hearing about their love of Star Control from Legend president Bob Bates. MacDonald and Lindner led the game design, and the programming team was led by Mark Poesch. Legend's writers included veterans from acclaimed adventure game developer Infocom, with Lindner and Greenberg leading the writing team for Star Control 3. To guide the project, the staff at Legend assembled a "bible" about Star Control based on the series' manuals and scripts, with the fan community providing corrections and additions. Fan feedback was actively solicited through magazines and the bourgeoning internet. Legend also consulted with Ford and Reiche to answer open questions from Star Control II, such as the true fate of the Precursors and the relationship between Earth and the Arilou. Legend wanted to continue the previous story while adding new characters and plots, so they set the game in a new quadrant of space. This allowed them to introduce new alien enemies in the form of the Hegemonic Crux, as well as expanding on the mystery of the Precursors' disappearance. MacDonald described the game's relationship between gameplay and narrative, explaining that "Star Control is at its core a giant story, and you have to find this story and explore it." Design and production Early in development, a concept document was created by Legend Entertainment co-founder Mike Verdu. Legend also compiled a detailed binder of letters, faxes, and e-mails, with fan suggestions for the next Star Control game, which they incorporated into their plans. A major target of fan criticism was the tedium of the planetary resource gathering from Star Control II, as well as complaints about returning to Earth to refuel. The team decided to replace planet landing with a colony management system, an allusion to the strategy elements from the first Star Control game. The colony feature was designed to provide a convenient place for players to refuel, as well as a logical location to recruit crew and ships. MacDonald explained that "we wanted a big universe to explore, but we wanted to make it easier to actually get places". The developers were fans of the original 2D art of the Star Control II aliens and were hesitant to utilize 3D graphics that were too mathematical or robotic. However, they were also concerned that the 2D graphics created in the early 1990s were already obsolete. Finding a third way forward, they designed the characters by filming live animatronic