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Ships don't use fuel for their rocket thrusters at the moment, and there's some debate as to if that will happen, and if it does, how. So, on that note, what are you keeping from the original, and is there anything that you're jettisoning?īrian Ronald: At the moment, Frontier is still our primary guide to what we'd like to see. I'd think the hardest part of remaking a game is capturing the original's feeling. It's more of a framework for player expression than anything. RPS: For me, everything else complicated. I want it to be a good game of course, but its relevance in a commercial, market-oriented sense is, well, not very relevant. For me, I work on it because I enjoy working on it. As a non-commercial project, the driving forces are somewhat different from the games you mention. Pioneer feels like real space: I can orbit the moon and watch the Earth rise from the horizon planets and solar systems feel realistically vast (because they are realistically vast). I enjoyed Freelancer a lot, but it certainly has a different feel to Frontier and to Pioneer. John Bartholomew: There's plenty of room for variation within the genre, and compared with more mainstream genres (for example, first person shooters) the design space hasn't even been scratched. I always felt there was something wonderful about the old games simulating an entire galaxy. As few arbitrary restrictions as possible. Not hundreds of systems or dozens of sectors, but billions and billions of stars and millions and millions of sectors, and trillions of worlds to explore. Except Frontier.ĭan Bennett: An entire galaxy modelled rather accurately. And even when compared to commercial efforts, you'd be hard pressed to find a single player experience with this mix of simplicity and gigantic scope. Kimmo Kotajärvi: The free-ness is indeed remarkable. Pioneer will never become abandonware as long as there is any interest, because there will always be the freedom to pick it up and continue its development. SPACE PIONEER SWITCH REVIEW LICENSEIts license allows it to be improved, shared, ported to other systems. ?īrian Ronald: I used to work on the X games! Pioneer is free. RPS: So what relevance does Frontier/Pioneer still have in a world with games like X, Eve, Freelancer. SPACE PIONEER SWITCH REVIEW SERIESI worked with Egosoft on the X series because there was nothing forthcoming from Frontier Developments to satisfy my addiction. And as a kid I played FFE a lot round at a friend's house: he made the mistake of lending me his copy and I still have it.īrian Ronald: I joined this project late. JJFFE, the wonderful version by John Jordan, kept me sane when I used to live in Spain with no internet connection. SPACE PIONEER SWITCH REVIEW SIMULATORAnything else is either a true simulator (not a game) or not really about space at all, since space is about vast open spaces, limitless possibilities and incredible speeds. I found Pioneer when some random person linked it in a RPS comment thread back in 2010, so thanks, random person!ĭan Bennett: (Warning: Rose-tinted glasses are being worn at this point) FFE and Frontier are the only true space games as far as I am concerned. Frontier and FFE had a really nice balance of realism and fun. Kimmo Kotajärvi: I've traditionally thought of myself as a big space sim fan, but recently I have felt that the games focus too much on economics, multiplayer or just don't have that "spacey" feeling to them. I knew Tom Morton on Usenet back then when I found Pioneer, it was with a jolt of recognition at his name. After that there didn't seem to be much point trying to coerce the original to do my bidding when I could have something better!īrian Ronald: Frontier helped my university studies go down the toilet. I was investigating porting JJFFE to the Nintendo DS so I could take Frontier on the road and stumbled upon Pioneer. Rob Norris: I lost months of my teenage years to Frontier, and nothing has ever come close. I think most of us have some history with the Frontier games, even if it is just having spent months or years playing them. ![]() Our other project lead, John Jordan, is the JJ in JJFFE. Our project founder is Tom Morton of GLFrontier fame, an OpenGL port of the original Frontier. I chatted to some of them, a group of passionate fans spread all over the globe, about how you build a universe. Every time I load it up it *feels* like the game I lost months to, but the development team aren't stopping at a perfect recreation: this is Frontier being reborn. SPACE PIONEER SWITCH REVIEW FREEPioneer is free sort-of remake of the classic space sim. As spectacular as the view was, my mind briefly turned to Elite II: Frontier, when I was up there in those stars, hunting and hauling. The moon's light dimmed and winked out, the sky filled with stars and I could see the edge of the Milky Way. I was sat on a beach on Zanzibar this summer, watching a lunar eclipse. ![]()
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