User:JimmyBlackwing/Voyager

Voyager was a graphic adventure computer game developed by Looking Glass Technologies from 1995 until its cancellation in 1997. It was published by Viacom New Media. Based on the Star Trek: Voyager license, the game followed Kathryn Janeway and the crew of the USS Voyager in their attempts to rescue members of their team from the Kazon. Instead of exercising direct control over the actions of the cast, the player provided general and high-level orders, which were then carried out automatically.

Voyager was the first game in a multi-title agreement between Viacom and Looking Glass, and Viacom took a minority equity investment in the company as part of the deal. However, Viacom decided to leave the video game industry in 1997, and Voyager was cancelled in spring of that year. Looking Glass's Paul Neurath later characterized the game's development as a distraction that damaged the company. In response to Voyager's cancellation, team members Ken Levine, Jonathan Chey and Rob Fermier left Looking Glass to found Irrational Games.

Overview
Voyager was an adventure game based on the Star Trek: Voyager license. The player guided Kathryn Janeway and other characters aboard the USS Voyager through three "episodes", in which the crew sought to rescue certain of their members from the Kazon. Unlike in other Star Trek video games of the time, the player manipulated the crew at a high and general level. The player selected the crew's course of action from a list of options during "decision point" scenes, after which the crew would carry out their orders automatically. Certain decisions continued the plot, while others led to dead ends or to a game over.

Interactive scenes between decision points included puzzle solving in the style of The Incredible Machine, as well as combat scenes and the use and combination of items. Like the rest of the game, combat was controlled at a general level: the player would order the crew to provide suppressive fire or to retreat, for example, and then would watch the scene play out. The game's inventory consisted of items digitized by tricorders, in order to avoid hammerspace.

Development and aftermath
Voyager began development in 1995, and it was announced in August of that year as the first game in a multi-title deal between Viacom New Media and Looking Glass Technologies. Viacom was interested in Looking Glass's engine technology, and took a minority equity investment in the company. Voyager was conceptualized by Looking Glass producer Alan Dickens and Viacom producer Rachel Leventhal. It was initially planned for release in 1996, but a later report gave it an expected release date of early 1997. The team at Looking Glass visited and researched the set of Star Trek: Voyager in order to reproduce it accurately, and they created 3D laser scans of the cast's heads. Voice over from the cast was also recorded. The game's characters and pre-rendered backgrounds were created in 3D Studio and Alias, and the characters were animated with the skeletal animation system that had been developed for Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri.

Voyager was cancelled in the spring of 1997, after 18 months in development. According to Looking Glass's Paul Neurath, the cancellation was due to Viacom's wider decision to abandon the video game industry. These events inspired three members of the Voyager team—writer Ken Levine and designers Jonathan Chey and Rob Fermier—to start the spin-off developer Irrational Games that April. They later went on to develop System Shock 2 in collaboration with Looking Glass. Neurath later stated that the Viacom deal and Voyager were ultimately a "giant distraction" and a "boondoggle" that hurt the company.