The PA Report - Artemis allows six people take the bridge of a starship, and tell their own story
Editorial
That dream comes at a price, as playing a game of Artemis requires some organization and a lot of hardware. You need up to six computers and a projector or large television for the full experience, as there are five stations that need to be controlled directly and a view screen for the captain. The captain’s job is to ask for information from the other five members of the crew, digest what it all means, look at data on the main view screen, and make command decisions. The game requires a quick wit and the ability to work well with others.
Artemis is $40, which is steep for an indie game with such basic graphics, but that license allows you to play the game on all six computers. There is no DRM, as the game’s creator simply asks you to abide by Wheaton’s Law.
It may not be easy to find five other people that want to pretend to fly a spaceship in this manner, but the game is like nothing else you’ve experienced once it’s set up correctly. Everyone tends to snap into their role and share the information coming to them from their station while interacting with the crew and captain. The Helm station flies the Artemis. The Weapons station controls your offensive powers. Engineering moves power and handles repairs. Science can scan enemy ships and share intel.
Communications allows you to interact with both enemy and friendly ships. Each station has information that must be shared with the rest of the crew to keep the ship healthy and flying.
Don’t worry about your hardware, as the game’s requirements are slim. Netbooks, old laptops, or even Macs running windows will handle the game just fine. There is something magical that takes place when you walk into a room and see the five stations and main view screen in action, showing information and allowing you to control all the aspects of your ships. In the right room with the lights low it’s easy to pretend you’re in space. This is LARPing for science fiction fans, with the exception that everything you want to work actually does. You’re not pretending to throw spells, you’re actually telling Engineering to send more power to the shields during a tense standoff.
You’ll do battle, and the combat is a tactical, naval affair, just like Star Trek. “My vision is directly inspired by when I was 18 and wanted to create a game that was just like the Star Trek bridge,” Thomas Robertson, the game’s creator, told the Penny Arcade Report. He coded the entirety of the game himself, despite pleas from the community to accept help.
The Engineering console
“I’m really flattered, but they don’t know what I know about how comfortable I am in my lone wolf skin,” Robertson said. “I look at the giant list [of features to implement] in front of me, but it’s not insurmountable, it’s not something I’m going to run screaming from. It’s just a lot of work. I don’t feel a ton of pressure to build a team.”
Artemis is an ambitious attempt to model the Star Trek experience many of us grew up with, but there is one aspect of the science fiction world Robertson is not interested in recreating: The story.
He brought up God of War, which was “beautifully scripted,” but he stated that “it’s crap. L.A. Noire and games like that are just movies trying hard to masquerade as video games. They’re losing sight of the fundamental thing that makes video games as an art form different than any other art form. Authorial control is no longer in the hands of the author, but in the hands of the player. That’s the way it should be.”
The game does come with missions, but they’re often basic, and provide little in the way of plot. You will find yourself in battle, or you may be asked to explore a bit of space. Things happen in the game, but the real narrative takes place in the physical room the players inhabit; the story is in how you interact with the game and each other. The latest version of Artemis even includes a station that can be manned by a game master to control the missions on the fly, just like a dungeon master adds monsters or story to a game of Dungeons and Dragons. Robertson isn’t interested in telling you a story, he wants to provide a game where you can act out your own story, or tell each other stories.
“People use the scripting system and they have an opportunity to tell stories. I’m not going to shoot them down, they’re bringing something to do the table, and something of worth, but I think video games are about telling your own story. Video games should focus on the mechanics and the verbs that allow the player to tell their own story,” he explained.
By splitting control into five stations and giving everyone something to do, Robertson has been able to create a new form of co-op gaming. Flying a ship to a specific location and firing on an enemy may be an easy task in most games, but in Artemis it requires the captain to say where to go, the Helm to fly the ship, the Science station to find the weakness in the enemy, and the Weapons station to load the munitions, aim, and fire.
“There’s no doubt that game design is verb building, I can run, I can jump, I can shoot,” Robertson said. “In my case I just made a game where those verbs are on different consoles and are handled by different people. You just have to provide enough verbs and have them be meaningful.”
***
This began as Star Trek but it will end as the 21st century equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons. D&D has long since been assimilated by the military industrial congressional complex and is now twattish pond scum fodder, whereas this LAN experience is getting back to the original concept of wargame / RPG that D&D leaped out of.
This is the death of tabletop RPGs, and for the most part that's a good thing. This will take a while to spread, but once it's hacked or ported to a fantasy setting- it's a whole new awesome paradigm!
Editorial
Photo Credit / Dabe Alan
Artemis allows six people take the bridge of a starship, and tell their own story
Artemis is designed for anyone who watched Star Trek and dreamed of what it would be like to sit on the bridge of a star ship.That dream comes at a price, as playing a game of Artemis requires some organization and a lot of hardware. You need up to six computers and a projector or large television for the full experience, as there are five stations that need to be controlled directly and a view screen for the captain. The captain’s job is to ask for information from the other five members of the crew, digest what it all means, look at data on the main view screen, and make command decisions. The game requires a quick wit and the ability to work well with others.
Artemis is $40, which is steep for an indie game with such basic graphics, but that license allows you to play the game on all six computers. There is no DRM, as the game’s creator simply asks you to abide by Wheaton’s Law.
It may not be easy to find five other people that want to pretend to fly a spaceship in this manner, but the game is like nothing else you’ve experienced once it’s set up correctly. Everyone tends to snap into their role and share the information coming to them from their station while interacting with the crew and captain. The Helm station flies the Artemis. The Weapons station controls your offensive powers. Engineering moves power and handles repairs. Science can scan enemy ships and share intel.
Communications allows you to interact with both enemy and friendly ships. Each station has information that must be shared with the rest of the crew to keep the ship healthy and flying.
Don’t worry about your hardware, as the game’s requirements are slim. Netbooks, old laptops, or even Macs running windows will handle the game just fine. There is something magical that takes place when you walk into a room and see the five stations and main view screen in action, showing information and allowing you to control all the aspects of your ships. In the right room with the lights low it’s easy to pretend you’re in space. This is LARPing for science fiction fans, with the exception that everything you want to work actually does. You’re not pretending to throw spells, you’re actually telling Engineering to send more power to the shields during a tense standoff.
You’ll do battle, and the combat is a tactical, naval affair, just like Star Trek. “My vision is directly inspired by when I was 18 and wanted to create a game that was just like the Star Trek bridge,” Thomas Robertson, the game’s creator, told the Penny Arcade Report. He coded the entirety of the game himself, despite pleas from the community to accept help.
The Engineering consoleArtemis is an ambitious attempt to model the Star Trek experience many of us grew up with, but there is one aspect of the science fiction world Robertson is not interested in recreating: The story.
The players create the story
“I have to rant here. I am totally with Will Wright, and the truth is that video games should not have narrative stories. That’s not why video games exist. Video games exist so people can have their own stories. [Artemis] is about creating and telling your own story,” Robertson said when I asked about the possibility of a central campaign in the game.He brought up God of War, which was “beautifully scripted,” but he stated that “it’s crap. L.A. Noire and games like that are just movies trying hard to masquerade as video games. They’re losing sight of the fundamental thing that makes video games as an art form different than any other art form. Authorial control is no longer in the hands of the author, but in the hands of the player. That’s the way it should be.”
The game does come with missions, but they’re often basic, and provide little in the way of plot. You will find yourself in battle, or you may be asked to explore a bit of space. Things happen in the game, but the real narrative takes place in the physical room the players inhabit; the story is in how you interact with the game and each other. The latest version of Artemis even includes a station that can be manned by a game master to control the missions on the fly, just like a dungeon master adds monsters or story to a game of Dungeons and Dragons. Robertson isn’t interested in telling you a story, he wants to provide a game where you can act out your own story, or tell each other stories.
“People use the scripting system and they have an opportunity to tell stories. I’m not going to shoot them down, they’re bringing something to do the table, and something of worth, but I think video games are about telling your own story. Video games should focus on the mechanics and the verbs that allow the player to tell their own story,” he explained.
By splitting control into five stations and giving everyone something to do, Robertson has been able to create a new form of co-op gaming. Flying a ship to a specific location and firing on an enemy may be an easy task in most games, but in Artemis it requires the captain to say where to go, the Helm to fly the ship, the Science station to find the weakness in the enemy, and the Weapons station to load the munitions, aim, and fire.
“There’s no doubt that game design is verb building, I can run, I can jump, I can shoot,” Robertson said. “In my case I just made a game where those verbs are on different consoles and are handled by different people. You just have to provide enough verbs and have them be meaningful.”
***
This began as Star Trek but it will end as the 21st century equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons. D&D has long since been assimilated by the military industrial congressional complex and is now twattish pond scum fodder, whereas this LAN experience is getting back to the original concept of wargame / RPG that D&D leaped out of.
This is the death of tabletop RPGs, and for the most part that's a good thing. This will take a while to spread, but once it's hacked or ported to a fantasy setting- it's a whole new awesome paradigm!
