Someone To Drive You Home

Shout out to my Man Christopher McNeil for this fine recommendation but it was when I read this tweet by Anthony Burch of Destructoid fame that my ears really pricked up. Admittedly a bit of a annoying way to recommend playing something but Mr Burch uses hyperbole like it was going out of fashion. So with my two independent recommendations of a obscure title coming within mere days of each other I decided that I’d have to give Strange Adventures in Infinite Space atleast a shot.

I know what you’re thinking Strange Adventures in Infinite Space is one of the worst names for a game I’ve ever read too (it would be better if it abbreviated to something funny but nope just SAIS). The game was developed by Digital Eel which is a small Seattle based outfit. They have been developing niche games in the spirit that can only exist in the PC Independent scene since the early part of the 00’s (SAIS itself was developed in 2001). They have even picked up a few nominations from the IGF winning awards for Visual Art and Audio in some of the games released after SAIS. Cool right? That’s enough context for now I think.

So anyway after charging for this fine game from 2001 till 2009 the chaps at Digital Eel figure what the heck lets make it free! That sound you hear is my attention being got. At that price I’l try just about anything so I downloaded the game from shrapnel games website (they publish and distribute Digital Eels titles). The game is only just shy of 8MB, installed it fired her up and witness what can only be described as a visual mess.

Only slightly more decipherable than this

Turns out in 2001, when they made this game was developed, Dual screen setups where about as common as shooting bees out your hands so my first play through resembled that of a Jeff Minter game in visual style (the colors where all wrong). Its a simple fix just switch to one screen and it all works perfectly having run dual screens for a number of years its the first port of call to sort out screwy graphics in independent and triple A titles alike. Only reason I even mention it is incase you my lovely reader encounter the same problem.

Your 2D Map of the Stars

Oh yeah I was going to write about the game at some point too, well better late than never! So what’s it like? Well you know the fun of a roguelike game where every time you load the game it generates a new dungeon? Swap dungeon with smattering of galaxies and nebula and you’ve got it. You’re tasked with going out on a ten year mission to explore strange new worlds to seek out new lifeforms and stuff (yeah someone owes Gene Roddenberry a few bucks). The mechanics of space travel are basically clicking on any solar system will tell you how much of your precious ten years it will take to get there. So a few clicks and off you pop on a whirlwind tour of the a set of ten or so Solar systems in whatever order you like. Obstacles like black holes and nebula (which make your ship slow to a crawl with the standard engines) will mean that a small amount of route planning isn’t a bad idea. Once you arrive in a solar system your science team pick the most interest planet to investigate then its off to the next system.

Engaged in the gentlemanly art of Pew Pew

Initially you start off with a fairly slow propulsion system. Once you start exploring planets there is the chance of finding a faster drive or if you’re extremely lucky a hyperdrive which allows you to travel almost instantaneously,which sounds like a bit of a game ruining upgrade, well sure it does make it vastly easier to hit every solar system/planet, but if you warp to a galaxy where its star is going supernova the 14 days it takes to recharge your drive means you’ll die waiting for it to spool up(standard drives can outrun the blasts handily). This example is the crux of what makes SAIS such a fantastic game the way that every choice you make can go either way at the drop of a hat what was once a massive boon can leave you to face the business end of a supernova. When you travel to a planet that has a fleet stationed around it you’re given a rough estimation of the force composition as blips on a radar (pictured below) at which point you can choose to make contact , which may lead to combat or trade , or you can run away wasting the time you spent travelling to that solar system but saving you from a battle which could end you expedition prematurely.

Nice Race of Care Bears Or Lasery Flavored Death?

I could ramble on and on about how the mechanics of risk vs reward are so finely tuned in this game but I’m concious of spoiling too much. The fun is finding out all the interactions for yourself. You really need to try this out and if you play the game a good five to ten times in the one day( the average playtime from start to finish for myself is about 15 mins) and you’ve managed to get confidant enough to push all the difficulty sliders up to the maximum (another excellent design choice) .Then you should try some of the modifications that Digital Eel have graciously posted on their website. These fan made mods are some of the best I’ve seen outside of Half Life 2 they add extra content, new story elements & gameplay. Part of the reason they are so well done is that Digital Eel had the good sense to provide the tools to aid mod community which in turn helps there game become better. If I had to suggest the best two mods out the few ive tried it would be RED PLANET & Even Stranger Adventures in Infinite Space.

Red Planet adds alot of extra fun to SAIS

So hopefully I’ve managed to convinced a few of you to give this a shot and if you really enjoy it. There is a sequel called ”Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space” which I will have to try once I’m done messing around with SAIS. I would love to hear what the readers of SomeoneToDriveYouHome think of this so please have at it in the comments.

Mods For SAIS

Download The Full Game Here

Thesixtyone is a music site yeah ? That’s cool you’re thinking but why are you writing about it, well its got achievements! Combining two of my favourite passions listening to obscure bands and metagaming.  Thesixtyone doesn’t just allow you to listen to songs it also remembers what you’ve listened to and gives you Reputation (rep), think of rep as musical experience points, and every time you get to a milestone number of rep you are bumped up to a higher user level.

Well what does a higher level give you? You cry! well so far the only ability I know of is that you can heart a song more than once pushing it up the charts (extra rep is earned if a song you hearted is featured on the front page). At this point you guys are more than likely split into two camps those of you who think this sounds totally stupid and those who are intrigued and the real decider is if you don’t really like music that much this is a bit of a non starter for you. I thought it was a great way to find new music (I personally am always looking for new ways to find music that wouldn’t get any play in traditional media).

The website is super slick as well for instance it will load a whole page in the background so that the song you are listening to won’t be interrupted, this is achieved by some fancy pants AJAX computer nerds, it also allows you to download tracks or points you in the direction of a outlet where they can be bought from.

All in all a fairly interesting site it does have some basic social networking features you can friend people, send them messages, listen to their radio made up of tracks they have hearted. Nothing approaching Last.fm’s level of social integration but honestly not really fussed about that aspect (it’s all about the music man!).

Oh yeah and when you get there tell them Pedantic Sent you.