In December 2019, Amazon's audiobook business Audible teamed up with tabletop game publisher Paizo to test the waters for a new audio experience with the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Starfinder Alexa Skill. A pilot episode was the result,🧸 created not just to gauge consumer interest but also to serve as a tech demo. Thankfully, it was well-re𒊎ceived and laid the groundwork for what we have now, and no doubt, other audio adventure games in the future.
How Alexa Starfinder Works
The new Starfinder season is made up of six episodes, of which the first three have been released. These can be accessed through the same Al🦄exa Skill that launched the pilot episode. For the uninitiated, Alexa Skills are similar to apps on your mobile phone. You learn how to play them as you progress, as the Skill walks you through the basic mechanics step by step, introducing new concepts as you play. It is worth stating that while this game is set in the Starfinder universe, it is not the same as the full-blown Starfinder RPG. Yes, it does pull in and adapt some concepts from the rulebooks, but this is better thought of as an audio “choose your own adventure” book made for the 21st century. In reality, there is a lot going on behind the scenes that will affect outcomes and future choices but the player does not need to know any of this. They can just drop in and start playing.
There are also some handy features built-in. The game requires you to make D20 dice rolls to determine your success when attempting certain tasks. You speak your result when prompted and the game takes care of adding modifiers etc and lets you know if you were successful or not. Alternatively, if you 🍸don’t have a D20 handy, you can have the game make the rolls for you. This isn’t a permanent fixture as you can simply ask the game to stop making 🍌automatic dice rolls. The game also includes an autosave feature that kicks in after you complete a plot point. It will tell you what percentage completion of the episode you are up to, which is great if you want to estimate if you have enough time to continue playing, but it does break the immersion slightly when the game is interrupted.
A Truly Immersive Narrative Experience
The first time you start the game you are dropped right into the middle of the action, in the midst of an ongoing firefight. The game's narrator explains the situation to you before pausing and allowing the computer to ask you which of two options you want to do. All this takes place with the auditory experience of a bustling alien town as it goes about its business and with laser fire exploding around you. ♉This is where modern audiobooks have far outsh𒆙one their older cousins that featured a single narrator. Audible has become well known for bringing together a full cast of actors, voice artists, narrators, and sound effects artists to produce some amazing immersing experiences. They have not only brought this to the table for the Starfinder Skill, but one-upped themselves with the additional interactivity!
When the pilot episode first launched, it provided you with a 30-minute game experience. This was the perfect introduction and test. Now that we have a proper release the episode playtime has increased to 90 minutes. This may put people off but, as we have already mentioned, there is an auto-save that tracks progress. Players can stop play at any point and resume from the last save point. In total, we are expecting 🍃a minimum of 9 hours of game time, once the last three episodes are released later in the Fall, that is, but if all the game content is explored we would expect this to increase to 12 - 13 hours. On top of the new episodes, the pilot still remains and players can opt to start here as it acts as a non-essential prologue.
Fans of a certain Captain of The Firefly will be glad to hear Nathan Fillion return to the stars. Here’s hoping the nextꦚ game Audible creates will be a Richard Castle-penned mystery adventure. He is joined by Critical Role alum,Laura Bailey, as well as a host of Audible’s own regular voice artists including Kevin Pariseau, Lauren Fortgang, Genesis Oliver, and Allyson Johnson. They all do a tremendous job of not just telling a story, but bringing the story to life.
How Does Alexa Starfinder Come Together?
A couple of us at starbase TG have had the opportunity to play or listen in on a game, and the general consensus is that it’s the perfect introduction to the Starfinder universe. No prior knowledge is required, and the initial handholding helps Starfinder players new and old come to grips with the new storytelling medium. We couldn’t find a way to create a custom character, instead having to choose one based upon some voice prompts. This could be fixed in later seasons as the technology matures. Another nice feature would be the ability to 'free form' actions, rather than selecting from the limited options available. The tech to proc🃏ess such a request is already there, but how this would be run through the game engine and return a valid and accurate response is several years out. The last thing we want is a HAL-like response “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do thatꦅ.”
Needless to say, this is a great way to experience the Starfinder universe or to play a limited-choice campaign on your own. As long as you go in with realistic expectations set, you will get a lot from it. We hope that the first season isn’t the last. The big question will be how long before we see it move from an audio adventure into the realms of video through Alexa-enabled tabl𒆙ets and devices. We have seen this on rival platform Netflix with Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and Minecraft Story Mode. In the meantime, Starfinder fans can download the Alexa Skill on Amazon Echo. Each episode will cost $1.99 or the season can be purchased in one hit for $9.99.
Paizo provided a review code to TheGamer for this coverage.