Q: Speaking of the design, the game is centered on the Voyager starship, which is a pretty tightly enclosed space.  Was it hard to develop the story and create a compelling action narrative that could be told in such tight quarters?   I know that parts of the game take place off the ship – Just how much of the game unfolds off the ship?

A: The majority of the game takes place off the ship on away missions to other spacecrafts stranded in the area of space that our story takes place in. The gameplay on Voyager mainly encompasses walking around and getting to different areas of the ship and also interacting with your teammates and crew. There are a couple instances where there is combat on Voyager and we use some of the big cargo bays for this. 

The game is played in missions as stated above. After every away mission the player beams back to Voyager for some down time and to get prepared for the next mission. This entails the player beaming back to the ship and getting orders to go to the locker room and prepare for the debriefing.

After going to the locker room and talking to your hazard teammates, you are summoned to the briefing room where we use an in-game cinematic to give the next mission briefing. After the briefing, the player has to go the equipment room to stock up on weapons for the mission or even try out the weapons in a Holodeck training program. Then it’s off to the transporter room to beam out to the mission.

To be honest, this part of the game is really going over well with play testers. They love being able to be a part of conversations between the team members and experience the development of these characters. You also get a lot of the story development during this time. Our goal was to create a bit of a lull between missions so the player can wind down and take in the sights, really engrossing themselves in the day in the life of a Starfleet officer. But even when you are on Voyager there are plenty of things to keep you busy.

Q: Taking the last question a step further, how are you handling level transitions?  Does one level take place in a certain wing of the ship?  Or is it more of a hub-and-spoke concept where the player always has access to the entire ship and has to move between maps to complete puzzles, similar to Hexen?

A: The player only has access to certain parts of the ship at different times between away missions. The player is always given an order or has an objective to get somewhere on the ship. The movement through the Voyager is fairly linear.

For example, one level encompasses the Sickbay and surrounding hallways (on deck 6), then the player is ordered to report to Hazard operations on deck 4. The player on the deck 6 level goes to the turbolift (which is Voyager's elevator system) and uses it to go to deck 4. The level load happens during this turbolift ride and you then start the next level on deck 4, where the player has access to only this portion of the deck. Each time the player comes back to Voyager, they get to see a new part of the ship they haven’t seen before.