Protostar: War on the Frontier (DOS)

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Description

An alien race known as the Skeetch is threatening humanity and the peace in the entire galaxy. The human organization Newfront has launched a Protostar Initiative in an attempt to convince four alien races to join the humans in their battle against the Skeetch.

Protostar: War on the Frontier is a space trading/exploration game in the same mold as Starflight and Star Control series. The player can scour planet surfaces for resources, discover new planets and creatures and name them, use diplomacy, barter and trade with aliens, wage war against hostile races, find new crew members, and improve the financial situation of human organizations.

Screenshots

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Alternate Titles

• "Starflight 3: Protostar" -- Working title

Part of the Following Groups

• Game Engine: TsAGE
• Genre: Simulation - Space trading and combat

User Reviews

The unofficial "Starflight 3". Has a lot of atmosphere, good music but is much too short.

-Condor- (9)

Critic Reviews

ASM (Aktueller Software Markt)	Jul, 1993	10 out of 12	83
Tilt	Jul, 1993	80 out of 100	80
ASM (Aktueller Software Markt)	Dec, 1993	3 out of 4	75
PC Player (Germany)	May, 1993	72 out of 100	72
Power Play	Jul, 1993	71 out of 100	71
Play Time	Jun, 1993	52 out of 100	52
All Game Guide	1998		50
PC Joker	Aug, 1993	48 out of 100	48
Computer Gaming World (CGW)	May, 1994		20
Computer Gaming World (CGW)	Aug, 1993	Unscored	Unscored

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Trivia

In the CD version's 'Making of' audio feature, Protostar designer Vas Nokhoudian elaborates on the Starflight 3 issue:

“Tsunami was contracting with Electronic Arts to make Starflight 3, a science fiction exploration game much like Protostar is today. Due to various business reasons, Tsunami was no longer making Starflight for Electronic Arts, but EA was gracious enough to let us go ahead and take what we had finished after about six months of work and turn that into something else. So that’s really where Protostar started.”

Some additional extracts of interest from the audio interview:

“We have basically taken an adventure engine and made it do combat, which means we didn’t use a lot of the system functions. There was a lot of coding and tweaking involved. It was one of the more ambitious efforts that’s been done here at Tsunami.” (John Hamilton, Lead Programmer)

“I don’t think there’s many other games where the characters really change expression right in front of you depending upon what you say, and that’s another feature which I think is really a breakthrough that we did in Protostar. We plan to do that in the future. Characters will change expression depending on what you do and what you say.” (Bryan Ellis, Lead Animator)

“The spaceships were made as models. [Art Director] John Shaw created and designed them, and then he would photograph them in the positions as they rotate. I scanned the snapshots and cleaned them up in the computer. They look very realistic.” (Bryan Ellis, Lead Animator)

…and in the category ‘Wishful Thinking’:

“Protostar 2 is going to have a much more streamlined interface; we’re trying to get rid of all the menus on the starship bridge. It’s going to continue the storyline and resolve all the current story elements. It’s going to include characters from the previous game, crew members from the previous game, species from the previous game. It will take place in a new region of space. And it’s going to have a lot more action in it!” (Vas Nokhoudian, Lead Designer)