Why “Messy Desk”?
Research has shown that people who have messy workstations come up with the same number of ideas as those who work in organized environments, but their ideas are more creative and interesting. That sounded a lot like us!
What’s Your Story?
We started out as a group of Star Trek fans that came together to realize a life-long dream of being able to walk the decks of the Enterprise-D “for real” and explore beyond the edges of the television camera. Being in that environment just made us happy. Based on the feedback we got, a lot of other people felt the same way! When the project ended, we realized that what we had been trying to do is capture the optimism and hope for the future that the show inspired, which the world so desperately needs right now! That led us to explore additional projects that provide a similar benefit.
What was that project? Is it still available?
The original fan-project, known as Stage 9 – Virtual Enterprise D Recreation, was stopped in mid-2018 at the request of CBS Studios, who held the IP for the Star Trek franchise. As a result, it is no longer available. Our team has since moved on to new projects, which have us very excited!
What is TOIFE? Is this the same as The Orville Experience from ComicCon?
TOIFE is an acronym for The Orville – Interactive Fan Experience, our digital recreation of The Orville in Unreal Engine. It is not affiliated or related to The Orville Experience, which was a super-cool in-person exhibit of props and physical pieces from the actual show, which debuted at ComicCon San Diego in 2019.
Why did you decide to recreate The Orville? Are you guys “official”?
Our team wanted to work on something new that gave us that same sense of optimism for the future that Star Trek did. Seth MacFarlane’s hit sci-fi series The Orville seemed like a natural. It also helped that we fell in love with the aesthetic of the show!
As with our previous endeavour, The Orville – Interactive Fan Experience is an unofficial fan project. While the show runners are aware of us, and know that we are very serious about treating the IP with respect and making every effort to ensure our work not only embraces existing fans but also helps spread awareness of this fantastic show, the project is NOT officially endorsed by Fuzzy Door Productions or FOX Studios.
This sounds awesome — how do I get involved? Are you crowdsourced?
The best way to get involved is to join our Discord! We have a thriving fan community there, where we post project updates and releases, discuss ideas, and generally have a great time. We also have an active public beta for TOIFE there that you can join and help us test upcoming releases before they are made public on Steam.
Beyond that, we’re always looking for modeling and programming talent to join our team! If you have a passion for optimistic science fiction and skills in Unreal Engine or related modeling software and want to expand your gaming portfolio, check out our Contact page for current openings!
With regards to financial support, The Orville – Interactive Fan Experience remains a completely separate, non-commercial volunteer fan project; as such, we do not accept any donations towards its development.
