Star Cadre: Combat Class: The Inspiration

Tuesday, 30th July 2024

The idea behind Star Cadre: Combat Class comes from a number of sources. People have already noted similarities to the XCOM series, and this isn't without basis, but the inspirations came from elsewhere.

Chief among them is the tabletop RPG Traveller. Originally published in 1977, Traveller is to science fiction role-playing what Dungeons and Dragons is to fantasy. Like most RPGs, Traveller goes far beyond tactical combat, but many elements of Star Cadre: Combat Class came from Traveller and one of its supplements, Snapshot. Snapshot is the tactical combat expansion to Traveller, with figures moving around maps not dissimilar to the ones in Star Cadre: Combat Class. The idea of skills for combat and other actions also came from Traveller, although the method of character generation is different.

The computer games that inspired Star Cadre are not the XCOM series but its predecessors: Laser Squad and the Rebelstar series by the same developer, Julian Gollop. Rebelstar Raiders was a 2-player game for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, written at least partly in BASIC, and its improved successors Rebelstar 1 and Rebelstar 2 are most similar to Star Cadre: Combat Class. Laser Squad added more elements which I haven't included, like directional facing for units, and an initial equipment stage. But the graphical style is more influenced by Laser Squad than the Rebelstar games.

The control system is inspired both by Laser Squad and another Julian Gollop game, Lords of Chaos. Both have a straightforward control system that can use a simple single-button joystick, so the game can be played under emulation on a mobile device. One aspect borrowed from Lords of Chaos is the cursor that can be moved around quickly with context-sensitive actions provided by the fire key and a menu. This is especially suitable for the slow processor of my target computer, the IBM PC. Moving a cursor around can be made to run very quickly so the game feels quite fluid, even if some actions show a noticeable delay.

As with my previous games, the menu system is modelled on that of Battle Isle 2. Although I use words rather than icons on my menu, the idea of a context sensitive menu where you hold fire while selecting an option allows the default option for a particular situation (like moving to an adjacent square) to be performed just by tapping the fire key.