14 DAY TRIAL // Star Trek: The Next Generation was the first non-animated television series that I followed with an almost religious fervor, carefully watching the episodes that aired every Sunday in mid-90’s Romania and then debating their ideas and events with a group of friends.
I liked the far future optimism of the Enterprise, its variety of crew members, the philosophical questions that it tackled.
Redshirt, a new title from The Tiniest Shark and publisher Positech Games, takes the core ideas of Star Trek and other science fiction series and adds just one huge question: what would happen if they had Facebook?
Social networks are a disruptive technology and their emergence and increasing popularity has changed the way human beings relate to each other, build groups, identify with their peers and deal with long-distance interactions.
Redshirt takes all these realities and moves them in the far future on a space station where the player starts out as a lowly transporter cleanup technician and where survival depends on his ability to make friends, be social and exploit his relationships.
And, in a few weeks, the game creates a situation where I have to decide if I want to use my time to like posts from my boss on Spacebook to secure a promotion or if I want to exchange messages with my girlfriend to boost our relationship.
In Star Trek: The New Generation, characters created social bonds in Ten Forward, about which Redshirt has a solid joke, or while they were dealing with other problems.
But if they had Facebook, I suspect the flirting between Ryker and Troy would have happened via the social network and that other members of the crew would have criticized their teasing status updates.
More information on the game mechanics can be obtained from the Softpedia review for Redshirt.