Old Games I Still Love: Startopia

This game for me even now still scratches that management game itch without being so completely super serious like a lot of management games tend toward being. Long ago during an extended lunch break at college I wandered into the local GAME store as I so often did seeing what new games were on the shelves, grumbling at not having enough pennies and wandering to the bargain section instead. It was at that point I stumbled across Startopia, now I love sci-fi as a setting so I picked it up and had a look at the back of the box, the idea of managing a space station was immediately appealing. The rest as they say is history, I counted up my meager pennies and picked it up the next day, even if it did massively slow down working on a college project (oops, always do your homework first kids!) 

The game got it's tentacles into me pretty fast, catchy music, colourful art style and enough buildings and research to keep me playing 'just five more minutes' until it was two in the morning. I didn't find out til a couple of years later reading an actual review in a gaming magazine that the studio responsible for it was comprised of three ex-Bullfrog developers. Though the influences from games such as Theme Park were obvious to see after finding that fact out. 

Everyone starts somewhere!

The game featured a campaign of sorts as well as a sandbox mode and multiplayer though I never really made much use of multiplayer I'm afraid to say. However, most games of Startopia start in largely the same way, you'd have some pre-packaged crates containing pre-built rooms and some basic Scuzzers (construction and maintenance robots) and a pool of energy which both acted as currency and powered your buildings. You also generally had access to all three decks of one section of the space-station, those being the sub-level where most industrial focused buildings are kept, the pleasure deck for entertainment and shops etc. The last deck was perhaps the most interesting one, the biodeck, where you could terraform and sculpt it's environment in order to grow plants for your residents and guests to relax in, or harvest them for crates of useful and valuable goods. 

From this point you generally had to build up facilities, expand into other sections and research or trade for new things to bring in more energy to build more things and so on. You also had to hire the various alien visitors who boarded the station to crew your facilities, with each species having it's own structure or job, for example the Salt Hog's worked your factories and recycler facilities. The greys would crew your medical facilities whilst the muscled red giants that are the Kasvagorian's would keep watch from your security facilities. You also had to keep them happy lest they decided you weren't a very good employer and left, though that aspect was fairly basic as if they were unhappy you simply gave them a payrise. 

The research system also I think was pretty neat at the time, whilst you could of course just buy and research so called technology crates, you could also place any item you could pick up with your teleporter equipped cursor onto the laboratory research pad and you'd usually get something new out of it. If you dropped a piece of litter onto it for example you'd unlock the litter bin. Not all research let to something new but it always at least improved something be it making those medical supplies last longer or your Scuzzer's able to run for longer before needing to head to a recharging station.

Now I mentioned earlier that it was obvious to see the influences of Bullfrog games in Startopia once I knew the dev's had come from there. The most obvious one to me at least is the occasional medical emergencies you could opt to try and deal with much in the same vain as Theme Hospital. A good way to get energy if your facilities and staff could handle it or you would be fined for each one that didn't make it or worse, you'd end up with a horde of Skrasher's ripping your station and guests apart. 

The moment you realise you need more security guards. Skrashers are nasty.

Other smaller things could be seen as influences as well from other Bullfrog games such as being able to purchase additional furniture and equipment for your various rooms to improve them (again like theme hospital.) To making sure you had enough Scuzzer droids to repair, maintain and clean your station much like Theme Park. 

There is unlike the majority of management games a combat system in place though this was likely the biggest of the games flaws. Having minimal direct control over your employee's meant combat could boil down to you hammering the attack button to stack as many of your armed personnel on the target to take it down and most of the time only a few would show up. That said it wasn't completely terrible and it could be quite fun to watch when it worked. Aside from attacking other station administrators there was also the task of dealing with spies, finding bombs from rivals to the aforementioned Skrashers that were the.. Unpleasant result of a certain infection not being treated in time not helped by the fact that every single alien petted their carrier the Memau and as your station got larger it got increasingly more difficult to keep track of everything and try to find those tiny little problems. 

Cute but surprisingly deadly. -The Memau

However even these days, if the management game itch crops up for me, Startopia is often something that will be installed for a quick play as it's easy to get into but has enough depth to keep it interesting. The music I found to be at least fairly memorable and added to the atmosphere of the game no-end.  The graphics are cartoony and colourful enough to hold up today though far from perfect and sometimes it can just feel so satisfying watching your station ticking over from on high, just a shame Mucky Foot Productions didn't get to make much of anything else. It's not my favourite management game of all time but it certainly ranks highly as an old favourite for me!

When things get going it can be quite a sight to behold.