Conflicks - Revolutionary Space Battles

A realtime strategy space battle game where, instead of directly ordering ships to move, you "flick" them like rubber bands. The setting and art are very unique, but... This game is a laundry list of "it could have been good if..." if they had ditched the gimmicky flicking and just made it a standard RTS if it was turned based instead of real time so you could manage all the crap (it actually seems like it was meant to be turn based but was changed at the last second) if you could actually issue orders while paused if the controls weren't so choppy that you end up deselecting the unit half the time you go to "flick" The end result is just a mess of fiddling with the annoying flicking mechanic while your ships are shot up in real time with no real ability to pause because you can't pre-order flicks while paused. There are special abilites that differentiate the ships, but most of them also require flicks and aren't worth the hassle. Both building ships and using abilities take the same money resource, but you recover money so quickly that it's never a factor. The only limiting factor is the player's time and attention flicking ships one at a time. Special abilities aren't worth using because that's time you could have spent building more ships (which also requires a flick on the contructing ship) and flicking them towards the enemy. This could have worked turn based. This could have worked without flicking. This could have worked with the ability to issue orders and flicks while paused. But none of those are true so the game just plain doesn't work. It's a shame because from an artistic standpoint it's great. The gameplay is just horrid though.

This game gets 10/10 for the intro video, story and concept and I really wanted to like it but I got frustrated within a matter of minutes of playing the first mission. This game simply doesn't work as an RTS with the flicking mechanics. It needs to be turn based. Out of a desire to give it a second chance though I attempted to play multiplayer but when no one showed up in the lobby I ended up launching the game against AI instead. I'm glad I did. Playing against a real person would have been a nightmare. The AI isn't remotely challenging - the challenge is simply in navigating anywhere on the map without crashing into something and exploding. After colonising the nearest planet I set my sights on the nearby enemy planet. I spent a couple minutes building units, linked them to a frigate and flicked them across space... only for an outlying torpedo ship to clip one of the cheese moons and send the entire fleet bouncing wildly in the opposite direction and straight into the gravity well of a planet. Survivors: 0. So having discovered the... excessive physics properties of these moons I rebuilt the fleet, launched more carefully and avoided the moons... only for a wormhole to appear in front of me and result in the entire fleet crashing headfirst into a planet on the other side of the system. Survivors: 0. Unsure how I was expected to know that was going to happen or what I possibly could have done about it I tenuously rebuilt the fleet again, this time split and linked to two separate frigates on the basis that surely at least one would not die horribly and unpredictably. I flicked them carefully again and promptly crashed into an enemy ship that just happened to choose that moment to cross my path. Half the fleet was immediately sucked into the nearest planet having lost most of its momentum whilst the others ended up drifting idly into the nearby mothership. Survivors: unknown. Rather than attempt to flick these units to safety one by one I decided to make the best out of it and send the other half of the fleet in to attack. In my haste however I failed to notice the small half dead patrol ship left in my path from the first failed attempt which the fleet promptly crashed into before bouncing off, hitting a cheese moon, then a second, then a third before finally crashing into two of my henships, knocking them into the planet and getting sucked in themselves. Survivors: 0. At this point I was beginning to question the strategic nature of this game. Since two of the AI players had spent the entirety of the game thus far with an equal number of henships perpetually colonising/sterilising the same planet I was, remarkably, still in the lead. However the victory bar was less than half full and I didn't much fancy the prospect of building another dozen ships with a shorter life expectancy than the Titanic so I decided to concede my victory. Well, I say 'concede' I actually just ordered my mothership to fly directly into the nearest planet and take all my henships with it convinced this would be the surest way of ending the game. Unbeknownst to me however the game just replaces your mothership almost immediately. It just never ends... If you are unsure if you will like this game then try to imagine playing your favourite RTS only where half the units you build instantly die and the rest can only be moved via a slingshot every ten seconds. If that sounds like your idea of fun then you should probably get this game.

This is a positive review, but I am hesitant in recommending the game. The most important thing about the game is, that its fun! But it has its issues, just like any other games. Pros: Unique gameplay Enjoyable game mechanics Lots of room for stragegy Easy to play, hard to master. Upgrades based on progression Cons: Multiplayer only offers 4 player Free for all. Very small player base, you will most likely face AI's unless playing at peak time or with friends. Cannot vote for maps (can leave lobby and join another one for new random map) Some maps are not exactly enjoyable (looking at you moon maps). No AI difficulty In the end, the game is enjoyable but feels lackluster on core features such as a 2 versus 2 game mode. Still worth the purchase in my opinion, especially if you are gonna play with 3 friends :) Having to always play against friends, gets old, fast.

If your the kind of player who's willing to let some technical gripes slide for an immersive world and story this game should suck you right in, if you're reading this you've probably noticed all the negative reviews criticizing the controls. And yeah, the flick system is a little annoying and the fact you can't pause then issue commands and unpause makes the game a bit clunky, but imo it's not as bad as everyone makes it seem. Once you pick up the controls it evens out. Now for some other opinions, as previously mentioned the story and world are interesting but the singleplayer campaings seem more like extended tutorials for the 4 nations, with a small storyline for a character for each. Not that there's anything wrong with this, but the AI feels stuck on tutorial level difficulty the whole time. Although on a related note the 4 factions I just mentioned are actually pretty well balanced. I saw another review mention this but it's true. after playing through some games with different factions, none felt too powerful or too weak and with 4 factions that's real nice

This ain’t your colonel’s chicken This game is currently in Early Access, With time the review could change along with the game. This is a game that knows full well what it is. Bordering on breaking the 4th wall, and never taking itself seriously this game tells a story of love in space, with chickens thrown in to spice things up. Merging time periods, with a unique art style and game play, and as someone on another review I had read said “Monty Python in space” I’ll take it, and not only will I take it, I’ll love it. At the time of writing this I’ve only played some of the story for one of the four factions. But hands down this is one of the best strategy titles I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing. I’m not going to touch much on the story itself, as that should be experienced to get the full impact of the humor as well as delivery of it. But the gameplay, well, that’s awesome too. The game is top down strategy/RTS. You take planets, and you use resources to build ships and move them. No resources, you’re not going to be going anywhere. The best way I can describe the game mechanics is think of the “board” as a big pool table, in space where there are chickens. The physics react kind of like that. Smacking a ship with another will send it tumbling about, sometimes (even your own ships) smashing into a planets surface to it’s fire filled end. Just think of the chickens won’t you? From the developers website “Our intention is to combine the chaos produced by the laws of physics governing the movement of many ships at once to the depth of a good RTS in order to create an accessible game experience that can also turn into something quite challenging for more involved players.” They succeeded. This could easily be one of the top time sinks of 2015 for me due to the ease of access as well as the depth that it can hold. This game takes strategy and turns it on it’s head, and makes it a blast to sit down with. My son was walking by and he saw it and had to comment about the chickens and how much fun it looked to play. I’m not sure if it is or not, but this is a game that I could see being put onto mobile, or tablets. The gameplay begs for it with the “flicking” mechanic. With this you click and drag and a line appears that shows you roughly where your ship will go/fire. You release and then there goes your ship. It doesn’t always work in your favor and sometimes you’ll end up a little close than you wanted, or really far away. Despite this the game isn’t broken, the physics become another contender in the fight and there is no side that is super-powered death machines of feathers. It’s fair combat, which is refreshing. You can manage to start out the gate behind, but pull ahead because of your tactics and using the battlefield to your advantage. One of the issues I have with strategy games lately is that if you mess up early, it’s nearly impossible to come back from and you get steamrolled quickly. Thankfully this game actually tried to be a strategy game, and depending on your usage, less can be more. Often games will take the route of zerg rush = game win, we don’t need more of those. We need more space chickens. Last topic would be the soundtrack is glorious. Epic and campy, I would often find myself sitting on the menu while the game ran just for the music even when offline (steam has not correctly tracked my playtime). My only complaint, and it’s nothing against the game is that none of my friends have this. I would love to zip around in space with them either as a team, or just to see who can knock the other out of orbit. As of now, all I can say is this is a game that you need to have in your library. Humor, tactics, immersive, Artifice Studio’s my top-hat is off to you. Bravo.

The artwork is quite impressive, a surprisingly good amount of polish on details and story elements. However where this game breaks down is in the gameplay. With units spread across a map and the requirement of micromanging single unit abilities through a crude interface in realtime, I found it more frustrating than anything. It becomes obvious that this was originally designed as a turn based game but then somewhere in the design process they decided to make it realtime. There is just too much to do in the small window of time you have, it seems too overwhelming. I actually liked the flicking mechanic and the physics elements, it's the rest of the game that takes away from the fun.

funny and unique

A funny and yet compelling game base on the simple concept of flinking your ships to position rather just point and clicking your way towards the destination. The art style and humor of this game keeps is separated from the competition while the flicking mechanic makes it intriquing and compelling enough. Even though the campain can be challenging [♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Antonio!!!!] it dose a good job at introducing the players to the faction mechanics before dropping litterraly all that you have just learned towards the end. The gameplay by design is more focused on the micro management since you simply can not flick more then one ship at the time unless you use a Frigate, and even that is not exacly macro gameplay, you just attach your ships to one and shoot them into space in hope a vessel dosen't bump into a rando asteroid and blocks your entire ball. Even though the ships by them self have the same base stats, it's the skills that each one posses that can change the flow of the battle. For exemple I found that if the AI leaves the mothership alone for a good amount of time, taking a Greater Britan corvette with the shield on can cause as much damage as a well dispached torped, just distract them long enough for the bigger guns to move in. The physics are just the ice on the cake and good players will be able to make the best of it while also efficently using all the skills in your arsenal and constantly pouring out new ships to send to the frontline. Moving each ship can be, however, frustating or stressing simply because you have to aim each and every one of them in order to not screw your self by bumping your own troops into their doom. Not much to say on the options since it's a 2D game with a cartoon art style the only effective change to the quality is the screen resolution. Overall it's a fun game that I'd wish I could try in a deathmatch PvP game but right now the community seems too small as the game has passed under the Steam radar. Here one hopes it's actual relase date brings some much needed attention. Sad to say some skills or factions might end up not fully balanced because of the lack of PvP players to test it.

In the words of George Washington were to exist in this period of Space War games how would handle wondering how he eat omletes: Soldier: Sir...what are we to do if we use eggs for Combat? Washington: By the Flag of the America and our freedom that we fight for, we shall eat the eggs. their is a plentiful supply my good sir. Soldier: Shall i prepare the egg Cannons? Washington: Assemble the Space Fleet, Send them to britan! They'll Regret Taxings our eggs! Soldier: Aye Presiden, All ships Head to britan! Deploy Troops to invade. (Long story short, heck this should be brought to Galaxy phones and all phone devices EVERYWHERE!)

the concept seems interesting and the intro is amazing, but is nigh unplayable due to the controls being horrifically choppy and poorly designed, and when you pair that and the fact that it's RTS then you have a mess that desperately needs a redesign, be it the ♥♥♥♥♥ controls or the design choice with how the combat works something needs to be done to make this game actually playable by the average human being. until then it sit's in my library.