Galaxy Squad

This is pretty much a shame. -edit- My Steam circle of friends, mostly turn-based strategy and tactics fans, 150 of them, and only [strike]one[/strike] 10 !!! owns Galaxy Squad. You might hold off like I did before since the game is offered for such a low price that's hard to believe there is a game in it. Or maybe you hold off because the game is labeled as EA. Is the huge discount on sales make you believe the project is already abandoned in EA? Galaxy Squad at the core is heavenly inspired by X-com series. X-com series is driven on Unreal Engine and made by a huge team of respectable designers. Galaxy Squad seems to be a one man project. Is this project too ambitious? Yes it is I think, but I welcome it. Is it rough around the edges? Yes it is. Even more then the screenshots on the store page shows you. Let me start with the flaws: - Not shown in the screenshots, the mission logs and all other texts and UI elements in the screen looks very much like a mobile game. Huge boxes with a huge font chosen. It looks terrible. - The characters are made in low poly style seen in many other games. While the unique enemy and alien lore is done well, specially the body style and animation, the heads looks ugly almost all of them. Too bad the heads are copied to be used as character portraits as well. Logical step, but not nice to look at. - While you can move the map with WASD, and even rotate the map with EQ, I did not found a way to change the view angle. This cause frustration sometimes by not having the exact view you want. - There are spelling errors (beond instead of beyond etc) and text missing while completing objectives for example. All of this isn't really distracting from the game itself and what is offered is a very complete experience in terms of replay value, huge starmap and freedom to choose missions, characters and gear. Enemies are original and unique like artifact creatures, drone creatures, aliens and soldiers. Mission types contain protect, serve and kill mission types on a variety of big and small tactical maps (tile based). Maps contains destructible objects, reinforcements arrivals, loot and artifacts. There are many static objects on the map and the 3D design and the diversity of those objects is good. Think of X-com again when it's about the fighting itself. I did not experienced the random misses at 50% view range as annoying. Enemies miss as often as you do and for both sides the healthbars are big enough to survive a few turns before new reinforcements eventually spam. Between missions the starmap contains spacebases, surprise planets, surprise ships, factions, ship workshop, weapon shops, story teller missions and an FTL like red light that force you to move (if you choose so and the speed it happens is configurable. The star map isn't just a random bunch of triggers alone (like in Darkest dungeon, Slay the Spire and many others) but contains story missions as well. This is were the game really shines imo. Even while made by a single dev, even with the low budget assets, he managed to create fully animated cut scenes. Immersive and very well done. Also the sound effects in the game itself are exceptional good or simply fits very well. Your team consist of different classes with unique abilities, an inventory and XP system. You can upgrade your ship with neat utilities as well. The developer is organizing strawpolls often to add features and lore requested by players. Even at the moment of writing there is a poll available. Compared to a 60 dollar big budget game there is a lot to complain about this title, but not in terms of a very nice gameplay experience. Good balance between skill and use of random in missions, fighting and starmap progress. Well done! Keep up the good work.

I absolutely do NOT criticize this game for being early access. It seems an heroic one-man effort with a lot of potential. Also, my low-ish rating is partly a matter of taste. My criticisms have to do with design decisions, rather than design competence. Pro’s: Cool ideas, lots to do (in a sketched-out form at present), and more-or-less sandbox, which I love. There are not enough Sci Fi (well, space opera …) RPGs or Sandboxes for me. I like that you can recruit and develop new characters, and can develop your ship. Different stations have different resources, there is a good amount of randomization, and the game keeps you busy. Con’s: I did not realize this is rogue-like game, or I would have avoided it. Some people like those, I guess. Option to turn off perma-death would be nice. Other games often offer the choice. Compounding is that there is now way to gauge the difficulty of an encounter before diving in, no way out once you find yourself overmatched, and no real way to grind your characters to competence. You bump up your characters to level three, go on to the next stop, and run into 4 250-point rocket-firing mechs and fifteen foot soldiers. All your investment and gear is simply gone. Systems are dead once you visit them, so cycling through more manageable combats for a while is not an option. It’s like walking down the street picking fights with random strangers without training. Money is slow, though manageable. The artwork is butt-ugly, I’m hoping it is a placeholder. Special abilities must be activated BEFORE you know what you are facing, and accumulate so slowly that you can only use them once every 3-5 encounters. Very minimal and inadequate instructions. Suggestions: 1. A way to estimate difficulty ahead of time. 2. A way to withdraw from unwinnable encounters, possibly with some penalty. 3. A way to opt out of perma-death 4. Systems re-spawn at about their former level of difficulty, possibly after some delay, though they might still be randomized as to maps and specific opponents. 5. Make the special ability lightning bolts (i.e., Mana) re-accumulate more rapidly, or give us some activity to re-accumulate it. Let us activate special abilities AFTER we see what we’re up against. 6. System icons indicating where missions might be picked up, and recommended level for encounters. I’m uninstalling Galaxy Squad now, but will probably look at it again in a year or so.

TLDR: Galaxy Squad is a multilayered, rogue-like space RPG with tactical turn-based battles. While it shows promise, lots of work still needs to be done. + I like the idea of “multiple layers” in gameplay. i.e. there is a strategic map layer, an exploration layer (space docks, where you re-supply and get quests, etc.) and a tactical combat layer. Not many games do this (probably due to the challenge and amount of work), and fewer do it well. + The LoS combat system is functional, but needs work and refining. Combat and survival in this game is HIGHLY dependant on LoS and moving from cover to cover. Ignore this and you will get your a** shot off. Often. + Workable storyline (I didn't expect much in EA) -- you play the leader of a group of operators on the run from the law, trying to survive to deliver a package. - Game balancing needs work. It’s tough to survive. Your starting equipment is crap, you’re often outnumbered, you constantly need money (for fuel) and you can’t backtrack due to the cops on your tail (you can, but those fights are tough). In battles, you’re outnumbered 3-5x, and if one of your crew dies, it’s PERMANENT. - Character graphics are pixelated, blocky, minecraft-like figures, although Unity was used. I’m assuming the final release may see improvements. This is ironic since the first thing you see after launching the game is a graphics setting screen… - Can become grindy if balancing isn’t adjusted with care or if the story isn’t compelling enough. Basically you need to keep doing missions for cash to buy fuel, better weapons, conduct repairs, etc. but this can become tiresome, especially if battles are too difficult or repetitive. - No save game file system other than the one you’re playing. If a bug freezes the controls, you have to restart combat from scratch. This also means you can’t play more than one game at a time (though in its current limited state, there’s really no reason to). Some games of this genre offer 4 game slots for a limited save system under the current player. - Need a range-finding system for your weapons. - Eventually, a comprehensive tool tip system, guide and/or tutorial should be included Bugs: • Game froze twice during combat in the enemy’s turn. It’s triggered by bad wayfinding; the character is trying to move into an obstacle and doesn’t walk around it. This freezes everything • Sometimes it freezes after you finish a combat turn, so you have to restart the scenario, which is very frustrating (no save/load system) • The freezing occurs especially after using molotov cocktails • Camera zooms in during combat turns. This is annoying since you need to see the whole environment to plan your move Galaxy Squad has the potential to be great, but it needs a lot of work. I am still recommending it, even in EA; just be mindful of what you expect. 5.0/10.0

A fun if somewhat generic mix of xcom tactical turn based squad combat with RPG leveling mechanics plus a FTL style galaxy to explore with the Feds hot on your trail as an impetus against lollygagging. The game allows for a lot of customization with different gamemodes you can unlock plus different difficulty options that increase your scoring multiplier which in turn nets you more 'glory points' that can be used to unlock new character classes, weapons, ship types, upgrades and game modes. Overall the game certainly punches above its weight class and should offer a few dozen hours of tactical RPG fun for genre fans. Oh one very nice feature the game has is you can speed up animations up to 300%. Always great to see a dev that respects your time like that.

I was not expecting a lot from this game and the graphics leave a lot to be desired but wow, it turned out to be a LOT of fun. The tactical combat is very rich and deep with support characters that are actually extremely useful. The varied character classes each offer very different ways to play and there's a decent variety in the way you can arm and armor your units. Also, the choices of different ships in which your crew can take on the campaign offer even more variety, The biggest drawbacks are that the interface is a bit clunky and old-school but not in the cool way. Also, the dialog and writing are not translated very well but it's enough to follow along and stay interested. It's a game that - if it were put into a development house and released again or a sequel was made (while keeping the core game play and design elements in tact) - could be a big, big hit. Oh, also, they tried to include melee combat as an option but unless you get the plasma sword, you're better off just sticking to firearms and explosives. It could be really awesome if melee were more of an option.

I felt like playing XCOM again, but I didn't want to go back through the same story. So I searched for a game that would have a new story, but play just like XCOM. Galaxy Squad is that game. The strategic game is almost exactly FTL, and the tactical game is almost exactly XCOM. The two blend together quite seamlessly for an overall very satisfying experience. If you liked FTL and XCOM, you'll like Galaxy Squad.

While on sale for $1.99 its a rather fun time killing game. However it becomes repetitive real quick and the game is so cut dry. Lots of bugs still. Most of the time I played, I just wanted to play in free mode... I'll get there one of these days as its a locked function.

Cheap, rough graphics, but working combination as a low budget game. For some reason I just play again and again. After 500 hours there still happens new things to me. New quests, new weapon and so on...And sometimes a whole game is over and I still did not find my favourite weapon...Not a single one... Worth it's price, if under 50€....

An interesting take on low poly turn based shooter, GS does what it does without overpromising, and it does it really well. Simple, pleasant, and fun XCOM-like game, with a nice FTL-like feeling, nice way of progressing, interesting classes, and overall a nice gameplay. Combat is simple but clean and efficient, and it has overwatch (I am a sucker for turn based games with overwatch). The level limit of the characters and the limited number of classes might make it a bit repetitive after the max level has been reached, but it still delivers a few hours of fun (for a very honest price) Gets a 70/100 from me, good game!

Galaxy Squad is what happens when someone watched FireFly, played some XCOM and wanted to cross it with FTL but had no idea about game design. It's a mish-mash of a lot of ideas, none which really work together and all of them with a substandard quality. The rogue-like approach is great until you realize that there's a very limited amount of items, enemies and events to find. The promise of the game is great, the writing is atrocious, and the storylines don't even conclude after the final battle. And yet, it's a fascinating game design bit, especially coming from a single developer. Grab it on a sale, spend a few hours saving or selling out the galaxy, then get back to XCOM.