Alpha Centauri Redux

[vonbach]

Has anyone heard of this?

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/11/27/alpha-centauri-redux/#more-331623

Alpha Centauri is one of the best strategy games ever made. It casts a long shadow, such that a game like Civilization: Beyond Earth [official site] cannot escape comparison, even though it wasn’t intended to be the direct spiritual successor many saw it as. But how would you improve on Meier and Reynold’s sci-fi masterpiece? Keegan Chua has some ideas. His Alpha Centauri Redux project is a fully documented attempt “to completely redesign the look and feel of the user interface in the Sid Meier classic”.


Strategy game UI design has made some remarkable progress in recent years. Civilization V and Endless Legend are delightful, and as important to their respective games as a tight control scheme can be to an action game. Good UI design guides the player through the flow of information, allowing access to data should someone choose to dig for it, but concentrating on what is necessary at any given time. I tend to think of a solid strategic UI like a set of advisors (and maybe that comes from those early years with Civ), who step forward when summoned but never raise their voices and talk across one another.

The beauty of the Alpha Centauri Redux project is in the documentation as much as the possible end result. Keegan shares his thoughts and his failures, as well as his goals and changing approaches. He’s working with Dave Inscore, the artist responsible for the “look and feel” of the game’s original UI. Here’s a recent video:

Someone else is working on an AC UI.

[voker57]

He's just dreaming online, that's not a mod project.