Old School Gamer Magazine chats with Trese Brothers Co-Founders Games Cory Trese and Andrew Trese, who give us the rundown of the newest addition to the Star Traders Universe, Frontiers. Built in the retro fashion, with a small deep and a focus on replayability and sheer gameplay depth, Frontiers is a reminder that amazing games are all about the memories they inspire or the ones they are able to bring back.
Old School Gamer Magazine: How was Star Traders: Frontiers born?
Cory: Star Traders: Frontiers was born in 2011 – the first time I got really excited about a user’s feature request for Star Traders RPG (but knew in my heart that it was far beyond the capabilities of the game engine I had built).
Andrew: Yeah – at that point, Star Traders RPG was already out and pretty exciting. We had a growing community of players around it – and they were hungry for more. There came a time where we realized what we wanted to create in the game was beyond the engine – and we started having to tell players, “We might do that in Star Traders 2.† And so, the kernel that is Star Traders: Frontiers was born!
Old School Gamer Magazine: What has development been like so far?
Cory: The development process for Star Traders: Frontiers has been a journey spanning both space and time for us. With a team of just two people, personal lives can have a major impact on schedule. In the time between the creation of the Kickstarter campaign and the release of the game, we’ve both made multiple state moves at least once. The development has been a battle at times: We’ve pushed ourselves and our abilities pretty hard – sometimes way outside the comfort zone we’d established on previous games.
Andrew: Coming back to build a new space-opera game has felt like a revival in many ways.  We’ve recently built some amazing turn-based tactics RPGs (Heroes of Steel and Templar Battleforce). Star Traders: Frontiers is so different. It’s a big change going from on-the-ground AI routines to multi-year personal and political goal simulations!
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports.
Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders.
His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023.
Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief.
Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale.
Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.
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