Starcom: Unknown Space

Overwhelmingly positive +1

Starcom: Unknown Space is a tremendously fun top-down space exploration game in the style of Star Control 2. There are a lot of other top-down space games that seem superficially similar, but Starcom stands apart because of the strong storyline and lore. It's more serious than Star Control but also there isn't any time or fuel pressure and aside from one virtually-impossible encounter that has an alternative solution, the combat is very manageable so it's way more chill. Even though the game includes resource gathering, trading, a research tree, a ship designer etc, at its core this game remains primarily a narrative adventure. The biggest flaw is that the pacing slows down quite a bit toward the mid/end game. Once you have solved most of the missions and uncovered most of the main storyline, there are a few dangling plot threads and unresolved conflicts - some of which block progression - that are tough to figure out without looking for hints or a walkthrough. It wouldn't be so bad if there were more planets to scan, more artifacts to collect, more "filler" content that might help to keep the galaxy feeling lived-in, but once you cleared almost everything out you are left searching your logs and flying back and forth between places you already visited to try work out what you missed. The game does try to prompt you with crewmembers suggesting you check something out again, but maybe a few more of those hints wouldn't go astray, perhaps structured like they are in Mass Effect where you have to explicitly talk to members of your crew to ask them if you missed something. Still, for an indie game, that this is even in the same conversation as Mass Effect is a great achievement. Plus it runs on internal graphics, which is great if you don't have a beefy gaming PC. If you're into oldskool sci-fi, Big Dumb Objects, ancient civilizations, exploring the stars... Starcom is fantastic. Highly recommended.

Este é o tipo de jogo que podemos jogar por horas e sempre parece que tem algo novo no horizonte. Minha sensação era quase como jogar Star Trek, indo aonde ninguém ainda foi. Descobrir novos sistemas, civilizações, ruinas, tudo é incrível! Este é um dos melhores jogos que conheço, vale a pena você conhecer!

I actually beat the game. which is rare. i usually get bored. 10/10 great game. ship building and modifying. really enjoyed myself.

This game is worth the money spent! This is proof Indie games can be of AAA quality without the hyper inflated budget. Loved the exploration, depth of character and spaceship customization. 8.5/10 game!

Starcom: Unknown Space really gave me some old school Star Control 2, and Solar winds vibes. (Old Gamer I guess) it was easy to pick up and down, Had interesting events going on in the game, and the ship-building was quite fun. Overall, definately worth a look.

Overall, a decent game with a mix of space fighter / RPG / resource management. The ship building is a neat aspect and it feels nice to design a ship of your own design albeit subject to constraints. In terms of a 'score' I'd give it a solid 7 out of 10. Definitely one to pickup on sale though (as I did). The good: combat feels satisfying, the story is broadly interesting and neat, controls are straightforward as are most of the game mechanics. The bad: whilst the broad story is interesting, its told in a somewhat obtuse manner. Whilst I don't want everything spoon-fed to me, the number of new terms in this universe, races, faction, etc. combined with the techno-mumbo-jumbo (for a layman like me) and the okay, but somewhat lacking, Commander's log made the story difficult to get into and enjoy. Thankfully, the Steam Community and Reddit were there to get me through some quests. The Universe, whilst large, also feels somewhat undercooked outside the main story. There are numerous factions but most are just 'there' with only one seemingly substantial non-main storyline (the Nimion one) i.e., breadth but not enough depth. Another annoyance is the research points used to unlock skills - as earning them is somewhat arbitrary, you don't know the max, and you cannot easily reset them - it restricts experimentation in the quite large and interesting (ship) skill tree such that once you pick a weapon type, you're kind of committed. The game also doesn't go heavy on the ship / crew management stuff, which for me made it feel undercooked (others might find that good if they want to focus more on the combat and story, notwithstanding the aforementioned points). As mentioned above, a solid 7 out of 10 but definitely one to pickup on sale though (as I did).