The Orville Interactive Fan Experience Update #2

Back in July I first told you about the awesome new Orville Interactive Fan Experience, a kind of game, sort of simulation you can play online courtesy of Steam.

It's made by fans, for fans of The Orville, and it 100% free to download and play. Players can roam a highly detailed version of the ship, complete with the Bridge, Sickbay, Mess Hall and Shuttle Bay. You can even fly the ship!

Right now it's very much a work in progress, as there are only two or three decks completed, and there's no actual gameplay as yet. The makers have assured everyone that it'll eventually be a fully-fleshed out virtual version of the ship, and they add various rooms and features in regular updates. 

Like now!

I recently fired up the game, and discovered that the Replicators, er, I mean the Synthesizers now work. Woohoo! You can now step up to one and order coffee, alcohol and even a giant jar of pickles! Obviously the makers of this game are fans of the show and well versed in its lore.

On a whim, I walked down to Bortus' quarters and strolled over to his Synthesizer.

I activated the Synthesizer, which gave me the option of ordering fruit, vegetables, beverages and... tobacco (!).

I clicked on tobacco, and was given the option of whipping up one, two or sure enough, FIVE HUNDRED cigarettes (regular viewers of the show will understand the significance of that number)!

Of course I had to pick five hundred, and wasn't disappointed.

I mentioned it in my initial post, but it's worth a repeat: Messy Desk, the developers of the game, even included the infamous "pee corner" mentioned (but mercifully not seen) in Identity, Part 2. 

Note that if you walk over to the pee corner, your Union avatar will slip and fall down in it, complete with a slide whistle sound effect. Classy!

I'm looking forward to further updates, so I can finally fly the Shuttle out of the Bay and crash it into the engine rings.

By the way, I didn't deliberately choose an avatar that resembles Gordon from the series— this was just the standard generic crewman that comes with the game. You can customize the look and species of your avatar if you want.

The Orville Interactive Fan Experience UPDATE #1

I was playing around with vThe Orville Interactive Fan Experience game, and at long last I finally figured out how to fly the ship (I know, I'm slow). I managed to fly it out of the spacedock without destroying anything, and was able to tool around space a bit.

I also discovered how to change the camera to an exterior view, so I could see the ship as it flew around. As you can see, the ship's flying high above the Earth.

Note that the planet looks spectacularly real. There's a reason for that. From what I've read, in order to get the atmospheric diffusion and continents to look right, the game programmers actually had to build the Earth at actual size (relative to the Orville)! If they'd cheated and made it smaller, then it would have reacted differently to the light and the perspective would have been off, revealing it was a tiny sphere.

Now that's commitment to realism!

I was also able to figure out how to rotate the exterior camera and zoom in on things. As I was playing around with the camera, I wondered if it'd be possible to zoom in on the bridge and see inside the ship. Specifically, would I be able to look in and see me inside it? 

Turns out the answer is yes! In fact if you look closely, that's me (well, my avatar) sitting at the helm position! That. Is. Freaking. Awesome! 

I love this game! 

By the way, if you zoom in and look reeeeeeally close, you'll see my avatar has a laser rifle in his lap. I picked it up in Captain Mercer's ready room, and couldn't figure out how to drop it (!).

There's also a window in the top of the ship, above the bridge. I spun the camera around and sure enough, you can see me through that window as well, sitting at the helm chair, with my back to the camera. Cool!

The Orville Interactive Fan Experience

This week UK software development company Messy Desk Interactive released The Orville Interactive Fan Experience.

It's a comprehensive 3D recreation of The Orville's titular spacecraft. Players can freely explore various areas on every deck of the ship, and even interact with control panels with your customized avatar!

I tried it out, and I have to say it's pretty darned cool! They've meticulously recreated the show's sets in precise detail. The walls & floors aren't just flat, but are covered in 3D textures as well. There's even an option to animate the readouts on the various screens!

They used all the sound effects from the show too. And even incorporated music from the show. Best of all, the music is reactive. Take the ship to red alert and the music suddenly becomes urgent and militaristic! Amazing!

Keep in mind this is an early version of an ongoing project, so it's not complete. They haven't built every area of the ship yet, so some doors won't open. Eventually they'll have the entire thing mapped out though.

You can visit the Bridge and sit in the captain's chair. Order a red or yellow alert, or activate "party mode" and send the whole ship into a dance frenzy! 

You can even sit at Gordon's position and take the ship out for a spin! I ain't quite figured out how to actually fly it yet, but I'm told it is possible.

Visit Captain Mercer's quarters...

Take a tour of Sickbay...

Or wander through Engineering.

You can visit the Shuttlebay as well. There's even a shuttle sitting in the bay (labeled ECV-197-1 of course). You can walk inside the shuttle, but for now all you can do is sit in the pilot's chair and open the bay doors. Eventually you'll be able to actually fly the shuttle out of the ship and zoom around. That's for a future upgrade though.

One other thing about the Shuttlebay... Messy Desk even included the infamous "pee corner" from Identity, Part 2! Now THAT'S attention to detail!

As I mentioned above, your avatar can interact with numerous objects and locations. For example, if you go to the mess hall you can activate the replicators, er, I mean the Food Synthesizers and whip up various objects and dishes.

As you may have noticed, this virtual Orville's a lonely little ship, completely devoid of life. I'm told that eventually they plan to populate it with other crew members.

The best thing about this simulation— Fox is aware of it and apparently OK with it! 

See, last year a group called Stage 9 created a virtual Enterprise-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Users could explore every deck (including areas not seen on the series), interact with controls and fly shuttles out of the ship— pretty much exactly like the Orville simulation.

NOTE: I've been told that Messy Desk, the group who made The Orville Interactive Fan Experience, are an offshoot of Stage 9, who made the Enterprise-D sim. That explains why the two look virtually identical!

The developers weren't making a dime off it either, as it was purely a labor of love and free for the downloading.

Unfortunately CBS, the current owners of all things Trek, decided to be assholes and shut down the whole project. Not sure how you can tell someone who's making something for fun and not profiting off it to cut it out, but they did.

To me this just shows how out of touch CBS is. Fans were willing to spend hours and hours creating more Star Trek, simply because they love it so much. CBS' actions were a big slap in the face to everyone who ever liked the show.

Luckily, Seth MacFarlane and Fox know the value of fan projects like this. In fact when MacFarlane first saw this virtual Orville, he pretty much said, "Wow, cool!" No shutdown, no cease & desist letters, just a heartfelt endorsement. Well done, Seth!

If you're interested, you can download The Orville Interactive Fan Experience over at Steam, which is apparently some kind of gaming site I'm vaguely aware of. I figured out how to download it and get it up and running in about half an hour. If I can do it, anyone can, so check it out today!