Drifter

Tons of potential, but in my mind not really ready for even early access. The tutorial was frustrating to figure out, the radial menu is very much not clear. My main problem though is the game is paced way too slow. My first mission I got wanted me to deliver an object to another system. Ok, fine. I figured out how to plot the course and noticed it was 57 jumps away...ok... I did my first jump to see how it works and noticed the jump drive disables for a 60 second cooldown. 57 jumps = 57 minutes IF you jump exactly on the cooldown second every time. That's pretty poor design. Buy it if you want to support it. There is tons of potential here and I expect it will be greatly improved. This is the reason I am recommending it, but if you don't know how to read my review and can only look at the thumb then I can't help you.

I backed Drifter on Kickstarter. It got funded in juni 2012. More than 3 years later next to nothing has changed. Might still have potential, but the developer probably doesn't care anymore. Very infrequent updates change next to nothing. I'll revise this review if this game ever gets finished.

I know this game has missed its original launch window by a lot, however I am so glad they aren't rushing. Even looking at the 8 months since last beta release would make you think this is not worth investing in as it may turn out as vapourware. I'd implore you to follow the main Dev on Twitter @celsiusgs as he is always tweeting screenshots and progress. As well as interacting with fans. I just tweeted him an hour ago about an issue and he already responded. So far (version 0.53) it is a lot of fun. You start off with a capable, fast ship with a pair of small lasers outfitted. From the first few minutes, without upgrades, I was able to pick a fight with 3 other ships, destroying one and escaping in my damaged ship. I wish I had better macro support on Mac, my Saitek Command Unit would cover most of my controls but it's a painful process on my platform. That being said, the controls are pretty straight forward but I'd like the option to access all options from the keyboard. If I am walking into a situation that I know I may not be able to handle then I plot an escape route. It would be much quicker to hit a key to engage my pre-planned jump rather than click on my ship then click the jump button from the radial menu that pops up. Trading has been fun, although I'm less of a trader. Prices do very heavily system to system so its worth taking the time to learn some good routes and run them. Myself though, I prefer taking patrol missions to chase down pirates for funds. Now exploring is where this gets really fun for me. Since its a 20,000 star system, procedually generated galaxy there is so much unknown. There is greater diversity, more detailed systems and features that will make it all the more fun down the road but as of the May release I already enjoy exploration. I played Outer Empires online for a few years and I loved exploring the 20,000 star system galaxy for years. When NPC communication comes out it will be far more interactive and immersive, I look forward to that as an Explorer. So far my interactive choices are protect, shoot or leave alone. Pretty fun choices but the promised NPC comms system will be a huge step forward. Well thats my impressions of the current version. The progress towards 1.0 is taking a bit of time but the new features, graphical updates and love being put into this game make me patient to wait. Until then I'll enjoy what I can currently play: 8 ships as a trader, explorer, pirate, merc, etc in a 20,000 star system sandbox. Somehow I think I'll occupy my time.

* Dead air / no comms/ missing in action from the developer since March 2018 (that's sixteen months as I write this). * Studio home page not updated. * PHP deprecation warnings left unaddressed on the Celsius Games home page. * SQL server error when you try to go to the forums on their homepage. * No changes to the wiki except for new user joins since Mar 2017. * cutpaste from the Celsius Games homepage: Drifter will be available for PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, PS4 and PS Vita in 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 (when it's ready). * The most recent devblog on the Celsius Games homepage is from 1 Apr 2014 (!), 4 weeks post the Steam Early Access release. * The dev appears to have spent all of his recent time on Twitter instead of working on the game or telling his paying customers why no news or update for a year and a half. Six years later, we continue to wait for a finished product. There is no evidence that this game remains under development, despite all of the kickstarter and steam hype. I have written off my money - this gamble did not pay off.

Updated [h1]One Thousand Seven Hundred and Forty Four[/h1] days ago. 🧐

It's definitly a rough sketch of a game that has potential. I had some fun with it, but that's only after I used Cheat Engine to derp around with with everything this game has to offer. It's lacking a lot of content at this point, and there's a ton of things, such as the UI, that feel very disjointed from the "theme" of the game, or lack there of. I understand game development isn't easy by any standard, and I get that it's hard to see your work getting bashed with negative reviews; however, I won't stand here and say "you should get this game because the developers care" because the developers really do still care. Just because they care doesn't mean this is a product that's up to par, and this being an early access game doesn't make that an exuse. It's been 2 years. This is a wake-up call, and the devs need to step it.

No updates. Dead game.

This is a pretty cool toy. I hesitate to call it a game, because there's really nothing to do. There's no grand quest. There's no ultimate objective. You just fly around and do stuff. You... drift. No real direction, no real goal, you just kind of look around and go "I feel like taking some missions" or "I feel like trading some commodities" or "I feel like mining some asteroids." None of this is especially exciting or lucrative, but it's pretty and the music is nice. Sometimes that's exactly the kind of thing I want. If that's what you want sometimes, too, you would probably like this game. It is worth noting that the game is crashing for me with a stack overflow, here and there. Mostly in the galaxy map. But it's rare, so I don't let it bother me too much. Most of the time I just play the game and enjoy myself.

abandoned

This was one of the games that taught me to never buy early access. Years ago it showed promise, a sort of 2D, simplified sandbox space game. Then it was abandoned and I'm never getting my money back