Having played the demo of Solar Expanse, it is definitely more Leaving Earth than High Frontier. But not really that either. There’s no chance of anything failing (at least in the demo). It is about planning missions; you pair a vehicle with a launch platform, put cargo on it, and give it a destination. You can sort of plot a route, but really you just push the ‘optimal’ button and then wait for it to arrive.
The main problem that I had with it is just the way it presents information. I want to send a probe to Mars which has mass of one ton. Usually in these kinds of games you work backwards – I need to get one ton to Mars; that’s going to take so many tons of fuel, it takes so many tons of fuel to get that many tons of fuel into orbit, etc.
But in this game the information you need to make those calculations isn’t readily available (at least, I couldn’t figure it out), so you mostly just click, “well, can I do it with this launch vehicle? No? Can I do it with this launch vehicle?” until the “next” button lights up telling you that this combination will work.
The best bit is that you can, in fact, set up ISRU and mining on other bodies, which is cool. But the worst bit is you can’t (or at least I couldn’t figure it out, or at least you can’t do it in the demo) do cool missions like put up a lunar orbiter with a separate lander. Or stockpile stuff in orbit.
Anyway, it seems like the game is: you get a contract to go mine Ceres. How should you best do this mission? Is it worth setting up a Mars base to extract resources and do it from there? Or just do it from Earth? Or the moon? But it doesn’t feel like the game is really giving you the tools to make those decisions.
I really got into Mars Horizon for awhile, which was a fairly abstracted boardgamey (let’s even say “Eurogamey”) version of running a space program, but it did have a lot of the interesting logistics of small missions providing foundations for bigger missions, and proving and improving technology, etc.
Guessing most or all of you have given it a try, as it’s a few years old. But just in case…
I only played it a little bit and never interacted much with the multiplayer side of it but I recall it being a 3d third person experience, unlike the series proper, where you were like, modern day archaeologists digging into the D’ni’s history and created realms. It was kind of weird and a bit janky but I think I liked it better than the other Cyan Myst games in general, even once it was sold as an offline experience. (Myst III of course was Presto Studios, who did the Journeyman Project games, and was by far my favorite for that reason and also Brad Dourif.)
This early 20th century newspaper management game looks fun:
I tried the demo and it’s polished. It has a vertical side-on perspective, but there’s alot of doodads to fiddle with (e.g. designing your front page every week).
Apparently Stone Story RPG came out of Early Access mid-last-year. I played a demo of it a year or more ago, and it was pretty extraordinary–like Candy Box with mechanical depth. It’s got a decent discount right now, which is what made me peek to see when it was leaving EA. Surprise! It’s fully cooked!
Anyone played the 1.0?
UPDATE: A Steam review mentioned this is out on mobile too?? Looks free with some ads, though, so…
“Conan, what is best in life?” “To code AI, to see it playing the game for you, and to fork over 30 bucks for the privilege!”
Err, I’ll pass. There’s more fun stuff around at that price point, with actual graphics, and I’m a big fan of tearing my enemies’ hearts out the old-fashioned manual way.
Besides, the concept of “programmable warrior (machine) with adjustable equipment overcoming obstacles” has been done in the past with nicer visuals and a GUI for the programming. Carnage Heart says hello from back in 1995, and that was hardly the first.
Oh wow, I did not know someone was working on a Lost in Space adventure game! Not only that, but it’s based on the old '60s TV version, which really tickles my nostalgia bone, or something. I will definitely pick this up.
I found this one, Rootin’ Tootin’ Lootin’ & Shootin’, which is worth keeping an eye on. Demo is playable now, full game to be released in a few months. It is kind of like a top-down ‘turn-based’ Spelunky (the turn-based is actually ‘everything moves when you move and stops when you stop’). I had fun with the demo for a few hours.
