Space Game General All-Platform Thready Discussy Thing :)

Sounds like that would be a logical extention to the game. For the time being if you want that kind of gameplay in space, try Final Upgrade.

I purchased Final Upgrade the other day it was on 40% discount on Steam.

Wonderful!

Factorio is absolutely one of my favorite games, but it is completely bonkers to call it a space game. Launching a rocket is the end goal–there is zero space-iness about it, because right where it could possibly begin, the game ends. (Though many people play on to see how many rockets they can launch.)

Oh then I wouldn’t call Factorio a space game, then.

I do not disagree about Factorio n general but it does have mods that add space structures. Besides the plot of the game is that you crash landed in your spaceship and are trying to get home on a Rocket ship etc.

It’s true that there’s a distinctly space-sci-fi frame story, but the game is about building a factory that builds rockets. Like, there’s space all around it, but the game itself does have space in any meaningful way.

edit: no idea about mods, though. i wonder how space-y they could be, given that the game takes place on a 2d map of a planet’s surface.

It depends if you define a space game by ‘theme’ or ‘mechanics’. Mass Effect is in the former, not the latter.

If I had to list 25 of my favourite games where you have to deal with the cold, harshness of space - not just look at it as a fancy skybox in the background - it would look something like this.

  1. Distant Worlds

  2. AI War

  3. Freespace 2

  4. Stellaris

  5. Rebel Galaxy: Outlaw

  6. Tie Fighter

  7. No Man’s Sky

  8. X4: Foundation

  9. Aurora 4x

  10. Nebulous Fleet Command

  11. Sword of the Stars

  12. Kerbal Space Program

  13. Star Wars: Empire at War

  14. Objects in Space

  15. Helium Rain

  16. Sins of a Solar Empire

  17. Star Traders: Frontiers

  18. Elite: Dangerous

  19. Children of a Dead Earth

  20. Drox Operative

  21. Evochron Mercenary

  22. Scavenger SV4

  23. SPAZ

  24. Star Ruler 2

  25. Starsector

Yup, to me all those count.

@SamS nice list!

Two games I would probably have on my list are these oldies:

Starflight
Conquest: Frontier Wars

I really need to try Aurora 4X at some point, but it seems I rarely play the crap ton of games I already have so I likely will never get around to it.

Myman.gif

All of these lists are bad because they do not include “Stars!” :)

Don’t remember that one. Looks like it came out a year after MOO2, and in the same genre, and wasn’t as well reviewed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars!

Well, the mechanics were decent, the problem is that the game looked like it was written in Excel…
The only “graphics” were tiny icon-sized pictures of things, the rest was mostly menus and spreadsheets.

It’s also hellishly micromanagey.

I never really got into it when I played it initially but I came back to it 5 or so years ago and read a couple of guides and it was great, which is weird because my micro tolerance has decayed considerably. Nothing since has come close to the factional asymmetry IMO.

Did anyone ever play Starweb? It was a Play by Mail TBS game created by Rick Loomis of Flying Buffalo Inc years and years ago.

We seem to concentrate on PC/Video games but there are a few other types as well.

I didn’t play that, but there was a space 4x pbm game that someone ran out of Marshalltown, IA that our gaming group in Cedar Rapids, IA played in around 1990 that was fun. Being 18 and finishing high school, plus moving to Iowa state I unfortunately didn’t keep up with the game (possibly add played a role as well). I remember telling the person running it that it should be made into a computer game.

STARS! was awesome. It was a little bit micro, but there was a lot of automation. I’d consider it the predecessor to Distant Worlds, but you had to set the automation, it was not enabled.

I completely agree! I played a bunch of this back in college, both solo and multi-player. Good times!

Yeah, these are largely just science fiction games, with a tinge of “space”.