only one who thinks this is probably one of the best Game design ideas ever?

Well... how about execution? I dunno, i haven't played it...

You see, the game is "kinda free"... let me explain.

You can buy the game... it costs $40. Steep, specially because the game kinda looks like ass (to be honest, really...) Or as the developer points it out "7 bucks per player" HOWEVAH... you can get the game for free, by doing the following:

Here’s how to get a free copy of the full version of Artemis:

1) get the demo version.

2) get together with 2 friends (3 or more people in the same room) and play.

3) make a video of your crew playing. use your flipcam or cellphone or something.

4) also, take a still picture of your crew, to send to me later.

5) put the video on YouTube, for all the world to see. Be sure to put a link to artemis.eochu.com on the video notes.

6) Email me with the YouTube video link and attach the picture, so I know it’s you. My email is techbear@gmail.com

7) if you don’t get your full version in a few days, re-send the email. Check out our video playlist.

If you want your video to be featured near the top, bring your best game, dress up, adopt accents, dress up your bridge, do something (non-dangerous) to stand out. Thanks for playing!

So, the guy at least wants you to get into the spirits of the thing...

Also the game is DRM free and you can pass it along to as many pc's as you like... actually the only DRM the game has as the Honor System really, cause the creator asks you if a friend of yours picks a copy with you and then go on to make their own group, please ask them to support and buy the full version... which is kinda nice i suppose.

Many people have posted their Bridged on youtube while playing the game, which actually seems quite a lot of fun... even over the Internet this should be fun...

Now, let me share a few Screenshots from the website...









See? Told ya it looked like ass... also looks fun as hell.

So, here is my Pitch... would anybody like to play a game like this? What you guys think?

Here is the Website, give it a look

http://www.artemis.eochu.com

[Osterbaum]

I saw this on a recent Extra Credits episode. It piqued my interest, but I didn't want to get it without being sure I'd have people to play it with.

[Bells]

It's quite the novel idea, but one that would only work if you knew the people we're playing with, wouldn't be much fun to hop in a starship with 5 strangers hoping to work together.

Thing is, this concept can be applied to quite a few games and it would still look great... like being a crew of a Submarine, or piloting a huge mech ( Megazord? ) all requiring collaboration and team effort... it's a truly novel idea.

[Aerozord]

Originally Posted by Osterbaum

I saw this on a recent Extra Credits episode. It piqued my interest, but I didn't want to get it without being sure I'd have people to play it with.

ditto. I have trouble getting enough people together something simple like a board game or a RPG, let alone something requiring bringing over a computer and monitor.

Though if I did (and had the cash) yea I'd play this in a second even if it wasn't that good I want to encourage such innovative ideas.

[Bells]

That's the type of game that could benefit of a kickstarter. Not necessarily from the cash point of view, more from the Media attention point of view.

It's good that there is an option to play Online, because setting up a 6 player Lan can be really cumbersome, but as a concept? it's really something that can be brought forward... kinda like how Portal was an indie game that got picked up and turned into what it is.

[Doc ock rokc]

Heres an idea most if not all of us have mics and hamaci we could do a demo over that and I could use a recording program to get our voices, then animate the entire thing on Source Filmmaker.

[Bells]

...that's probably one of the most brilliant things i've ever heard.

But we don't even have to use Hamachi, just use Steam voice chat. That can be recorded too, right?
Hell, with little effort and you can even record the gameplay itself and add some game screen on the video for authenticity... really could be fun!


Also, and this is just me going on a tangent here... but know what could make this game more accessible ? Maybe more fun?

Instead of having to install 6 copies of the game, if you could play in just one copy, one pc and have multiple inputs and outputs...

I remember this old "asteroids" Pc game that lets you play with 4 players simultaneously on screen, every player using the same keyboard, it's nuts! But each player only needs 5 keys, 4 for steering and 1 for shooting... so it's doable.

What i thought is that a single copy of the game could take input from multiple Keyboards and mouse (USB FTW) and more than that, you add in Bluetooth and you can use multiple screens (Tv, Monitors...) or even Phones and tablets (with a small lan app?) as the other player's screens... since they are all very basic and simplistic it would'nt be overly taxing on the System... it's not like the WiiU or anything... is kinda like emulating 5 NES games and 1 PSx game on the same system at the same time... it's not going to cook your processor...

Anyway, just a thought... but it could certainly improve on gaming options, specially to allow Drop-in/out of players both online and offline.