The combat demo for Free Stars: Children of Infinity is out, and it’s free

《Free Stars: Children of Infinity》战斗演示版现已免费发布

After five years in development, Free Stars: Children of Infinity—the official sequel to The Ur-Quan Masters by the old game’s original creators—has released a free public demo. It’s a “combat demo” in the style of UQM’s melee mode, where players can assemble a fleet from the game’s roster of nearly 40 ships, then match those ships up in head-to-head arcade SpaceWar-style action. The demo can be found on Steam and GOG, and it’s available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. (Console versions are coming, but they’re not yet out.)

经过五年的开发，《Free Stars: Children of Infinity》——即《The Ur-Quan Masters》原作者打造的官方续作——现已发布免费公开演示版。这是一个采用《UQM》近战模式风格的“战斗演示版”，玩家可以从游戏中近 40 艘舰船的阵容中组建舰队，然后在类似《SpaceWar》的街机风格动作对战中一决高下。该演示版现已登陆 Steam 和 GOG 平台，支持 Windows、Mac 和 Linux 系统。（主机版本正在开发中，但尚未发布。）

I have to present this news with a big disclaimer, though, because I’ve been part of the Children of Infinity writing team since 2021, working as a volunteer with the Pistol Shrimp Games crew and contributing NPC dialogue and some story bits. As a huge fan of the original games, it’s been a dream opportunity. (Because I’ve been volunteering my time, I’m not financially involved and receive no compensation if you download the demo or, when it’s eventually released, buy the full game.)

不过，在发布这条新闻时，我必须先做一个重要的声明：自 2021 年起，我一直是《Children of Infinity》编剧团队的一员，以志愿者身份与 Pistol Shrimp Games 团队合作，负责撰写 NPC 对话和部分剧情内容。作为原版游戏的忠实粉丝，这对我来说是一次梦寐以求的机会。（由于我是志愿贡献时间，我并未参与财务分成，无论您下载演示版还是在未来购买完整版游戏，我都不会获得任何报酬。）

What’s in the demo 演示版包含什么

Children of Infinity is a space adventure RPG, just like The Ur-Quan Masters (and its direct spiritual predecessors, Starflight and Starflight 2). What’s been released today is just one part of the game—the arcade-style “melee” portion, which lets players jump into one-versus-one combat against another player or against a computer-controlled opponent. Each of the ships you can pick has its own maneuvering characteristics, weapons, and special abilities. All of the old familiar ships from The Ur-Quan Masters are present (with one exception: the Slylandro probe didn’t make it), and they’re joined by a pile of new faces from the new game, along with some melee-only ships designed by Kickstarter backers. All together, there are 38 different ships that you can smash together in the combat sandbox.

《Children of Infinity》是一款太空冒险 RPG，正如《The Ur-Quan Masters》（及其精神前作《Starflight》和《Starflight 2》）一样。今天发布的内容只是游戏的一部分——即街机风格的“近战”模式，玩家可以进行一对一的对战，对手可以是其他玩家，也可以是电脑 AI。每艘可选舰船都有其独特的机动特性、武器和特殊能力。《The Ur-Quan Masters》中所有熟悉的旧舰船悉数回归（除 Slylandro 探测器外），同时还有大量来自本作的新舰船，以及由 Kickstarter 众筹支持者设计的近战专用舰船。总计 38 艘不同的舰船供你在战斗沙盒中尽情碰撞。

While the returning ships from UQM have had their flight and weapon characteristics lovingly re-created in Fred Ford’s new SIMPLE game engine, there are some important differences this time around—chief among them the fact that, unlike in the 1990s, the ships now can turn much more naturally. UQM melee pros will find that their skills with existing ships will translate pretty well to the new melee environment—but they’ll also have some brushing up to do.

虽然《UQM》中的回归舰船在 Fred Ford 开发的全新 SIMPLE 游戏引擎中得到了精心重现，但这次也有一些重要的区别——最主要的一点是，与 90 年代不同，现在的舰船转向更加自然。《UQM》的近战高手们会发现，他们对现有舰船的操作技巧可以很好地迁移到新的近战环境中，但仍需要进行一些磨合。

In the older game, at least for me, melee was the drug that got me hooked—it’s accessible, easy to figure out, and fun as hell. I can’t count the number of hours my little brother and I spent locked in mortal space combat, blowing each other up with different ship combinations. (My favorite matchup was to let my brother pick the Ur-Quan Dreadnought, one of the most powerful ships, while I would hop into the lightweight Arilou Skiff and, in cruel older-brother fashion, mercilessly reduce him to frustrated tears. Ah, siblings.)

在老游戏中，至少对我而言，近战模式是让我沉迷的“毒药”——它易于上手，逻辑简单，且极其有趣。我和弟弟曾无数次沉浸在致命的太空战斗中，用各种舰船组合互相轰炸。（我最喜欢的对局是让我弟弟选最强大的舰船之一——Ur-Quan 无畏舰，而我则驾驶轻巧的 Arilou 小艇，以一种残酷的哥哥方式，无情地将他打到沮丧落泪。啊，这就是兄弟情。）

So, so much more… 还有更多……

I’d love to spend some time discussing the whole game, not just the combat demo—but that discussion will have to wait a bit longer. Children of Infinity has walked a tortured path to release, with many twists and turns along the way, and while that path is nearing completion, we still have a bit to go. It’s been fascinating to observe the process of development from the inside, and there are so very many stories to tell.

我很想花点时间讨论整个游戏，而不仅仅是战斗演示版，但那样的讨论还得再等等。《Children of Infinity》的发布之路走得颇为坎坷，历经了许多波折，虽然终点已近在咫尺，但我们仍需努力。从内部观察开发过程是一段迷人的经历，这里有太多故事可以讲述。

In the five years since joining the team, I’ve written about 100,000 words of NPC dialog for seven of the game’s alien species—that’s a good-sized novel, and I’m only one of several writers. I’ve worked with Paul Reiche III to flesh out his story ideas and outlines with prose (Paul left the project in summer 2023 after the story had been largely completed, but I kept meeting regularly with him for a couple of years after that to get his input and advice on the NPC dialog writing as it progressed, and we’re still in regular contact). That prose was wrangled into branching interactive readability by the skilled hand of narrative lead Mallory Littleton. Through it all, lead designer Dan Gerstein has been a force of nature, wrangling a distributed team through a wild Kickstarter and a development process that has gone on longer than anyone anticipated.

在加入团队的五年里，我为游戏中的七个外星种族撰写了约 10 万字的 NPC 对话——这相当于一部长篇小说的体量，而我只是几位编剧之一。我曾与 Paul Reiche III 合作，用文字充实他的故事构思和大纲（Paul 在 2023 年夏天故事基本完成后离开了项目，但在那之后的几年里，我仍定期与他会面，就 NPC 对话的撰写进度征求他的意见和建议，我们至今仍保持联系）。这些文字经由叙事主管 Mallory Littleton 的巧手，被编织成具有分支互动性的内容。在此过程中，首席设计师 Dan Gerstein 展现了惊人的毅力，带领着一个分布式团队，度过了疯狂的 Kickstarter 众筹期，并完成了比预期耗时更长的开发过程。

But the end is finally in sight. Dan’s updates on the Pistol Shrimp Games blog are a great source of information for where things currently stand; all I know is that the pile of volunteer writing work in front of me is shrinking rather than growing, and that means we’re in the home stretch.

但终点终于在望了。Dan 在 Pistol Shrimp Games 博客上的更新是了解当前进展的最佳渠道；我只知道摆在我面前的志愿写作任务正在减少，这意味着我们已经进入了最后冲刺阶段。

Download the demo already! 快去下载演示版吧！

So forgive me if I’m a bit more exuberant than I’d normally be for a free indie game’s demo release. The Ur-Quan Masters matters deeply to me; it was a game that showed up at exactly the right point in my teenage years to make a massive and deep impression. I’m still kind of in shock that I’ve been able to help write the official sequel—a game that Paul and Fred characterized to me in an…

所以，如果我表现得比平时发布一款免费独立游戏演示版时更加兴奋，还请见谅。《The Ur-Quan Masters》对我意义重大；它出现在我青少年时期最恰当的时刻，给我留下了极其深刻的印象。直到现在，我仍感到有些不可思议，我竟然能参与撰写它的官方续作——这款游戏在 Paul 和 Fred 眼中是……