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Uchuu-senshi
 Image from Steve Bowers | |
| Late Information Age and Interplanetary period immersive virch game that involves over-the-top martial arts combat using ridiculous physics. | |
One of the most popular virch games from the late Information Age and on into the Interplanetary period, Uchuu-senshi was created in the early days of immersive virch. The creators of Uchuu-senshi, a trio of superturing AI known as the Muteki group, modelled the gameplay and aesthetics on classic Japanese animation stories from the early to mid-information age, such as Angelic Layer, The Isis Story, and Thousand Stars.
The game involves over-the-top martial arts combat using decidedly ridiculous physics. Players can, among other things, jump hundreds of feet in the air, shoot energy projectiles from their hands, create weapons from nothing, and teleport. Each player starts with a certain number of Hit Points(HP), and the object of the game is reduce your opponent's HP to zero. Each available avatar has certain statistics that rate its various abilities in combat, such as Might, Dexterity, Focus, Endurance, etc. Combat can take place in an extremely wide variety of environments, although the "standard layer" and "outer space" environments are by far the most popular.
The original release of Uchuu-senshi contained 25 avatar templates and 21 environments; however, as the game grew in popularity, expansions starting coming out nearly every week. Eventually, the Muteki group released a program that allowed players to design their own avatars and environments. To date, the Known Net contains at least 3 billion user-made avatars.
While the game, in its original form, is quite outdated in the current era, new versions with smoother physics and less 'mental lag' have been developed over the years, and Uchuu-senshi is still quite popular in certain circles, especially in the Cyberian Network. Variations on the rules are common, including limitations such as "humanoid only," "no projectiles," and "no invisibility." With modern advances in virch, the game becomes extremely flexible. It is possible to control more than one avatar at once, although many sophonts consider this extremely disorienting. Post-singularity beings that play Uchuu-senshi usually do so in 12 or more spacial dimensions.
Uchuu-senshi is surrounded by a very enthusiastic subculture, and tournaments can rouse a lot of attention. There are rumors in the gaming world of things such as virtuals whose entire lives revolve around Uchuu-senshi, or that the major archai play Uchuu-senshi to settle disputes as a substitute for real wars, but such things remain pure speculations.
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Development Notes
Text by Octachoron
Initially published on 11 December 2003.
Initially published on 11 December 2003.
