Post by Pounce de León on Sept 25, 2017 14:50:59 GMT
A well rounded indie snack for PC. Anyone know "Gunpoint" - made by the same studio? I guess it is similar.
Big pigchure:
You take to a randomly generated cluster of stars with like 4 factions. The 5th are the independent and you are fighting for them. Your avatar(s) are freelancers that start out with fresh equipment. Your goal is to capture stabases from the other factions, work towards their strongholds while unlocking new gear for the avatar(s) to end the conflict and bring peace or so to the cluster.
Avatar(s):
You choose from 5 (randomly?) selected by the game. There are no traits or abilities everything a character can do is defined by their gear which you will buy and plunder throughout their career. Having unlocked more starbases will result in a larger palette of gear available at the store.
They run missions with varying difficulties, sometimes "clauses" are attached to afford "silent", "peacful", "bloodless" and such execution. Enemies vary from appearance (faction) and gear. Again, enemy gear determines what they can do (or deny to you).
Avatars actually have a personal trait - that is something like fame. After 10 or so missions the fame gathered from missions, which is in turn applied to unlock the next starbase, can be mined only exceedingly difficult. Basically you end up with a well-geared character that can be quite OP, but doesn't contribute anymore to the strategic gameplay.
You see - the stabases aren't conquered by combat (notable exception are the faction strongholds) you just accumulate fame and decide which base is to be unlocked (or "liberated") on the map.
Combat:
As I said, gear determines what you can do. You study the mission details, hop into your pod, steer it to the enemy target ship and dock at the airlock. Or breach - should there be any. You then preceed to complete the mission (or just kill/incapacitate everyone) with the use of your weapons and gear. Combat is from top down 2D, control is with WASD and mouse (orientation/rotation and using weapons/eqUipment).
Spacebar pauses the game, gives you a overview of the gear and its status and pretty essential for dealing with situations where you are outnumbered (very often). It allows e.g. to knock a guard out with your wrench (it's now on cooldown), take their weapon and shoot the next guard with it.
However, this might cause an alert and the formerly mission wizout a preshure becomes a race against time (it might have been from the start, because mission rng, but you're told so in briefing). So you either complete der objective or rush to knock out the pilot. What will it be? Common gear is used up as consumables. Rarer ones can be recharged at the home base but still have limited uses in mission. Legendary stuff recharges over time. Can you make it with what you have? Or better bail out?
Not telling here more about this gameplay part. It's the thing you do most. It varies with the equipment you gather and buy. The map can play a small role and so can the choice of pod type. I think the most fun comes from figuring out to pull off various moves with the gear you have.
There is a feature after unlocking enemy bases: You can play a "defector" mission. I don't think there is any relation to the "campaign". The defector is given a set of equipment (sometimes to complete a mission and starts out already docked to the target ship. (Most of the time). I think this is to force people (who try this out - it not mandatory, I believe) to try out new stuff. Hoarders like me appreciate it. Nice idea to promote being bold and try new combinations.
My impression:
Graphical presentation is a bit like FtL or Prison Architect. Nothing fancy but you won't get eye cancer from it. There is quite some screenshake that can now be disabled in missions where your target ship is under fire (yes that can actually happen - usually it is known beforehand. Usually.)
UI is actually helping. Good design.
Campaign - I like this limiter to OPness. Decide whether retiring the current character for valor and start over with a fresh one to unlock stuff on the map efficiently. Or just play for gameplay sake. It your choice. Not yet finished a playthrough. Map can be created new at start.
Combat gameplay - It's the heart of the game and I enjoy it quite. I tried to play the lazy way with less clicking and smoking a cig and a coffee in the other hand but that got too hard quickly. Spacebar is the way of the casul this time, though it allows for pretty cool moves to execute that would be impossible without. Too bad there is no replay option without the pause and UI stuff.
Verdict: At around 12 Eurobucks this is solid entertainment well worth the money. I wonder if there'll be some more equipment options and functionalities - I think this is definitely a good game.
For a first look I'll just give you the YT Link to the dev who coded it:
www.youtube.com/user/Pentadact/videos
Big pigchure:
You take to a randomly generated cluster of stars with like 4 factions. The 5th are the independent and you are fighting for them. Your avatar(s) are freelancers that start out with fresh equipment. Your goal is to capture stabases from the other factions, work towards their strongholds while unlocking new gear for the avatar(s) to end the conflict and bring peace or so to the cluster.
Avatar(s):
You choose from 5 (randomly?) selected by the game. There are no traits or abilities everything a character can do is defined by their gear which you will buy and plunder throughout their career. Having unlocked more starbases will result in a larger palette of gear available at the store.
They run missions with varying difficulties, sometimes "clauses" are attached to afford "silent", "peacful", "bloodless" and such execution. Enemies vary from appearance (faction) and gear. Again, enemy gear determines what they can do (or deny to you).
Avatars actually have a personal trait - that is something like fame. After 10 or so missions the fame gathered from missions, which is in turn applied to unlock the next starbase, can be mined only exceedingly difficult. Basically you end up with a well-geared character that can be quite OP, but doesn't contribute anymore to the strategic gameplay.
You see - the stabases aren't conquered by combat (notable exception are the faction strongholds) you just accumulate fame and decide which base is to be unlocked (or "liberated") on the map.
Combat:
As I said, gear determines what you can do. You study the mission details, hop into your pod, steer it to the enemy target ship and dock at the airlock. Or breach - should there be any. You then preceed to complete the mission (or just kill/incapacitate everyone) with the use of your weapons and gear. Combat is from top down 2D, control is with WASD and mouse (orientation/rotation and using weapons/eqUipment).
Spacebar pauses the game, gives you a overview of the gear and its status and pretty essential for dealing with situations where you are outnumbered (very often). It allows e.g. to knock a guard out with your wrench (it's now on cooldown), take their weapon and shoot the next guard with it.
However, this might cause an alert and the formerly mission wizout a preshure becomes a race against time (it might have been from the start, because mission rng, but you're told so in briefing). So you either complete der objective or rush to knock out the pilot. What will it be? Common gear is used up as consumables. Rarer ones can be recharged at the home base but still have limited uses in mission. Legendary stuff recharges over time. Can you make it with what you have? Or better bail out?
Not telling here more about this gameplay part. It's the thing you do most. It varies with the equipment you gather and buy. The map can play a small role and so can the choice of pod type. I think the most fun comes from figuring out to pull off various moves with the gear you have.
There is a feature after unlocking enemy bases: You can play a "defector" mission. I don't think there is any relation to the "campaign". The defector is given a set of equipment (sometimes to complete a mission and starts out already docked to the target ship. (Most of the time). I think this is to force people (who try this out - it not mandatory, I believe) to try out new stuff. Hoarders like me appreciate it. Nice idea to promote being bold and try new combinations.
My impression:
Graphical presentation is a bit like FtL or Prison Architect. Nothing fancy but you won't get eye cancer from it. There is quite some screenshake that can now be disabled in missions where your target ship is under fire (yes that can actually happen - usually it is known beforehand. Usually.)
UI is actually helping. Good design.
Campaign - I like this limiter to OPness. Decide whether retiring the current character for valor and start over with a fresh one to unlock stuff on the map efficiently. Or just play for gameplay sake. It your choice. Not yet finished a playthrough. Map can be created new at start.
Combat gameplay - It's the heart of the game and I enjoy it quite. I tried to play the lazy way with less clicking and smoking a cig and a coffee in the other hand but that got too hard quickly. Spacebar is the way of the casul this time, though it allows for pretty cool moves to execute that would be impossible without. Too bad there is no replay option without the pause and UI stuff.
Verdict: At around 12 Eurobucks this is solid entertainment well worth the money. I wonder if there'll be some more equipment options and functionalities - I think this is definitely a good game.
For a first look I'll just give you the YT Link to the dev who coded it:
www.youtube.com/user/Pentadact/videos