I’m telling ya folks, I love the people at Snakehead Games. The second I told them I was doing a review for Star Pirates like I had for Spy Battles, adminArrBilly posted answers to my questions for Star Pirates. Below is that interview.

Apollo:What made you want to make a Post-Earth but still in the Solar System game?

AAB:First off, we are SciFi nuts and gaming nuts. The admins are childhood friends and we’ve been tweaking and building games since I can first recall.

Building a game on a dystopian SciFi canvas fit into our interests and it seems the interests of a LOT of players.

Apollo:What would you say is your biggest form of inspiration for the game?

AAB:I personally was given the Analog SciFi magazines going back to the ’50s when I was a kid. I’m now enthralled by near future Hard SciFi. So we try to make that come to life in the game; it’s not an easy life for players. They die a lot, but the nanobots make them live forever in the battle for the scarce resources of the Systems. After all, Mother Earth is no longer there to sustain folks.

But while this is the overriding theme, it’s the players contributing ideas and helping shape the game that are really the inspiration. The SciFi themes of authors may be the canvas, but the players ideas are the paint upon which StarPirates.net is created.

Apollo:What is your favorite part of the game?

AAB:The community. StarPirates is as much an online community as it is a game. I know this sounds rather Corp-Speak but I love the friends I’ve personally made through the game, and the fact that players have built even more relationships. Did you know that one couple MET online in our game and have since been been married. I admit we don’t see them online as much now though.

Apollo:What is your favorite change since the game was launched?

AAB:Huh, that’s a tough one. We have a punishing upgrade schedule. I think in the early days it was that the players decided, on their own, to make a social contract that was different from the game. The rules say you can attack another online player; the social convention as decided by the players is that this is bad form. And the players ENFORCE this…it’s quite amazing.

Recently though my favourite is teh addition of NOMs. These can be added to equipment to upgrade them. As well as providing a lot of interesting game play, it’s really ensuring that every powerful item is interesting and relevant in it’s own right.

Apollo:What upcoming change are you most excited about?

AAB:If we told you, we’d have to kill you. Oh wait, that doesn’t work in StarPirates, you’d just come back. OK, so it’s probably the continued rollout of the NOMs, plus in the future we’re going to have Ascension where players can semi-restart but on a new upgrade path for themslves. This will unlock specific items etc.

We also have one very interesting project that we’d love to get going but it’s all a matter of balancing time.

Apollo:Is there anything you would like to say to those reading this review about your game?

AAB:Yes. It’s a great game for coffee breaks in the office. We’ve been saving sanities for over a year now, and expect to for yerars to come.