Starship Titanic

This is one weird game. At first you may be turned off by graphics that are—let’s be honest—very ugly. The 3D design is awkward, confusing, and off-putting. It’s kind of a futuristic art deco meets pop art that was put through a very chonky compression algorithm. It didn’t turn out very well. But it was ambitious for the time, and you can see what they were going for, so just take a while to appreciate what you see and take it for what it is. Second, the controls. They’re... cryptic, and take some getting used to. This is an artifact of the time, when games would come with a big manual and expected you to use it. So read the manual. Oh, you did? And it was useless? Yeah, the manual for this game is pretty useless. It’s mostly nonsense, but it does have a few hints plus a map telling you where the elevators are. I spent half an hour trying to find the elevators on my own, so that would’ve helped. Third, the story. It’s all but nonexistent. If you want, you can read some in-game emails or the manual, but the characters known very little and if you really want the backstory you need to read the book by Terry Jones. It’s finally back in print, so check it out. But to be honest, none of it is going to help with the puzzles, which are frankly nonsensical. I don’t know how anyone would ever figure half of them out without going insane. Let’s face it. This game is a confusing mess. I feel like they tried to do too much, and realized it halfway through, and ended up releasing something that wasn’t quite finished. Nevertheless, you can see some hints of what it could have been, and it’s worth visiting this strange, lonely world created by this game just to glimpse that dream.

you're going to need a walkthrough

No doubt that this game is a certified classics! It is a true old-school, adventure point n'click and I mean that in a good and a bad way. I'll elaborate: The good way: Unique, large and beautifully crafted ship to explore, fun interactable characters that all carry the classic Douglas Adams humor, immersive and enjoyable music, an interesting story that makes you want to see it through to the end. The bad way: I doubt you'd be able to finish the game without the manual. I mean you can, it would just take you a loooong time and nerves of steel. Nothing is explained to you and the hints are, well...I couldn't find them. a Good portion of puzzles are nonsensical and most of the solutions can either be found via guide or by sheer luck and accident. The UI is confusing at the start. I wandered around trying to finish a puzzle only to realize it's because I wasn't using the correct interface. What, I have to go to another interface just to call an elevator?! A click wasn't obvious enough?! And, admittedly, the parrot that screamed over the talking characters and in my ear made me want to shove in into a Succ-U-Bot and leave it there to choke. Despite these outdated mechanics and flaws, I enjoyed this game and would recommend it to those who enjoy these types of old school adventure games.

[b]TLDR[/b] Strong Douglas Adams writing trapped inside a clunky, frustrating adventure game with opaque puzzles and terrible interface design. [8/20⭐, 10h🏅, 4/5💡] [b]Context[/b] Starship Titanic is a 1998 puzzle adventure set aboard a luxury starship whose controlling AI has gone haywire. The game was written by Douglas Adams (of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fame), and the humour and writing are strong. Unfortunately, it pains me to say that, both mechanically and structurally, this is an awful game. [b]Writing[/b] The premise is simple: humans built a luxurious starship staffed by humanoid AIs, something went wrong, the humans vanished, and the robots are malfunctioning. For unclear reasons, you are tasked with fixing the situation. What truly stands out is the writing. The game captures the absurdity of shallow AIs running a faux-luxury spaceship in a genuinely funny way (and for some reason, there is also a parrot). However, the mechanics undermine the writing. Conversations rely on a primitive text parser, which is far too limited to support meaningful exchanges, resulting in fragmented and often incoherent interactions. [b]Aesthetics[/b] The visuals are pre-rendered in that unmistakable late-90s CGI style — glossy, plastic, and uncanny — with occasional live-action human appearances. But given the malfunctioning robotic setting, this almost works in the game’s favour. The soundtrack successfully creates the illusion of opulent luxury. Voice acting is strong overall (with some Monty Python alumni involved), though to me the elevator operator and the restaurant waiter stand out the most. Unfortunately, the developers failed to account for the repetition involved in an exploration game: what could be a funny over-the-top interaction quickly becomes grating when revisited repeatedly (the parrot and the Succ-U-Bus being prime offenders). [b]Gameplay[/b] At its core, this is a traditional puzzle adventure: progress through dialogue, environmental puzzles, and item collection/combination. A twist is the text-based conversation system, replacing the multiple-choice dialogue common at the time. Unfortunately, the ambition far exceeds the execution. The interface is clunky, and the puzzles are poorly designed. The result is a game that is difficult for all the wrong reasons. Most of the time, there is no clear objective. The robots provide confusion more often than guidance. The text processor is particularly frustrating: you rarely know what to ask, and even when you do, responses depend on phrasing questions in very specific shapes. Worse, it’s often impossible to distinguish useful hints from nonsense. More than once I was sent chasing irrelevant rooms or hallucinated problems (one robot repeatedly insisted a room was “the most unimportant,” which proved to be false). Conversations frequently lack internal logic — in a single exchange, a bot might ask you to deal with a bomb and then immediately deny its existence. On top of that, each robot has three behavioural gauges affecting its functioning, adjusted through obscure and poorly explained mechanics. The puzzles themselves are a checklist of infamous adventure game tropes: pixel hunting without feedback, repetition-based sequences (the waiter confrontation), timing puzzles (the chicken and the parrot), and finicky movement interactions (the lemons). There is a localisation system that assigns every room an identifier, including your own cabin among dozens. While an interesting touch, it quickly becomes tedious. Reaching your room requires finding the correct elevator, selecting the correct floor, and then locating the correct door (and besides all the clicking, the floor number is typed manually). The interface is inconsistent: most interactions are point-and-click, except when they arbitrarily require menu navigation or typed input (like calling elevators, or controlling TV channels). To make matters worse, I encountered a game-breaking inconsistent state that forced a full restart. Because the game offers no clear direction, I had no way of knowing my save was corrupted until much later ([spoiler]for the record: the functions in your third-class stateroom are not supposed to block![/spoiler]). The game auto-saves occasionally, and you can save manually at any time. I don’t think there are (intended) deadend states. [b]Value[/b] It took me around 10h to finish the game, including a restart caused by the glitch. You cannot revisit earlier chapters, but you have 5 save slots available. There are no achievements — this is the original 1998 version. The game is barely playable, let alone repayable. [quote][i]For more puzzle-game reviews and curated lists check out the [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43326007-The-Clueless-Adventurer-Puzzle-Trove/]Puzzle Trove[/url].[/i][/quote]

Великолепный, но противоречивый образчик квестов 90х. Плюсы: Сценарий - Дуглас Адамс. Он же играет главную роль. Прям играет, да. Полностью озвученные персонажи с соответствующими шутками. Попугай, жрущий курицу или бомба, читающая тебе нотации в перерывах между обратным отчётом. Собственный движок с текстовым процессором, позволяющий общаться с персонажами словами. 7 часов записанных диалогов. Отлично работает на Win 10. Приличная графика, удобное управление. Минусы: Чтобы понять, что вообще требуется сделать, надо выслушать все 7 часов диалогов на английском и, поняв весь сопутствующий английский юмор пополам с сарказмом, выявить последовательность действий. То есть - невозможно. Думаю, учитывая изменившийся за 27 лет культурный контекст, даже носителям будет тяжело. В общем, без прохождения никак. Несмотря на то, что у игры есть русификация Фаргуса, версия из Стима с ней несовместима и из-за изменения файлов требует переписывания и перекомпиляции. А версия с русификацией не запускается на современных системах. В общем, без русика. Вердикт: Фанатам квестов 90х, фанатам английского юмора, фанатам Дугласа Адамса. Остальным можно пропускать.

A house for a starship. What a bargain! Thank you, Adams! 42/42

Certifiable classic, hands-down. Only... yet another title Steam hasn't made available for Linux? 'Got the game installed and it didn't have that dreaded "Available (only) for Windows" message, but it refuses to launch. I will not touch Orwell 10 or 11 with the proverbial 40-foot pole so... waiting. But yeah, 'played this roughly 3/4 of the way through a decade or so ago - until another Windows system crashed and I lost the game saves - and though it's understandably dated it's all of: hilarious, mysterious, Art-Deco cool, suspenseful, meditative and thought-provoking. 'Would be real nice to be able to play it again. But if you've already cursed yourself with an Orwellsoft system, go for it. This one is not to be missed.

An old classic and a bit basic these days, but full of Douglas Adams humour and well worth a look. One of the best. The best being Grim Fandango, of course.

love it oldie but goodie

Ya Douglas Adams influence. Hilarious script. Fun puzzle game.