Stargate

...about the quality of the game, my theories behind the development, and my predictions for the future.

I will be discussing some story events, so unless you have already played it, or don't mind spoilers, skip this write-up. I will say the story isn't the draw card for playing the game so you may not mind the spoilers for this first half of the game. I won't give a thorough explanation of the gameplay mechanics, but it is essentially a clone of Commandos/Shadow tactics. If you want a deeper explanation, please see my previous posts about the game.

The brief:
This game is full of bugs, it's only half a game, the first half was delayed and the second half has missed its release date, and as a cherry on top it's not very faithful to the show (which I think is the most forgivable, as long as it's fun).

Stargate Timekeepers follows none of the characters from the TV series SG-1, but it does start its first level as a side story to the Battle of Antarctica that is seen in SG-1 season 7. There are seven levels in this half of the release, which follows the release of the demo which was the entire first level. The installation of part one accepts your save files so you don't need to redo the first level if you played the demo. Each level is with a different combination of characters, sometimes split into separate areas of the level.

There are many faults with the game, and I believe they fall into 3 categories: Bad choices, Bugs, and bad programming.
While those three categories overlap significantly I think there's a distinction between them based on how they ended up in the game. Bugs are faults in the programming that weren't discovered and fixed during QA, bad programming is a developer aiming to achieve something but being unable to implement it effectively, and bad choices are something that was implemented without issue but detracts from the product.

Bad choices:
While each character has unique abilities, the bulk of the gameplay is just using the generic punch and carry ability available to all but one character. It's a shame that the developers chose to make the characters nag you to use other abilities rather than design the levels to require you to use them. For instance, one of the abilities is a Kull Warrior disruptor. It weakens a Kull Supersoldier, allowing you to kill the otherwise invulnerable enemy. From memory the Kull warriors only appear in 2 or 3 levels; after that they are essentially forgotten about. So now there’s an icon on the hotbar for the rest of the game that has no use. The sniper character has a whistle action to draw enemy towards you that I think only has necessary application twice in the whole game, and could be ignored entirely after that.

The levels show hints of purposeful design, but often reveal themselves to be fairly average sandbox areas to perform the same basic abilities. I'd almost say that one team designs the level, and another comes along after and places all the enemies within that space. The original Commandos was full of very purposeful level design choices where the level layout and the enemy placement/behaviour worked in harmony. Timekeepers, in contrast, feels like the layouts were built without an intention of what the enemies would be doing there. I do sympathize that it must be difficult to produce creative play designs, but at the end of the day it was only 7 levels. I have a theory that I will bring up later that may explain why this is the way it is.

The worst outcome of bad choices has got to be the delays. Originally slated for release in late 2022, Timekeepers was delayed indefinitely until a more definite date of December 2023 was advertised, but it would only be the first half of the game. Then, as December approached, it was delayed until January 2024 with the second half being advertised for April 2024 at no extra cost to customers. It's now May and there has been no official comment on why the second half is no where to be seen, nor any hint of when it will arrive. I am hesitant to pass judgements on this because we will never learn the exact reason for the delays, but unfortunately it can only be described as bad project management. Either take the steps to get the game out on time, or recognize that you aren't in a position to advertise a release date. That could be due to budget, skills, or mistakes, but it would hint that the developer/publisher are haemorrhaging money trying to get this past the finish line after they've already taken whatever profits were up for grabs. That theory I mentioned before would also explain part of this situation.

Bugs:
Ooh boy. This game is full of them.
Full disclosure, I have only played version 1.00.25 GOG and the Steam demo. There has since been an update, but the changelog does not address the primary issue I will bring up.

The number one consistent issue that I experienced in all levels of this game was that any interactive part of the level would fail to do what it was designed to do, and would permanently lock your character in position, preventing progress in the game. The only workaround was to load a previous save, and to never interact with anything. I tested this on every single interactive element, in every level (except one in the final level, which I safely assume suffers the same issue). If at any point you make a character walk up to an interactive object and touch it, it was like they had been frozen in place. Trigger a trap? Nope, reload. Hide in a closet? better not save once you're inside, reload. Any sort of switch, button, noise maker? forget it, reload. I've tried on my laptop, on my desktop computer, at different graphics settings, nothing resolves this issue. There are parts of the game where you need to push over panels to open up pathways or create bridges; none of these work. Luckily there were always less direct ways to make progress, but it felt like there were many times that the intended solution was not possible because of these bugs. There are even item pickups you have to ignore, because trying to open the access door will break your game. I haven't seen any other mention of this online in forums or comment sections, but that's because no one is really talking about the game at all. I have no idea how common this is for customers.

edit: after visiting the official discord, I can see the developers have been made aware of this problem as of 11th April and are working to fix it.

Aside from that there are issues like animation problems. The Spy character can dress up like a Jaffa and distract enemies with conversation; hilariously you can get him stuck waving his conversational hands around while he's crouching and sneaking around the level. I've had enemies tied up on the ground, loaded a save, and now they are standing up but still functionally tied up on the ground.

If you have multiple characters selected and try to perform generic commands with them, sometimes it just won't work. I also noticed at least once instance of punching an enemy while they were climbing a ladder, they finish climbing the ladder, and then fall over unconscious. That would've been an easy fix of "if(climbing ladder == true); don't punch; else punch;".

Bad programming:
This is where it starts to come together. The reason Timekeepers is in the situation it's in. I don't think it's blasphemy to be loose with the lore. Fans will forgive flubs if the game is fun. They will give concessions to non-canon if it's creative enough. Bugs are somewhat expected in releases, as long as they are recognised and patched. What Timekeepers suffers from is a skill issue. I say this with as much respect as possible towards the developers. I'm not putting the blame on them, I think having a skill deficit isn't a rare challenge in projects and it should be recognised and resolved by team leaders. Good project management involves supporting the team when they lack the skills, time, or resources required to complete the tasks.

The small part of it can be demonstrated with a few things I experienced. There is a level where you have two separate groups. Team A is faced with locked doors. Team B can unlock these doors. You are expected to leapfrog the teams through the levels: Unlock a door with Team B, progress Team A until the next locked door, move Team B towards the next unlock mechanism, repeat. It turns out there is nothing preventing Team B from going start to finish right away and unlocking all the doors, then using Team A to go all the way on their side in one go. When you do this you end up getting dialogue events out of order. Because you were intended on moving the teams forward at the same time, the dialogue events trigger based on specific location triggers and there's nothing preventing you from triggering them out of story order.

In other instances, there are events that add or remove characters for story reasons. Losing the Spy character makes the levels a lot harder than if you had him. So instead I found myself skipping the current objective, sneaking ahead through the level, clearing out all the enemies, before coming back near the start of the level to complete the objective. Then I could just walk through an empty level to finish off the other objectives.

Basically, the flow of the game is regulated poorly. The pieces usually work in isolation, but together they are don't function as a unit. There are many opportunities to side-step the intention of a level and find holes in the barriers to play the level out of order.

Also, the UI hasn't been tested for different aspect ratios (see image of post)

The large part of it? Earlier I mentioned a theory, spoilers ahead. I think I know what happened at the start of level planning, and why it has crippled the release of the game. It ties together with bad choices, but I think it was bad programming that is driving the nails into the coffin. The title Stargate Timekeepers alludes to time travel. I can tell you that throughout the first 7 levels currently available there is no time travel. The first half of the game ends with an inciting incident that will begin the time travelling part of the game, and I think it's no coincidence that this is where the currently released portion of the game ends.

Playing the levels that were released, I always felt like the layout wasn't being utilised efficiently. In fact you can notice a few parts of levels that didn't get used at all. Now it takes no genius to figure it out; the time travelling nature of the story will bring you back to these levels to visit areas again. I think the original plan was to make a game that would heavily reuse game areas and time travel would be the justification for the amount of repetitiveness that would involve. Not a bad concept in general but one that requires a bit of finesse in game design to pull it off. This is what I think the developers are stuck on right now. They had started making the levels with the intention of reusing them later, but once they got to the "later" they've realised the levels aren't working for what they are trying to do. Now, while building the rest of the levels, they are faced with putting a square peg in a round hole by trying to reuse them, or having to build all new levels that weren't in the original scope of the project.

That would explain why the enemy placements often felt after-the-fact of the level layout. It would be because the layouts were built for multiple enemy placements, and probably different directions of character movement. It would explain why we only got the levels up until the time travel was about to start. Only the first pass of the designed areas were functional, and revisited levels are not working as easily as expected or are being rebuilt from the ground up. I think the reuse of game areas promised lower effort in production, but has instead turned into more effort that a linear game.

The Future
Where does that leave the game going forward? The first half of the game came out over a year after the full release was first supposed to happen, and we've blown past the date that the second half was advertised. Providing the rest of the game for free means there will be little more in sales aside from the kind of person who would hold off until full release. The delay from December 2023 to January 2024 would have cost money. That's another month of costs, like hours worked, on a project that hadn't made money on time. Now the money has been made, and there has been another two months of costs with no hint to an end. Word of mouth has deflated the promise of a good game. The only things keeping the project going must be a sense of responsibility and maybe a false belief that the complete game will attract enough new customers to offset the extra costs. I would honestly believe the idea that the long development duration of this game has already cost the project more money than it can hope to make back now. Stargate as a franchise has stagnated for the last decade and any attempt to revive it hasn't moved past the ideas stage.

If you visit the Slitherine website there is no mention of Stargate Timekeepers on the front page at all. If you visit their store page, the only mention of Timekeepers can be found by scrolling down the bottom of the page, and then scrolling down in a smaller "recently updated" box. The coming soon page has no mention of part 2, and even the dedicated page for the game itself makes no mention of the missed deadline of April.

I think there's a significant chance we won't see the second part of this game released. I think someone from the publisher will decide there's no point putting more money down the drain and close the project. From a legal point of view, I'm not sure what this would mean for people who have bought the game. People paid full price for a game with the understanding that the full product will be delivered. If that no longer happens, are these people entitled to some kind of refund? I don't know if there were pre-orders for this game, but what would be the situation for a pre-order that was paid for before they split the release into two parts, with no delivery of the second part?

What is interesting is the Slitherine website has started calling parts 1 and 2 part of "season 1". I think their Hail Mary is going to be releasing another small segment of the game as part 2 with the hope of charging more money for the rest of the game labelled as season 2. A far cry from their original intention of releasing one complete game. If that's what they are doing, good luck to them, they will need it.

Conclusion
In conclusion, did I enjoy the game? I actually did. I think I'm an edge case because I have a deep love for both Commandos and Stargate. I'm one of those people who finished all of Commandos and then found fan made levels to keep playing. I also have a large collection of Stargate DVDs, books, magazines, etc. Overall I think this game fell flat for its intended audience, which was a small audience to aim for. I only recommend this game if it becomes dirt cheap and they fix the game breaking bugs.

Screenshot from Timekeepers, looks like bad fan art.

Seriously, it's like covering your car in giant random numbers and letters.

After a series of delays and false starts, Stargate Timekeepers got a partial release in January 2024 with part 1 of 2 containing the first 7 levels of the game. The second part was advertised to be released in April 2024.

On the Slitherine website there is now no mention of April, and the release of the second part is simply stated as "later in 2024". GOG still says part 2 will be available in April, despite that date having passed.

There was an update released mid-April that adds 2 small features and some bugfixes, although the bug fixes do not seem to address the serious issue I experienced where all interactive environmental elements permanently lock your character in place (to be fair I haven't installed the update yet to check).

I do wonder if we will ever get the rest of this game. I suspect they have already crossed the point where the game is costing them more money to finish it than it will earn back. At what point do they just stop working on it and never finish the release?

Here is the change log of the update:

Here below the detailed changelog is available for you:
QoL features:

We have added a feature that, when enabled in the settings, causes the character to approach the nearest possible location if the target of the skill is out of range at the time of selection, in order to place themselves within range.
By holding down the LMB button for an extended period, you can now place an Enemy Vision marker to check which of the opponents is observing the designated location in real-time.


Voice overs:

We have added new voiceover lines for enemies.


General fixes:

Player characters and enemies should utilize ladders in a more organized manner now.
Fixes to player character animations..
Reducing the duration of alarms.
Fixes for enemy drone VFX.
Disabling Unity Analytics.
Fixed achievements bug on GOG

Hi, I'm considering getting into Stargate. I only know it's based on a movie and the franchise consists of 3 tv shows. I don't know anything about the setting / plot.

I'm a massive Star Trek and Babylon 5 geek. I don't know if Stargate is for me, though and I don't want to invest many hours before I might find it's not for me.

Maybe you people here can provide some info about the plot, pros & cons of the franchise and explain to me what got you hooked.

Looking forward to your replies.

PS: I don't live under a rock, but somehow I managed to dodge everything about the franchise.

PSS: would I start with the movie and then SG-1? Are there other critical things to know?

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/7486267

When a bunch of men in large snake heads suddenly jump out of a relic of alien technology housed deep within Cheyenne Mountain, General Hammond decides to call Richard Dean Anderson with a haircut out of retirement. But when they discover that the gate is less like two cans on a string and more like a touchtone phone, it’s going to take an ensemble cast with eidetic memories to dial in the right number. Does the snek make the X from the inside? Do Furries require fur? How many claymores can you fit in war wagon? It’s the episode that puts it in the theme.own.

It might be a minority view, but I loved Jonas Quinn's character! Why? Because he made Teal'c a fully fledged [/edit] character. The both of them interacted so well. Teal'c was part of the main cast since episode one, but he never felt like a real person with their own emotions until season 6.

Christopher Judge is an incredible actor, but until Corin Nemec came along he wasn't allowed to be a whole person with their own agenda. Even small stuff, like not sharing his ice cream in "Prometheus" / "Unnatural Selection", would have been unthinkable before Jonas came along.

I think, retrospectively, telling Jonas to ~~fuck off~~ be with his people when Daniel came back hurt the series in the long run. Corin was a good actor, and Jonas was a good character.

I’m in Season 2 of my rewatch of SG1 and Christopher Judge’s acting gets me every time. Seeing Teal’c with O’Neill’s personality is just so weird and jarring. What’s everyone’s favorite episode when the actor has to be someone different? Either a swap or like when Jack is inhabited by the organisms from the bioluminescent time capsule thing.

Is it, "Shal'kek nem'ron" or is it "Shel kek nem ron"?

Also, has anyone found this phrase in the Goa'uld script? I'd love to get it as a tattoo!

Second level,

One of the main features since the promo footage was environmental opportunities. Click a button on some logging equipment and kill some Jaffa.

This very first instance is bugged. If you click the button, the environmental trap fails to trigger, except from making a noise that the Jaffa investigate. Then your character is locked in position permanently.

I really want to like this game, but these guys have had over a year of delays to get it in a playable state, and one of the difficulty factors is the constant risk of the game being unplayable. Such a shame.

edit: Looks like it might be all environmental opportunities. This is a problem because it looks like some of them are the intended way to progress in the level. This could actually be game breaking.

Is it just me or does anyone else feel like Thunderstruck by AC/DC would be totally fitting as Thor’s ship lowered over Heru’ur’s ship? I’m doing a rewatch and taking notes as I go on their writing choices and this episode just makes me so psyched. What a cool introduction to the level of technology the Asgard possess.

(I feel like I should point out I’m joking and in no way suggesting they should have added AC/DC to the show)

Found of the GOG listing:

"Disclaimer: Stargate: Timekeepers will be released in two parts. Season 1 Part 1 will be available on day one, and Season 1 Part 2 in April 2024. By purchasing this game you'll have access to Season 1 Part 1 immediately and to Season 1 Part 2 after its release in April 2024."

Originally set to be released in late 2022, Timekeepers has fallen victim to many delays. It's last advertised release date was December 12th 2023. When we got close to that date it got delayed to some time in January, but only listed as "coming soon".

I went to check if it was out yet, and I notice it has been marked to be released in parts now. Apparently this was in the December delay announcement, but it is the first time I have realised it's being released in incomplete parts. The second part is set to release in April.

The concerning thing is not so much the multiple parts. This is a semi-common money grab tactic, where the developer can pull money while drip feeding the game out, with no obligation to actually finish the game (this happened with Stargate Unleashed: Only two episodes were ever released, and episode two only made it to iOS before it was cancelled). In this instance the second part is a free update. The reason this concerns me more is that it is clearly a delaying tactic so they can complete an unfinished game at the same time as taking money for the game. They've had so many delays that I think they are running out of money and are yet to have a finished product they are able to sell.

In the Gateworld article (https://www.gateworld.net/news/2023/12/stargate-timekeepers-launch-delayed/) author Darren says "The bug in question prevents players from progressing through the later stages of the game [...] The publisher opted to fix the bug now, rather than release the game and have players unable to progress beyond a certain point until the patch is released."

So already with the plan to publish the first half of the game to buy time to finish the second half of the game, the developers find a bug that makes it clear the first half of the game wasn't ready to be released anyway. Gateworld suggesting that the Dev chose an option to fix a game breaking bug before release, rather than release a game that can't be completed, is being a bit too generous. If your game has a game breaking bug, it shouldn't be released, period.

Stargate SG-1 began in 1997. It is 2024 and we have yet to see any of the many video games actually make it to fans in a finished state (or maybe one depending on how you count Resistance). The video game curse of Stargate continues.

For those keeping score:
Stargate SG-1: The Alliance, cancelled 2005, First person shooter based on the event of the show
Stargate Worlds, cancelled 2010, MMO, Set in the early seasons of the show and exploring the Furlings
Stargate Resistance, released 2010 but servers shut down by 2011, Arena Deathmatch style 3rd person shooter
Stargate Unleashed, 2013 cancelled after 2 episodes, Mobile phone adventure game, Only the first episode available on both Android and iOS.
Stargate Network, a well received fan game that looked better than all of the above, Ceased and Desisted by MGM when Timekeepers was announced.

If anyone has any first hand experience regarding Resistance, let me know. I don't really understand what happened with that one, whether it could be considered a successful release or not.