Wow, how did I miss this game? I’m really enjoying it. It’s lighthearted and fun, but also full of interesting decisions. It’s nice that the game is asymmetrical – not me vs other empires like mine, but me vs a galaxy of both weaker and stronger opponents. And yeah, it’s nice not to have to worry about lame diplomacy, lol.
I gather these are the same people who made Plants v Zombies and Bejeweled. No wonder it’s fun.
Unfortunately, it’s not selling as well as they’d hoped. From their Discord channel:
On a more serious note, the game is completed as-is and we’ve made maybe an 8th of our investment back on it. To warrant anymore development time, be it in the form of an expansion or the sussing out and fixing of some of the more rare and obscure bugs, we need to sell A LOT more copies of the game. It stands to be a bit of a financial black hole at the moment and we need to be careful about what we commit to.
In an effort to get some of that revenue rolling, we’re going to put the game on sale in early May and I’m hoping to give it the ultra-wide update - not because tons of people are asking for it, but because an update will give us another visibility round on Steam where we’re hoping to catch people’s attention.
We’ll see how it goes! I’m certainly sticking around in the meantime and I’ll push on things as best I can, but ultimately, the Tyrant needs to not be a flop as it currently is before more Dave-centric dev work can happen.
We’ve tried to get the attention of some of the bigger streamers, but only when TB checked it out during Early Access did we ever see a big uptick in sales outside of our release and times we’ve put it on sale. In all cases, it hasn’t been enough to get us out of the red… or anywhere near it. I’d say there’s still a chance it could catch some wider attention (especially when we put it on sale in May), but it’s hard to say. I’ve thought for awhile it might also be a challenge the game faces because it isn’t like a true 4X in its complexity, but it’s also got enough strategy to it that people not into 4X games are leery of it. So, it’s an in-betweener that represents a risk to people on either side of the fence. That uniqueness has made it a difficult one to pitch in this world where people are looking for games in specific genres. Regardless, i’ll remain hopeful for our May sale and see if we can get it in front of some big influencers at that time.
I’m really sad to hear that. :(
God dammit, it deserves better. Problem is I think we’re oversaturated for 4X games, even games as good as this one.
I bought the game some time ago, played it for about 45 minutes, got to- I think the third?- mission, and then… well, the fleet I had managed to scrape together was one jump away from the enemy homeworld, right? So I took the adjacent planet: I wasn’t sure I had time enough to win, but we would surely give them a hell of a fight! Except we didn’t. Because a random event at the planet destroyed my entire fleet. All of it. I asked for my money back, and Steam duly acted.
I’m sorry, guys. I just can’t play a game like that only to have my fleet wiped out through a random event. It’s just not something I enjoy. And to people who say “it’s a roguelike!”, well, I play a lot of roguelikes, and they don’t play out like that. At least not to me. If they did, I would not play them. Anyway, I still wish the designers the best of luck, this just wasn’t for me.
I’m definitely picking it up when it goes on sale.
Sorry to hear it’s not selling well. It’s great fun. But I’ve got a bunch of questions.
I don’t fully understand the combat UI. I know I can click on a ship to activate its ability when ready. But how does one know which abilities are ready when? I’ll see a green electricity icon briefly, but it doesn’t persist. Is this the only indicator?
Also, sometimes the grid under a ship is blue, and sometimes its emptied of color. What does this indicate?
What does Bulwark do, exactly? Does the game have documentation somewhere that answers this and other questions?
Only carriers have fighters, right?
Thanks.
Grid blue should mean the special ability is ready.
Bulkward for cruisers is a self-heal. It’s kinda low.
Pro tip 1: don’t waste energy on sealing breaches. That ship that’s getting focused fire is living or dying anyway.
When the grid under a ship isn’t blue, it means you’ve already used its ability (clicked on the ship). However, ships are randomly inspired during a battle, which resets a ship’s ability (the grid under the ship turns blue).
Based on what I’ve seen during EA, yes.
Shame the game isn’t selling better. I’d hate to see the developers have to revert to the mundane.
Techno Slug’s Carriers shoot as well as send fighters. They are the exception to the rule.
Steam seems like it’ll be the death of smaller games, considering the amount of games that get released there. Have they not tried to get it on GOG, for example, where the competition is smaller? Seems like it would fit well over there.
GoG competition is smaller, yes, but the customer base is orders of magnitude smaller as well. They’re not going to make up the ground they need to there, though depending on how much effort it is to publish there these days it may be worth it anyway.
Thanks for the explanations of the combat UI. I think I get it now. I appreciate it!
Thats a real shame. I do wonder how much the art style put people off, camp 50’s sf is, polarizing. It nearly drove me away, but I am glad I persevered because it is a good game I hope its sales pick up over the summer.
I bought it and refunded it, but am reconsidering.
Basically there are so many games now that appeal to me that you have to be above good to grab my attention.
This grabbed my attention but in my campaign, as spacebunnies, it seemed like I was clicking alot, for nothing.
I will probably buy it again, because I can, and because I think we should support people like this.
I bought this earlier. Seems like it would be a great mobile game. I wish this were on my Android, or my Xbox. I can play it on my PC, but I don’t game much on that anymore. I only bought it to help feed suffering indie devs… and because it looks interesting. And so far it is (except for the grating, compressed music. That stuff got muted immediately–now I listen to Cattle Decapitation while playing).
The main reason I hadn’t picked it up until now is because I hate the term “beer & pretzel game” more than I hate the idea of indie dev studios closing down.
Just won on my first pass with the bee campaign. I had an epic back and forth contest in the last scenario, until I could finally array my 7! fleets for the victory.
This might be the first scenario where I saw the tides of fortune swing so dramatically. I got off to a slow start as space monsters were everywhere and I had a bunch of one-way space lanes headed the wrong way. The special helmet I had protected me from the space monsters and they ended up helping more than they hurt me. I think the AI may just use RNG as to where fleets will move next, so the monsters ate many empire fleets.
After getting smashed by the empire in my first few attempts to leave my side of the squadron, I was finally able to sneak around the bottle neck and pick up some more planets. It was still touch and go as it takes so long to catch up with the empire’s research lead, but I finally got a couple more fleets and reached near tech equity. Then, the empire headed two of it’s fleets off into a dead end leaving one fleet defending the homeworld. A couple of death rays and I was able to destroy the homeworld fleet with my second strike force. I reinforced the exit where the rest of his fleet resided and was able to wipe them out.
I got a little worried in the end as the AI spawned three fleets not too far from my homeworld, and I was scrambling to send some reserves to defend it. Some poor bomging rolls and sending a fleet in to the jaws of a space shark slowed it down sufficiently for me to get the victory.
I’m waffling about whether or not to bump up the difficulty to hard with the space slugs, or wait until I win a campaign with them as well.
You win any mission by defeating the enemy homeworld. You just do it with flair when it also is the planet to provide you the 60% control you would otherwise need to win the mission.
Space Hamsters and Sharks are tough. I can’t remember if it is the rabbits or bees that have the commander with the ability to destroy a space monster after losing to it twice. My bee campaign got a lot easier after I found a helmet that makes all monsters ignore your fleet.
I just lost my technoslug campaign in part due to a Disaster that threw a space hamster onto my homeworld, I was able to beat it eventually, but still lost the mission because the enemy ultimately conquered my homeworld. You lose any mission if the enemy conquers your homeworld.
Space Hamster area attacks totally owns small ships.
Shark laser attack totally owns big ships.
But because big ships have big guns and higher relative HP and shields, Sharks are easier to deal with.
When they are enraged, it can take out the fleet quite quickly. So I typically tend to have about 1/2 or more the fleet’s powers unactivated so that I can burst the HP down when they are enraged.