Homeworld Episode I is an eight-mission (mostly) Protoss campaign featuring all-new characters, full briefing and in-game voices, custom portraits and an original storyline. The campaign is set during the original Starcraft Protoss campaign “The Stand”, focussing on a the Executor, a Praetor, a warrior and other interesting characters.
What Homeworld is and isn’t
Homeworld is a custom campaign made by a long-time Starcraft fan. Its only ‘big’ feature are the original voices for the characters. Homeworld is not a mod or a conversion of any kind. I didn’t alter the game data, though I did change things here or there using the (limited) possibilities of StarEdit.
If you want to play a campaign with a nice story and new characters while you’re waiting for Starcraft 2, Homeworld is the campaign for you. If you want something revolutionary, there are plenty of great total conversions / mods out there.
The Protoss voices
A lot – I repeat A LOT – of time goes into designing the voices for my characters, especially the Protoss characters. I did everything in my power (that includes, slipstreaming a Windows XP CD, dual booting a Mac, but don’t ask!) to match Starcraft’s brilliant sound design, and though my work turned out alright, I haven’t even come close... But hey, that’s what keeps an obsessive mind going! I am still getting e-mails now and then with questions like “How did you do this voice?” or “What did you use for this character?” and I’ll say this – it really takes hours to get that voice, that edge you’re looking for (different takes, the order of applying the effects and so on not counted), so you’ll understand there’s no easy answer for me to give (and even if there was...
.Terraining
Fancy voices are all very nice, but if your maps are crap, they won’t do you any good in the end. I’ve spent hours on each map, laying out the basic ‘lines’, balancing things out and touching up. It’s all about detail. Thank God for doodad layers! I hold a belief that maps are the flesh and bone of a campaign. You want your players to feel as if they’re ‘there’.
For instance, the Protoss homeworld Aiur was designed by Blizzard as a jungle world with Temple grounds and the occasional dirt patch. I decided that if I wanted my campaign to be believable, I had to stick to their formulas. I am proud to say that my Aiur looks like Blizzard’s Aiur!
Creating your own world is different. Homeworld Episode I will feature one completely new location, namely the Protoss colony of Tandunyr. Now Blizzard has (obviously) provided us with a limited set of tilesets, so I had to make do with what was there. Tandunyr is a desolate planet, and I chose the Desert tileset to dress this Protoss world. As of right now, there’s only one Tandunyr map complete, and I’m content with it (not overly, but like I said, that’s what keeps one going).
Here are some screenshots:
Storyline
Probably the hardest part of creating a campaign is telling an original, believable story that is true to the Starcraft universe. A lot of times I found myself thinking up twists and events that were actually exactly the same things that the player had already seen in Starcraft of Brood War, with the difference that these were my characters. The occasional “Aaaah!” moment threw me back to the paper (or Word document, more like) and write the whole thing again. As of this writing, I’m still altering things and re-arranging events. It’s fun, though. It’s all fun.
Homeworld begins on Aiur, and takes the Executor through a few obscure missions before sending him and his ilk to the elusive planet called Tandunyr, where they encounter what they expect the least. The next character is introduced in the first Tandunyr scene, and from here the player will begin to see the true colors of his companions. Watch them closely, I would say.
Characters
What makes for a cool character, that character that you want to follow throughout a campaign? That’s what I asked myself when I started work on this campaign. There are plenty campaigns out there with tons of characters they don’t actually need. Having all StarEdit’s heroes replaced by your own creations doesn’t neccessarily give you an interesting campaign. In fact, the player will eventually lose track of who said or did what. I decided to keep it to a minimum.
So far, there are four Protoss characters, namely the Praetor Therassan who acts a guide to the Executor, a battered warrior named Talliras, the mysterious Imridan and the Archon Khaladun/Algas. These characters are introduced rather early in the campaign, as the story begins ‘in medias res’.
Further on up the road, you’ll meet our first Terran character, currently known only as Spectre. He’s a Ghost and a refugee with a very vague past. You’ll learn more about what brought him to this place as the story unfolds.
That’s it for now. Five characters, four maps as good as finished, the plot thickening and a great dose of enthusiasm on my part!
ATTACHMENT:
A sound trailer featuring four of the five heroes. Enjoy!
