Objects in Space

Having completed the tutorial section and couple of contracts, I have pretty much only praise on the game concept so far. Basically, game is like many other sims. You start small in a living and open world of Apollo Sector, a colonized corner somewhere in the galaxy, and work your way through the story (or sandbox), trading, bounty hunting, building your ship, talking with the NPCs and doing other your regular space ship captain duties. The twist of the game is that you aren't staring out of the windows of the ship and flying with your HOTAS controls as usually, but using using sensors, screens and buttons on different stations of your ship. And to make things interesting, your spacebox is armed with a 386 computer running with MSDOS and other obsolete technology, so the controls are far from the modern looks we are used to. All in all, the game is more like a subsims of yesteryear, something that the devs defintely were aiming for. All this makes game unique and there is no doubt a great deal of ambience is awesome. Although this kind of game isn't probably for everyone, I don't still feel that the learning curve is exceptionally high. Controls are still relatively simple without gazillion of keyboard commands and game doesn't throw you in the deep end at the first moment you start piloting. My biggest gripe at the launch is unfinished Linux release, which seems to be unplayable. If this is fixed soon, I can change my review up with one star.

First the bad thing: I played it now for about 1 1/2 hour and restarted the game 3 times because it randomly crashed. I'm playing on my Mac. I know that this is an early access version but it is really annoying when it crashes and there is no save game. So you have to read the tutorial all over again to the point where it crashed last time. A function to fast skip the text, would be great. And some fixes that the game won't crash anymore would be great too. With these random crashes it is barely playable ... at least on macOS. Now the good thing: I like what I saw until now. I didn't saw much because of these crashes but what I saw has a lot potential. It is not a space shooter. I'd compare it more with a submarine simulator in space. You're in your ship and operate many consoles, which have different functions. On one console you set your ships course, an other console is for communication and so on. You can also repair different ship parts by tearing them into pieces and exchange some of their components. This game has a lot in detail. You can also dock on space stations. There you can trade, buy new ships parts for your ship, get some quests, talk to different people on the station. In the description of the game you can read, that you can be anything you want, a trader, a pirate, a explorer and so on. Maybe this is so. I couldn't find out yet because of these crashes. Nonetheless, because of the potential, I give the early access version of the game 4 out of 5 stars. Minus one star because of these annoying crashes.

The game idea is very enjoyable, but you might find yourself stuck at a station when you try to exit, and the game crashes, with no earlier saves available. Unfortunately, judging by the forum, my testing, and the devs' activity, you *will* get stuck, and the chance of getting it fixed is slim. I do not recommend buying.

The idea of taking a submarine gameplay back into space works perfectly. I really like the graphics and the retro syle. Very good writing too, I was amazed by the two scripted quests I encountered (a story of Kandinsky paintings to recover and the disappearance of an exploration ship). Too bad they stop quickly for more classic automated quests. Some personal suggestions: 1 - You should work on ship speed and time management: at the speed the ships go, the planetary systems are relatively small and the battles are too fast. I will suggest: - to slow down the vessels considerably and increase the acceleration of time for journeys accordingly; - to have longer, smaller-scale and more strategic battles. 2 - add ships with different gameplay (for NPCs at least): - fighter/gundam squadrons (such as aircraft for submarines): low range but ability to detect and shoot down vessels - cruisers, very "noisy" (always visible) but very powerful (like boats for submarines) 3 - Complicate / add gameplay elements in the piloting of ships: - crew management? - life support systems? - fuel? - damage management/loss of hull integrity (combat and accidents related to chance or lack of maintenance)? - consider that the faster you go, the more "visible" you are (some sort of warp engine) ? - maximum speed depending on the distance from the star (the further away you are, the faster you can go)? - other weapons: mines, decoys, cannons, etc. - boarding? The icing on the cake would be to have a little celestial mechanics: planet movements or the effect of gravity on the trajectories of the ships Great job!

My first thought was maybe GOG accidentally uploaded an early alpha instead of the finished game? I have been looking forward to this game since I saw the first screenshots in 2016. And I'm honestly baffled at the state it's in after all these years. Dear devs, I love you, I really do. But how is there still no UI for the weapons? You literally can't use weapons or countermeasures unless you go into the options and set keyboard shortcuts for them (they aren't set by default). There's so much missing or broken. That would be ok for a tech demo I downloaded from a certain indie marketplace, but not for a finished game I bought.