Peter and Andre from Novacore Studios (Legends of Pegasus)

Legends of Pegasus is a new 4X space game that is currently under development by Novacore Studios, with a target release date for Q2 2012. I’ve been following this title for some time now, but apart from a few screenshots I sensed that I knew very little about this new 4X space strategy game. So, I got in touch with the developers at Novacore Studios in order to know more about the title, and to share with you guys what I could unveil about this new promising title. Novacore Studios’ CEO Andre Overhagen kindly accepted to supply some of his time to enlighten us a bit more on their game. Here is what Andre had to say about it:

SS: Where did the idea for developing Legends of Pegasus came from?

Andre Overhagen: My partner Peter Seydel and I have always been big fans of the 4X genre. We’ve grown up with titles like Ascendancy and the Master of Orion series and loved them. So it was only natural that our first game should fall in this category. In the beginning, we chose Pegasus just as a working title, but over time we’ve grown so fond of it that we decided to develop the story based on the name. And this is how Legends of Pegasus came to be.

SS: Tell us more about the different real-time and turn-based gameplay mechanics. How, and when, are they used, and how do they mix together? I mean how is the transition between the two modes achieved?

Andre Overhagen: The game is a classic turn-based strategy title. The only difference is that encounters take place in real-time. This means that if you encounter an enemy faction, you’ll switch to a real-time combat at the end of the turn. Instead of loading an instanced combat map however, the combat takes place right where the enemy ships met. So you may end up fighting next to your settled or upgraded planets, leaving them as well as structures in the orbit open to real-time attacks. Resulting changes to the game environment will be reflected in the following strategy phase.

SS: Please talk a bit about the graphics, sounds and music in Legends of Pegasus.

Andre Overhagen: Our graphics is based on DirectX 9 to make sure that even players with older or less powerful graphic adapters can enjoy Legends of Pegasus. Nevertheless the game offers high resolution textures for impressive graphics that are basically unrivalled in this genre. All sounds and music tracks were created by our own composer in collaboration with external music and sound designers. Our dynamic music and sound system creates a very distinct feeling for each race and offers an atmospheric sound environment for space encounters. A live voice kit enables varying messages from allied ships and background radio messages during combat.

The fact that Legends of Pegasus will have a big single-player campaign is very interesting, since this deviates from the 4X tendency, where games are usually played in sand-box mode. Tell us more about the campaign, and the story behind it (also a bit of the lore). How does that all fit with the game’s victory conditions (the end game)? Is there a sand-box gameplay mode also available? If not how have you planned to tackled a possible lack of game replayability?

Andre Overhagen: During the campaign, you play as the main character “Daniels”. As you guide him through all three factions, you’ll have a chance to try out all playable races in the game. The story is set during an attack war on Earth. You’ll start out with a few surviving human space ships that get sucked through a wormhole, unaware of what happened or why they ended up in a totally unknown galaxy. In the course of the campaign, players will unveil the details and reasons behind this event.

The campaign contains several mission targets that players must complete. However, how you achieve your targets, how many planets you colonize and whether you opt for a more defensive or aggressive approach is completely up to you. Virtually all of the free game features are also available in the campaign mode. The storyline itself consists of three consecutive campaigns with several missions. During the whole story, the universe remains persistent, meaning that your next mission starts of exactly where you ended the previous one. So choose your actions wisely as they will have an impact on your future approach.

SS: I understand that there are different races in Legends of Pegasus. How will they play exactly? Are there different campaigns available for each race? How many races are there in total? Are all of them playable?

Andre Overhagen: Legends of Pegasus offers three playable races. Each race has its own economy system and different flaws and strengths in terms of production, combat power of the space ships etc. Apart from the race, players can choose an origin. These origins all have a different focus and introduce even more flaws and strengths to the races to further differentiate them. Players can even create their own origin to fully customize a race; e. g. set the focus on research, production or trade. These customizations can be saved and reused in future matches.

SS: The ship modularity concept seems fantastic. Tell us more about it. Can ship modules be damaged / targeted individually? What about the ship design itself, Kalypso Media talks about ship design as an “intuitive building system”. What does that mean exactly?

Andre Overhagen: The game contains a ship editor which players can use to freely create their ships. The available components depend on what you’ve researched so far. Based on the general body size (e. g. Corvette or Destroyer) players will equip their ship with different modules. These modules have special purposes. Players can e. g. opt for military equipment to achieve better armoring and more weapon slots or research equipment to improve sensors and scanners. This basic setup offers slots for different components like weapons, drives, scanners etc., which are added by simply dragging and dropping them on the ship. The different components equipped determine the ship’s abilities. As players become technologically advanced, they can specifically target the different systems of an enemy ship. If a ship is hit, all equipped components will suffer damage, impacting and eventually destroying their function.

SS: Will Legends of Pegasus focus more on some aspects of 4X, like space combat, ship design or colony development? Or will it offer a balanced mix of features. Tell us more about the available features. For example, will there be diplomacy options? Espionage? Trade?

Andre Overhagen: Legends of Pegasus focuses mainly on its complex economy management, custom designing of space ships and tactical real-time combat. The economy management comprises expanding and managing colonies, relations and trading with other factions as well as gathering resources. During real-time combat the aim is to command your custom designed ships into battle and put their abilities to best use. Aside from devising a clever tactic, your success also depends on whether you picked the right abilities of your ships and the right constellation of your fleet.

SS: Now, about the research system, what can you advance more about it? Kalypso Media announces “hundred of technologies to research in dynamic and extensive tech trees”. Does that mean that there will be random elements to the tech trees? Tell us a bit more about it.

Andre Overhagen: Each race in Legends of Pegasus has its own tech tree. Depending on the race’s focus, these trees contain some exclusive technologies that cannot be found in other tech trees. On top of that, players can add so called “free tech trees” at the beginning of a game. These trees have their own focus and offer more aggressive or more defensive technologies or boost your research or industry. With this system, players can pick the tech trees that best match their playing style, offering lots of different combinations.

SS: So, we can develop our colonies using a slot (1 unit per slot) system. What kinds of structures can we build in our colonies?

Andre Overhagen: Apart from classic structures like factories, research institutions and defense structures you will be able to build structures that target economy and environmental factors. Players are not only able to build structures on the planet itself, but also within its orbit, e. g. space stations where you can build your ships. This is done via a very simple and intuitive drag-and-drop system.

SS: How will the game be released? Both in physical and digital form? If digital which digital distribution platform(s) are you planning to sell it on?

Andre Overhagen: The game will be available in store as well as online. Digital copies will be available via Steam.

SS: Legends of Pegasus release date is targeted for Q2 2012 in Kalypso Media’s website. Can you advance a more detailed release date at this stage? Kalypso also mentions PC DVD-ROM in Legends of Pegasus’ page, so does this means that LoP will be released exclusively for the Windows PC? Will there be a demo?

Andre Overhagen: Sorry, but we can’t give you a more specific release date yet. We can only confirm that we’re aiming for Q2 2012. I can definitely confirm however that the game will be a Windows-PC only title by the time of release.

SS: Can you tell us some of your lessons learned in developing Legends of Pegasus? Successes, failures and doubts you have bumped into, so that other people may benefit from your experience in developing even greater 4X space games in the future?

Andre Overhagen: My advice is to create a playable version that reflects the basic concepts of the game as soon as possible. Like this, you are able to identify weaknesses in the game design at an early developing stage to avoid major changes to basic elements later on. In our opinion, the key to a good game is combining proven game mechanics with innovative gameplay. You should also make sure to separate the game in main and side features from the very beginning. This gives you the flexibility to react if certain components don’t work out the way you’ve planned it without compromising the original idea of the game.

I would like to thank to the Novacore Studios Team, and particularly to their CEO Andre Overhagen for taking the time out of their busy day to do this interview.  You can check out the official Legends of Pegasus website.  You can also check the Novacore Studios homepage.

Matrix Games and Code Force announced Legends last September 2011. The list of additions to Return of the Shakturi (DW’s first expansion) is very promising so I decided to write this Legends’ preview to try and condensate these changes and present them in a nice wrapper for you guys, so that you know a bit more about what to expect in November 2011, current Legends’ release date target.

So, what’ll be new in Legends?

The major additions and changes to Return of the Shakturi, that I could take note of, are:

- Leaders / characters
- Influence spheres
- New ships models (around 600!) with better graphics
- Ability to track where your ships are heading (ship vectors overlay)
- Potential colonies, scenic and research locations shown on main map (more overlays)
- Expanded technology tree (e.g. cutting lasers, new planetary facilities, wonders)
- Race-specific events and victory conditions
- Improved fleet management and automation, including fleet postures
- Improved modding support, including full race and character modding
- Improved refueling system (more intelligent fuel management)
- Improved diplomacy system with refueling and mining rights and immigration policies
- Improved performance, memory usage decrease and sharper graphics

Wow! Where to begin.

The major new addition of Legends is no doubt the new character system. Legends brings Leaders, Admirals, Generals, Ambassadors, Governors, Agents and Scientists to scene. All of them with their own skills and traits with the opportunity to advance and improve them along the way. The character you start with, in the beginning of your games is your leader. Leaders have effects that are empire-wide, that is, they influence your entire empire, every planet, base, etc. Some factions are more likely to get certain types of characters than others. Characters can be lost along the way though due to violent events, accidents or retirement.

Each character has some skills. Next to each of these skills there’s a progress bar (0% in the example below), that measures progress towards the next level in that skill. You can increase skills (or acquire new ones) through experience in areas related to those skills. Characters also have traits. Your characters may start with one or more traits and may acquire more based on their experiences. You may start with additional characters. For example Randul Shokia (seen below) is a special scientist character.

Randul provides bonus to research, in the research base you decide to put him in. In the example above he adds bonuses to all types of research fields. If you assign Randul to a particular Energy Research station with a +15% bonus to Energy Research, his +34% would add on top of that to give you a combined +49% bonus to Energy Research at that location. Besides skills Randul also has a special trait. Randul is methodical which means that your empire is less likely to suffer critical research failures (critical research is a new feature in Legends, which can give you a spontaneous crash program or a boost in a research area). He gives more reliability to your research in that sense.

One feature I found particularly interesting in the character’s system is that some characters remain mysterious until you actually use them and find out about their abilities. In the example below Kweeki Woppit has known traits but unknown skills. This is an interesting touch in my opinion since it adds an element of surprise and gets the player a little curious (two essentials elements in 4X strategy games) of what to expect from their characters.

Kweeki is a Colony Governor. You can assign Colony Governors to a particular colony and their bonuses apply only to that colony. Similarly, Fleet Admirals are assigned to a particular Fleet or Base, Troop Generals to a particular Fleet or Colony, and so on.

You can assign more than one character to a particular location and bonus from them will add up, though they may not be purely additive. In Erik Rutins’ own words (one of DW’s main developers) «(…) if for example you have a Fleet Admiral who is great at combat and another Fleet Admiral who excels at Fighter Operations, assigning both to a fleet that has Capital Ships as well as Carriers can lead to better results than just having one or the other. However, since you generally will have fewer exceptional Fleet Admirals than fleets, you have to weigh the benefits of having one exceptional fleet against the flexibility of having two fleets that are each pretty good».

Another important aspect in Legends is that the devs state they’ve implemented a better memory management method. This should allow for better performance and memory usage decrease. They also state that this has allowed them to remove the compression mechanism they were using previously, on many of the ship and planet graphics. The result is that Legends should look better, or at least sharper from what I was lead to believe (less blurriness that you could spot in RotS here and there).

In addition to sharper graphics Legends shall also feature 22 new high resolution ship sets (added to the existing ones from Distant Worlds and Distant Worlds: Return of the Shakturi), all obtained from one of Distant Worlds’ players and modders, artist Martin Wood. Here’s an example of some of the new Teekan ships.

That’s approximately 600 new ship/base images right there in Legends! (if you didn’t use Martin Wood’s mod before that is). This was one of the weakest points in Return of the Shakturi in my opinion, and now that seems to have been properly addressed. Big plus! Don’t know if planets and ruins have also been worked at or not though. We’ll have to see.

Legends also brings spheres of influence, or borders. The actual use for them is still a bit unclear to me. My best guess is that they tell how likely foreign colonies are to flip (turn to other empires) if they are inside an empire’s influence sphere. In that regard I think they serve as cultural/influence borders but I’m not sure of their full scope. In Erik’s own words «Spheres of influence are not quite the same as the way we think of borders here on our planet. They project from your colonies and define the space that you could control. Systems within your sphere of influence that you have at least explored are considered under your control. Borders in space are enforced within each controlled system but not in the deep space between systems. Also, building a mining station (for example) outside of your sphere of influence does not give you control over that system (though colonizing it does)». 

An interesting feature would be for these influence spheres to represent a race’s space territorial dominance. Aggressive races would tend to get annoyed if their space was trespassed or if other race’s colonies or mining stations are built inside their influence zones, but I’m just speculating here. It would be cool to have that kind of territoriality though, although I now that theme is a bit controversial and would not be appreciated by some.

In addition to all this Legends will feature new faction-specific victory conditions that can completely change how a faction plays, to faction-specific special events and resource bonuses. In the example below the Ugnari have 4 particular victory conditions: two of them (as examples) are to get 25% most trade and 25% most mining stations.

Another aspect where Legends devs invested a bit was on a new UI system that provides overlay information directly on the main map. At the choice of the player it shall now be possible to switch on/off layers for ship vectors, i.e. see where ships are going, potential colonies, scenic and research locations all in the main map with no need for more actions and clicks through secondary screens. This is a brilliant new addition that could be exploited for even more overlays that may be considered useful in the future.

Potential colonies shown directly in the main map are a particularly interesting feature to have in my opinion since they’ll surely help late game expansion, where there are simply too many planets to look in the expansion planner and what you simply need is a quick way to see where are the potential worlds for suitable colonies in favorable strategic locations. I was very happy to see these new overlays. The UI accessibility was already very good in RotS, now it will be brought to the next level.

Besides all that has been described already there are more things new in Legends. Examples are the expanded technology tree, the improved fleet management and automation (including fleet postures), the improved modding support (including full race and character modding), the improved refueling system (more intelligent fuel management is also a big plus) and the improved diplomacy system with refueling and mining rights and immigration policies (which should provide even richer diplomatic experiences).

Bottom Line

This preview is by no means thorough. Believe it or not, it is more a sneak peak on major changes. Legends adds much more stuff (judging from what I could understand in the game forums, from what I didn’t have access to and others I couldn’t find in detail in my digging). The preview was based on information provided by the devs and the DW’s community on matrix games’ distant world forums. If you want to get more information on Legends, or Distant Worlds in general, that’s the place I suggest you have a look at. I’m sure I missed a lot of things but judging from the changes featured in this preview alone it’s amazing the amount of new things this new expansion will bring, on top of so much RotS already offered.

I am really looking forward for Legends. And if you’re a 4X space strategy game lover, as I am, I think you cannot afford to miss this one either. I think they’re making history here. In my opinion Distant Worlds Legends shows enough potential to be running for the best 4X space strategy game ever made. That’s a very controversial and bold statement to throw I know, but I’m totally convinced that Legends may be that good.

\Edit (23/11/2011): Legends is out! Get it here.

About Heart of the Swarm

Heart of the Swarm is the first expansion pack to Blizzard’s sci-fi real time strategy game, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. Heart of the Swarm continues Wings of Liberty’s story with 20 new missions now focusing on the Zerg race and the female hero character Kerrigan. New multiplayer content is also expected to be included in the expansion, as well as new features and upgrades to the Battle.net online platform.

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm is being developed for Mac and Windows. There are no current plans for any console platform. Current release date is still TBA.

I thought it was time we had another contest at Space Sector. So, I’m proud to announce that Space Sector has teamed up with Paradox Interactive and we’ll host a giveaway contest at Space Sector. Paradox will offer 10 copies of Sword of the Stars 2: Lords of Winter, this 28th of October. But that’s not all. Paradox was generous and in addition to the 10 SotS2 copies it will also offer 20 copies of Sword of the Stars Complete Collection (the entire SotS original series).

This means that the lucky 10 will get Sword of the Stars II and Sword of the Stars Complete Collection. The next set of 10 lucky ones will receive a copy of Sword of the Stars Complete Collection, which is a great way to enter in the SotS Universe also. So, in total there will be a total of 20 prize winners in this contest.

How to enter in the contest

1. Follow on twitter: @spacesector, @swordofthestars, @PDXinteractive - OR – like Space Sector, Sword of the Stars and Paradox on facebook
2. Tweet for Sword of the Stars. Example: “I will eXplore, eXpand, eXploit & eXterminate the universe! @spacesector @swordofthestars @PDXinteractive to win a copy” – OR – share this blog post URL in facebook
3. For the social network non-users out there (that don’t want to join these networks) you can still enter the contest. You folks can forget about points 1 and 2, you just need to subscribe the Space Sector newsletter (in the sidebar to the right) and Paradox’s newsletter by registering in their forum. This is not a big deal to ask I guess, and you can unsubscribe both newsletters later at any time if you wish. Although I think you’d lose a great opportunity to stay in touch with Space Sector’s news ;)
4. Make a comment in this blog post below. Submit your name and email in the comment form (we’ll use that email to contact you if you’re one of the winners). Let us know also what you’ve done regarding point 1,  2 and 3. Don’t forget to include your twitter id or facebook id (for points 1 and 2) or the username you used to register the Paradox forum (for point 3).

I will give examples of how you guys should post your comments to become eligible:

@<your twitter name here> has followed @spacesector, @swordofthestars and @PDXinteractive and tweeted

Another example:

<your facebook name here> liked Space Sector, Sword of the Stars and Paradox and shared this post in facebook

One more:

Registered Space Sector newsletter and registered in Paradox’s forum with username [the username you used to register in paradox's forum here].

We’ll pick the winners on the 28th of October 2011 at 12:00 am EST. I’ll check those to see if they fulfilled all points, if they shared and what it was. Edit: I forgot to mention. Contest closes on 27th October 12:00am EST. After that point you can no longer enter the contest. I’ll signal that by changing the contest status to [CLOSED].

The contest winners will be generated randomly with the help of random.org

Games will be provided via Steam.

Games’ info:

• Sword of the Stars 2: Q&A with Chris Stewart
• Sword of the Stars 2: Opening Cinematic Sneak Peak
• Sword of the Stars 2: New Video Interview With Martin Cirulis at GDC
• Sword of the Stars Complete Collection – Review

Good luck!

Cheers

Adam Solo

The developer, Chimera Software, is an independent publishing software company headquartered in Atlanta GA that specializes on developing and publishing software with a concentration on the Mac and iPhone platforms. Starbase Orion was designed and is available for purchase for the iPad, IPhone and iPod Touch. To know more about Starbase Orion I invite you to read a preview I did some time ago.

As a summary, and according to Chimera’s vision statement, Starbase Orion promises to “retain the classic turn-based gameplay of Master of Orion 2 while embracing the simplicity and multiplayer experience of Warcraft III”.

CS adds that “(their) biggest disappointment with Master of Orion II is the multiplayer support (…) the hassle and time commitment you need to share the game experience with others is substantial“.

CS wants to improve the multiplayer experience of 4X Sci-Fi TBS games by “make it dead simple to find other people to play with, matches lasting 30-60 minutes. Long enough to have some great battles, yet short enough to get one or two in before bedtime“.

If you’re lucky to own an iOS device you can’t miss this one. Boy, I’m so desperately in need to get one of this toys.

More info on Starbase Orion will follow shortly, so stay tuned.

Screenshots

Distant Worlds Return of the Shakturi is Distant World’s first expansion pack. Distant Worlds is a 4X real-time space strategy game developed by Code Force and published by Matrix Games.

When DW first came out it had many problems, many of those related to its weak user interface. The game was practically unplayable by then, and that ruined the entire gameplay experience. RotS solved many of those issues. Here’s how.

From the Potential to the Actual thing

Many things changed in DW since the original release. But the thing that changed the most, the one that unlocked the game’s true potential and turned it into an actual playable and enjoyable game were the changes made to the user interface. But before getting to that let’s first see what’s new in RotS.

The research system was completely revamped. RotS offers many tech options now. You can queue projects and decide to buy/crash research to substantially accelerate it. Tech trees are well organized and provide sufficient information to the player. The only two less positive remarks I make to the tech trees is that sometimes it’s really hard to read stuff (font sizes are incredibly tiny in places) and the scroll bar does not provide a good color contrast, which makes it a bit difficult to navigate up and down in the tech trees sometimes. But these are pretty minor issues. RotS research has good depth, it is meaningful and is ultimately fun to handle.

There are fighters and bombers now. One major addition to the weapons research tree are star fighters. You have now many kinds of bombers and interceptors to choose from. To deal with enemy fighters you can use point defense weapons. I’ve used fighters in a couple of battles. They were fun to watch and can be a pain for enemies that don’t have point defense weapons. You can replenish your fighters and decide to launch them for battle at any time.

Another interesting new aspect in RotS is that you can build planetary facilities now, although there are only a bunch of them available to build and many of those are related to troop training. In addition to troop facilities you can also decide to build a Giant Ion Cannon to disable invading ships or a Planetary Shield to defend your colonies against enemy bombardment. Yea, very SW Empire Strikes Back, but that’s ok, I’d say that if you’re going to get inspiration at least you should take it from the best :)

RotS comes with a new backstory featuring two new alien races (the Shakturi are one of them). You can decide to take action and follow the story line or just play normally, as you prefer. There are plenty of victory condition possibilities to choose from. You can set population, territory, economic or time goals. You can set one of these, all of them or none at all and just decide to play a completely open sand-box game.

But I saved the best for last. RotS provides major user interface improvements to Distant Worlds. The UI was the worst aspect of DW vanilla. You could sense that the game’s potential was there, the huge amount of depth waiting to be unleashed, but the UI failed terribly and didn’t allowed the player to use that potential, and the gem remained unpolished.

I use the following aspects as a basis to analyze how good a UI is, taken from experience and literature (doesn’t matter if a game is complex and deep or not, or how many windows and amount of information it provides). And to simplify things let’s take out the presentation aspect from this list. That’s nice to have but not that ultimately important.

1. Do players feel in control of things? (The MOST important of all aspects)
2. Does the interface let the players do what they want?
3. Is the UI intuitive and easy to master?
4. Do players feel like they’re having a strong influence over the outcome of the game? Do they feel powerful?

I’m afraid DW vanilla UI failed terribly in all of these major aspects, especially in point 1. That was one of the major reasons why I gave DW original such a low-score (checkout my Distant Worlds vanilla review for details). Let me already advance that Code Force managed to solve most (if not all) of the UI known deficiencies.

First of all, it’s now possible to perform common tasks, like colonizing planets, build mining stations, construct new bases and so forth just by clicking on one-click action buttons from the main screen. For example if you want to create a mining base at a gas giant planet, an option is shown below the selection panel that allows you to easily instruct a construction ship to queue an order to build a base there. The same for building ships, colonize worlds, etc. These quick-action buttons solved the annoyances of having to find a suitable constructor, turn back to find the target to build the base (if you still remember the name or location). This UI new feature made the player’s life much easier, and removed a good deal of frustration from the player for not being able to properly manage his empire.

In addition to the quick-action buttons, RotS offers now an Empire Navigation Tool. This was it. This UI addition made all the difference. This navigation tool offers a set of scrollable lists that provide a quick glance and access to almost everything that is happening throughout your empire. You can navigate, access and interact easily with your colonies, construction ships, space ports, exploration ships, fleets, individual military ships, potential colonies, potential mining stations, potential research locations, potential resort locations, enemy targets and special locations. Wow! Someone was listening. This was exactly what the original DW game lacked. Due to this new UI feature it is now finally possible to play and feel in control of things. Thank you Code Force for this, great job!

A word on Immersion

Immersion is probably one of the best factors to define how good a game really is, because in the end playing a game is all about getting experiences, and feeling you’re being part of the game’s world is one of the best experiences you can get. In space games, especially in 4X games, the idea is to provide the player a feeling of being in control of a space faring civilization. In my opinion, RotS succeeds in providing a good deal of immersion to the player. Now that the UI is fixed the player is finally able to handle his huge empire and deal with everything DW has to offer more easily. The experience is not perfect because graphics are not very good. Ship models are not very detailed, are a bit blurry and not very pretty.

But if you can surpass that graphics issue (which is not that hard) you should have a great ride since music is wonderful, the galaxy feels alive and diplomacy options are very rich (you really can feel you’re out there negotiating with alien races). To add to all that, time flies (another way you can tell you’re immersed in the game). However not all is good about time passing so quickly since by late games you get the feeling you’re not progressing that much due to so many things happening at the same time. If you’re a control freak you may get the feeling of being overwhelmed sometimes, but that’s the price you pay for playing a hugely complex game as DW. You can always play a smaller galaxy with less habitable planets, no pirates and no space creatures for a simpler and more manageable experience. The game is rich in customization options so it should be just a matter of customization to get the right complexity for your taste.

Not all is perfect yet …

DW RotS is immensely better than DW vanilla, however there’s plenty of room for improvement still.

For example, DW RotS features a lot of resources, some are strategic, others are luxuries that increase your planetary development level and your people’s overall contentment. Although there are many types of resources, from commonly found to extremely rare, I didn’t feel the lack of them. Ok I felt Caslon scarcity once (gas used in engine fuel) in one of my games but that was it. Some spaceship components require special resources; it would be nice to take advantage of that and force the player to plan a more careful expansion and possibly spice it up a bit by forcing the player to get into conflict with other races for special resources competition. This would also enhance the exploration phase of the game. This resource conflict of interests is at the essence of strategic warfare, and should be looked at more carefully by DW devs. At the very least I think an option should be provided in-game setup time to allow the player to choose the resource availability level. Resources could be evenly spread or not, and could be made rarer or more abundant as the player requires.

Another less positive aspect is that even after the UI overhaul the UI has some oddities still. For example, you can retrofit space ports to later designs only if you click on the space port itself. If you double-click on the space port icon and choose the retrofit function the latest designs do not show up.

You can colonize continental worlds as Humans, since they are your prime environment worlds, however you are allowed to research the “continental colonization” tech…with no additional benefit I could grasp.

When you instruct your ships to refuel, they will head up to a nearby star port or gas mining base even when they have a deployed re-supply ship on their very own fleet. And sometimes ships don’t refuel on re-supply ships even when instructed to. They do refuel sometimes, other times they do not. So unfun.

Fuel is still a pain in the neck to manage in DW. I mean, I understand it is a hard concept to implement well and it’s equally hard to please everybody but Code Force is almost there. Much of the game is very intertwined with fuel decisions and although I really do like that extra layer of strategy it provides I think some things should be done to remove so much dependence on fuel. One possible idea would be to have the option to tell ships in manually controlled fleets to leave the fleet automatically when they reach, let’s say 20% of fuel, and then get back into formation. This percentage could be customizable. The game could also just provide a fuel consumption rate option. Casual players could be free from the refueling burden while hardcore gamers could still be allowed to micromanage their fuel decisions.

It would be interesting to have colony ship and re-supply ship listed in the empire navigation tool. I really missed that in my games.

Bottom Line

Distant Worlds has come a long way. RotS good performance is no doubt the result of its persistent, game-loving developers that did well on listening to the community and provide what they needed. That and their hard work have made RotS into one of the best 4X game experiences available to date.

If you enjoy the RTS mechanic, you love to construct your own spaceships, you like a great deal of strategic depth and you’re fond of a rich diplomacy experience than DW RotS is the perfect game for you.

It may take TBS lovers a bit of time to get used to RotS RTS mechanics, but you’ll get there. Since you’re allowed to pause the game at any time you can take all the time you need to carefully think your strategy (I think my games were paused most of the times). Late games in huge or large galaxies can be a pain at times, things can start to feel a bit sluggish and you will feel overwhelmed at times for sure. But with the new user interface quick-action buttons, the navigation tool and the right level of game customization you should be able to manage. If you still feel overwhelmed you can always switch off unnecessary warnings or turn some things that you like less automated, like espionage or troop recruitment for example, and you will do fine.

DW RotS made me feel in control of the lives and hopes of my civilization, I cared for them and could feel immersed in a huge galaxy interacting with other alien races. And that in my opinion is what 4X games are all about. That was one of the reasons I took so much time to review RotS, I was really enjoying playing :) And I will continue playing no doubt about that.

Distant Worlds Return of the Shakturi (Buy Return of the Shakturi at Matrix Games)	Space Sector score: 8.7(about the score system)See Distant Worlds: Legends review

Screenshots

Star Ruler, the 4X real-time space strategy game developed by Blind Mind Studios, has gone Gold. Well, not officially to my knowledge, but v1.1 (current game version) is probably what Star Ruler could (or should) have been 1 year ago when it was first released to the public. Well, ok, life is hard for an Indie studio, but when I write game reviews I do not take into account who makes them I’m afraid. Anyway it’s always better to have a better game later than never.

I thought this was the perfect timing to do a Star Ruler’s (re)review since it seems to have reached a stable version and is now being sold in a box set following the Blind Mind Studios publishing agreement with Iceberg Interactive.

Most of my previous review content still stands so I decided to write this article focusing on the major differences of v1.1 (very positive I can already advance) from the original version.

So, what’s different?

First of all the tutorial has been greatly overhauled. The result is a very informative, fun and humorous tutorial. One of the best I’ve seen to date. All the mechanics are very well explained while at the same time BMS manages to provide us with a fun story line that doesn’t bores us to death while we learn how to play the game.

Ok, let’s get this straight right now; Star Ruler’s ship design is probably the best I’ve seen in space games to date. I’m not exaggerating. It was already good when SR first came out but now it feels complete. You really enjoy picking, designing and scaling all those elements and fit them all into your fully customizable spaceships. It’s almost a game in itself, and it is pure fun. You can tell that a great deal of attention was devoted to this feature. The feedback, the information, the retrofit update system, the blueprints (that’s what SR calls the designs) export / import feature for later use in other games, nothing has been left out and the result shows. One guy I talked with in the SR’s multiplayer lobby humorously said to me that he spends 90% of his SR time doing ship design. Excellent job BMS!

SR now let’s you customize your race when starting a new game. You can choose your color, ship looks (from 2 options) and race portrait (from 4 available). You can also choose your flag and create your own background story. But that’s not all. Besides customizing your profile you are now offered the possibility to choose from a set of race traits that act as bonus/penalty modifiers from a range of areas. Some examples of these areas are Biology, Society and Mentality. These traits customization is already a classic feature in 4x space strategy games and I’m glad the devs have spent some effort on this one because every bit of detail counts to the overall immersion factor.

Diplomacy has a few shortcomings still though. By the time I made the first review it was basic, but by then, and still today, diplomacy options lack depth. For instance you can’t effectively forge alliances with other races, bribe the AI to attack a 3rd party or check history records of friendship/hate with the AIs. So, you’re not told how other races feel about you. Visually the diplomacy screen has been overhauled but functionally I didn’t notice any improvements.

One area where you really notice BMS’s work was in the user interface. Now it’s much easier to access all the information you need. Examples: available resources amount, costs to build stuff, ETA for new tech, tech ratio. One major improvement is that now you can create quick links to any object in the main window. SR calls it to “Pin” an object. By pressing “P” or hitting the “Pin” button you can create these shortcuts to fleets, planets and star systems. This is a very handy feature to have (if not essential) when the scale of the world and the fleets are large, which is the case in SR.

Planet management has been polished and now you know how many resources a certain structure or ship takes to build :) I think the user interface has also been cleaned up and I did not notice any annoyance at all. Clean and crisp.

Planets now may possess “conditions”. These conditions are special bonuses (or penalties) that make that planet unique. Some examples are: rich ore deposits, high velocity winds, dense flora, and I could notice that there were plenty more. These conditions can be exploited. For instance if a planet is rich in ore maybe it’s a good decision to tell your governor to develop the planet into a Metal powerhouse (if you want to automate that planet management of course). The decision to incorporate these planet conditions in the game is a very good plus for SR.

Economy is now much more comprehensible. Much of it comes from the great tutorial but also from the overhauled user interface. You don’t feel overwhelmed so quickly now. You can monitor the amount of resources you possess at any time and you can also glimpse on what each planet’s local economy holds. Planets have local economies but they contribute to a global empire economy basket with surplus from planets being allowed to be transferred to the global empire treasury, if you happen to have spaceports in those planets.

Fleet management seems to have suffered a major improvement also. It’s very easy and intuitive to create and manage fleets now. There are also tactical options you can choose from, like ship formations and ordering ships to hold position, guard or engage at will for example. Selecting ships is also very easy and effective. The use of CTRL, SHIFT and drag makes it very easy to select ships and it’s very easy to assign orders also. Combat is fun to play and watch. Ships get damaged and can be repaired by special ships and individual components can be compromised, destroyed or disabled.

In spite of all these positive aspects sometimes spaceships move a bit erratically to say the least. If you see your ships coming backwards (in the opposing direction they should) don’t worry, it’s supposed to be that way. It has something to do with ship deceleration but you can disable that in the Options menu if you find it awkward. But ship’s movement is far from perfect though. Sometimes you choose a fleet, order it to move, or order it to orbit an object, or guard, and then the fleet’s ships start to come back and forth, up and down, constantly moving in awkward patterns. I guess there’s some work still to be done with how fleet formations work because there’s where the problem seems to be.

Ships need to refuel in SR but the way the mechanic works is great. Ships that get out of fuel head autonomously to the nearest planet, refuel, and then get back to formation automatically. Thank god they implemented it this way.

Research, even after all the improvements it is still a bit obscure unfortunately. That or I’m really missing something. But not all is bad about it, far from it. Research in SR has considerable depth and will undoubtedly make you think and force you to make constant decisions. You can tell that the devs wanted to innovate the concept by introducing non-linear mechanics to the way you do research. By introducing the hunch/guess system the intention was to insert some elements of surprise and unpredictability.

Maybe you decide to bet in a hunch because you think it can reveal a technology field early on, but those bets are expensive and you can lose all your effort. In summary, the research system is not very intuitive but I guess the devs deserve the credit for having tried to innovate it, even if not everything has come out the way they intended to. Today I chatted with a few chaps in the SR’s multiplayer lobby and nobody there was 100% sure of how hunches, guesses or links work. It’s definitely not just me having these doubts.

SR now features social and economic policies (called civil acts management). This is a nice new feature that contributes to an even deeper array of choices. At times you may decide to bet on producing more metals with penalty on other resources, or decide to make a tax break to raise morale (that causes an economy boost) at the cost of more goods and luxuries consumption.

In terms of graphics nothing noticeable seems to have changed. Ship models are nice but are very look-alike. There are only two model sets (from what I could understand). Maybe mods will bring much more models. And from what I could tell all races, even Remnant races have the same ship’s look & feel. You can’t also distinguish your ship design mounts, or modules in the ship models. Well, Indie studio with low budget for Art, I can understand that :)

There are other cool new features included in this release of SR. Pirates and Remnant ships. I think they are new, at least I don’t recall having seen them in the original version. Remnant ships are powerful ancient ships that were left out to guard long-time uninhabited systems. Possibly there are treasures or other bonuses involved in their defeat but that remained unknown to me because I didn’t manage to beat them, even with a very powerful armada (I thought I had at least). This is a very important aspect in space strategy games, the ability to make the player curious.

Bottom Line

Playing Star Ruler v1.1 was a very different experience from the first version released to the public that I played, in a positive way as you could already grasp. I still felt some shortcomings playing, some oddities and awkward behavior here and there but nothing too serious compared to what I’ve seen before. All those major and less major improvements the game suffered made it substantially better but UI improvements where probably what made the trick in the end.

You now feel that you’re in control, playing a complete, complex and enjoyable game. The lack of beauty in ship models is compensated a bit by a very satisfying universe full of astonishing beautiful stars and planets, with good textures, by the way. Research is still a bit difficult to grasp fully but you can tell devs made an effort to improve it. Now techs have links between them so that you don’t feel lost for example. Diplomacy is a bit weak, or maybe the right word is light, but it functions well. You can make peace, make deals for resources and tech points, trade maps and share research. It’s enough but could have been much better nonetheless.

Ship design is complex but elegant; it’s time consuming but a pleasure. AAA publishers and studios should have a look at how these guys have made it and learn how it is done right.

The game is also fully moddable. Check here for a list of mods that people in the forums are saying great things about.

I’m not adept of direct comparisons, but to help you understand better what I felt playing the game Star Ruler felt to me like playing Sins of a Solar Empire in a larger scale with deeper strategy elements. And you, the hardcore 4X space gamer need to try it out. Star Ruler is finally ready for you.

For you the not so-much-4X or RTS lovers I think you’d still find SR very interesting. You can always have a look at the demo if you have doubts still.

Star Ruler (v1.1.0.0) (Buy at GamersGate or at Amazon store)	Space Sector score: 8.3 (about the score system)

Screenshots

Distant Worlds Legends is the second expansion to the 4x real-time space strategy game, Distant Worlds.  The first expansion (very well received by gamers by the way) was Distant Worlds: Return of the Shakturi.

Distant Worlds: Legends is currently in final testing and expected to release by November 2011.

New features

• New character system, including Leaders, Admirals, Generals, Ambassadors, Governors, Agents and Scientists, all with defined skills and traits and the opportunity to advance and improve
• New modelling of borders and spheres of influence
• New expanded gameplay with race-specific events and victory conditions, as well as a new hidden faction!
• Expanded technology tree, including dedicated carriers, cutting lasers, rail guns, new planetary facilities and wonders
• Improved AI and an updated Diplomacy system with refuelling and mining rights as well as immigration policies
• Improved fleet management and automation, including fleet postures
• Improved modding support, including full race and character modding

Note: Distant Worlds Legends requires ownership of the original full Distant Worlds game.

You can have a look at the Distant Worlds (vanilla) review I’ve made when the game was first released. The game had many problems by then (acknowledged by many) and so the score was a bit low. DW RotS expansion fixed many problems and improved gameplay experience drastically. You can check the DW: RotS review for details on what’s changed on the DW universe.

A contest was also announced (to spice up the release). Read the full press release below.

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Distant Worlds – Legends Announced and we’re looking for a Space Creature!

A new expansion to the award-winning space strategy game is headed this way with a creature contest!
East Arlington , VT , September 27^th, 2011 – Matrix Games (www.matrixgames.com), Slitherine (www.slitherine.com) and Code Force (www.codeforce.co.nz) are thrilled to announce Distant Worlds – Legends.  Currently in final testing and expected to release by November, Distant Worlds – Legends is the second expansion to the widely acclaimed space strategy game,Distant Worlds.  Distant Worlds – Legends is packed with exciting new features and improvements, including a brand new character system with skills, traits and advancements based on each character’s actions.  Gameplay has been greatly expanded for each race wiith new race-specific events and victory conditions, a new system for borders and spheres of influence, an expanded tech tree with new weapons, facilities and wonders, improved AI, improved diplomacy including mining and refueling rights, greatly improved fleet management, new main map overlays to show ship routes and fleet postures, improved mod support, and more!

Also announced today is the new creature contest for Distant Worlds – Legends.  As part of the release, a new space creature will be included in theDistant Worlds universe, joining the likes of the Kaltor, Ardilus and Sand Slug.  This time, we’re giving ­you a chance to add your signature to Distant Worlds by submitting your idea for a new space creature!  For full contest rules, please see this post in our forums.  You have two weeks before the winner is chosen, and the winner will receive a free copy of the entire Distant Worlds series and an in-game credit for their creature contribution!

Erik Rutins, Director of Product Development Matrix Games, said “Distant Worlds – Legends is a huge and highly anticipated step forward for the Distant Worldsseries. CodeForce has been listening to ideas and suggestions from Distant Worlds players, and Legends brings many of the most requested improvements to life, such as the much anticipated character system.  Now you can choose where to send your best Ambassador, assign your best Admiral to lead your main fleet in a key battle, let your General lead your next invasion from orbit, and make sure you have the right Colony Governor assigned to that new frontier world!  We’ll be releasing more information on Distant Worlds – Legends over the next few weeks as it approaches release, so check back often.”

Distant Worlds: Legends is the highly anticipated second expansion to the critically acclaimed 4X space strategy game Distant Worlds. Legends is a huge step forward which brings the Distant Worlds universe to life.  A new character system includes Leaders, Admirals, Generals, Governors, Ambassadors, Scientists and Agents, each with defined abilities and traits and opportunities to advance and grow over time.  Expanded gameplay for all existing races includes new race-specific events, technologies and victory conditions which create a completely different game depending on your choices.  An expanded tech tree also awaits, with dedicated carriers, cutting lasers, rail guns, new planetary facilities and wonders, and much more (including a new hidden faction)!

Distant Worlds: Legends also includes a new model for borders and spheres of influence for each faction, as well as new fleet management and automation commands.  The interface has been improved with additional overlays for the main galaxy map, including route indicators for all ships and fleet posture indicators, all to make it easier to keep track of activity and strategy. A new setup option allows galaxies to also be larger in map size as well as number of stars.  Empire Policies have been expanded with new options and Diplomacy has been overhauled to be much more intelligent and to include mining and refueling rights.  Finally, the AI has been improved in all areas and modding support has been greatly expanded to allow modders to take full advantage of all the new features.

All of this together makes Distant Worlds: Legends an essential addition to the vast, living galaxy of Distant Worlds!

Please note: Distant Worlds – Legends REQUIRES ownership of the original full Distant Worlds game.

Get more information on Distant Worlds – Legends from its official product page.

ABOUT SLITHERINE LTD. AND MATRIX GAMES LTD.

Slitherine Ltd. and Matrix Games Ltd. are the world’s leading video games producers and publishers of historical and strategy titles. Since 2000, both brands have published literally hundreds of games with many award-winning titles in their portfolio spanning all digital and console platforms. Slitherine is also involved with book publishing, and board gaming and work with a wide array of key licensing partners such as HISTORY™, MILITARY HISTORY™, Horrible Histories™, Showtime, BBC, Osprey, Scholastic, Casemate Publishing and many others to deliver the best blend of historical accuracy in an exciting and entertaining way. The two companies merged in May 2010 and formed the world’s largest organization specializing in this niche but important market sector. Slitherine’s mission over the coming years is to lead the way in innovation and growth in this expanding industry sector.

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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

There is no release date announced yet but there is already a gameplay trailer and some screenshots that you can find below. For more information checkout the game official website.

Features

• Simple and addictive game play: explore, discover, build a fleet, conquer.
• Turn based fleet combat.
• Galaxy Map helps you navigate your fleet through many constellations.
• Stunning universe dominated by four civilizations.
• 80 one-on-one turn based battles in stunning 3D space constellations.
• Fleet combinations consisting of Laser, Missile and Repair spaceships.
• A dozen special attacks, each with stunning visuals.
• Over 20 mother ship turn based card battles.
• Crystal Mining mini game to find crystals needed for special attacks.
• Search For Life mini game with 5 levels of achievements – each with a crystal pack reward.
• Simple crafting panel in the space station.
• Achievements panel “Hall of Fame” with medals and ranks.
• Boost your leadership status to become an admiral.

Gameplay Trailer

Screenshots

To put it simply Stellar Impact puts you in the role of a spaceship captain. Your objective is to side with other players and conquer your enemy through a death match, while navigating through asteroids, gas and plasma fields (these environments affect your navigation by the way).

Stellar Impact is more about tactics but contains also some strategy elements, so it is an RTS. It also has some RPG elements (skills and levels). Each player commands only 1 ship. Some bonuses eventually activate some companion ships that help you in battle. It’s not really a MMO since there is no persistent universe. Stellar Impact is an online multiplayer game (pvp only though) where people setup occasional or regular games. Games also have a clear beginning and end, so it’s definitely not like WoW or EVE at all in that respect.

Gameplay

There are two playing modes in Stellar Impact: Conquest and Battlefield.

In Conquest mode you team-up with fellow online players in a battle for domination with the destruction of your opponent’s base as the final goal.

In Battlefield mode the first team to eliminate all adversaries three times, or to hold an objective for at least 120 seconds, wins.

Stellar Impact offers 5 different spaceship classes. The player is allowed to choose from a Corvette, Frigate, Destroyer, Cruiser or a Dreadnought class ship. Nothing new here, these are your classic ship classes to be found in many space games. There is no unlock system or progression requirement of any kind though, so, you can play with all 5 ships classes at any time from day 1 if you want.

I find this freedom to choose any ship from the start a bit simplistic. To make it more fun and engaging I would have preferred that an unlock system of some kind would have been provided so that you could command bigger ships as soon as you gained more experience points, but I understand that it would limit game freedom, and being this game more action-oriented I guess this was an understandable design decision to make.

Your main interaction with the game is made by steering your ship, capture objectives, target your enemies, fire and destroy them as many times as you can (players re-spawn each time they die). To steer around you need to adjust your throttle (stop, mid or full). To do this you use the keyboard keys W (for more throttle) and S (for less).

Tactical Map User Interface

To change directions you can use the keyboard keys A and D or you can use the mouse right-click button. To lock a target you use the mouse left-button and to shoot you hit space. Using the keyboard to continuously adjust speed and fire, while at the same time use both mouse buttons to change directions and lock enemies can feel a bit overwhelming and awkward at first, but after a couple of games you get used to it pretty quick. Controls are not that bad as some people are advocating. After a couple of games you will do just fine.

In addition to the pure tactical gameplay elements Stellar Impact also offers some nice strategic elements that make the game very interesting in my opinion.

The game features interest points scattered through the game map. These interest points are called objectives. These provide additional bonuses to the party that owns them.

There are Singularities, that if a research center is built there (is owned) produces additional technology points for your team. If you build an outpost on a Vortex your team gains the ability to teleport to other outposts. On crystal sites you can build a refinery. With refineries you can summon more escort ships to aid you in battle (these little ships are pretty handy to have around). If you colonize planets you gain access to more command points. Deciding which objectives to claim and when is a major strategy element of the game.

You can build outposts in singularities to teleport to other outposts

All these refinery, outpost, research centers and colonies are pretty abstract concepts though. You don’t actually give orders to build anything. Structures are “built” if you sit right next to the objectives for enough time for them to be “activated”. Escort units are spawned automatically into the game.

Technology points are necessary to increase the rate of research. When you reach a critical research amount you are allowed to unlock additional skill levels during battle. Examples of these skill levels include more fire power, more shield strength, more armor, radar upgrade, among many others (and I mean a lot many). Command points are also necessary to upgrade your skills.

These 2 dimensions (technology and command points) and the objectives capturing goal help keep the game more interesting instead of relying solely on tactics, since you have to balance things carefully and decide the right thing to do next. You have to be very quick sometimes on making these decisions, something that may create a bit of anxiety or lead to a random-choice decision by the player. This quick-decision making requirement may not appeal to everyone.

The upgrade panel. Where you improve your bonuses and skills during battle.

Some players will decide to invest more on capturing objectives, others will decide more on engaging other players head-on and quickly gain territory. It’s up to the team to communicate and to eventually give specific roles to certain players.

Skill system, Equipment and Personnel slots

In addition to real-time tactics and strategy elements Stellar Impact also offers some RPG elements to the player; a somewhat complex skill system.

You can choose 4 skills to use on each of your 5 different ship classes during battle (skills ranging from attack, defense, maneuvering and others). You can change these skills at any time you’re at the hangar (main menu). In addition to choosing skills you can also decide to reward your personnel with eventual medals you win from battle. You can choose to invest on your navigators, on your gunners, your engineers or your scientists. Giving your personnel medals unlocks passive skills, which have a permanent effect.

The skills, personnel and equipment upgrade panel

An example of a Scientist passive skill is “Escort ships flying with the ship have armed rockets“, an example of a Gunner passive skill is “The speed of projectiles is increased by 5 units per second“. The passive skills possibilities are the same for all ship classes. In contrast, non-passive skills are more specific to each ship class. All ship classes can still use the same non-passive skills but each class specializes in one field more than others.

It’s key to note that each time you gain enough experience points your ship class levels up. That new level provides an additional skill upgrade level you can apply in-game. A higher level also allows the recovery of better equipment after battle. So, if you have a Cruiser of level 2 (MK II) it means that you can only upgrade your bonuses and skills in battle to a maximum of 2.

Graphics and Sound

Graphics are nice, as you can judge from the screenshot below, nothing too fancy but with sufficient detail. Spaceships rendering is good.

Cruiser ship model zoom-in

Music is present during battles but it’s nothing too memorable, but it is adequate. Sounds are basic. Your spaceship firing sounds remind you of naval ships cannons, when you’re zooming-in closely. In “nominal zoom” view sounds are a bit poor. Overall, music, sound and graphics are ok but just don’t expect too much from them.

Free trial

When Stellar Impact was first released (in Aug 22, 2011) it allowed you to play only 10 multiplayer matches for free. After that point you would need to buy a subscription for about 10€ (approx $14 at the time of this review). Tindalos Interactive, in a patch released the day I wrote this review changed this. Now players can play indefinitely for free but the catch is that they are limited to the first skill level for all ship classes. This means that when a player reaches the maximum experience for level 1 he cannot upgrade that ship class with skills greater than 1.

Tindalos was probably noticing the short amount of players (I never saw more than 10 players in the game lobby) so I guess letting players play for a longer time while limiting benefits is more interesting than limiting the player to 10 matches. Let’s see if that works better.

Only Multiplayer

There is one lacking aspect in Stellar Impact that must be stressed out. It does not provide single-player gameplay.  There are no AI opponents, so you cannot generate maps to play by yourself against the computer. This means that you must rely completely on other players showing up in order to play.

In the meantime, if you don’t find anybody else around to play, and if you still want to give it a try, you can create your own games, although they are only for practice and so, they are not true single-player games. However they can be used to get a taste of the game since you can target turrets and escort ships (and they do react and fire back).

We may or may not agree with this lack of single-player gameplay decision but this is Tindalos’ business strategy, although a risky one in my opinion. If enough people “buy” into the game they get themselves a ticket, if not they probably need to revise the plan and provide something for people to do in the meantime.

Conclusions

I find Stellar Impact quite solid and fun to play. You can feel that the game really has a sufficient to good production value. This is not due to a specific mechanic or a detail in my opinion but to the overall gaming experience that the game succeeds in providing.

Action RTS is not my ball park but I did enjoy the adrenaline of playing 4 games. It’s really intense! The objectives, skills, technology points and command points provide a satisfying layer of strategy that helps to provide a strong gaming experience.

Controls can take a while to master but are definitely not a show stopper, far from it. You get used to them pretty quickly.

As a downside (hopefully temporary) there are not that many players to be found in the game lobby ready to play at the time of this review, but I’m convinced many will come since the game quality really deserves it.

The somewhat complex skill system, the personnel passive skills, the number of ships and its skills should be more than enough to satisfy you and keep you entertained. Not to mention the fun and deep tactical aspect of the game. For instance you can dodge missiles by maneuvering correctly, so there seems to be sufficient depth there also.

Stellar Impact may not be for everyone however. If you’re into real-time tactics games or if you enjoyed titles like Defense of the Ancients, Dota 2 or Demigod and you like the Sci-Fi theme then this is your next game. If on the other hand you’re more of a hardcore space strategy gamer that likes more complex strategy elements (like building units and planning your structures carefully) or if you’re a Sci-Fi TBS fan, then you could still enjoy Stellar Impact but it’s not guaranteed. If you enjoy playing online multiplayer games and you’re more into RTS then you should enjoy Stellar Impact. If you’re a casual gamer then I guess you should give it a try, maybe you discover action RTS to be your thing, who knows.

Anyway, and in overall, I recommend all Sci-Fi gaming fans to try Stellar Impact out. It’s free to play till a certain level, so you’ve nothing to lose. The game deserves, at least, the time you take to download and try it out.

Stellar Impact (Buy at GamersGate)	Space Sector score: 7.5 (about the score system)

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.

Legends of Pegasus is a 4x space strategy game currently being developed by Novacore Studios.

The game shall feature a mix of turn-based and real-time strategy gameplay. Turns when moving around in the starmap and real-time during space combat.

Legends of Pegasus is targeted for release in Q2 2012.

Have a look at this first look trailer. It is a video made at the Gamescom 2011 event. You cannot move forward the play and it is taking a bit of time to load so I wrote some impressions after.

You can tell the guy was a bit nervous presenting the game (or at least in a rush). I guess they sent the marketing guy without presenting him the latest build :) “You have … aah … different  … aah … icons in the colony” yikes!

Although the presenter says that this is a really early build, there’s really nothing that exciting aboutwatching this video presentation. There seems to be nothing really new. Reminds you a lot of Sins of a Solar Empire.

Colony Management is slot based, similar in concept to other games like Galactic Civilizations or Armada 2526.

So, is there any interesting new stuff?

Ships models look nice, and the modularity feature presented in the trailer seems interesting.

It is promised to offer a strong single player campaign, this time in contrast to most of the latest 4x space game titles that decided to offer only sand-box or scenario gameplay. A compelling story is also promised.

Non-repetitive but meaningfull voice sounds (when giving orders to ships) are also mentioned.

Let’s keep an eye on this one to see what new it has to offer. The genre is desperately needing for new ideas. Making the new “Sins” is not sufficient anymore. Let’s hope fore-coming games decide to innovate a little bit more.

For more information (features and screenshots) checkout the Legends of Pegasus press release announcement.

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.

Empire of the Eclipse is a 4x online real-time strategy game currently under development for Apple’s iOS family of devices (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad).

Today, ZarkSoft Games has announced that the sign-up for Empire of the Eclipse’s Beta Round 2 has begun. The beta test will go live on Sept 3 but the sign ups started today.

Love 4x space strategy games and have an iOS device? This is your chance to have a privileged first look at EotE and have the opportunity to give feedback to the devs. Go ahead and sign-up!

Lee Dotson (President of ZarkSoft Games) announced that there has been “a ton of changes in this build” which you can read about below.

Empire of the Eclipse Beta 2 change list

- Battle reports are now sent to a players in game email after a battle has been completed.
- Planet resource / unit cost rebalance
- Build times have been adjusted
- Terra formers now work properly.
- An animation is not played over the planet during combat. (Full combat display is still pending.)
Combat has been completely revamped
- planet defenses work properly.
- stealth skills now affect combat.
- fleet combat now works properly
- Items that can’t be built are now highlighted
- Chat indicator animated when messages are waiting
- Number of unread emails is now displayed
- There is a separate tab for the tech you have currently qued to research.
- You can now post screenshots to facebook / twitter by touching the screen with three or more fingers.
- Client side optimizations so detailed sector information is only sent when a player is specifically viewing a sector. (this should fix the lag problems Spart was having.)
- Lots of small graphical fixes.
- General texture memory optimizations.
- The Planet Killers planet busting ability now works.
- The technology Bio weapons now works properly.
- Solar Core Taps are now functioning and behave as ships instead of orbitals.
- Blackholes – now destroy ships when they enter their system if they do not posses hyper space physics.
- There is now a limit of 1 Shipyard per planet. The build time of shipyards has also been increased to 24 hours.

Read the remaining list of changes at ZarkSoft Games forum.

EotE has no firm scheduled released date yet. In Lee Dotson’s words “We’ll release the game when it’s ready (…) but we’re pretty confident that this next round of beta should bring us much closer to launch so we’ll most likely being going live in a couple months“. This means that we’ll probably have EotE this Fall.

Come and discuss Empire of the Eclipse in the forums: http://www.spacesector.com/blog/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=72

Starjack Online is a 4X real-time strategy, massively multiplayer online game that can be played for free. However it is not browser-based, you have to download client software in order to play.

The devs mention in their starjack online website that in terms of 4X, the game “will focus more on the technological, economical, military and political development of an empire”. I wonder where exploration fits in Starjack, normally it is a rather weak aspect of space strategy MMOGs.

But the basics seem to all be there – “you can extract resources, develop your colonies, launch your fleets, research new technologies and watch your empire flourish”

LGS also promise to offer automation options to remove what they consider to be “tedium and the need for micromanagement“.

Being an RTS everything in SJO evolves in real-time. All happens within the same persistent universe, so, all actions done by every player affects all other players after the moment they occur, no matter if you’re online or offline. This is the standard for MMOGs.

An intriguing aspect of LGS is that the devs state that almost everything within the game is player created. Colonies, ships, troops, prototypes. They also state that the game offers tools so that the player can interact and manage that content. Interesting.

You can register and download the game for free from the Starjack Online website.

As typical in these free online games there are premium features. Subscribers will enjoy special benefits. There is also a special resource (usually rare or that can only be bought). Typically this kind of resources are needed to access premium content or to facilitate certain tasks. In the case of SJO that resource is crystals.

I’ll check out Starjack Online in more detail to see what it has to offer, especially what’s different about it.

Screenshots

Come and discuss Starjack Online in the forums: http://www.spacesector.com/blog/forum/showthread.php?tid=686

“Nexus 2 is a very special project for the company”, said studio owner Mike Horneman. “Nexus was our first game, and we still have many of the original team-members on board, with full plans in place for what we’d do for a sequel“.

I played the original Nexus some years ago (it’s one of the games I mention in my about page). One particular thing I remember about it was that some missions were extremely difficult, and I mean like to the point of being sick sometimes. But apart of that :) Nexus was (and still is) a gorgeous game. It had a very interesting plot and the spaceship battles were great. It was a lot of fun to play.

Nexus 2 will be developed for the PC platform. It is in pre-production and is targeted for completion in Q4 2012.

The genre is space-based real-time strategy, although to be more precise (and if it goes in the same line as Jupiter Incident), it can be considered a real-time tactical combat simulator. Quite complicated? Well, whatever it is, it is good old science fiction gaming, and I love it!

MWE ia looking to finance the sequel project with a mixture of its own funds supported by crowdfunding.

“We’re happy to put a large chunk of our own resources into making Nexus 2″, said Horneman, “but realistically we cannot fund the whole project ourselves. So, with GamesPlant, we can offer all our fans out there a chance to be part of the Nexus 2 project. The more you pledge, the more you will benefit; from digital pre-orders, through special boxed editions and your name included in the game, right up to profitsharing; everyone can be a part of this.“

The way this crowdfunding thing seems to work is that GamesPlant’s site allows users to “pledge” funds to the project. The money is only deducted if the Nexus 2 project meets its start criteria (which is 400.000 €). If Most Wanted’s Nexus 2 plan succeeds, it will be the largest game ever started on the site.

Note: At the time I started writing this post there were 6 supporters to the project, now (after more or less half an hour) the site already accounts 9, cool.

You can find more info on the game, including story, concept art, game features as well as funding details here: http://www.games-plant.com/nexus2/

Enjoy the concept art trailer, it’s really worth it!

Players will conquer and explore an incredibly detailed 3D universe as they use economic, diplomatic and scientific means to expand their empires. Through a deep technology tree, players will unlock new technologies to customize their ships and prepare their fleets for the next alien encounter…be it hostile or friendly.

In development by Novacore Studios, Legends of Pegasus will be released in Q2 2012

Features of Legends of Pegasus include:

• A complete 4X science fiction gaming experience- eXlore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate your way to galactic conquest
• Tactical space combat – featuring a unique mix of turn-based and real-time strategy gameplay
• A realistic, immersive universe – three races and 12 playable factions exist in a living-breathing universe populated by a huge variety of non-player civilizations
• Play alone or dominate with friends – an extensive single-player campaign coupled with a strong multiplayer focus ensure an engaging experience
• Massive customization options – design, build and deploy ships created from research into hundreds of technologies based on an extensive tech tree
• Make it yours – modding options will be available, allowing players to customize missions, maps and more

About The Kalypso Media Group

Founded in 2006 in Germany by industry veterans Simon Hellwig and Stefan Marcinek, Kalypso Media is a global, independent developer, marketer and publisher of interactive entertainment software that employs nearly 100 video game industry experts world-wide.

Along with Headquarters in Worms, Germany, the company has offices in the United Kingdom and the United States. Kalypso Media also enjoys very strong global digital distribution through its Kalypso Media Digital Ltd. Subsidiary, and owns three development studios – Realmforge Studios GmbH, Gaming Minds Studios GmbH and Noumena Studios GmbH – and works with multiple leading independent developers.

Kalypso Media’s recent titles include Boulder Dash XL and The First Templar for Xbox 360, and Dungeons for Windows PC. Upcoming multi-platform titles include Tropico 4, The Dark Eye – Demonicon and Port Royale 3, along with Dungeons – The Dark Lord and Jagged Alliance: Back in Action for Windows PC. Further information about Kalypso Media is available at http://www.kalypsomedia.com.

Screenshots

Some time ago, about 10 months to be more precise, I made a review of Star Ruler. By then, as I then came to know, the game (although released) was actually still in “Beta” (at version 1.0.0.6). The review score turned out to come out a bit low because of that. I came to realise that although released the game was in fact “half-done”, well maybe not at half state but still under heavy development. BMS released the game as “it was” because allegedly they run-out of funding to continue the development.

And in fact BMS continued to improve Star Ruler. After a succession of patch releases the game should be now much more stable (and finished). With a physical box target release for 16th of September 2011 Star Ruler gains a new breath. You can download the latest demo (v1.0.8.0) from here.

Video games publisher Iceberg Interactive confirmed that will publish a boxed version of Star Ruler. The game will be available in retail stores throughout Europe, Australia, South-East Asia and various other territories on 16 September 2011. A fully localized German version will be on sale in German retail stores on the same date.

For more information about Star Ruler checkout the SpaceSector’s Star Ruler overview and review (for v1.0.0.6) and the Blind Mind Studios website and forums.

You can buy Star Ruler at GamersGate (digital download). If the game it’s not at present version you can update it in Blind Mind Studios patches page.

Some months ago I’ve made a quick first impressions of 10 Min Space Strategy. The game was still in Alpha stage by then but there was already a demo available. By then I thought the game was already fun to play. There were no crashes or bugs, a few quirks here and there but nothing too serious to report.

Some days ago Goblin Lunatics has released the final version of 10 Min Space Strategy. Now it’s time for some more serious business. Here we go.

I downloaded 10 Min Space Strategy, installed it, configured the graphics, audio and language settings. By the way, have I mentioned that this game is free? Yes, completely free. No trial, micro-transaction, premium or any other babble. I think this is probably the most finished, playable and complete game I have ever played that it’s 100% free.

Races configuration

You are allowed to customize your race in 10MSS. That’s right. Not just the name and color but you can also pick from 20 different (interesting) traits, your homeworld type, and an overall credo (which means your race’s belief system). The credo provides you with special bonuses and special buildings.

10 Min Space Strategy: Race Configuration Panel

Being able to customize your races and choose your traits through a points system is a rare asset to be found these days in space strategy games. 10MSS delivers more than a sufficient number of race styles and traits to satisfy your customization needs. Traits are meaningful also. Although a great deal are modifiers (bonus percentages) others provide special abilities like the possibility to capture enemy ships, to be a tolerant race to hostile environments, to be more efficient against space monsters, etc, etc.

Exploration and Exploitation aspects

Once you start your game you see your planet and some other planets around. Some of them have a funny icon on top that looks like a scorpion. That signals the presence of a space monster on that planet (it took me several minutes to figure that out for myself  I confess).

In 10MSS the maps don’t contain stars and start systems, as usual in these types of games, but only planets. One can imagine perhaps that the entire map represents one single star system. The starmap concept is pretty abstract in this sense however that does not hurt the overall game experience in my point of view.

10 Min Space Strategy: Game Start

One very interesting thing to notice in the map is that besides planets there are also anomalies around. These anomalies provide extra bonuses when they’re under your control. These anomalies can be asteroid fields (that I think should slow down ships) that provide a production boost. There are also gas clouds (that I also think should also slow down ships) that provide a population growth boost (although I did not grasp the reason for this last bonus). There are also alien wrecks that can be explored to increase your research speed.

But there’s more to anomalies. First of all they vary in size which also varies the bonus level they provide and the number of ships you need to control them. Another aspect about anomalies is that they are finite. I think this was a great design decision. By being scarce the anomalies are like gems to be exploited only when the time is right.

One interesting improvement would be the ability to know when a resource is being exploited, without the need to go the “Empire screen” to check that. If the resource is being exploited it would be nice to see it glow for example. This is a minor quality aspect, but important nevertheless in my opinion.

Concerning Planets

In your planets you can build Factories, Research Centers, Cities, Bomber Factories, Supply Depots or other special buildings depending on your race credo. These buildings provide you with almost everything you need to thrive in the game.

I find the planets buildings construction, and the overall production system, quite elegant. It’s all very simple to manage but there is considerable depth to it. For starters you have a limited number of slots available in your planets (that swing around and glow so that you know that that planet still has slots available) so you have to plan carefully what to build on those slots. The game also allows you to build multiple structures of the same type if you decide so (I’m glad they did it that way). Too many factories and you create larger fleets faster but if you lack research centers you will stall your technology advance. Nothing is left out, population plays also a major role in production. So you need also to balance your population capacity and growth to decide what to build.

In the beginning you control one single planet, your homeworld. Your homeworld will be of your natural environment type but you can colonise other types of planets, although with a penalty.

Another great feature of 10MSS is that planets have special abilities (as far as I could tell all of them have one, maybe not the best decision). And there are plenty of these special abilities. Some examples are Natural mineral resources, Remains of a lost civilization or an Alien defensive structure just to name a few. These features provide bonuses and another layer of strategy since players must decide what’s best to build on each planet in order to take more benefit from its special feature. As a minor remark currently it’s not possible to rename planets, I think it would be nice to be able to do that.

Another nice thing is that some planets are guarded by space monsters. You need to wipe those out before you can colonise them. Although I like the space monsters idea I think it would be preferable not to disclose which planets have monsters until a spaceship arrives there. This would increase curiosity and the surprise factor, two crucial things that increase fun in a game.

Research

There are 5 tech research areas in 10MSS: Environment, Industry, Propulsion, Warfare and Empire. The first deals with populations improvements (capacity and growth), the second enhances the spaceships construction speed, Propulsion increases your spaceships reach and scanning ability, Warfare increases your combat ability and Empire deals with limits (the number of things you can build).

The research system, as with almost anything else in 10MSS, is simple yet effective. Each research center produces +1 research point for each population unit present in that planet. Therefore it’s not only production but also research that is dependent on population which makes population a key constraint in the game. And rightly so in my opinion (not like in some other games where it does not matter how much population you have you can always produce the same, but is a talk for another day).

You can pick which tech area, from the 5 above, you would like to focus your research on (only one at a time).

But there’s more to research. In addition to the 5 research areas, that if researched increase the “power” of each area, the game provides you also with “Research Traits”.

10 Min Space Strategy: Empire Details (Research Traits)

These research traits are kind of special projects that can be unlocked as soon as you reach a certain level of research for each of the 5 main research areas. These special projects may require just one research area to reach a certain level but normally it takes two research areas. This research traits feature is a cool aspect about the research system that makes it less 1 dimensional. This surely enhances strategy decisions to be made.

Space Combat & Planet Bombardment

There are only three types of spaceships in 10MSS: Fighters, Bombers and Colony Ships. Fighters are the backbone of your armada. Bombers are used to bombard planets. Colony ships are used to colonise planets and build space stations, a very important asset to deploy in more demanding times.

Space combat is completely cinematic. When two enemy forces engage in battle a screen is shown where you can watch the battle unfold. In the meantime, or after the battle ends, you can look at both yours and your opponent modifiers/bonus (and usually there are plenty of them). Most of the modifiers depend on the races traits, others depend on research you do in-game.

10 Min Space Strategy: Battles

Fighters are the ones (and only ones) that engage in direct combat. The Bombers mission is to bombard planets, but they can also be very handy when indirectly used in combat, if you happen to have the “Heavy Torpedoes” trait. When you have this trait your bombers don’t count for your overall ship numbers but they add up as bonus when your armada engages an enemy fleet. If you attack an enemy fleet composed exclusively of bombers the combat ends prematurely, you win and the opponent looses all bombers.

Although combat sounds very simple (and it really is), since there are no tactical aspects to control, it is still very engaging and fun because although you don’t control what happens during the battle your decisions before the battle do matter. You often  ask crucial questions like “Which mix of fighters and bombers should I use?“, “Should I mix Fighters and Bombers at all?“, “Maybe I should split my armada into 2 or maybe 3 additional fleets“.

A potential criticism that can be made to 10MSS  is that it provides only a small bunch of ship types, and you cannot customize any aspect of them either. Normally you would expect to have corvettes, cruisers, heavy cruisers, battleships or dreadnoughts in these kind of games right? Or at least some ship customization abilities. In 10MSS the spaceships concept is more abstract than usual, so there are only fighters and bombers to do all the war, and all your industry and research, the ALL game, revolves almost exclusively between these two types of ships alone.

In my personal opinion that criticism is more than acceptable before you try 10MSS, but after you play a couple of games you don’t notice that lack of ship types at all. The ships concept is so well abstracted that you don’t feel so much the need for more ships (although it wouldn’t hurt to have a couple more).

Planets can’t be conquered in 10MSS, so there’s no invasion concept. To remove your enemy from a planet you must bring bombers to bombard that planet. Each turn, depending on the number of bombers you bring, the enemy population will drop. Every turn you lose some ships in the bombardment process. When no population is present in the planet it becomes empty and it’s time to bring in your colony ship.

The planets siege process is quite straightforward, however it wouldn’t hurt to allow planets to be conquered and to provide a report on damage and possibly even allow the player to decide if it wants to destroy facilities. After a certain amount of population is massacred the remaining could be conquered and not completely annihilated. This would avoid the need to bring colony ships, a very tedious process, specially in late games.

Another very interesting concept in 10MSS are space stations. You can build as many as your Empire tech level allows you to. You need a colony ship to build a space station (awkward?). Ok, maybe it should be another type of ship but  I figure that for simplistic and economic reasons Goblin Lunatics choose to give the colony ship a double purpose.

10 Min Space Strategy: Space Stations

Space stations have an effect radius (that can be seen in the picture above) and can hold 1 module that you choose from possible alternatives from military strength, increased ship movement among others.

There is a catch to space stations however, you cannot dismantle space stations after you build them. You can build many of them but it would be nice to be able to scrap them when they’re not needed anymore. I only built a couple of space stations in my games but I imagine that they can be quite important, specially in very large games or multiplayer games, so the ability to dismantle them would be important in my opinion.

Other aspects

Music is great! It can become a bit repetitive however, especially on larger maps, but nothing too serious since the games don’t last for that long.

The game text fonts are a bit distracting and take a while to get used to. Another esthetic minor aspect is that information can sometimes overlap, especially on smaller planets. Maybe there should be an option to toggle some information on and off, like the planets population or name.

Explosions effects in the strategy map and in the cinematic map are simple but at least they’re there.

Battles feel balanced. I don’t know all the numbers behind combat but I didn’t feel the need to know them also. There are so many bonus modifiers that it’s always a bit unpredictable what the battle outcome will be, I like that.

A minor detail about space combat when sieging planets is that it would be nice to have the name of the planet appear in the cinematic dialog. It’s a minor detail but everything helps to immersion. Not being able to rename planets also bugs me a bit.

Personal suggestion: Besides gas clouds, asteroid fields and alien wreaks the game could also offer wormholes or stargates (fixed from game start, with no need to create additional ones). This would increase strategy complexity dramatically since these gateways would need to be watched carefully. Done right I don’t think this would hurt the simple mechanics of the game.

Another thing that would be useful would be to have a relocation feature to send ships produced in a planet automatically to a designated planet, space station or any other place. I surely missed that during my late games.

End game is simple. You win, that’s it :) There could be stats, plenty of stats. But maybe some highlights like the maximum number of fighters and bombers built, the elapsed time and a score would be nice to have.

10 Min Space Strategy: End Game

10MSS provides hot-seat multiplayer. I’ve tried it, it’s simple and looks flawless.

Graphics are simple but more than appropriate for these kind of games.

The user interface is practically perfect. It provides you with plenty of tooltips. I would say that all the information in the UI is self-evident or if not the tooltips will do the trick for you. No tutorial? No manual? Who needs it? After 15 minutes you already know 90% you need to know and the other 10% will come later in natural pace.

One minor issue with the user interface though is that it provides no information about how many turns a building or a tech will take to construct or to research. Was that on purpose? I must confess that bugged me in the beginning a little bit but then I got used to it and it didn’t bother me at all in the long-term.

There are no diplomacy options, none whatsoever. You are always at war with your opponents. That being said however it’s funny that I think I was successful in doing a certain kind of abstract diplomacy. What I mean by this is that in the beginning of my large game I did not attack my opponent and the AI did the same. We carefully monitored each other and no one wanted to make the first move (like in chess). At some point the AI was present in a planet I found interesting to claim mine so I “declared war”, not explicitly of course. So, although there are no diplomacy features in 10MSS there is some degree of implicit or imaginative diplomacy you can apply. But that being said yes, it’s a minus for the game not to have at least the basic diplomacy options, especially one that candidates to be named 4x. In my opinion a game is only pure 4x when it provides a minimum set of diplomacy options.

An important remark is that I found 10MSS a little bit too easy. I played 3 games, one small, other medium and another large and I won all three of them without the need to restart or load once. I guess the AIs probably squabble between each other too early and never reach (this is just a guess) critical numbers. I do amass fleets so I found quite easy to put AIs fighting each other and then after they weaken themselves I attacked with my huge fleets and steam rolled them.

This is what happens when you don’t have diplomacy options. If we could forge simple nonaggression treaties or military alliances we would know, and the AI also, who is enemy and who is not. This is surely one aspect that these kind of simpler games lack.

However I did find the AIs decently competent. I never saw a unescorted colony ship or any too apparent suicide mission in 10MSS (so unfortunately common in some AAA games that claim to have “great” AI).

One thing that the game lacks though are events. Things that surprise the player and increase the fun of playing.

The extermination phase, like in so many other space strategy games is very boring, after some point you know you’ll win so probably there should be a “the AI surrenders after some point option” or something.

Conclusions

It was a long review but I think 10MSS totally deserves it. It’s not because a game is Indie, free and simple that it doesn’t deserve to be thoroughly reviewed. Moreover I did have fun playing and that surely helps the review become a bit more extensive.

10 Min Space Strategy holds to its promise, it is great to play quick games. I think this game would be perfect for you if you’re travelling in a plain, train or waiting at the doctor. But it can also be a great joy to play a quick game at home, at work or at any other place where you have your PC or laptop.

If you’re a space strategy fan you have to try 10MSS. I guarantee you will not be disappointed, just be warned that it is a simple game so don’t expect anything too flashy. Even if you’re not a fan of Sci-fi 10MSS is still a good strategy game that surely deserves your time, after all it’s free and will only take you about 10 min to try it, so you really have nothing to lose have you?

Maybe in the future Goblin Lunatics will also do a tablet version of 10MSS. If that would be possible, or easy, it would be just natural to do that. However my advice to Goblin Lunatics is never to lose sight of traditional PC players, they are the backbone of players that play these kind of games, at least these days.

Goblin Lunatics deserves our appreciation for having developed this precious gem, and to letting us play it for free. I’m sure they will come up with ideas to monetize it, they surely deserve the credit for it.

10 Min Space Strategy	Space Sector score: 8.2 (about the score system)