TWOK-era computer game - insignia and UFP map question

[Galactic Alignment]

Years ago I played a Star Trek computer game for the Amiga (see here) - it was an unlicensed freeware effort made by a fan, and seemed to be fairly accurate to the Trekverse. OK, the gameplay wasn't fantastic, it was a copy of a game called Elite which was already quite old, but as a one-man effort it was meritable.

Anyway, the game featured insignia for each of the bridge and shipboard crew positions. I've always wondered, where do they originate from? Seeing as the rest of the game design tried to be as accurate to the films as possible, I've never thought that the games designer created them himself. Are they from a FASA book, or similar? (As an example, here's what the Science officer symbol looked like... The rest you can find on the screenshots page on the Hall of Light website I linked too.)

As well as these symbols, the game also featured a map of the Federation space that looked thus...

Presumably at one point before Star Trek III the various non-canon books decided that the Starfleet HQ wasn't orbiting Earth in Shroomdock, but quite some distance from Earth. Interesting...

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

The idea of Star Fleet HQ being in a station some distance from Earth originates (I think) from Franz Joseph's Star Fleet Technical Manuel. The map above looks like a simplified version of Joseph's Federation map as well.

 

[Christopher]

Rattrap 64 said:
Anyway, the game featured insignia for each of the bridge and shipboard crew positions. I've always wondered, where do they originate from? Seeing as the rest of the game design tried to be as accurate to the films as possible, I've never thought that the games designer created them himself. Are they from a FASA book, or similar? (As an example, here's what the Science officer symbol looked like... The rest you can find on the screenshots page on the Hall of Light website I linked too.)

Those insignias were designed by Lee Cole for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The game designer probably got them from the ST:TMP Peel-Off Graphics Book, a sticker book released in conjunction with the film.

And Eliyahu is right about the map being based on the one from the Franz Joseph Tech Manual. Even the text in the lower right corner about "Viewed from zenith looking down..." etc. is verbatim from the FJ map.

 

[felixofgolden]

Elite was a great game.. I miss the 80's...

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

felixofgolden said:
Elite was a great game.. I miss the 80's...

Well, as Jay Z put it, "I'm bringing the 80s back 'cause that's were they made me at."

 

[Tomalak]

The department symbols were all in Shane Johnson's book, but I don't know where he got them from.


I remember that game! Although it seemed brilliant at the time, I played it back with an emulator recently, and it was rather less so. Judgment Rites and 25th Anniversary are both still brilliant though.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Tomalak said:
The department symbols were all in Shane Johnson's book, but I don't know where he got them from.

As mentioned above, the symbols were all devised for use as set graphics -- door stickers, display screens, etc. -- by Lee Cole. They date back to TMP, if not when it was still Phase II.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

That's an interesting-looking game.

 

[Eagle]

I sent an email to the creator of that game, Tobias Richter, several years ago. I got the email address through a website that contained some of his graphical work - he was an illustrator at the time. I used to play it every now and again and enjoyed it. I basically gave him my feedback and asked if he ever thought about making a sequel or TNG follow up - he said that the game took 2 years for him to write and that with today's games being so complex and requiring a team he has no interest in doing so.

I enjoyed Elite: Frontier and it's sequel First Encounters, never played the original Elite much although I know it was impressive for it's time. I always wished there was a Trek MOD for Frontier. Elite IV is on the way. . .

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Wow...