Topic: The Ship 2 -- Update: A new Edinburgh studio buys out IP; working on Ship 2

[MysterD]

NEW -- 9/8/2012:
CVG -> A new Edinburgh Studio buys out The Ship IP; and is currently working on The Ship 2.

OLD:
Outerlight.co.uk -> Looks like Outerlight's already working on The Ship 2.
Shacknews -> Info on The Ship 2 from Outerlight.

[gpw11]

What announced by whom?  Seriously now.

[Quemaqua]

I do recall this, though I never tried it.  It seemed cool... was it?  The first, that is.

[MysterD]

I do recall this, though I never tried it.  It seemed cool... was it?  The first, that is.

Never played it, either.

GameSpot liked The Ship a lot -- 8.3

If I find it cheap, I'd play it -- it's pretty much the only way I deal w/ Steam games, these days!

[Quemaqua]

Pretty fun.  So it was a mod that got turned into a product, or...?  I'm a little confused with all that.  Can you buy it now without needing HL2 installed?  I have no plans on doing that given the Steam requirement, but I'm still curious.

[MysterD]

Pretty fun.  So it was a mod that got turned into a product, or...?

YES! Exactly!

The Ship (2004) was a FREE MOD made for the original Half-Life -- it turned to be a very popular mod, actually.

So popular, Outerlight decided to take that and they made a new version of it on The Source Engine, as a stand-alone product -- which you can buy via Steam or some Retail Outlet.

Can you buy it now without needing HL2 installed?

The Ship (2007) is a stand-alone product that you will find at Retail Stores and for purchase over STEAM.

Unfortunately, STEAM's required.

I have no plans on doing that given the Steam requirement, but I'm still curious.

I hope I answered your questions.

If you need more info, check The Ship Wiki.

[Quemaqua]

You did answer my questions, in fact.  Thanks.

[idolminds]

One of these days I'm going to try the free weekends for this game to see if its really that fun. The last couple of ones were while I was out of town.

[MysterD]

You did answer my questions, in fact.  Thanks.

No problem, bro.

[idolminds]

$7 at Circuit City

Might have to hit your local CC to score it, but even I'm tempted. Seems one of the CCs near me as it on shelf.

[idolminds]

Purchased.

Oh cool, theres Guest Passes so a friend can play for 3 days.

[MysterD]

Purchased.

Oh cool, theres Guest Passes so a friend can play for 3 days.

Neato.

I wonder how big of a DL that is, for the friend and all....

[idolminds]

Well, "the ship common.gcf" is 1.3GB. Like HL2, that hold the majority of the content. Then you have a couple more depending on which variant you are playing:

Multiplayer =230MB
Singleplayer = 375MB
Tutorial = 260MB

Though I believe the guest pass only allows multi and the tutorial.

So from what I've played so far its pretty fun. I haven't played multi, just checked out the tutorial and singleplayer. The SP so far is really interesting. Starts out with a little scene of Mr. X explaining that the ship is "lost" and the only way off is to play his game...which is to kill the other passengers. Your first quarry is right outside your room sleeping and easily taken care of. Then a bellboy talks to you and says he knows whos trying to kill you. He comes up with a plan to drug a guy that looks similar to me so he sleeps, then the bellboy will tell my potential killer that its actually me so she'll kill the wrong guy.

I go down to the infirmary to find the sleeping drug (syringe), locate the other guy and have to poke him while no one is looking and none of the cameras are facing me. Done. Follow him till he falls asleep, and alert the bellboy. Mission done.

The ship itself is one large map with lots of rooms, people, objects to interact with, etc...no loading in between. So when I'm done with the bellboy he sends me to another guy who gives me some missions, and from there another. Its all really cool and seamless.

While you're doing this you have your own needs...and quite a few. Gotta sleep, bathe, eat, drink, piss, poop (yes, they are separate...but you can do them at the same time..heh), read...and I'm not sure if thats all. Anyway, you need to deal with these things while you're completing missions around the ship. Stop in and have a bite to eat, take a snooze (in a bed or chair), go to the bathroom (wash your hands after to lower the bathe meter). There are items that can help you deal with these tasks, like carry a bag of chips and a can of soda around so you dont have to go back to the dining room to eat and drink.

The things you do can have an effect on more than one meter. Drinking lowers your thirst, but raises you need to pee. Reading lowers your read meter and can wake you up or make you tired depending on what you're reading. Thinks like that.

It sounds kinda hokey, but it ends up working pretty well. Its more interesting than just running around killing enemies, you have your own needs to attend to. Plus the meters fill fast enough to keep and eye on them, but slow enough to not get in your way all the time.

So if you get to a Circuit City and see ir there...$7....totally worth it. Plus its multi and singleplayer, and you'll spend way more to get either one off Steam direct.

[Quemaqua]

I think I'm gonna' snag it.  It sounds like a lot of fun, and I remembered hearing about it before it was a product.  Definitely need to give it a whirl for 7 bucks.

[Quemaqua]

Well, I got it today, along with some much-needed DVD-Rs.  Yay.  Had to drive across a bridge to get to the store that had copies, which cost me an extra 4 bucks for toll, but it was still 8 bucks cheaper than anywhere else.  Now I just need to find enough room to install the damned thing.

Idol, you up for trying it out MP sometime?

[idolminds]

yeah, that would be cool. I definitely want to try the "real" multiplayer. I ended up on a DM server and the game doesn't work well as DM. Death comes so quickly your "needs" never come into play. You don't spawn with a weapon so death at spawn happened a lot. So you have to run and find a weapon fast before someone kills you. The only thing that helps is security still works, so if you get in front of a camera you're relatively safe. Still even then if the enemy shoots from an area security can't see, you still die...and cant return fire because brandishing a weapon puts you in jail.

So the slower MP should be more fun, finding specific targets.

[Quemaqua]

Played around with the SP a little last night, it was fun.  The actual "story" game is kind of... well, really boring.  There are entertaining aspects to it, and there's some clever humor here and there, but it wasn't terribly interesting from a gameplay standpoint.  The round-based "arcade" mode for SP is a lot more fun, which I was just playing.  It's too bad the AI isn't better, because then I think the game would be almost as compelling as playing with real people, but the AI gets stuck on stuff sometimes and generally doesn't seem terribly aggressive.  I did die twice right in the beginning because I happened to stumble on my hunter without having a weapon, but then I got 4 kills without ever seeing my hunter.  Going to set it to "hard" next time and try a different map.

I really love the maps.  They're nicely laid out and very fun to wander around in.  The game looks better than I expected it to.

Anyway, it was easily, easily worth 8 (or 12, heh) bucks.  It wouldn't even be bad at twenty if you planned to go online to play it.  Very fun.

[MysterD]

Hey, I know The Ship's MP requires STEAM...
....but does The SP portion require STEAM?

I'm asking b/c I know Dark Messiah's SP don't require STEAM, though the MP does require STEAM....

[idolminds]

Yes, both require Steam.

It is a shame they didnt flesh out the SP just a bit more and make some better bots. I would have been disappointed if I paid extra for the SP via Steam. But the maps are nice and its just a really interesting game. Hopefully they go all out with Ship 2.

[MysterD]

Yes, both require Steam.

Thanks for the info, Idol.

It is a shame they didnt flesh out the SP just a bit more and make some better bots. I would have been disappointed if I paid extra for the SP via Steam.

So, the SP's an after-thought, basically, eh??
Bummer.

But the maps are nice and its just a really interesting game.

Cool.

Hopefully they go all out with Ship 2.

A fleshed-out SP for Ship 2 would be pretty cool.

[MysterD]

CVG -> A new Edinburgh Studio buys out The Ship IP; and is currently working on The Ship 2.

A new game development studio based in Edinburgh has acquired the rights to The Ship, the popular 2006 Half-Life 2 murder mystery mod.

Outerlight, the former developer of The Ship, closed down soon after it developed an XBLA game in what is thought to be a thorny partnership with Ubisoft.
But a new Scotland studio has acquired the game's rights and is working on a full sequel, a person familiar with the matter told CVG. A full reveal is expected in the coming months.

The Ship, which was one of the first third-party titles released on Valve's Steam platform, was set on a 1920s recreational cruise ship. The multiplayer title gave each player a different target to secretly assassinate, while also making each one a target for another player. The set-up resulted in a unique cats-and-mice gameplay dynamic.

News of development of the game's sequel comes after a government-associated report claimed that the Scottish games industry hires less than 200 people and does not turn a profit. Industry groups have laughed off the report.