 A sequel to the original Stellar Odyssey
was something that I always had planned to do. With my new experience in
assembly language after creating Neutroid and The Gladiator, I felt that
I could do a few improvements to the original Stellar Odyssey as well as
further the main story line. It was not neccesary to have completed
Stellar Odyssey 1 to play this sequel.
In Stellar Odyssey 2, you begin from the Earth rescue craft that found you
in the previous adventure. But you soon discover that things aren't right
and you begin your quest that leads you to the alien's base where you must
confront the evil alien superiors... all three of them, Yargon, Kilto and
Cajole.
Original Story Pretext
"After escaping from the aliens's battle cruiser, you are instantly beamed
to the safety of the Earth rescue craft. But an eerie silence surrounds the
craft as it floats inert in space and the flight crew are nowhere to be found.
Prepare yourself for the final conflict as you confront the evil alien superiors,
discover strange devices and explore the alien landbase."
Command Interpreter
I tweaked the command interpreter of the original a bit and made the entry
window a bit more stylish with a flashing cursor and some sound effects as
you typed. These are the commands for Stellar Odyssey 2...
Function |
Commands |
| Movement |
PAUSE, WALK, RUN, (LEFT ARROW), (RIGHT ARROW) |
| Object Manipulation |
FIRE, GET, DROP, ACTIVATE, EXAMINE, KICK, TASTE |
| Character Interaction |
LISTEN, SAY |
| Miscellaneous |
INVENTORY, VERB VOCABULARY |
As in Stellar Odyssey 1, the verb command was displayed by pressing the first
letter and the player typed the full noun.
The Graphics
In Stellar Odyssey 1, objects were just described in the text window as being
there but in Stellar Odyssey 2, they are graphically shown. For example,
in the screen shot below right, the text says "You are in the medical ward"
and as you can see, there is a image of a bed in the room. Overall, the graphics
are more polished than in Stellar Odyssey 1. They where also slightly faster
and the sound was improved.
Development Notes
As with it's predecessor, Stellar Odyssey
2 was written as a hybrid, BASIC with assembly language subroutines. It was
a relatively quick program to put together, not needing to load editor/assemblers
all the time as with the full assembly language games.
 Marketing
Sales were ok for this one with many who had bought Stellar Odyssey 1, coming
back to buy this sequel. I also found some people buying both simultaneously.
I was beginning to get cocky with my artwork as I began adding better detail.
They were starting to evolve from something that looked like it was done
in pre-school to something approaching the quality of.... primary school.
At least it was getting better.
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