Adventure Gamers - Forums

I’d like to talk about a really great space adventure - The Captain:
https://www.sysiac.com/thecaptain/

I was baffled to see that it’s not even in the games database here at AdventureGamers! How can it be added?

Below is a review that I wrote about it. Has anyone else played the game and is excited as I am about it?

This is a fantastic adventure game in many ways:
It’s a game that both captures the Star Trek magic and the feel of classic adventures. Every planet is beautiful and full of charming details. I found all puzzles to be logical rather than frustrating and they a joy to play through. Some puzzles, like one where you have to meditate and find your Zen, are even groundbreaking.

The writing of is of consistent high quality and is unexpectedly comical many times. A shuttle with an attitude(!) made me smile more than once. Those of you that have played the Space Quest games will feel right at home here. This game is vastly superior to the Space Quests though: no unexpected deaths, no cluttered inventories and some planets have quite touching, dramatic stories. Fenton Perth for example is a planet well worth visiting, more than once!

Besides Fenton Perth, there are a plethora of planets that you will want to visit more than once. Because The Captain is one of very few games that do choice and consequence right. Like the game “80 days”, you travel on a map, visit places and experience relatively self contained events. This makes your choices very visual. You choose to visit some planets, but might have to skip others to save time. For many other games it has been a challenge to visualise choices. Some games (Witcher 2 for example) can have choices that completely alter the game without the player realising. Other games, like many from Telltale, give an illusion of choice where seemingly important choices don’t change the outcome very much. Another good design choice in the Captain is to provide so called “ending cards”. They serve two purposes: you can play the ending card to fast forward through parts of the game in a replay. The other purpose is to show the player where there is more content to be found and where you might want to go when replaying the game.

Not sure if I can find anything bad about The Captain really. It even has a surprisingly deep turn based battle system. Battles are completely optional but I found myself spending many hours killing pirates and upgrading my ship. There have been a few minor bugs but they have been promptly fixed by the devs. A fun fact is that this massive game was made by two friends over a period of five years!

Highly recommended, and well worth the full price!

Sorry for reviving this thread but I was wondering if Adventure gamers had done a review of The Captain.

rtrooney - 27 February 2022 07:39 PM

It think the problem is that the game, at least from the posted trailer I watched, is more an RPG than Adventure. Nothing wrong with that. But the forum is titled Adventure Gamers, not RPG Gamers. So, despite my dislike of retro graphics, it looks like it might be a nice game. Just not an adventure game.

Having finished the game, I’d say it’s very much a point and click adventure game. Like Quest for Glory, Brok, Hero U, it’s an hybrid with some turn-based strategy sequences but whenever the ship lands on a planet, it’s purely a point and click game and that’s around 90% of the game.

From my playthrough, it seems almost always possible to avoid fighting by solving puzzles instead.

I’d say in general, compared to most Quest for Glory inspired games, I’d say it’s even more adventure focused. 

It’s really an excellent game for anyone who loves science fiction or loves Star Trek in particular. It captures the feeling of the original star trek series of TNG in a way no other game has ever done before. Better than Star Trek: 25th Anniversary and Star Trek: Judgment Rites.

I do feel that their marketing did deemphasize the point and click aspect. I guess it’s a a symptom of the times when games like this one try not to highlight too much that they are point and clicks.

I’ve had this game recommended to me a lot, it seems really good, I should play it soon.

Charophycean - 09 October 2022 08:42 PM

giom - 09 October 2022 01:40 PM

It’s really an excellent game for anyone who loves science fiction or loves Star Trek in particular. It captures the feeling of the original star trek series of TNG in a way no other game has ever done before. Better than Star Trek: 25th Anniversary and Star Trek: Judgment Rites.

That is high praise indeed. Especially since those games captured Star Trek better than a lot of Star Trek - at least, any of the TV series or movies past 2000.

That’s exactly what I was thinking of when I read the comment.
And the comment doesn’t even say adventure games, but better than all official Star Trek games and Star Trek based other games if I read it right!

If that’s true, then it’s a great game indeed.

Why is this game better than other Star Trek based adventure games, like Warp Frontier, for instance?

So, I haven’t played warp frontier yet, looking forward to try it.

I absolutely loved both Star Trek: 25th Anniversary and Star Trek: Judgment Rites so, yes when I said that, it’s really high praise in my opinion.

It was free not too long ago in Epic, so if you have some free time and received it for free, definitely recommend just trying it