5.5/10 TBS with unit production in space setting.
TLDR: A TBS with a nice core idea of producing new ships on planets, expanding to capture planets and several spaceship types and "terrain types". However, the game was designed to work on mobile as the main priority, so its controls are so uncomfortable that it's almost impossible to play. Clearly the game wasn't playtested on PC at all. Lack of campaigns also leaves you without motivation to complete anything. It's just a list of skirmish maps where you can compete vs AI on easy, medium and hard modes. You could think of it as super-bare bones Civilization mixed with Panzel General. I'd say this game needs a UI/controls overhaul and a few campaigns added, and the ships roster expanded by at least a factor of 3. Right now it's almost like a prototype. Still, a "slightly above average" vote since you could have some fun with it and I hope devs will improve it later on.
Good:
- in-built map editor
- nice music
- the 2D art is generally good
- although it's space, some additional tactical variety is added by "nebula", "asteroid field" and other "terrain types"
So-so:
- there is no campaign. You can only play "skirmishes" against AI, either on pre-designed or randomly generated maps. The game could easily have pre-designed battles where you don't have planets and don't produce new units but simply control pre-given armies of ships. This would also remove the relatively boring "early expansion" phase at least in those campaign battles. Maybe there could be a "skirmish" mode where you get a random army but can't produce new ships
- the core combat system is rather simple. There are only 3 improvements you can build in a planet (+money flow, faster ship building, and +defense) and just 7 ship types. No factions with special units, and the enemy has the 7 types of ships which just look a bit differently only to create confusion
- planets could have names, to give them some character. Also, they're all the same size
- the "cosmic nebula" background is too colorful and makes the combat map hard to read
Bad:
- no tutorial. Not even any in-game manual or wiki. All you have is the dialog for the currently selected unit. You have to figure out the game's mechanics from those stats
- controls are mobile-optimized. Mouse-over is almost never used. For example, to see unit stats, you have to select the unit. Mouse-over does nothing, it just shows an info tooltip about the tile's "terrain" (planet, asteroid field, nebula) which is actually just visual clutter and detracts from the game. This terrain tooltip is even shown when you have a planet management screen open. So, as you move the mouse between ship types, the tooltip shows info on the terrain that's behind dialog and is invisible.
- moving units is a pain. That's because after you give an order to a unit, it stays selected. If you then click on something else, a unit or a planet, the game won't select a new unit or a planet and instead shows several buttons, one of which is "select". When attacking an enemy, there is a similar "dialog" with buttons over the enemy one of which is "attack". The other button is "cancel action" that actually just closes that useless dialog and does nothing. Right click deselects unit - and you end up having to deselect every unit once you've given an order. All of this is just ridiculous! Because you have to do 2 clicks where 1 would be enough. I guess all of this nonsense comes from the devs' desire to have controls work both on mobile and PC. Instead they should have just designed separate systems for mobile and PC. On PC there is also the right mouse button which one could take advantage of. Opening a planet management screen should deselect the unit! Left click should select the unit, and if you click on a planet behind the unit - open the planet management dialog. Spaceships don't obstruct the whole planet's sprite anyway, so it's easy to check if the click was on the ship or on the planet. Then you don't need the popup dialog to choose what you want to select: a ship or a planet. And RIGHT CLICK should give the move or an attack order depending on what you click: an enemy or an empty tile... Anyways, right now the controls are atrocious and need to be re-designed with PC in mind
- bug: if had a unit selected and then select another unit with "select" button in the popup, there is no highlight for the possible movement! The map is shown for 1 frame and then disappears. Yet you can still give a movement order. This adds even more confusion to the already broken system...
- capturing planets could be automatic: if a ship ends its turn over a planet, it could just decrease the base's defenses in the beginning of the next turn. There is no easy way to see capture progress, you have to mouse-over the base. There should be a progress bar with the remaining stength of the planet, with a number and num remaining turns if the same unit will stay over this planet
- when deciding which ships to build, you can't see their stats, only price and a generic description. For whatever reason, there is a separate "Build" button, so you first need to click a ship, then click "Build". Again, 2 clicks where 1 would be enough
- you can't get any info about enemy ships, neither if you mouse over them or click them. You only see their HP. This makes tactics impossible when you're new to the game: you don't know what ship this is, what damage it can do to you
- all ships look alike, they just differ by size. That's especially an issue when you're new to the game. Also, their graphics give no hint to what each of them is good against or what their purpose is. I mean, in fantasy games it's usually easy to see which unit is a archer just because he'd have a bow in his hands. In a modern combat themed game you'd instantly tell a tank from a rocket launcher. So, for this game, I guess if you have a "bomber" it could have some "stealth-bomber"-like look. A "carrier" unit could look like a platform. We don't know how those sci-fi ship will look anyway, so there could be at least some resemblance to what we're already familiar with
- no way to quickly see what a planet is producing. Civ 5/6 and Master of Orion show a progress bar and write the name of the produced unit, with # remaining turns. Here it's just a barren planet image. This is just lazy...
I'll be happy to give the game another look and re-rate, if the devs update it. I think I saw this game on itch.io a few years ago, and it looked as a promising project. I had it on my wishlist for a long time and hoped they would polish it much more before official release.
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