Introducing Free Stars: Children of Infinity (Patreon)

In our bubbling cauldron which is the potion that will be UQM2, we have been adding the odds and ends we need for the game. Design and audiovisual content are like ingredients which add foundational magic but are there to be enjoyed later. Sometimes, though, we add a big, phosphorus ingredient, spilling out some awesome theatrical fog that curls all over the stage. Behold:

• Our game’s official title, Free Stars: Children of Infinity
• The launch of our corresponding website.
• The upcoming re-release of The Ur-Quan Masters on Steam.

To continue our Halloween-themed metaphor, follow us, the cackling witches, as you imagine gnarled fingers beckoning you forward: “Walk with us, and inhale the wonders of our brew.”

Children of Infinity

When we finished pre-production a few months ago, we knew we were ready to create a fitting title. The Ur-Quan Masters was a solid subtitle for the original game, describing the main threat, and evoking its epic themes about freedom versus servitude. We searched for another name that would hint at what this new story is about and how the game might feel. With the story finished, we decided on Children of Infinity to describe the adventure awaiting you after vanquishing The Ur-Quan Masters. Let the speculation begin!

Free Stars:

For fans of UQM, we hope you’ll immediately understand the inspiration behind the name for our series. Following the Title: Subtitle paradigm, we wanted a phrase to tie our whole saga together without boxing in our story. If The Ur-Quan Masters was about the Ur-Quan, then the series is really about the Alliance of Free Stars, implying an iconic cast of characters, and their many adventures through hyperspace and beyond.

By adopting Free Stars as the name of our series and setting, we have a direct way to talk about all of our games that we’ve worked on. After all, we don’t want to claim games we didn’t work on, let alone stories that aren’t connected to our multiverse. We want to identify which stories and games are ours and continue building our saga around the Alliance of Free Stars, from The Ur-Quan Masters to Children of Infinity.

Names are Hard!

We look forward to sharing a write-up of how we came up with these names and the hundreds we didn’t wind up using. The short version is that we tried to put a lot of thought and care into our choices. For example, the most obvious choice – The Ur-Quan Masters 2 – doesn’t make sense given our new story’s focus. Even with all that, names are inherently subjective. The same word can have different connotations and meanings as we go between cultures and languages. While we had fun trying to find some words that satisfied our own ideas, words are really about communication, and we hope it conveys our vision for this game. After all, this is the title of a game that we are making for others to play. We truly hope you’re as excited as we are.

Broadening Our Reach

If you’re reading this, you already know at least a little about our development. Maybe you even support us on Patreon or hang out in our Discord! If you do, you must be exceedingly attractive and intelligent (we collect a lot of analytics). However, not everyone may know about Children of Infinity, much less The Ur-Quan Masters! We want to start taking opportunities to get the word out, and it’s important for us to create a presence online, so that people can have a chance to hear about us, with fun, weird, and enjoyable places to grab on to. You’ve seen some of that with our ongoing social media presence, but it’s time for something meatier (Dan is vegetarian and apologizes for not finding a suitable replacement word… veggier?).

The Ur-Quan Masters – Now on Steam

First off, we’ve taken the steps to get the previous game on Steam, which now has the full title, Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters. While UQM was – and always can be – available elsewhere, having a presence on Steam for UQM is helpful in a few ways. It’s a place where we can showcase the work of our community in maintaining UQM and maybe even help it reach new audiences. It also lets us establish a presence for the whole series. If game number 1 is on Steam, when game number 2 is coming, we can tie them together nicely in a way both new and old players can understand. Book stores, as an analogy, usually put each book in a series sitting next to each other on a shelf, and we want to do the same.

A Game Website

Secondly, we have an actual website for Free Stars now. It reveals at least a few things no one has seen before, and as we share more and more of Children of Infinity, we will continue to grow it with content soon. We want it to be a home for the series and take one more step to making this sequel a reality, especially for the fans who don’t even know there’s a sequel coming, or even the new fans who might learn about this series. Lastly, as we talk about the game to other people, it is a helpful tool to remind everyone of the legacy and influence of the original UQM. There’s a reason we’re all here and excited to work on or play a sequel.

Coming Soon

Now that we have all of this in the open, we are only going to build on it. Stay tuned for more cool things coming, including our 31st anniversary next month. We need your help too! Please share links to this blog post, to UQM on Steam, and our website for Free Stars. Remember, like Will Rogers said, “Someone who hasn’t played UQM is just a fan who doesn’t know it yet.”

Thank you for reading, and please come join the discussion on Patreon, Reddit, and Discord.