Adaptation of Star Trek Universe in Games: A Look at Challenges and Successes, Schemes and Mind Maps of Technology

Download Adaptation of Star Trek Universe in Games: A Look at Challenges and Successes and more Schemes and Mind Maps Technology in PDF only on Docsity! Adaptive harmonics: Star Trek’s Universe and Galaxy of Games By Douglas Brown In the rapidly growing academic discipline of games studies, we talk about Trek a lot. This may seem surprising since, though the franchise has had many game adaptations, none are considered outstanding, much less classics. So we consider the show's use of games and game-like experiences as emblematic of many of the pleasures, problems, and possibilities the modern games industry grapples with. The most frequent topic of discussion is immersion, where Janet Murray'si reading of a Voyagerii scene leads in to her appreciation of the games Trek characters constantly play in the holodeck, which has become an abiding metaphor when we try to define games and how they work. It’s less the show or its games, rather the themes and ideas which the fiction made accessible, that we call upon when analysing modern videogames. Here, I'll consider the unique challenges and opportunities for adaptation to the medium of games which the franchise raises, and examine various attempts at adaptation. The show and its fan community subtly influenced the medium of games by adapting the themes and concepts which Trek introduced to suit the purposes of the medium rather than production of outstanding licensed games. This is perhaps best revealed in the sphere of unlicensed/fan-created games inspired by Trek. Trek's distinctive approach to games was mostly inclusive, certainly ahead of its time, especially considering the prevailing climate of thought and reception as to games during the series’ production. Digital Games then were perceived as little more than children's' toys or simple distractions. Trek and its holodeck offered up a future where games were all- encompassing social and serious relaxation activities. Simultaneously, the perceived dangers of video game-addiction then prevalent are explored in TNGiii, when aliens use an addictive game to try and take over the Enterprise. Aside from the iconic three-dimensional chess set which appears in several episodes, games featured in the show have not been adapted for play in real life, although the rhetoric of the holodeck is frequently deployed by those trying to sell immersive new gaming technology or the dream of virtual reality gaming. The galaxy of Star Trek Games - Trek has been adapted into well over 100 digital games, the earliest licensed adaptations appearing in the 1980s. Within this substantial body of work can be found the best and worst of franchise adaptation. While many titles merely leverage the branding of the show to increase their reach, some seized the opportunity to either employ Trek as viable inspiration for adaptation or exploit the additional fan-base offered by the license to put an innovative idea in front of a mass audience, which otherwise might not have been receptive. That there is no single outstanding licensed Trek title isn’t particularly unusual. Franchise game adaptations are notorious for their generally low quality and short-term content-driven marketing. Even those game adaptations which derive from a franchise built from the ground up to accommodate trans-media storytelling such as The Matrix do not produce top quality games. It’s a rare title indeed that achieves the approval of gaming critics while maintaining the essence of the originator fiction without also alienating fans who are not themselves part of the gaming sub-culture. Arguably, only one game in the similarly sizable Star Wars franchise is considered a classic - Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republiciv. Martin Picard argues of Star Wars that: “video games have been used for two main purposes: the recreation of the most memorable scenes from the trilogies (to be played by their fans), combined with the blank canvas offered by the space exploration setting allows the games to slot into the series’ continuity; many do so explicitly through the use of specific star-dates. The show’s enduring themes of individual responsibility, teamwork, and courage in adversity prove more difficult to capture in a single-player videogame. As Elizabeth Thomas, writing about the franchise’s 'soul,' puts it: "Across all of the series and films, the stories of Star Trek stressed teamwork and co-operation, something that America was ready for in the 1960s and that it has yet to grow weary of."xA game must acknowledge these elements - what Jenkinsxi defined as the 'Star Trek meta-text' - while providing a fun, convincing simulation to capture the show’s mood. Another feature of videogame adaptation isolated by Krzywinska and Brownxii can be seen in the adaptation of Trek games. Many post-mortems or anecdotal accounts of development criticise Paramount as license holders who understood their product but perhaps didn't understand games. Steve Ritchie's anecdote of acquiring the rights for TNG’s pinball tablexiii proves emblematic: ‘Getting the rights to do 'Star Trek: Next Generation' was also a challenge...Because they didn't want us to use any guns in the game. I said 'Hey, wait a minute, when the Enterprise is provoked, they use photon torpedoes.' I didn't set out to make them space pirates from hell, I just wanted to represent the show accurately in my game. I told them that I had been a fan of the series all my life, and I would never violate the Prime Directive ... and they came around.’xiv Understandably, Paramount frequently sought to protect their IP from being watered down with too much violence or a weak, uncertain storyline. This may explain why many of the adventure games and 'bridge commander' games suffer from inflexible narratives; even if multiple approaches to a situation can be considered or enacted by players, there is generally only one correct route through the text. Selecting any path other than the closest to the canonical paradigm results in near-instant death. The more successful licensed titles were mainly released in 2000, considerably later on in the franchise’s development, when Paramount/CBS were more experienced in liaising with game developers. Paramount's approach to licensing was unusual in that it offered rights to many companies simultaneously rather than settling upon a coherent/exclusive deal with a single games publisher. This strategy, combined with multiple different licenses for different elements of the franchise being available,xv de-stabilised the development process, leading to lawsuits between game publishers Interplay and Activision when both held different elements of the same license. By contrast, the SW games, though developed by different studios, were all published through Lucasarts, and as such better able to be kept consistent in terms of how the license was applied. Licensed Star Trek Games: Among those that take the ‘designed for gamers’ approach to the split-audience are some of the more critically successful Trek games, including Star Trek Voyager: Elite Forcexvi, which holds the highest meta-critic rating of the licensed titlesxvii. A first-person- shooter game, it casts the player as a new character, Ensign Munro, the game approximates an episode rather than a spin-off, using pre-rendered cut-scene material like the Voyager opening credits sequence (with programmers and game designers replacing the usual names). Dialogue recorded by the show’s cast and a graphical user interface designed around the aesthetics of Trek combine with high-quality graphics and gameplay, resulting in a solid game featuring a Trek plot. It's easy to see why this product proved successful, since it uses a proven format and adapts the IP to fit the genre. The approach taken to adaptation: the needs of the game are always put before the demands of the franchise when the two conflict. Here, for the example, the Borg do adapt to become immune to weapons yet are easily dispatched using an infinity modulator which the player begins the game with. While this holds true to Voyager’s plotline, it doesn't gel with how the Borg are generally portrayed. They lose the fearsomeness generally associated with their appearance. There's certainly more shooting in this game than even the most action-packed Trek episode or movie. Yet the attention to detail in terms of set and ship-design is clear; the game exploits the less action-heavy moments to make the most of the show’s space by having the player walk to the transporter room themselves before missions and soak up the ambience rather than simply throw them into the next tranche of action via a 'loading' screen. Several missions are set aboard an invaded Voyager itself to further enhance this sense of belonging, leveraging the crucial element of familiar space described by Brown and Krzywinska when they discuss Lord of The Rings Online's process of adaptation and reference the map as a transitional artefact facilitating adaptationxviii. A critical and commercial success, Elite Force offered few innovative qualities. A well-executed example of the most popular videogame genre, it did its job and effectively adapted the show’s trappings. But harmony of gameplay and source material remained beyond its scope. This approach is true of many other titles which used the license as a way to distinguish their own take on a popular genre from the competition. Another common genre for Trek adaptation is the space strategy game. A rare instance of an outstanding licensed board game which remoulded a genre falls into this category. Star Fleet Battlesxix, developed mechanics found in naval war-games around the Trek ships and weapons technology. In adapting this element of the show, Star Fleet Battles capitalized on the multitude of different variables a starship comprises to deepen and diversify the play of the war-game, simultaneously providing fans with substantial amounts of information on the ships. Also provided is a concrete use for all the data and minutiae of the stations personally is necessary to co-ordinate successful missions. Opportunities for tactical action and difficult or non-violent decisions from the show also occur in the game. Moments where proving one’s peaceful intentions requires a player to drop the ship's shields are memorable, the vulnerability this affords is more keenly felt in the context of a game than in the show. There is a balance, if not often a true choice, between action and more peaceful exploration. As such, these games present perhaps the most harmonious licensed adaptation. But while the range of unlicensed Trek games offers fewer titles, it represents a broader range of adaptive approaches. Unlicensed Star Trek Games Unlicensed adaptations date from long before the earliest licensed titles were produced, offering testament to the strong drive computer-literate fans feel to simulate elements. Early examples on many of the earliest computer systems paid homage to Trek. The multiplayer space combat game Netrekxxvii, itself an evolution and expansion on arguably the first computer game, Spacewar xxviii , lays claim to a host of innovations, many now commonplace features amongst games today. Arguably the first game to be played as an e- sport, this rates as the first team-game to be played remotely over the internet, allowing for logging in and persistent 'character' accounts in both competitive and co-operative multiplayer modes. Without Netrek's innovations, modern online gaming might look different, in part because it has been cited to break patent disputes. As a Trek inspired game, Netrek holds an important position in the history of the medium. Compared to other early Trek games, it features a unique angle on adaptation. The show’s shared semiotic space made many of these games popular. To fans working with new technology, it’d clear how a Klingon or Romulan ship will behave or be designed. It's easy to know how shields, phasers, and photon torpedoes will work because their properties are distinct and consistent in the show and can carry over. This shared-reference-space also enabled opportunities for articulating communication via computer. It's difficult to imagine a time before the ubiquity of online communication, yet important to give the games which heralded these innovations their due. Netrek used Trek’s semiotics to achieve this, easing players into this new form of online communication via the familiar elements of hails and distress signals. These seemed as 'natural' to a Trek fan as the phasers and photon torpedoes. The modern games industry is broad enough to allow scope for ‘indie’ game development by teams with smaller scale budgets, ambitions, and sharper focus than the most licensed titles. In this arena, further unlicensed Trek references and inspirations can be found. Award winning indie game FTL xxix takes visual inspiration from diverse sci-fi, but its gameplay is geared around the same element of Trek which Star Fleet Battles had taken up 40 years previously: The re-routing of limited power in relationship to the different systems of a spacecraft. The focus on this mechanic given by FTL's limited scope created an environment where the sorts of decisions and tactics featured in episodes can emerge organically simply by allowing the players stark choices which the same system affords in the show. Re-routing power from life-support to the shields to protect the ship over its crew, or not being able to find power to return an away-team from an enemy vessel, are examples of chaotic, unfolding moments of drama created procedurally. These align closely with the series - much more-so than the complex, wide-scale combat of the licensed space strategy games. Another indie Trek-inspired game is unlike any of the licensed games. Redshirtxxx embodies the player not as a command and agency-wielding starship officer but as one of the anonymous crew-members whose role is always to die in place of a primary character. Redshirt's gameplay is about interacting with other people and living life on a distant space- station, achieved through a satirical take on social media, ‘Spacebook’. Its characters include intentionally poorly-disguised references to Vulcans and Ferengi, while puns or nods to the show are constant during gameplay. This is the only Trek-inspired game which plays on the long-form character-relationship angle of the Trek concept, much as DS9 did in its serial approach to episode design and story arcs, focusing in on a different core Trek theme defined by Thomas: "Trek Fans, along with Gene Rodenberry, explored the classic oppositions between individual and society, reason and emotion, common sense and technology, humans and aliens"xxxi. In Redshirt, away missions are not enjoyable adventure romps but terrifying situations where friends get killed. Unlike comic takes on the franchise such as the Space Quest series published by Sierra in the 1990’s, Redshirt makes serious points about fans and social media in its mechanics while also revealing elements of the show which have been ignored by licensed games despite their potential, all the while lovingly sending up the franchise. To return to Jenkinsxxxii and types of fan-reading, this game aligns with those who make the personal and relationship elements of the show their touchstone. Other indie games, like FTL and Redshirt, offer testaments that a license and the visual trappings of the show is not the only way to successfully adapt Trek and its themes. The most ambitious/unusual Trek-inspired game, also perhaps the most harmonious, was built within this 'indie' space- if at a fringe where making actual profit from game designs appears an afterthought. Developed by a single fan, Artemis – Spaceship Bridge Simulatorxxxiii does not have a license from CBS. Its ships fire nuclear warheads instead of photon torpedoes and Trek’s formal semiotics are out-of-bounds. However, by locating such semiotics fully within gameplay, Artemis functions as a truer adaptation than high-budget licensed ‘bridge simulation’ games. Eschewing the traditional development model, Artemis arrives from fans. Originally a hobby-project by an experienced game designer who soliciting donations, it eventually sold Brown, Douglas and Krzywinska, Tanya. "Following in the footsteps of fellowship: Text, translation, tolkeinisation" in Ringbearers: Lord of the Rings Online as Intertextual Narrative, edited by Tanya Krzywinska, Esther Maccallum-Stewart and Justin Parsler. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011. Crawford, Chris. Chris Crawford on Game Design. Boston: New Riders, 2003. Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press, 2006. Jenkins, Henry. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture New York: Routledge, 1992. Jenkins, Henry and Tulloch, John. Science Fiction Audiences. New York: Routledge, 1995. Joseph, Franz. Star Fleet Technical Manual New York: Ballantine Books, 1975. Murray, Janet. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. Boston: The MIT Press, 1998. Picard, Martin "Video games and their relationship with other media" in. The Video Game Explosion – A History from Pong to Playstation and beyond edited by Mark Wolf. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2008. Smith, Danielle., 2005. The original Pinball Wizard Hollister Free Lance July 19th, 2005. [Online] Available at: <http://archive.today/g8TFz> [Accessed 8 August 2014] Thomas, Elizabeth. "Live Long and prosper: how fans made Star Trek a cultural phenomenon" in Fan Phenomena - Star Trek edited by Bruce Drushel. Bristol: Intellect Books, 2013 Meer, Alec., 2010. Boldly Going: Artemis’ Thomas Robertson Rock Paper Shotgun, November 1st, 2010. [Online] Available at: <http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/11/01/boldly-going-artemis-thomas-roberston/> [Accessed 8 August 2014] i Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck Ch.1 ii "Persistence of Vision" (Voyager, season 2, episode 8; first broadcast October 30th, 1995). iii "The Game" (TNG,season 5, episode 6; first broadcast October 28th, 1991), iv Star Wars - Knights of the Old Republic - Bioware, Xbox, 2003 v Picard, "Video games and their relationship with other media" p.299 vi Krzywinska and Brown "Movie-Games and Game-Movies : Towards an Aesthetics of Transmediality" vii Crawford, Chris Crawford on Game Design, p.172 viii Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide ix Star Trek : Expeditions - Wizkids, Board Game, 2011 x Thomas "Live Long and prosper " p.16 xi Jenkins, Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture xii Krzywinska and Brown "Movie-Games and Game-Movies : Towards an Aesthetics of Transmediality" xiii Star Trek: The Next Generation – Williams Electronics, Pinball Table, 1993 xiv Smith, 'The Original Pinball Wizard' xv As a case in point, the Star Fleet Battles board game series remains reliant on a single license given by the author of the Starfleet Technical Manual (Joseph, 1975) and technically not allowed to refer to the show’s title, universe, or characters, although this situation was eventually clarified by Paramount. xvi Star Trek Voyager – Elite Force – Raven Software, PC, 2000 xvii A rating of 86/100, aggregated from 25 professional reviews. Available at <http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/star-trek-voyager-elite-force> [Accessed 8 August 2014] xviii Brown and Krzywinska., "Following in the footsteps of fellowship: Text, translation, tolkeinisation" xix Star Fleet Battles - Task Force Games, Board Game, 1979 xx Star Trek: Starfleet Command – Interplay, PC, 1999 xxi Jenkins Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture p.97 xxii Star Trek 25th Anniversary - Interplay, PC, 1992 xxiii Star Trek Online - Cryptic Studios, PC, 2010 xxiv Star Trek - Starfleet Academy - Interplay, PC, 1997 xxv Star Trek – Bridge Commander - Totally Games, PC, 2002 xxvi Star Trek: The Rebel Universe - Firebird Software, Atari ST, 1987 xxvii Netrek - Kevin Smith & Scott Silvey, PC, 1988 xxviii Spacewar - Steve Russell, PDP-1, 1962 xxix FTL – Faster Than Light - Subset Games, PC, 2012 xxx Redshirt – The Tiniest Shark, PC, 2013 xxxi Thomas "Live Long and prosper " p.19 xxxii Jenkins, Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture p.95 xxxiii Artemis – Spaceship Bridge Simulator – Thomas Roberts, PC, 2010 xxxiv Meer, 'Boldly Going: Artemis’ Thomas Robertson'