So, what are we adding?
We added the Enterprise (NCC-1701D) bridge and rebalanced our game to accommodate its new capabilities, we replaced the engineering position with a new role called “Operations” on the 1701D bridge (it’s now my personal favorite position) which focuses on crew management and maximizing ship buffs, we’ve added Romulans, we’ve put in the Borg, created TNG-era uniforms, gave players the ability to make their avatars Soong-type androids, put in new shield modulation and precision phaser fire mechanics, took a pass through our play spaces so that more solar systems will be utilized by Ongoing Voyages (our randomized Starfleet mission generator), and added two new Ongoing Voyages (“Resistance” and “Patrol”) complete with new voice work and unique mission mechanics. Oh, and we also threw in some fan favorites such as a fully functional Planet Killer, complete with deadly anti-proton beam.
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We wanted to create something that did justice to the Borg by conveying the sense of cosmic, existential dread that the Borg always inspired in me. With their singular goal of assimilation, and their disregard for anything or anyone standing in their way (except for Species 8472, of course), I really think they’re one of the most elegant enemies in science fiction. There’s something quietly menacing about them that tickles an animalistic fight-or-flight response, and I wanted to capture that.
In short, I wanted to scare people.
The structure of “Resistance” was heavily inspired by classic rogue and roguelike games, which I think do a great job of driving tension, and challenges the player to travel across space to retrieve scattered anti-Borg prototypes to fight off a Borg Cube that’s happily assimilating and slaughtering everything in its path.
Along the way, crews are faced with randomly presented challenges that have to be completed with the knowledge that every second spent brings the Borg Cube ever closer. Warping to another solar system will buy you time, and each prototype successfully collected will provide you with a new tool for fighting the Borg…but each time you face the Cube, it’s adapted to your tactics and becomes ever more powerful. And the Cube gets very mean, very quickly.
It’s meant to be difficult, encourage serious lateral thinking, and reward a spectrum of success. In that sense it shares a lot of creative DNA with the Kobayashi Maru challenge mission, which I also designed (I guess I have a type) and we included in our base game. Watching countless streamed hours of crews attempting to beat an unbeatable mode, and having blast while trying, really informed a lot of the moment-to-moment design of “Resistance.” I learned a lot about high-level bridge crew play by watching crews come up with amazing strategies, compare scores, and thoroughly humble my mission design.
ING DID IT! I GOT THE PLATINUM!!!
I can't wait until that technology exists...
