Star Prospector has launched a week ago. Intrigued by this new sci-fi RTS I decided to take Star Prospector for a spin. Not to write a full-blown review yet but to get a taste of the game, and to let you guys know my first impressions playing it.

I played the first two missions (not the demo, the full game). But after finishing the second mission I realized “Hey, maybe I’ll just play one more!”. The article could almost end by now :) No, seriously, here are my first impressions of Star Prospector. Enjoy!

A smooth entry

First of all the intro is really nice. This is something you don’t see much these days and is surely a very important asset to set the right mood. I navigated very comfortably through all the menus. I choose my rig, its weapons and a first mission assignment, which was kind of a basic tutorial one.

With the help of the tutorial learning to play the game was very easy. The user interface is very accessible, which also helps a lot. Everything seems to be in the right place and feels right. There is enough information available (descriptions, damage inflicted by units, unit’s experience, power required for each building, etc).

There are several types of missions available to you, which I find particularly interesting. I could find already prospect, eliminate and archeologist missions. In the prospect missions you are assigned a task to assess if a particular planet is suitable for exploiting a particular resource. In the archaeologist missions you need to investigate some event or events, take necessary action and bring back a report. So, in a sense the archeologist and the prospect missions are kind of survey missions you undertake on the various systems and planets.

After every successful mission you’re rewarded with credits and experience. With those you can upgrade your rig with better weapons and defenses or decide to invest in unlocking new units or buildings (which is understood in the game as new “techs”). So, mission after mission you gradually upgrade your list of possibilities which is a nice thing that increases replayability and mitigates a bit mission repetitiveness. You know, build ore facility, build bot factory, build bot, extract ore, build fuel extractor, etc…. To mitigate this repetitive pattern I think some missions (some, not necessarily all) could start already a bit advanced (with the basic buildings and units) so that you don’t need to start every time everything from scratch.

One other very interesting aspect about Star Prospector is that every game you start is randomly generated. So, you will end up getting different missions every time you play a new game. This is a very important aspect because it increases game replayability. In my game session I completed 2 missions of a total of 101 for that game (2% accomplished in 1 hour or so of play). That’s a lot of play potential.

A pure RTS with a twist

Star Prospector is an RTS, a pure one in the sense that you need to use your workers (in this case bots) to collect resources nearby your base (which gladfully are finite). Then you need to bring that ore into an ore processing facility to be later used for constructing new buildings and new units. You have two types of resources available, ore and fuel. This is the game’s core mechanic, and there’s really nothing new here.

However, although Star Prospector is a pure RTS its pace may not satisfy all players at the start. The game has a kind of more calmer and leisure feel to it, certainly not the case of your typical RTS where everything happens instantly and you get to places very fast. Not in Star Prospector. Things don’t take that much time to build alright but units do take their time to move around, scout and reach a destination. Including your rig. So, don’t expect a full adrenaline rush coming out from this game but more of a casual and joyful experience, certainly a kind of a twist to traditional RTS games.

I have nothing against this calmer pace. Actually, for me the fast pace (sometimes even frenetic like in StarCraft) is something I don’t fancy that much. So, this game will be perfect for you guys that like RTS but like to take your time.

The music and sounds are very decent. I found the sounds particularly interesting by the way. The sounds of bot miners extracting ore or the sounds of lasers firing from laser bots and laser towers are particularly nice.

In terms of graphics Star Prospector doesn’t bring anything new really. There are no spectacular explosions (that I could experience in two games at least), no revolutionary camera moves or fully detailed models. But overall graphics are quite nice. Very clean and crisp. I have nothing to complain here.

Conclusion

Star Prospector seems like a very nice and decent sci-fi RTS game that every RTS gamer should have a look at. The experience evolves at a calm pace featuring a very interesting blend of RPG elements (progression, experience gain, level up, items purchase), strategy elements and action.

I found my first incursion into Star Prospector a very joyful and entertaining experience. The decision of including Star Prospector in the Space Sector’s sci-fi/space games list for 2012 was indeed a fortunate one. It was the first title of that list to come out, and it came out as a good surprise.

In case you missed it there’s a demo available. Try it for yourself and let me know your own impressions about the game.

Star Prospector is available on Impulse/GameStop for the Windows PC, for a price of $19.99 USD.

So, if you want to be one of the first to have a look at Renations then jump right in through this link and share it with your friends if you like. You can all pick nearby places when choosing your race and city locations so you’ll be able to interact early in the game.

First Impressions

Renations is a strategy game set on a post-apocalyptic world. For a brief overview of the game I invite you to read a Renations’ preview article I wrote a couple of months ago.

At first look Renations seems to be just another of your typical browser-based resource-gathering free to play MMO. Yes, the main mechanics are common to many other browser-based MMO games currently available in the market. However there was something about Renations that caught my attention. Maybe it had to do with its background story and the sci-fi setting, or perhaps it was just a god damn good pinch press release.

Anyway there were some key aspects about Renations that made me follow this game since it was first announced a couple of months ago. Things like the devs stating that “accessibility has been a key design driver in Renations“, or that “RENATIONS is different to other similar games as it features extensive lore and emphasizes the art of storytelling“, or perhaps it was the devs punch line “The game reinvents the genre“.

For some reason I was captivated by this title and today I got a chance to have a look at it, a couple of days before it gets open to the public.

So, what’s interesting about Renations?

Actually when you start your game you can’t help but feel a bit overwhelmed with all the different buttons, icons and tabs available to you. And at first glance the graphics don’t look that nice. But after a while you get used to the UI look & feel and you start to navigate around very comfortably. And this is a strong point about Renations that I would like to point out first.

The UI is clean, usable and intuitive. The game features plenty of tool-tips that help you get a good grasp on the game. The majority of the game functions are at the distance of a click and the rest of them probably not more than a couple. The menu is very well organized, and so, after a few minutes you’ll be quite familiarized with all that the game has to offer. But don’t be fooled with this apparent simplicity, Renations has plenty to offer.

The UI can take some seconds to respond at times but nothing too serious (remember that this is a browser-based game). There are some obvious things still left out to finish. Things like some art assets still missing (“Portrait coming soon!”). I guess the devs will take care of that shortly, during the open beta or right after that.

In the beginning, I recommend you go through the tutorial, which as usual in this type of games will introduce you to the resource gathering and building mechanics of the game. Mission after mission you will become more and more familiarized with the game, so, this tutorial alone is probably all you need to get on track with the game and I strongly advise you start there.

Story unfolds with your progress. This is probably one of the aspects I like most about Renations, if not the major aspect that got me interested in the game in the first place. In contrast with many other MMOs I’ve played, Renations features a central story which unfolds as the player progresses in the game. As time unfolds you will be decoding parts of the story in what the game calls “log books”. Actually the game server that can be played now has the layout of a book. As the game progresses new chapters will be unfold, and so on. Possibly in the future there will be more servers (more games, or books) to be unlocked, but this is just a guess.

Heroes, quests and events. Besides the main plot Renations also features a very interesting PvE side-quest system, also vulgarly known as instances or raids. As you progress you will be able to perform these side quests, even cooperatively at times, although I only managed to complete a single-player instance yet. If you’re successful you gain loot and possibly level up your heroes when you finish your quests.

To embark in PvE quests you need heroes. There are several types of heroes available for recruiting, each one with their own traits. RPG fans will be pleased since heroes level up and can be equipped. You recruit your heroes at a tavern and you can buy them equipment there too. The more improved your taverns are the more and stronger your heroes will be available for recruiting there.

In addition to PvE quests Renations also features events that occur from time to time. When these events unfold you are given a choice on how to address them. On one of my games I had the chance to apply a surplus of money. Miners were requesting increased wages in order to ease their burden. I had the choice to use that surplus money to raise their wages or to invest the money in the construction of warheads. So, your decisions, your play style, will affect the game accordingly. In my case I decided to attend the miner demands, and for that I got a temporary boost of production in my city.

Interesting tech trees. Renations features research. Nothing really new here. However I found Renations’ tech trees to be rather meaningful. You research new techs to unlock new buildings and new units, nothing new here alright, but each faction has its own different tech tree, adapted to their style and background story. Although I’ve only played two factions by now (the Ocean dwellers Myrmidons for the most part, and the Order for some time) there seem to be plenty of choices and different kind of buildings and interesting units to unlock.

Other Aspects

The monetization model is pretty standard. The game is free to play, however if you want you can subscribe temporary advantages called subscriptions with game currency called Game Credits (GC), that you can buy in-game. These subscriptions include research and production boosts and extra queue building slots (the ability to build several things at the same time). In addition to these subscriptions you can also buy special equipment (called implants) to equip your heroes.

There are some rough edges still. As not unexpected at this time (since the game is still in beta) there is still some unpolished stuff and some annoyances too. Examples of these are the missing art assets. Some pictures are still unavailable and some icons look a bit too similar in places. As an example of this: the unit icons, which are very similar and uninteresting. Looks like the Art department has still a lot of work to do. There is occasional lag on UI response here and there but nothing too serious as I already mentioned above. There is also some bad wording in the descriptions when starting your game and choosing your faction.

Bottom Line

Renations did not disappoint me. This is actually a MMO game I enjoyed playing. It features a nice bundle of features. At times, and in a way, it made me feel like playing Civilization on a browser with a post-apocalyptic setting.

Only time will tell if Renations has enough depth (and not too many annoyances) to keep me interested, but for now I will play it in the background to check-in from time to time.

I’ve witnessed some bad releases in my time. This one has been no doubt one of the most disappointing. It’s sad how this is becoming a pattern these days and how the players are being turned into beta testers more and more. Add on top of that the fact that people had extremely high expectations for SotS2 (since the original SotS is a game loved by so many) and you get one of the most dramatic releases of the last years.

It’s fairly known by now that Paradox Interactive and Kerberos Productions have announced that there were (major) problems with the game’s release, so, I am sure many of you are not being caught by surprise. On the release’s very next day the publisher’s CEO Fredrik Wester made a statement on Paradox’s forum apologizing for the current state of the game. One day after that, it was Martin Cirulis time to apologize on the developers forum. In that post Kerberos’ CEO asked for patience and promised that things will be fixed as soon as possible.

Having heard so many horrible things about the release I decided to get my hands into SotS2 as fast as I could. So, in the meantime of my work on the review here are my first impressions.

So, how bad is it?

It’s bad, really bad. Consider that I based these impressions on the latest available patch at the time of this writing (which would be the one from last Friday’s 11th November patch (several patches have already been issued since release day).

3D Map is a bit cumbersome to navigate

Let me start by saying that the worst part of this all is stability. It’s really hard to play the current release because it’s almost impossible to play 20 or more straight turns (actually trying to do something) without getting into a random crash to desktop (sometimes on the fleet manager, others on the “diplomacy” menu and on other places). Other times the game will just freeze, when you try to access the game menu for example. I know this is not happening just here because I’ve been checking forums where people are discussing the game, and they are saying the same there too.

But it’s not just stability. The game feels incomplete, it’s unpolished in many aspects and you can tell that there are features that are dummy or still work in progress. I think a couple of pictures will show you better what I mean.

But it’s not only the incompleteness. Some things are just plain missing. Trade for example is not yet functional from what I could tell. You adjust your sliders to divert production to trade but nothing happens, you don’t get more income as you’re supposed to. (Edit 16/11: So it seems that trade should be already functional by now – from what I could learn in the Kerberos’ forum – however apparently the player is required to build the right kind of station, research the right tech, build freighters, and then trade routes will eventually be established, but I can’t confirm this yet. And surely this is not documented anywhere, and nothing in the game leads you to think you need all this) Another example is diplomacy. At first I could not see any diplomacy options, that’s ok, I had not encountered any opponent yet. Eventually I found an opponent and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Most Diplomacy options are just a placeholder, a dummy version barely 20% functional perhaps. See below.

Diplomacy options are currently a placeholder

It looks better than it actually is. The buttons “System Data”, “Slaves”, “World”, etc, are all placeholders, when you click nothing happens. At first you think you’re doing something wrong but after a while it becomes evident that you’re not. This is what you get if you request or demand something (I don’t know what the difference between the two options is since both lead to the same screen above). If you click treaty you can’t do anything (maybe you can’t yet? At this point you can’t help to start thinking otherwise).

Then there’s the random crashing and freezing (that I already talked about) and the annoying lag-time between menus that can go from a normal 1 to 2 sec time to more than 5, 10 or more seconds in some cases (again I know that this is not happening just here).

Then there’s more unpolished stuff and more annoyances proper of an Alpha/Beta release. Things like:

• No in-game tutorial.
• Options and cinematic in the game menu greyed out (unavailable).
• Not being able to select multiple fleets to strike a system (having to go and assign one by one).
• Not being able to distinguish explored from unexplored systems in a user-friendly way.
• Finding a gaseous planet (and a barren planet) with an Earth-type model rendering when you zoom-in.
• Many Terran planets have Very similar models (if not the same).
• Having to switch continuously between tech trees to pick the one I want (very tedious process).
• Info panel states 6 turns for a fleet to reach a destination but actually it takes 3 or less (at least with the Morrigi engines - the ones I played more). This is a very serious problem.
• There is “salvage research” and “special project” sliders on the empire manager screen that I don’t have a clue what they are for (even after reading both the manual and the beginner’s guide entirely – the Manual is very nice BTW). And what about the locked “Immigration Rate” slider? More tool-tips would help.
• There’s not an empire wide fleet overview screen, so we lose track of fleets very easily.
• Sotspedia (or Encycolopedia – not a typo, it’s how it’s written in the game) doesn’t help much and it’s incomplete.
• Station build order costs can’t be seen upfront, and while you can cancel the order after seeing how much it costs to upgrade the station it’s clear that that’s not the way it should be implemented.
• We don’t get a sense of distance between stars in the 3D map. To know that you need to simulate sending a fleet there… (couldn’t find another way)
• UI rendering is very poor in places (some ugliness when over-zooming). Clearly something that’s probably easy to fine-tune with proper testing.
• Overall UI clunkiness (from not very responsive to some serious lag at times)
• Can only rename planets right after colonization but can’t rename them ever since and systems can’t be renamed either (if they can please let me know)
• No random galaxy generation. Currently only a collection of fixed sand-box maps are available (scenarios are greyed out at game setup). The Manual states that systems details, stars and planets change from game to game but systems disposition (galaxy appearance) is fixed. This must be changed.

There’s more but I’ll save that for the review.

Anything good?

Plenty of it, great stuff, but unfortunately you can’t experience it for long because of all the bad stuff already mentioned, especially the stability issues.

There’s the beautiful ship models (some are just ok but others are gorgeous). The color palette may not be the best in places but the ships detail is generally awesome. You can even see inside the bridge/cockpit of some starships, I’m not talking about a painted model feel I mean you can actually feel you’re peaking inside the ship’s bridge. Awesome stuff (see below).

Want to peak inside a Morrigi cruiser?

There’s plenty of depth on the new stations concept. You can build many kinds of stations and you can upgrade them with new modules. This needs to be done carefully since they are very expensive yet very powerful. I really like this new stations feature. There’s Naval, Civilian, Diplomatic, Science, Gate and Tribute stations. Each of them level up several times till they become Science Centers, Star Cities, Star Bases, among other important base establishments that seem to have a strong impact in the game.

Gorgeously detailed stations

The lore is very interesting. The races background-story is detailed, rich and immersive. The races description is probably the best part of the manual by the way, and surely one of the best parts of the game also.

Other good and great aspects:

• Overall graphical rendering detail is very beautiful (planets, ships, stations).
• The missions concept is refreshing (survey missions, colonization missions, strike, invade, etc).
• Leaders: I could only see Admirals for now. For every fleet you need one of those. Each leader provides its own set of positive and less positive traits. Good one.
• Research randomization is kept from the original SotS and now there is the “Feasibility Study”, required before researching techs. Good addition in my opinion.
• There are small nice touches here and there. The tech icon rotates faster with more research spending and when there are ships under construction the build icon flashes to indicate you’re building something.
• Combat is overall nice although I experienced some clunkiness here and there. At some point I lost sight of my ships and it was hard to find them back … then the battle ended. Nevertheless space combat does feel epic, perhaps one of the best to date in 4X space games. We’ll see.
• There are independent races in the game that will not expand as much as the other major races. Finding them is supposed to be rare and you need to survey systems intensely in order to spot them (at least it’s what the manual states). Sounds good.
• There’s also a province concept where you can combine systems into provinces for economical bonuses and possibly other benefits I couldn’t grasp yet. Sounds great.
• The Survey missions, although a bit rough on the edges still, deserves an applause. eXploration has always been a weak link in 4X games, SotS2 does a great step in the right direction.
• Empire manager screen is rich in options and allows a good level of detail and control over the economical part of the game.

There’s more but that will also be in the review.

Bottom Line

In summary there’s plenty of good and even great stuff on SotS2 but there’s also plenty of horrible stuff as well. Some of the issues can (and will mostly probably) be resolved with patches to come (which the devs stated they are strongly committed on undertaking). When the stability issues are resolved, the trade made functional (Edit 16/11: or better explained) and the diplomacy complete I think the game will be fairly playable and probably already very enjoyable. At this moment however I think it’s not possible to enjoy playing, at least in my neck of the woods.

The release has been a disaster, that’s a fact, however both the devs and the publisher have made a sufficiently in-time mea-culpa, apologized and committed right away to support the game evolution through the coming months.  Moreover in order to help mitigate all this Paradox and Kerberos have offered a copy of the original Sword of the Stars Complete Collection to all the people who have bought SotS2 (or just the ones that have pre-ordered it, I’m not sure on this one).

For the ones thinking about buying the game at present state consider yourselves warned. For the brave and generous souls that are going to buy the game at this moment I think you have a good chance of not having your money badly spent since you’ll be supporting the devs through the patching process, now that all has been said. For the ones of you that have pre-ordered the game I guess there’s no big drama here either since you can choose to keep your faith in the game and on the devs or just decide to ask for a refund. I can’t see what’s the big fuss about this, at the very most people had their money tied-up alright but not lost.

All things considered I think SotS2 has all the ingredients to become a great game, perhaps even one of the best 4X space games of all time, but at the moment it needs many hours of polishing, tweaking and improvement still in order to aspire to reach that far.

I think I carried myself a bit with this first impressions article, it came out quite longer than I first anticipated, for an article of this nature, but I think it can be helpful for people to have an in-depth overview of the game’s current state. Thanks for reading and good luck to the devs on the major task ahead!

VTA was developed by Chris Carson from Gamesare Studios. Chris has developed other games but VTA was his first iOS title. I don’t own an iOS device so I thought I would not be able to try VTA out. Fortunately Gamesare Studios provides a pretty good demo in their website so I gave it a spin (afterwards Chris was kind enough to provide me with a custom PC build so I could have a look into the unlocked features of the game).

The demo does not allow you to play with all races. It also only allows you to play Quick Battle mode. In the unlocked version VTA allows you to play all 4 different game modes. These are Conquest, Quick Battle, All Against One and Rag Tag Fleet (this last one is flying around the stars looking for home).

First Impressions

VTA allows you to choose  from 5 races to play with. Each has its own bonuses and negative traits. You can see the trait modifiers for the Dev’orn race below. Some races specialize in offense (like the Dev’orn), others in defense, diplomacy or research.

The Dev'orn are the VTA Galaxy Bullies

Race variety is good, they really offer a good mix. From Humans, to a Female Society, to a Hive Collective of Scarabs to Giant Warriors and Clones. The only negative aspect to note is that in-game they all feel a bit alike. Ok, so ship designs are different (this is good) however their specific personalities are not fully explored. For instance, game text is the same for all races, from research suggestions, to mission summary (from what I could tell).

When you start your game you’re presented with a 2D starmap. Navigation is smooth. Owned planets glow with the color of each race. Unexplored planets don’t glow. Game looks great. Music is also nice by the way.

VTA 2D Starmap. Planets only jump to some planets.

So, what can you do in the game. You can build ships (colony, fighters, frigates or capital classes) or decide to improve your fleet strength. With respect to planet options you can explore planets to find sources of cash, derelicts, research bonuses or you can decide to improve your gates to increase planet range.

You can also do research, although you can only choose from options presented to you. You can move your fleets around, attack your opponents or engage in diplomacy. Diplomacy options range from making peace, declaring war and proposing an alliance. Basic but present.

Peace, War or Alliance. Quite to the point.

All these decisions, and game actions, are really one-planet-one-click actions so you can only instruct one order for each planet each turn. When you’re through with all of your planets possible actions you hit Next (for next turn) or if you don’t want to micromanage so much you’re also offered a convenient Auto option to let the computer decide what to do with the remaining planets.

VTA spaceship combat feels like a mini game inside the game.  There are many tactical aspects to choose from, which is great. First you choose your fleet formation, then the fleet’s movement and finally the firing directions (you are allowed to see your opponent’s tactical decisions upfront).

Choose your formation, movement and firing directions.

The tactical decisions variety has sufficient depth and really forces you to think since there’s not much you can do after the battle begins. In this sense VTA puts you in the fleet commander’s seat, figuratively speaking you choose your battles tactics, the battle itself is left to your pilots.

If everything was thinked carefully you win the day!

You can’t control your fleet during the battle however you can still make some more decisions during battle. You can decide to bring your heavy cavalry: frigates or capital ships or plant mines.

A less positive aspect of VTA battles however is that they can become a bit repetitive, since you can’t skip them (you always have to fight them to finish). There is no skip or automatic resolve button, so, this can be a bit annoying in larger games.

Conclusions

Vincere Totus Astrum was a nice surprise. I confess that I never thought that playing a casual iOS 4x space strategy game could be so engaging and be able to suck you in so successfully as VTA manages to do (although this is my first true iOS space strategy game experience for what it’s worth).

VTA is quite intuitive and easy to play. It’s clear what you can do from the start. A nice tutorial is also offered to clear any remaining doubts you may have. So, in this sense VTA achieves the objective of being a casual game for casual gamers perfectly, but at the same time it keeps true to the genre which makes it the perfect vehicle to attract more fans to the genre.

Remember that I didn’t play the iOS version (I don’t have an iOS device). I only played mostly through the website VTA demo and a bit more using the PC build Chris was kind enough to provide me with (this build helped me further on understanding what the locked features were). So, I don’t know how stable the game really is or if it has bugs or quirks, or other iOS types of problems, so proceed on your own risk.

Anyway, and overall, Vincere Totus Astrum is a great experience. The 4 different playing modes, the variety of races, starmaps, the battles mini-game and the amount of stuff you can do should be enough to keep you entertained for some time. The App is cheap so while this article is not actually a review I guess I can recommend VTA to all space strategy fans that own an iOS device. I hope casual fans will like it, since in my opinion, as I’ve already said VTA is a great introduction to the genre.

You can buy Vincere Totus Astrum at iTunes App Store here.

Further Notes

Chris told SpaceSector that he’s planning for a VTA update. He plans to include the following features in chunks or chapters as he calls it:

• Ground combat (building carriers to transport tanks for battle).
• Each race gets new race specific techs to research, which will assist each race in various ways
• New planet management overscreen to quickly scroll through planets and check stats
• Introducing Antik Artifacts, once found can be turned off/on in options during game and affect gameplay various ways
• New Playable race (Caretakers)
• New Enemy AI (Ve’Dikeen), not playable
• New Purification and Destruction terraforming technology available to counter Ve’Dikeen threat
• New Enemy AI (Antik) not playable

Chris mentioned that these updates are being planned (if not already in the works) but he said that the extent of what he’s able to do will depend on sales. So, in conclusion I don’t know when/if they will become a reality in the near future. They are nice improvements though.

Chris has also a deal on the way to port VTA to PC to be sold via Impulse. He also mentioned that a possible android version could be on the way.

Gameplay Trailer

Jupiter’s Folly is a (slow) real-time online board game developed by Iron Helmet Games. And I say slow because short games might last a week or so, while epic games may last months.

It is a perfect game for you to try if you don’t have much time on your hands. Things happen in real-time but events take a long time to unfold.

It’s one of those “login-twice-a-day-to-check-things” type of game but in this case without the stress of other similar games that force you to wake up at the middle of the night to check if nothing terrible has happened. In Jupiter’s Folly that should not happen.

Moving units across nodes in the map takes a long time (each move takes 8h). In addition you are only given new cards and money each 24h. And this applies to everybody else playing the same game.

It is an RTS but feels like a TBS

So in the end Jupiter’s Folley is a game of real-time strategy but at a slow pace, a tick-based RTS, which makes it almost like a turn-based game. It can actually be turned into a turn-based game if you go for the premium account, more on that ahead.

It is a real-time strategy game, no doubt about that, but after you’re done you can sit back, relax and wait for everybody else to finish. Then everybody will sit back and wait for a next round and so on. You can still do stuff like cancel orders.

I played the tutorial, which is very quick and nice by the way. That combined with a few minutes reading through the site and 30 min more exploring the game gave me a good overall picture of what the game is all about. I had fun, the UI is cool and usable but this is not a review so I will not enter into details (and I don’t have much more to say either with <1h of play anyway).

The game is really easy to play. Rules are simple and clear. In the farthest reaches of the galaxy you are looking for Crystal, the ultimate resource everybody wants. You build mines to extract Crystal but you have to counter hostile aliens and rival miners.

Each game has a Crystal quota. Meet it before everybody else and you win! :)

So basically you log-in once or twice a day to check point of status, build mines and command your armies.

It’s Multiplayer but it’s also Single-player

It is a multiplayer game where you should mind your own business but you should also keep an eye on other real players in order to trade and engage with them in diplomacy. The idea is to forge alliances if I understood correctly. You can play single-player games also.

If you play single-player you’re given the ability to do 4h boosts, so, you can play your games almost continuously. This means that you can play whole games in just a few hours.

JF is a card board game, so in the end your actions are dependent on the use of cards. There are cards to create armies, build mines, extract crystal from mines, increase your hand, and supposedly others I didn’t saw yet. There are also special cards and cards you can only lend to other players.

In terms of business model JF is freemium. So, it’s free to play, however to be able to create your own games, and to be able to unlock all the game features you need to subscribe a premium account.

The game is at open beta stage at the time of this preview.

Checkout the Jupiter’s Folley official site for more information, and to play :)

Let us know if you tried it and what were your impressions about it.

Beyond Beyaan is heavily inspired by the 4x classic Master of Orion series. When you start playing you can easily tell that many aspects are inspired by MoO1 (the sliders, ship design and research for example) and others by MoO2 (some parts of research and ship design also). The starmap and ships movement also remind you of MoO.

I’ve been following Brent’s work for some time now. Considering that he’s working almost by himself (and that this is his first game) I think his progress is amazing. I believe there’s much still to be done and polish but I think the game is already solid enough to be looked at more closely. There is no release date established yet though.

Next follows a brief hands-on preview of the current development/alpha version Brent was kind enough to share with me.

Game Setup

When you start your game you can choose the players (Human or Computer) and some galaxy generation parameters. When you’re done with that you generate your galaxy. When you’re happy with your galaxy you click next and start your game.

Beyond Beyaan: Game Setup Screen

The game customization screen is probably not finished yet. It needs a bit of polishing but it already contains the basic stuff, and looks fine. There are only two races currently available to choose from: Humans and Zero People. Brent will probably add more races in the future.

In-Game

When the game starts you’re presented with a starmap. You can see your star system containing your homeworld and probably other planets of different types. I already saw Tundra planets, Desert, Terran, Asteroids, Jungle, Steppe and Dead, and all of this diversity in a single system. Amazing!

You decide your planet’s output by adjusting sliders to manipulate what’s to be produced. Here the similarities with MoO1 are striking, but also in Sword of the Stars, although SotS got inspired in MoO1 in the first place :)

By adjusting your sliders you can choose to allocate funds to Agriculture (impacts population growth), Pollution (impacts max pop, not fully implemented yet), Commerce (not yet implemented), Research (implemented), and Construction (implemented).

Beyond Beyaan: Colony Screen

From what I could tell 1 population unit standing on a planet generates 1 BC (billion credits if I’m correct). You then allocate the amount of cash generated to areas like research, pollution containment, construction, etc.

Planets have special characteristics I believe, since some feature an icon representing some kind of treat. I could not tell which types of bonuses are offered though (tip: tool tips always help a lot).

To move ships around you click on your fleet (represented by a bunch of small ships next to your systems), set the amount of ships you want to send and then right-click on a location.

Beyond Beyaan: Ships Movement

To colonize planets, if I understood correctly, you transfer population by building transports. At least that was what I did since I could not find a colony type of ship. So, to colonize, you send your transport(s) to an ninhabited planet, in the same system or in a different one, and choose a planet to land. Multiple empires can inhabit the same system (something that also made me remember MoO2).

On the bottom of the galaxy screen there is a “taskbar” with 9 buttons that contain the menu options. From left to right: Game Menu, Galaxy View, Diplomacy, View Fleets, Design Ship, View Designs, View Planets, Research, and End Turn.View Designs isn’t implemented yet.

Beyond Beyaan: UI Menu

Brent confirmed that ship Design is fully implemented, but the UI layout isn’t final. Here again the similarities with MoO1 and MoO2 are evident. You can choose weapons, hulls (the models resemble MoO models a lot), number of mounts and special equipment like computers, engine, armor and shields.

Beyond Beyaan: Ship Design

Although you can tell that the models are heavily inspired by MoO I don’t remember seeing them exactly as such in MoO games. Some of the models are quite cool actually.

Research is implemented, you can already research stuff. You allocate the research points you generate from each planet throughout the different technologies you want to research.

Beyond Beyaan: Research Screen

The research mechanics feels also very MoO’ish. You manipulate sliders (and can lock them) to distribute your research points, which is clearly inspired in MoO1 (other games also use this mechanic like Armada 2526 for instance), and you can choose from multiple research options in the same “field” (which resembles MoO2 way of choosing  from multiple alternatives).

Nothing seems to be left out; there is also diplomacy in Beyond Beyann.

Beyond Beyaan: Diplomacy Screen

The options presented are pretty much standard, maybe the reconcile empire and harass empire are two innovative options on this topic.

So, what’s new or different about Beyond Beyaan?

So far my experience playing Beyond Beyaan was not so different from playing a mix of MoO1 and MoO2, but subpar. I also had a few flash experiences from other space strategy games.

Beyond Beyaan’s major strength though resides on its high moddability.

Brent states that the player will have the ability to modify different aspects of gameplay. You could mod galaxy generation to create custom galaxies for example.

But the biggest things that you will be able to modify are the technologies.  From Brent’s own words:

“This game will focus on space combat and technologies, so you can create your own technologies and plug them in.  For example, if you want a torpedo to bounce off a ship towards another ship, you can script that torpedo’s “OnHit” function to tell it to bounce instead of disappearing. Or perhaps you want a missile to split into multiple missiles (not just internal code, but visibly splitting), you can script that in “Travel” function after a certain time amount has passed” – Brent Patterson.

This sounds great so I asked Brent how players could modify the game. He replied the following:

“At main menu, before starting a game, there will be a drop-down showing different game files that you can load, the normal gameplay would use “Default”.  You can add new folders, and create your own races, technologies, AI scripts, galaxy generation scripts, artwork and sounds for the game.  The game will allow you to select one of those folders and load it, so you don’t have to overwrite any of the game files. So in theory, it’d be possible to mod the game to be similar to older 4x games, or create your own game.” – Brent Patterson.

Pre-Order and Donations

Brent has plans to set up a Pre-Order service soon in order to try and raise money to fund art work and other resources of the game. Currently he has set up donations on his website. He explains what he plans to do with the funding. There will be perks involved to donors.

Brent would be delighted, for sure, to hear your comments on what you’ve seen so far. If you want to support his project, then feel free to do so! You can reach Brent through his blog.

Good luck on your project Brent. I will watch it closely.

About Brent Patterson

Brent shared his motivation on developing Beyond Beyaan with SpaceSector.

Brent is a professional programmer and a space game enthusiast that wants to see a worthy Master of Orion successor.

“I was not happy with the new 4x games being released, that I find to be too complicated or in real-time. So, I decided to create my own game, picking up from the features I liked best from MOO1, and some other 4x games” – Brent Patterson.

Brent maintains a blog where he keeps his advancement on Beyond Beyaan up to date.

Astriarch – Ruler of the Stars is a turn-based single player space strategy game implemented in Silverlight (a Microsoft framework to develop web-browser plugins), which means that Astriarch is a browser-based game (at least for now).

Astriarch was previously released as free public beta. In the gold version Mastered Software added music and sound effects. The game is still free. They plan to develop future enhancements which will include multiplayer mode, a research tree and the desktop version of the game (i.e. a non-browser-based version).

In their website Mastered Software says that Astriarch was inspired in many aspects from other classic space strategy games like “Master of Orion 2 (MOO2), Stellar Conflict (1987 Amiga), and Star Control“. I can speak for MOO2, they really captured some aspects of the MOO2 soul. You can notice it here and there while playing.

As a curiosity the devs explained that the name Astriarch comes from the Ancient Greek words for star (ástron) and ruler (arkhos).

First Impressions

I went to the Astriarch homepage, watched the two video tutorials and started playing right away. All of this was done in the same web page. No registration page, no download required (although I had Silverlight already installed, you will need to download it in order to play). I setup a game versus 3 computer players and started playing.

As I previously watched the video tutorials I jumped into the game very quickly. I built my first farms and mines and started hitting the end turn button. Then I strolled around to see what each thing was for. The tool tips are very nice providing you all you need to know, short and incisive information.

The game is completely sandbox, so there is no story, campaign or anything like that. You setup a scenario and off you go.

User Interface

The User Interface is very simple, clean and intuitive. You get your main interaction with the game from the main strategy star map. You can see your stats, your ships and select your different planets. You have two additional panels to interact with: the planetary management window, which is the heart of the management decisions you need to make, and a fleet window in order to move your ships around.

The interface is not pretty but it does not have to be. It is functional and it completely captures the retro feel of this type of games.

The Economy System

In Astriarch your resources are food, gold, ore and iridium (a very hard high melting point metal).

You need enough food to feed your population and keep them happy (or  they revolt). You need the other three resources to build your structures and your space ships. Iridium is key to build your spaceships as I understand it is the material needed as an alloy.

Production in Astriarch is a factor of the number of Farmers, Miners and Workers you assign using the sliders in each planet to that effect. More farmers with more farms produce more food, more miners with more mines produce more ore and iridium, and more workers with more factories build things quicker. But there is a limit to the number of structures you can build in each planet and to the number of people you can hold.

The type of planet you own will affect your food, mining and production levels as for your maximum population and maximum building slots. But nothing has been left out; you can increase your population number by building colony structures.

I find Astriarch’s economy system elegant. It’s simple and easy to grasp while at the same time it is sufficiently rich and realistic. It is very well done.

Combat

There are five types of spaceships in Astriarch: Defenders, Scouts, Destroyers, Cruisers and Battleships. Some of which require certain buildings to be present at planet in order to be produced.

Combat is auto-resolved with a presentation of a screen pop-up informing you of the results. Combat is not tactical but has a very nice twist. Each spaceship type has advantages and disadvantages against each other so there is a nice degree of strategy that you can play with. For example, Scouts are good against defenders and cruisers are good against battleships. These bonuses are definitely a very interesting mechanic that really adds depth to the gameplay and to the overall what-to-build decision-making process.

There is no ground combat, no troops and no ground invasions. When your spaceship forces defeat all the garrisons holding a planet that planet is immediately captured to your side. From what I saw there is no option to bombard planets, i.e. to siege planets. You attack and win or lose. There are no retreats.

A Word about the Music

Astriarch’s music is … how shall I put it? Brilliant! It creates a great sci-fi atmosphere that transports you to the stars and really helps immersion. Great job!

Left Outs

There is no spaceship design, no research and no diplomacy in Astriarch, although Mastered Software has promised to develop a research tree in future game improvements.

Suggestions

A minimal diplomacy system would be nice. It would not need to be very complex. Just a peace and war option could be interesting to have. Right now your only interaction with the computer races is through war. To be qualified as a 4x game this is a key aspect to include, if that is what you are aiming for, of course. There could also be trade but that is probable asking too much for now.

If you could pull it off easily enough it would be very nice to add some RPG elements to the game. The minimum would be for ships to level up. This system would not need to be very complex. Each time a ship wins a battle it gains some points. After some threshold is hit they gain a level and that could give them a bonus percentage in combat. I think this is probably not too hard to implement (although I understand it’s not that easy also) and would improve, in my opinion, space combat fun dramatically.

I understand that research is planned to be a future game improvement. Minimum research options like attack and defense improvements and production enhancements, just to name a few examples, would be nice. This is another requirement, in my opinion, for the game to be qualified as 4x (you’re very close).

Optimally there could be more spaceship designs in the future, maybe a Carrier type and a Dreadnought for example. And even better, being able to tweak the ships somehow would be great.. There could be a custom ship that the player could design. Now that would be something.

Another important factor would be to introduce the element of surprise more often. It is more than proven in game design theory that fun goes side by side with surprises. If done well even negative surprises can be good elements for fun. Maybe you could add events like strikes (you already have revolts), derelicts or special features or bonuses in planets that could boost or decrease production and habitability even more, just to mention a few examples.

I think all these suggestions could be implemented quite simply without complex mechanics, fancy graphics or exquisite interfaces. It’s my 2 cents for your future plans for game improvements.

Bottom Line

Astriarch is probably one of the simplest space strategy games I’ve ever played and its brilliance is only surpassed by how strikingly simple it is to play. At the same time it provides more than enough gameplay complexity and requires that you make enough decisions to qualify it to be really worth your time.

I recommend you try Astriarch out. It should be more than enough to satisfy your space strategy craving for an easy, quick, or not so quick, game experience.

Astriarch is being discussed in this forum thread which was started personally by the Mastered Software developers. Feel free to participate in the discussion about the game and to present your suggestions directly to the devs.

Bigpoint and ArtPlant developed Battlestar Galactica Online, a Browser-Based MMORPG set on the Battlestar Galactica Universe. The game was released to the public on Feb 2011 as open beta. As I write these first impressions, the game is still on open beta, although it feels quite solid and probably is almost finished by now.

Bigpoint is one of the biggest publishers and developers of browser-based games. Their most popular titles include Dark Orbit, Seafight, Farmerama or Zoomumba. BSG online is being announced as the best launch of Bigpoint to date. Strong marketing punch indeed. So, I decided to have a look for myself to see if the product really meets the hype.

Let me start by saying that I’m a long time fan of the Battlestar Galactica Universe. I loved to watch the original TV Series (1978). BSG was one of the reasons why I fell in love with science fiction in the first place, along with other titles of course. I also watched the entire re-imagined BSG series that aired some years ago.

BSG Online is Free

BSG online is a free MMORPG that only requires a web-browser to run. As usual with this type of games, and with this type of business models, the game is offered to players for free. Bigpoint, and other companies alike, offer their games, in return they receive compensation from optional micro-payments that can be made in-game through a game currency commodity (in BSG online the currency is Cubits).

You can still play the game without paying for it, and usually you can have the full game experience without doing any micro-transactions. The trick is that normally the developers are keen on seducing the player to do these micro-payments through a number of ways. Sometimes micro-payments unlock special features, premium content and other times they offer shortcuts so that you don’t need to wait for something that takes a long time to build or to happen.

BSG Online First Impressions

I registered an account on the BSG online website and started playing immediately (I didn’t even need to confirm my account on my email). You start by choosing which faction you would like to play, Cylons or Colonials. After you’ve made your choice you jump straight into the game tutorial where you learn the basics of the game’s combat mechanics.

You learn to maneuver your ship and to destroy your enemies by targeting drones. The tutorial is nicely built, smooth and is not too much time-consuming.

The interface is very usable; all you need to do or know is at a distance of a click. You can right-click on your mouse to set the course and with the left click you select things and increase or decrease your throttle, among other things. You can even zoom in and out with your mouse scroll. So cool! It is that simple.

BSG Online sets in True 3D

BSG online has a true 3D engine behind that allows you to move freely around the game universe. BSG online uses the Unity Game Engine.

UGE is a game engine designed by Unity Technologies that allows developers to make fully fledged 3D online games that run in the web browser. BSG online with UGE really looks and feels amazing. The game runs very smoothly without hangs, bugs or crashes to report, all this in a simple web-browser. Great job!

Setup your Character and Review your Assignments

When you finish the tutorial you are transferred to a roster screen where you can set up your appearance and choose your ship. If you’re a colonial you can choose between a Viper MK II (if you prefer dogfight combat), or a Raptor (if you prefer reconnaissance or combat support). If you’re a Cylon you can choose between a Raider and a Heavy Raider, these last two share the same kind of characteristics as the Viper and the Raptor respectively.

After you set your looks and choose your ship you’re headed to the CIC, the command center of the Galactica battleship. There you can review your assignments with Admiral Adama himself. The complete list of assignments is also listed, and always available to you, in the screen at your right through a tab that you can hide if you want.

In addition to being debriefed about assignments you can also request some background info on the current war status from Adama. In time you can even request the command of the Pegasus from him. The Pegasus is Galactica’s sister ship, it is also a Battlestar class battleship like Galactica. But for that you need to acquire more experience and much more merit from duty.

Hang out at the Bar or do some Shopping

If you don’t feel like jumping right for your next assignment you can stroll around the CIC and head straight to the recreational area (the bar). Anyone familiar with the re-imagined BSG TV Series knows how important the bar scenes were to set the mood and the right atmosphere.

You can use the bar as a place to hang out and acquire information from Starbuck and Apollo (two other main characters from the re-imagined BSG TV series). You can also acquire some more background information and current war status from them.

You can also get extra assignments from Apollo for a chance to earn extra Cubits (the game’s currency) which can be exchanged for advanced items and other resources. You can also earn extra Tilium (ship fuel) from these side missions (or quests) that can be exchanged for other common items. By the way, other game resources include water, a precious supply that can be exchanged for cubits, and Titanium, that can be used to restore durability and can also be exchanged for Tilium.

I don’t know yet the full extent of the bar usage. Who knows, maybe you can get the chance to fly other ships not directly available to you from the main assignments. That part you will eventually figure out by yourself.

When you’re refreshed with a drink and ended your conversation with Apollo or Starbuck you can stop by for a visit to the Galactica’s Hangar, the fleet store.

In the Hangar you can equip your ship with better weapons, hulls, engines and computers. You can also resupply your ammunition.

You drag and drop your items to your ship in order to do this, in an exchange for Tilium, Titanium or Cubits. In addition to making ship improvements you can request a maintenance crew to restore your ship’s health (for a cost of titanium or cubits), you can also change your ship assignment and choose the ship you want to use from a vast list of ships that the game will eventually allow you to command. You can also buy a new ship. When buying ships you may be forced to transfer from Galactica to another war front on another sector.

When you’re ready for your next assignment get right back to the CIC and receive your debrief from Admiral Adama. My first assignment was a recon mission.

You can be a Cylon

You get all the above if you choose to side by the Colonials. You will be able to interact with Adama, Apollo, Starbuck and Chief Tyrol among others. Now imagine if you choose the Cylons! I’ll let you venture and discover that for yourself. Here is, however, a quick preview of what to expect. I leave you with Number Six (Caprica) and Number 2 (Ledben) for a nice conversation at the Cylon Basestar (the Cylon flagship) bar.

Music, Sound and Graphics

The sound is more than adequate for this sort of game. Your gun fire sounds nice; the menu sounds serve their purpose without distracting you. The music is great! This is a not so common feature among browser-based games (some don’t even feature music at all!). The music score is taken from the BSG re-imagined series soundtrack. Overall the music is of very high quality and really helps you feel more immersed in the game.

Graphics are great (and consider that you’re playing in a web-browser). It may have a few anti-aliasing problems here and there, but nothing special. The Unity Game Engine is really something. My experience with the game has been smooth, enjoyable, with no glitches, bugs or crashes whatsoever.

Bottom Line

BSG Online succeeds completely in capturing and recreating the re-imagined BSG TV series atmosphere. Can you believe that this game is played in a web-browser? Amazing! And it’s free. If you like games like EVE online and you love the Battlestar Galactica Universe then this game is for you. If you’re new to these types of games BSG Online is a good start.

I highly recommend anyone to try this game. It’s easy and free to play, so, if you don’t enjoy it in the end, you’ll only have lost a couple of hours. That is all that is required to register, play around with the engine in the tutorials, stroll around in the Galactica battleship, or on the Cylon Baseship, and make a quick assignment.

I had a blast playing and doing these first impressions! I hope you have enjoyed reading it.

You can enter the BSG online universe here.

Armada 2526 Supernova will be released in April 2011. In Bob Smith’s (Ntronium Games Managing Director) own words: “There’s no definite release date yet, it’ll be done when it’s done, but the aim is to have it in shops in Europe in April, and probably on the dl services by the end of March.”

A Word about Armada 2526 Original

About Armada 2526 I can say this: it is one of the best 4x sci-fi strategy games currently available in the market. I recommend it any day to any sci-fi strategy game fan.

The founder of Ntronium games is Bob Smith who was the project director and lead designer of Medieval 2 Total War, as for the other preceding Total War Games: Rome Total War, Shogun: Total War, and … Armada 2525, the preceding 1991 oldie.

Armada 2526 is said to be Master of Orion meets Total War. Impressing combination right? The question is, do words turn into facts? In my opinion they do! I invite you to read my Armada 2526 review for an in-depth appreciation of Armada 2526 (I reviewed version 1.02).

Supernova Hands-on First-Impressions

I got my hands on Armada 2526: Supernova a week ago.  After playing for a while here are my Supernova first impressions. But first let’s look at what’s new.

New Features

These are the main new features introduced by the Supernova expansion:

• New Star and Planet Types
• Planets now have special features
• 2 New Races
• 50 New Technologies
• New and more powerful Spaceships
• New Ground Units
• New Defenses
• Stealth Ships
• Trade Networks
• Defenses Sabotage before Battle
• Espionage Missions
• Multiplayer: Play via Lan, Hotseat or PBEM (Play by Email)

New Planet Types and Special Features

In Supernova exploration is now cooler than ever. There are new types of stars and planets. I found 2 new types: Venusian and Eccentric. Venusian planets are, well, like Venus :) They are hostile, very hot and toxic planets. Upkeep is higher in these planets but in the other hand they are easier to improve to more hospitable planets than others.

Venusian Planet Type

Eccentric planets orbit their stars in elongated orbits. The suitability for life varies during the orbital period.

One fabulous new feature in Supernova is that planets now may have special features. These features may be permanent or temporary. This is an extraordinary new addition. These special features alone increase the value of exploration dramatically since owning planets with special features may be determinant for the overall strategy for domination.

For example, a planet may have a pollution resistance, may be cursed or may have exceptional gems on it, just to name a few specials. Pollution resistance is obvious. A cursed planet has increased unhappiness. Exceptional gems present in the planet can be exported using the new and exciting trade network feature. There are plenty more special features like deep caverns, biodiversity, past civilizations, gravitic anomaly, solar flares and surely others that I did not encounter yet.

Trade Networks add a new Strategy Dimension

Trade networks are probably one of the best additions of the expansion pack in my opinion. It’s possible now to build space ports in the planets. They begin by being landing stations, which makes the planet able to import goods from your own colonies or from abroad. The landing stations can be upgraded to space ports.

Passanger Spaceport and Landing Station

With a space port a planet is not only able to import but also to export goods present in the planet (example: gems) to your other planets or abroad to other races. A space port can be upgraded to a passenger space port. When a planet has a passenger space port it can export tourism, this means that if the planet has extraordinary wildlife (one planetary special feature) the planet can cash in extra revenue from tourism each turn.

Trade Networks

When trade routes are established the player can see them as lines connecting the planets with goods flowing from the exporting planet to the importing planets. Players may raise trade embargoes at any time. Embargoes may be fine-tuned for specific goods or for all trade. This embargo feature is also very interesting from a diplomacy point of view. You may launch an embargo upon a player or negotiate the lift of an embargo set by another race.

Two New Races: Giant Crabs and Carnivorous Plants

Supernova introduces 2 new Races: The Florian Diaspora, intelligent carnivorous plants that may seed planets to grow more of their kin. These sentient “flowers” favor ideal planets.

Florian Diaspora and Cancerian Potentate

The other new race is The Cancerian Potentate. These slow moving highly armored giant crabs favor aquatic planets. They tend to be cautious and defensive.

New Espionage System is Simple but Effective

Another new interesting aspect of Supernova is that it allows the player to train spies and send them in espionage missions, to steal information and secrets from the planets where they are based. Spies may inform the player about techs the spied race has and other pieces of information. If spies are caught this may harm diplomatic relations severely which can even lead the race to raise a trade embargo, or worse.

Spy Trained in Grey Order's Planet

This actually happened to me. I trained a spy in a nearby planet owned by another race. I obtained information from that spy. At some point my spy was caught by the Grey Order. They immediately raised a complete trade embargo on me. Ohh and watch out for tourists, as they may, also, be spies :)

More Techs, Spaceships and Ground Units

Supernova adds 50 new technologies to the original game. There are new weapon’s research, like beam weapons range and power increase. There are new shield’s technologies, like anti-matter warheads (that require an available antimatter resource). The stasis shield that enables a vessel to be temporarily immune to attacks. There are also other types of shield improvement technologies.

There are new spaceships like the Neutrinum Dragon and the Battlecruiser Heavy Spaceship.

Batlecruiser

In addition to new ships, Supernova adds new ground units, Special Forces and Extreme Ops that can infiltrate enemy colonies. There are also new defenses (the Guardian II or a the Fighter Station), stealth ships that can scout and gather intelligence without being detected, and plenty more.

Armada 2526 gained Multiplayer

Supernova adds multiplayer to Armada 2526. With Supernova the player is able to play via Lan, to play as hot seat or to play by email. I did not try the multiplayer options because they were not finished, or stable, in the Supernova version that I had access to.

Supernova Multiplayer

You may play in hot seat, setting up a game in your computer for multiple players to play in rounds. You may play via Lan, you can host and join previously created games. In addition to this you can also play by email.

First Impressions Bottom line

I am really impressed with this Armada 2526 first expansion. Supernova really adds a lot on top of an already solid and fun Armada 2526 gaming experience. Ntronium Games deserves an applause by delivering the goods and holding to what they promised in the promo video trailer (that you can find below).

I think Supernova has all the ingredients to be a success. It adds significant new features that improve the original game in many ways. Although, there are probably areas to improve, there always are, I dare to say that Armada 2526 Supernova has been the best 4x sci-fi strategy gaming experience I had since Master of Orion 2 and Galactic Civilizations 2, and that is saying a lot.

There is still room for improvement of course. For instance there is no spaceship design in Armada 2526 yet (and probably never will be) which is so dear to so many 4x sci-fi fans. There is also not a great deal of personality in spaceships, for instance there are no leaders nor spaceship RPG elements (like levels, experience or special powers).

There is also no central story in Armada 2526 yet (besides each race own story) and there are no single player campaigns (although there are a couple of custom maps available in Supernova). This last aspect is not very important, but the first 2 aspects (spaceship design and RPG elements) in my opinion are. Maybe they’ll include these aspects in the second expansion :)

I highly recommend Supernova to all Armada 2526 fans and to all 4x sci-fi strategy fans in general. Taking into account the level of maturity that Armada 2526 has reached with this expansion I think the game is ready to appeal also to the casual non-Sci-Fi strategy player.

You can buy Supernova at Iceberg Interactive (boxed version) . If you don’t own the original game you can also buy Armada 2526 (boxed version) from Iceberg Interactive. Alternatively you can buy Armada 2526 from GamersGate (digital download version). You can also buy Supernova at GamersGate (digital download version).

Supernova Official Trailer

Star Trek Infinite Space will be the first browser-based Star Trek MMORPG game. It will be free to play (as usual in most browser-based games) so this means that no software costs and no subscriptions fees are required from the player. The player is only required to have an internet connection, a web browser and a special 3D browser plugin (that the player must download) in order to play.

Although the game core is free to play, there will be optional micro-transactions available, the usual business model of most browser-based games.

What will Star Trek Infinite Space be about?

From what I could tell Infinite Space will be a MMO role-playing game (MMORPG) with exploration, strategy (RTS) and combat elements. You sit in the captain’s chair. You choose your faction: between Federation and Klingon. You pick your vessel, from authentic Star Trek spaceships, and you’re ready to start your journey of exploration through the galaxy.

Like in any kind of RPG you raise your level (level up) as you go. You level up with the experience you acquire during your missions, supposedly from combat. As you level up you can upgrade your spaceship with better equipment and upgrade your skills.

Gameforge promises fascinating 3D graphics, which supposedly are far better than traditional flash (they really look quite amazing). As in any MMO game, Star Trek Infinite Space allows collaborative gameplay. You can embark in missions for yourself or you can join other captains when engaging in combat.

Infinite Space takes place in the actual Star Trek Universe

Star Trek Infinite Space unfolds in the Star Trek Universe. The timeline for the game will be between seasons three through six of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine series (during the Dominion war).

To ensure a proper story line and a credible Star Trek feeling, Star Trek experts Mike and Denise Okuda are assisting the development team. Lee Sheldon, an experienced game designer, author, producer and script writer of Star Trek TV Shows is writing the storyline and the game missions.

Infinite Space is probably one of the most anticipated browser-game of 2011. The release date is scheduled for summer 2011 (Q3 2011). For more details about the game visit the Star Trek: Infinite Space official website.

Gameforge is back, and this time the stakes are very high. Infinite Space is an ambitious browser-based game; if it works alright this may be the turn of the tide for browser-based games. In the meantime I leave you with the official trailer, a very interesting gameplay trailer and an interview with the game’s executive producer. Also don’t forget to check here for some screenshots.

Official Trailer

Gameplay Trailer
I warn you again that the game is still in development, so the final game may look differently from what you will see below. Wow! Pretty impressive for a browser-based game don’t you think?

Video Interview with the Executive Producer

Very Short Introduction and Glimpse Review of Sins of a Solar Empire

The next two chapters are a clip of my review of SoaSE Trinity (SpaceSector score: 9.2).

SoaSE provides a mix of real-time strategy and 4x mechanics which results in a much more tactical game like Starcraft or Command & Conquer but still preserving a good depth of strategic options. Sins is not like Master of Orion 2 or Galactic Civilizations but much more like Homeworld, Imperium Galactica or Star Wars: Empire at War.

Sins of a Solar Empire – Trinity – is a very nicely done game. It excels on providing a rich gaming experience that will no doubt entertain you for many hours. Ironclad and Stardock deserve an applause for having created a game that successfully mixes the RTS mechanic with the 4x genre in such a fantastic way.

If you’re unfamiliar with Sins of a Solar Empire or you want to know more about the SoaSE universe I invite you to read my SoaSE Trinity review before you read about Rebellion.

Now It’s Rebellion Time

Stardock describes Rebellion as a “full fledged stand alone expansion” to the original title. So to me this means that you don’t need to own the original game to play Rebellion.

Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion promises to continue the successful mix of 4x strategy elements with real time strategy space combat. Rebellion will offer two separate factions: the Rebels and the Loyalists. Stardock promises that there will be new ships, including a Titan class ship, a massive spaceship.

Apparently Rebellion will not include a single player campaign, as the previous titles also didn’t. This is an old request from the fans however Stardock did not added this up. Rebellion will however provide graphics improvements, namely enhanced lighting and particle effects and new victory conditions.

Rebellion is currently in Alpha stage. Stardock announced that folks that pre-order Rebellion will be able to participate in the game’s Beta phase. Owners of the original Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity game will get discounts when purchasing Rebellion.

Rebellion New Features

• New Factions: Players decide whether to become Loyalists or Rebels, which unlocks a unique new tech tree granting them new technologies and ship variants.
• New Titan-class ships:  Massive warships for each race that dwarf capital ships, these deadly new monsters are capable of wiping out entire enemy fleets single-handedly.
• New Capital Ships:  A new capital ship class arrives, giving players new strategic options.
• New Corvette-class ships:  Small, highly maneuverable light ships that are adept at a variety of tasks.
• Loyalist and Rebel versions of some of the existing Sins’ frigates and cruisers, each with their own unique strengths and weaknesses.
• Updated lighting and particle effects for enhanced visuals.
• New Victory Conditions to allow for more variety, differing strategies and shorter game sessions.
• Additional capital ship ability levels, for greater strategic choice.
• Impulse::Reactor support for chat, friends, achievements and more.

Pre-Order Rebellion

If you pre-order Rebellion you will gain access to the Rebellion Beta scheduled for later this year (\edit (27-12-011): by the time this post was written). If you want to pre-order Rebellion follow this link: Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion [Pre-Order].

For more details on Rebellion checkout Stardock’s Rebellion Press Release in the Sins of the Solar Empire website.

They announced the game in a SpaceSector’s forum thread 2 days ago. Goblin Lunatics introduced 10 Minute Space Strategy and provided a link for their Alpha 2 demo (that’s the way to go guys, thumbs up!). The devs haven’t announced a release date yet and are still working on the game. (Edit 17/11/11: The game was already released and it is free. The latest available version can be downloaded from the Goblin Lunatics website. You can find a review here).

You can get all the information about this minimalistic but very interesting and fun 4x game at The Goblin Lunatics blog and at moddb. Although you will get all the information you need in the blog (very interesting by the way) I will summarize 10 Minute Space Strategy in a few paragraphs. I will also provide you with my very first impressions. I only played a 10 minute game (appropriately).

In Goblin Lunatics own words, 10 Minute Space Strategy is “a turn-based space strategy [game] that is focused on quick play sessions, abstract mechanisms and high replayability“.

10 Minute Space Strategy Features

The game has a race editor where you can customize your race abilities. You can choose to specialize in warfare, industry, research, buildings, population or in other traits.

The game features a random generated map that contains many things. It contains Planets that you can colonize. Sometimes planets will be guarded by space monsters (cool!) that you have to defeat before being able to colonize them. You can build things on the planets (e.g. research centers, factories, bomber factories). The map also contains anomalies, derelicts (alien wrecks) and asteroid fields, which are rich in minerals and give you bonuses.

The game also provides research features. There are five technology branches which you can choose to do research on. There is also space combat, although this is fully cinematic. There are 3 types of spaceships: fighters (the main force), bombers and colonizer ships. The devs humorously stated “No dreadnoughts and Death Stars… yet :)“

The devs also decided to cut Diplomacy completely and, by doing so keep the game simple. Remember that the devs’ objective is for 10 Minute Space Strategy to be as straightforward, simple and intuitive as possible. They explain in their blog that they were inspired by the Desktop Dungeons game which, although being a small RPG game with a one screen world, 2d graphics and minimal sounds, the devs felt that it “WORKED”. This inspired them to do the same in the space strategy genre, the one they stated to be their favorite.

My 10 Minute Gameplay First Impressions

I installed the demo and played for 10 minutes, here are my very first impressions.

I had no crashes and found no bugs, but I had trouble understanding how to split my fleets. But then … wait,I got it! First, I chose the number of “move” and “stay” and then I right clicked to move the selection. The game is really very easy to play. The rules are simple and intuitive. In 10 minutes I could not grasp how research worked, but I’ll get there :) I liked the idea of the question marks hanging in the map. I felt curious to go there, and  eager to be surprised.

Sound and music are appropriate, they set a good atmosphere. Visuals are ok. However, I would like to see my worlds in more detail, a “click to enlarge” kind of thing, but that’s a personal choice.. There are always things going on every turn, so I felt engaged and entertained. I felt the challenge. I was ass kicked starting right on turn 2 and that is good :)

At some point I felt the need to: extend my range to reach other planets (with propulsion) and get more fighters and bombers, so that I could blow the other guys away. So yes, the game is challenging enough.

I think 10 Minutes Space Strategy is fun. You have a winner here guys! I’ll play more than 10 minutes to see what else I’m missing.

Some Screenshots (click to enlarge)

About Goblin Lunatics

In Goblin Lunatics own words.

“We currently have 3 members; our programmer and C guru HomeGnome, our incredible music composer and community manager Vincenzo, and some sucky artist/designer, yeah, thats me, Archenemy :) We sometimes also involve specialists of different fields (Hey Nauris!). I don’t want to burden you with a lot of unnecessary details about us, our hobbies, favourite games, lifestyle, age and all these boring stuff; so why not go straight to the point and read a bit about our game?”

The Lacuna Expanse is a free Massively Multiplayer Online Game (or free MMOG for short). These are games that you play in the Internet where the only thing you need installed in your computer is a web browser. They are free, they really are, but normally if you want to have the full experience or want to benefit from special bonuses you pay small amounts of money also called micro-transactions.

So I tried the Lacuna Expanse for some hours and decided to share with you my experiences.

The Features

First the features:

• Play anywhere – web browser or the free iPhone app.
• Socialize, Strategize, or Simulation – work with the players around  you by forming alliances or strategize against them by planning their  demise. If you prefer simulation games like Sim City, you can stay in  isolationist mode, be free from enemies, build your city, explore the  galaxy, participate in missions, and much more.
• Full circle economy – produce resources, manage/reuse waste, minimize  pollution, keep your citizens happy, and trade freely with other  players on the open market.
• Massive universe – more than 1 million planets to explore, each with  unique resources. Explore!
• Build mega-cities – more than 100 different types of buildings means  you can build exactly what you need and each city can be unique.
• Trade anything – most games let you trade resources. The Lacuna  Expanse lets you trade ships, buildings, money, resources, and much  more. Enjoy a full player based economy.
• The Coolest Spaceships – you’ve never seen spaceships like this! Dump  garbage on your opponents planets, transport spies, take satellite  images of enemy planets, and much more.
• Espionage – take out your enemies without ever firing a shot.
• Chat – talk in real-time to other players in the game. Built-in  translations make it easy to talk with players around the world.
• Freedom – choose your own direction. Exploration, expansion, trader,  ship builder mission commander, espionage, war, and more.

My Impressions

And now for my impressions of the game.

As I said above I was very pleased with the look & feel of the game. The User Interface is very easy to use, clean and functional. You can switch between the star system view and the planet view. In the star system view you see your planet in context in a star map with your neighbour planets and stars. When you have ships available you can send them to other planets and stars just by clicking on those.

In the planet view you can construct buildings. You can construct buildings to gather resources (food, water, ore and energy), others to build ships, boost happiness, improve trade, allow for spying (an important aspect of the game), perform terraforming, and many other special structures.

The planet is divided in slots and you click on these to build a particular structure. For every building there’s detailed info about its purpose and the amount of resources that are need to build it. For example to build the Spaceport (the hangar for your spaceships) you need to have a level 3 University present in the planet. The Space Port will consume a certain amount of Food, Energy, Water and Power. There is also information on the amount of time a particular structure takes to build.

So far nothing really seems really innovating about the Lacuna Expanse besides its slick user interface. It offers the basic stuff in these sort of games. Each player takes the helm of an empire and then competes against, and form alliances with, other players in a massive land grab pattern. But there is one thing uncommon and interesting about the Lacuna Expanse versus many other games of the genre, you resolve your differences in a different way.

The disputes are not done with fleets of ships, but instead, as the game site puts it “by fighting a cold war with espionage”. So espionage and intelligence about the other empires is key in this game. In fact the game offers around 23 types of ships but only a couple of these are really warfare ships, the majority are other purpose ships like probes, spying ships, smugglers, colony ships, freighters, terraforming and other purposes ships.

Smuggler Ship

Terraformer Ship

Conclusions

The Lacuna Expanse is definitely a game that is worth you a have a look at.  If not due to other reasons at least due to its refreshingly easy and functional user interface and also due to a different perspective offered on how to prevail and win in these types of games that puts more emphasis on espionage than direct warfare, and also because its free.

A new expansion is on the way and is called “The Lacuna Expanse: The Enemy Within”. For the list of additions and changes on this new installment have a look here.

To start playing The Lacuna Expanse go here.

To get familiarised with the Lacuna Expanse have a look at the tutorials.

For the best free online space strategy games around have a look at GalaxyNews.Net here. For the latest games of this genre click here.

It officially launched on October 4th and so it's
still brand new.

On of the key issues of Star Ruler seems to reside on its scalability going from 1 star system to up to thousands comprising down to just a few ships fighting to a thousands of simultaneous fighting ships.

The tech tree will be as detailed or as simple as the player will like it to be, the AI will be as challenging as the user desires, ship designing is as simple or as complicated as you wish, and so on.  BMS states that the approach taken to the ship layout and diplomacy systems also will help to add a unique flavor and pacing to the game.

Star Ruler is real-time with a time-multiplier.  The game can be slowed down from it’s default speed or up to ten times more its default speed at the user’s option.

It promises to be mod-friendly. The developers say also that they will provide many post-release upgrades  and promise also that the game will run well on both new and old computers.

Key Features

• Vast, Procedurally Generated Galaxies
• Intricate Ship Design and Exciting Combat
• Unique Research System
• Easy to use interface, complex gameplay
• Engaging AI Opponents
• Extensive Modding Support
• Multiplayer: Co-Op, Team, and Free-for-all
• Original Soundtrack

Videos

Interview with Blind Mind Studios

Gamesquad as made an interview with Blind Mind studios about Star Ruler. Check it out here.

Star Ruler is scheduled for release at 21st August 2010 and is already available for pre-order. For more information go to the Star Ruler official website. You can ear the entire original soundtrack here.

And why am I writing a Civilization preview in SpaceSector.com you may ask. Well for starters these are my favorite games ever as for many strategy gamers also. The game is not Sci-Fi but it does contain a late chapter where Sci-Fi elements do take place. You see, one of the possible victory conditions of Civilization is to build the “Spaceship” that will takes us from this planet and sends us to the stars, more specifically to settle a new home in the Alpha Centauri system (Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri is the continuation of the Civilization series for this reason).

Another reason why I’m writing about it is because the game type is strategy and because it is 4x (well in fact one of the fathers of the 4x genre).

When I read the Firaxis announcement that they were developing Civilization 5 my heart started to beat faster and my emotions started to rise just to think how wonderful it will be to explore the Civilization world once again.

Evolution of the Civilization series in four pictures

Its remarkable how a game that in concept remained the same over and over, title after title is able to maintain a legion of fanatic fans after all this time. But what do you do of so extraordinary in Civilization games that people just love so much?

At game start you pick a nation and begin your humble beginnings with a single city. Then you start to explore the vicinity. The next step is to settle new cities and claim resources found nearby. You construct buildings and train armies. You conduct research and negotiate deals with your neighbours. And after dozens and dozens of decisions and many more actions you dazzle of how big your empire has grown and how the simple beginning has turned out to be a strong and vigorous empire ready to rival with all the other empires in the map.

This process makes people feel powerful and important and ultimately if you win you can’t help to feel a sense of validation for being able to have taken so many good decisions during the journey. Playing Civilization is pure problem solving, pure strategy and pure fun and that is why so many people like it so much.

These next 4 pictures illustrate the Civilization series evolution (click on them to enlarge). Note that although the graphics have been always improving the game remained basically the same. You have your map, cities, resources and armies and a user interface to help you administer your empire.

But now its time to talk about Civilization 5. First an introduction.

The Official Trailer

Or click here if you cannot see the trailer above.

So but what’s new in Civilization 5?

Judging from the official Civ 5 website the new Civ installment will provide better graphics, bigger battles, improved diplomacy and improved modability features, among other features.

Better Graphics

One of the things were Civilization has always become better and better is on its presentation. Civilization 5 will continue this legacy providing us with better looking graphics and a promised even better user interface.

Civilization 5: The best graphics the civ world as ever seen (image from civfanatics.com)

In the picture above we can see the most detailed terrain Civilization has ever offered with diverse vegetation, different water colors for rivers and seas. It looks promising.

No more squares, the map is now in hexagons

The units now move around the map through hex tiles instead of squares.

Civilization 5: Hexagon tiles instead of squares (image from civfanatics.com)

This is a nice improvement since the map will look better and cleaner, since now its easier to spot what is effectively connected and what is not. Besides that there are now 6 movement options instead of previous 8 (4 nominal directions + 4 diagonals).

Modified combat system and bigger battles

This is probably one of the aspects of Civilization that now will be much different. In the past the player attacked in stacks of troops, one at a turn. Remember the famous SoDs (Stacks of Doom?) where you massed up a gigantic army in a single square. This is no more.

Civilization 5: Troops laid in the battlefield (image from civfanatics.com)

In Civ5 there cannot be two units in the same terrain spot so now tactical combat gains a new  level since you have to spread your units across the map or battlefield with care. Melee and Cavalry units should be put upfront in the battle while archers and catapults are probably better placed behind the lines.

Other important features

Among others these are the improvements and features added (and removed) by the 5th installment of Civilization that I could gather (from civfanatics.com) :

• City states added (sort of like NPCs these are neutral factions that follow their independent agenda)
• Civ5 will be more moddable than before
• Religion and Espionage were removed (at least as we know it)
• Technology trade removed
• Distant troops like archers can attack from distance
• Units are no longer destroyed when they loose a battle, more emphasis is put in maintaining them than on creating new ones

Release Date

Civilization 5 is scheduled for release in Fall 2010. I don’t know about you but I know of  at least one game I’ll be playing by the end of this year. If it comes out this year I mean :) I wonder if Leonard Nimoy is returning for this one..

For more information check the official Civilization 5 site, the Firaxis website, 2K Games or the Civ Fanatics website, the place where Civ fanatics (like me) hang out to discuss about Civ.

I bought Armada 2526 through Impulse (digital copy) 2 days ago. No waiting or searching for where to buy the game, through impulse you can buy a digital copy only and download it right away or get a digital copy plus the Box for the ones interested in obtaining the physical stuff. Some minutes of downloading and some more of installing and that’s it, I’m ready and thrilled to be launching my fresh new 4x space strategy game.

Introductions made let’s talk about the game.

Start a new game

You may wish to start by the tutorial to understand the basic features. From there you have the option to play the built-in scenario that introduces the game 12 races or you can customize your own game.

Starmap, Stars, Planets, Comet clouds and Asteroid fields

I’ll take some time addressing this part of the game because I think it really deserves it. The star systems and planets have been carefully crafted to offer the player the right balance between abstraction and complexity. This will certainly help the player enhance its gaming experience specially during the eXploration phase.

The starmap is 2D, very similar in style to Master of Orion (first check for MOO inspiration). Star systems can be of several shapes and sizes. Stars can be Red Dwarfs, White, Blue, Yellow, Orange, Red Giants and White Giants which determines how likely the chance is of finding planets, and specially ideal planets for colonization. White and Red Giant stars have the lowest chance of holding planets suitable for life while the yellow ones have the maximum probability of holding ideal planets.  There are even binary systems and neutron stars that have their own special characteristics and uses.

Each star usually contains one main planet (and only one) that may be categorized as: Ideal, Habitable, Barren, Icy, Irradiated or Dead (I only found those types yet). This planet categorization tells how suitable a planet is for population growth with Ideal obviously being the best suitable. Some of these types requires technology to allow its colonization. I say that a star usually contains a main planet because some times they don’t contain a planet at all (although you might still build a space station on those with suitable technology).

Another aspects of the planetary system, besides the quality of its main planet, is its mineral abundance that is categorized from Poor, Normal to Rich. The richer the planetary system (which is illustrated has having additional background planets) the more money can be made from mining and taxes. Again the resemblance with the Master of Orion mineral classification here is sound (another check to the list). In addition to planetary system mineral abundance there are two other aspects that help fully categorize a planetary system: the presence of a Oort cloud (cloud of comets) and of an Asteroid Belt. These last two features provide additional chance for further mining and reduction on production costs.

Already feeling your eXploration desire kicking in :)

Population, Production, Fleets and Defenses

When clicking in one of your star systems you are presented with the production screen. You can build structures, space ships and defenses (missile bases and militia). Nothing really original here, very similar to the Master of Orion (I and II) scheme.

In addition to managing production you can also easily consult all kinds of  stats in the production screen like Income, Expenses, Happiness, Population Growth, etc.

Two important aspects to note in the production scheme, that make it different from other titles like GalCiv2 or Master of Orion 2, is the notion of construction slots (that are dependent on population) and the notion of buildings improvement dependencies.

With respect to construction slots you may be already thinking, well but GalCiv2 provides planet construction slots already. Yes its true but Armada 2526 takes this idea into a new level. In Armada 2526 you can only use the slots to construct more things if you have enough population. This makes sense since you should only be allowed to build more structures if you have enough labor to build and operate them. One thing that annoyed me in GalCiv2 was the ability to build everything you wanted irrespective of the population present in the planet. I know that some of that could be attributed to industry automation but anyway it didn’t feel natural.

The other production aspect where Armada 2526 innovates from previous 4x titles is the buildings improvement dependencies. To build more advanced structures you need to evolve your workshop and to build more advanced spaceships you need to evolve the shipyard. This approach is in line with the Total War games where you need to enhance your main construction structures (normally the townhouse) before being allowed to build more advanced elements. For example to build Cruisers you need to have at least a small orbital shipyard and to build a mine complex you need to have to turn your little workshop into a heavy industry.

Research

To unlock new ship designs, new buildings, new defences and to acquire new abilities and bonuses you need to do research, and to do that you need to construct research labs. Each basic research lab present on a planet produces 1 research point. The research points can be distributed among 7 different fields or areas: Weapons, Shields, Hyperspace, Construction, Information, Bio and Psychic. There is a special additional area named skunk works which is a special project that gives you additional research options later in the game. There is nothing new here, for what I could tell all 12 races share the same tech tree with some differences on the ship models. The tree is static, always the same with no random factor.

On point I have to make in the research topic is that its link with production is not always intuitive. As I said above to unlock more advanced structures the player needs to research certain technologies however is not always clear what needs to be constructed in order to unlock a certain thing. For instance to build the mining complex one needs to research advanced mining first however to actually build the mining complex the player needs to upgrade the workshop to light industry and then to heavy industry. The research screen should be revised to include more information on the dependencies between research and production.

Diplomacy

Diplomacy in Armada 2526 provides all the usual features found on other 4x titles: goods exchange (ships, maps, money and colonies) and the negotiation of treaties (trade, non-aggression, etc). But an interesting and innovative feature of Armada 2526 is the tone in which the player may negotiate the deals.

For instance the player may propose a non-aggression treaty that may be asked humbly, firmly with threat of trouble or aggressively with threat of declaration of war. I have not tried all of these options yet but they sound quite interesting while providing an additional flavor and complex factor to negotiations.

Battles

In space battles is where Armada 2526 makes a big leap from its Master of Orion 2 and Galactic Civilizations predecessors. Although it’s true that this is not truly innovative, since Sins of a Solar Empire and Sword of the Stars already provide 3D real-time battles, Armada does however turn its focus more into tactics and formation rather than click & hit classic battle style. You can still choose targets but not to the individual ship level.

The player is allowed to pause the map at any time to switch formations or to make small adjustments to the fighting sequence. The player can switch between three view modes: global perspective (which gives an overview perspective from above), the ship perspective (nice to see and rotate through your ship) and ship sight perspective (which allows you to see the battle through an individual ship’s eyes).

User Interface

The user interface is perhaps the weakest element of the game. Although quite ok in providing the basic functions it fails here and there on providing the overall picture to the player. For instance the mini map is not very helpful, it basically shows the map in miniature but does not provide very useful information like borders, ships or other stats. One thing that I really miss is the notion of borders with your neighbours. It’s not so easy to grasp the reach of your empire. Galactic Civilizations 2 mini map was much better accomplishing all this.

Another aspect where the user interface stands short is that it’s not so easy to see where your planets and fleets are. The planets glow, the graphical feature that signals your colony, is particularly distracting. You don’t have an immediate feel of which are your planets and which are not and at the same time it’s not so easy to see which of the planets have ship garrisons and even when you learn how to spot that you still cannot tell the number of ships present on the planet without having to double-click the planet and then check the fleets tab to see what ships are actually there.

The cursor zoom is a nice innovative feature however it fails to give enough information. For instance the cursor zoom over your planet will show you that you have a particular type of ship stationed there but it does not give you the number of ships. Small details like this should be revised in future game evolutions because they really help the player get in touch with its empire.

The diplomacy, research and production screens are ok, nothing too fancy but ok. My troubles are more with the overall star map and mini map for the reasons I already pointed out.

Bottom line

I didn’t have enough time yet to check the game AI nor to grasp the overall game balance, full-scale war, advanced building and research, that I will leave for a full review to conduct later. However what I can tell you now is that Armada 2526 is successful on delivering the goods to be recognized as a respected member of the 4x space strategy games genre. If it can overshadow the Master of Orion and Galactic Civilizations legacy it’s still a bit early to tell. A certain degree of that goal is dependent on the developers willingness to evolve and support the game and work with the community in order to turn Armada 2526 an exceptional game.

If you are a fan of 4x space strategy games then you need to get your hands on Armada 2526. If you’re not a fan of this type of games I still strongly recommend you try Armada 2526 if you’re willing to give a shot on this type of games, after all it is the state of the art.

You can find more information on the game in Ntronium games (developer), in the official forum, or in Matrix Games (publisher).

You can buy the game in Impulse here.

Astro Empires is already a well established free space strategy (the free mode has some limitations, but is fully playable) web-based game known by many players. The idea of this article is to give the reader a global overview of this game to make it easier for newcomers.

For a review I did on another Web-Based MMOG -  Ogame, please refer to my other article: Ogame Review, Tips and Strategy Guide.

First impact

When reaching Astro Empires homepage, I have to confess that I liked it. Few and synthetic information including a small text describing the game and information regarding how easy it is to install and the fact that it is free to play. It also displayed  information about the advantage of not having to download anything, which captures the player’s attention for a smooth first impact. The homepage also gives a general overview of the game dimension and global information about the number of players, planets and bases in the server.

First Login, First Impressions

To be honest, when I made the first login I was not very pleased, I got a bit lost. I didn’t get immediately what I needed to do, it felt a bit unnatural and non-intuitive. The account overview is a little bit too texty, no graphic overview of your bases, your planets, I mean your location in the map. After 10 seconds, I found the Bases and Map icons…

When you choose one of your bases the following information is presented to you:  an overview, the  structures on it, the defenses, production, research and trade options. It presents all the standard issues of a common space strategy game, but the problem is with the details. When describing, for instance, the structures, there is no detailed information about them and it’s classification is done by means of numbers from one to a maximum level. I consider this a very simplistic approach that does not transmit a sense of realism to the player (but this is not strictly an Astro Empires thing, many games, like ogame for instance, also present this kind of simpler classification). I would prefer something more meaningful like “Advanced <structure>”, “Hyper”, “Automated” kind of upgrades but maybe that’s just a thing of mine.

Another down aspect in AE is when you click on a structure  it shows the same text as it did on the list of structures (I thought the second was more like a small description in a first place) with no images and with a list of the levels that each structure can achieve… too simple. Lots of work to be done here. But there is lots of space to be filled. I guess that the developers are probably still working on this matter for sure.

Galaxy Map

The map is ok, a grid over the galaxy is displayed with all the planets in each grid square. It gives you a nice perspective of your location in the game. There are tow kinds of links in the map. When you click on the planet, you go directly to the colony information, when you click in the name of the player you see information which can be important to test your diplomatic skills…

Timescale

For me, the timescale is the best feature of the game. I´m not a fan of rush kind web browser games where everything happens too fast. I like to take my time when placing a strategy. In this game, just because I was away for two days this didn’t ruined the game for me … my planet was not burning and my credits were not at zero!… against what is usual in some other web browser games like … travian, or ogame. I think this game has done a serious effort regarding this issue, but anyway I’m only playing it for a month, so  I could be mistaken about this.

Gaming experience so far

I needed to do something relevant with the game to have enough juice for a first impression… so, after lots of research levels, I ordered the construction of two Outpost ships (odd name for a regular colony ship), it took me around 6 hours to complete them… After a 3 minutes travel (maybe a bit too fast for my taste), the colony ship reached a metallic planet in the same solar system… I clicked the button “Build Base”… and that’s all. I wanted to see more juice in the process. Building a base is not like building a small fighter, but in Astro Empires, in practical terms, is the same. At least a few extra options could be presented when starting a colony, maybe a small report, or some colonization options presented (native population present in the planet, artifacts/technologies found, decisions to be made that affect the planet quality, etc).

Future

The future of this game is promising. I felt that the game is a like a raw diamond with many aspects still to be polished. The game is quick to load and to interact with and it seems that the engine beneath is also powerful. Now, the next step is to take more advantage of this engine and allow the player to extract the maximum potential of the concept but introducing more content.

I will continue to play the game and, in the future, I hope to write a deep review. In the meantime, I’ll explore the battles concept, colony management of several colonies, diplomacy aspects and the trading mechanism. I don´t know if I got lucky not having a dangerous alliance nearby (you can also join an alliance later) which allowed me to take me time to do things. IF this is confirmed than if you want to start a game in a “non-rush” mode, Astro Empires is a valuable option for you.