Posted on: December 1, 2023
Sarxis
Games: 266 Reviews: 52
Star Explorers!
One of those fun, indie, dungeon crawls that's also a space exploration adventure. Lots of equipment to upgrade, plenty of different planet types to discover and explore with alien lifeforms to deal with. Space battles; ship boarding; trying to get the last remnants of your civilization to survive. Trading. Dialogue and story. It's got a lot too do and at an affordable price.
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Posted on: December 2, 2023
X1l3
Verified ownerGames: 501 Reviews: 6
It's a bit like....
Koronis Rift..... As a grizzled old dog and techno scavenger who played through the 80s, this reminds me a lot of Koronis Rift, just with the aspects of that game shifted around a bit. The space combat reminds me of the surface combat of the rift. The ship interior, ship UI and stuff like the nav and planet fall cycle all reminiscent of Rift and Rescue on Fractalus in some way, without it actually being a spin off of either game.. I like it. It's not pushing any boundaries and it's not trying to. The graphics do the job and fit the retro vibe perfectly. As redundant as they might seem now, these are the sort of graphics and interfaces you'd have only dreamed of back when you crawled the surface of some barren 3 fps fractal generated planet surface. They're cool in their way, but probably not for anyone after 120 fps and meta realism. Gameplay is basic but good, with an adequate mix of planning and action. The interface is simple. It does the job and works. As a whole the game can be quite challenging and unforgiving if you mess up. It's a good one to play when you just want to fire up something and chill for a while. Like a quick game of past finder, or the rift - before the world moved on, before you knew what was going to happen before it ever happened, before social media and selfies and in a time when the idea of escaping the planet in a cobra mk3 by the year 2000 was a believable and exciting idea, you'd generally master the art of having a vivid imagination and filling in the blanks to immerse yourself in a game. This reminds me so much of those times and i can fully appreciate it for what it is because of that. Coming from the perspective of said grizzly old dog techno scavenger, i think if you've arrived here from a similar place, you'll likely enjoy this. Given that i just picked it up for less than a mastertronic / mad games cassette would have cost in 198x, i'd say it's well worth the price for a quite enjoyable retro trip to add to your collection.
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Posted on: December 3, 2023
scgog.981
Verified ownerGames: Reviews: 7
Not a good exprience.
Games take a lot of work to make and we want devs to succeed, so I would not normally leave a negative review. However, I feel robbed of my time. If this game was made as a child's first project, then I apologise. The UI is unacceptable and I am positive the dev doesn't play the game. Basic hotkeys are missing. There's no way to close windows, switch to a weapon without mousewheeling through every equipped item, or arrange your inventory. You're holding down Shift 100% of the time because there's no run toggle. UX is atrocious. Flying is just FPS movement. Mouselook has ridiculous momentum and overshoots by a full screen even while actively countered. There's no way to navigate in space, to select a destination, or set a marker. You sway your view around and guess at the direction. Planets move at breakneck speeds and finding the one you need from inside the orbital plane is a PITA. This makes the mandatory planet scanning mechanic torture. During the night and inside caves the game textures are solid black. There are no light sources and no flashlight. Combat consists of clicking on the enemy while backpaddling. I have not found any ranged enemies at all. Weapons cannot be reloaded (no hotkey) and ammo disappears from inventory on use without replenishing the ammo count (not even sure if bugged, the game UX is that bad). Your videogame ship is not upgradable and has infinite ammo, propulsion, etc. There's no economy. You have infinite resources and money--simply shoot passing asteroids to collect infinite loot. Item variety is non-existent (grand total of 4 weapons, some environmental buffs, and the blueprints and materials to make them. That's it!) The universe is empty. In 3 hours of planet exploration I found 4 caves and 1 chest. This is across a dozen systems. I've run out of word count for the review and will simply point out that there's no excuse for this mess.
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Posted on: December 7, 2023
Nervensaegen
Verified ownerGames: Reviews: 102
Don't buy
This game is an incomplete alpha version at best. Avoid, even at heavy discount! The screens on the shop page are flattering compared to how bad it actually plays. For instance: The "starmap overlay", which you need to travel to new stars, only ever shows a fraction of the sky and always a mix of relevant and irrelevant objects. With no labels, or indication where to find what you are looking for. To see any name, for each object, you have to press a key to enter mouse-look, then position your crosshair, using a combo of mouse, arrow keys, and WSAD, then press a button to re-activate your mouse cursor, then click on each object. Finding the planet you are looking for on that "map" can easily take 5 minutes. The UI is dysfunctional, the inventory too small, controls are awkward and over-responsive, feedback non-existent, maps are empty, there is only one NPC model for everything. Planets are fixed squares of 100x100 Meters at best, that wrap around: Leaving the area to the left, copies you back to the right. Presentation is bad, but what's worse is that there is no soul in anything the game does. Every NPC is a copy, every ship is a copy, every surface is a copy. Every cave or ship is a maze of copied, empty corridors. Enemy ships are all the same flying saucer. "Fighting" them is a surreal experience, that feels like a 1960 movie, where the "saucer" actually is a Christmas ornament dangled from a string. Your controls always overshoot, you never get the crosshair anywhere near the target, you spam shots in their general direction, and eventually they explode, with little indication what hit them. Boarding an enemy ship gives you a map of empty corridors with no interior, only one texture, and half of the times: Nothing in it. In short: There is nothing here that works as intended. This is in no way a finished game, and most certainly not worth your time.
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Posted on: January 29, 2025
data5x
Verified ownerGames: 183 Reviews: 54
BACK In The Future...
As another old guy said here, I'm really enjoying 'Star Explorers' very much. It is also in an 'experimental' phase and version presently, for 'version 6', the developer said he would be finishing. I Hope he DOES! But, as-is, so far I have only one complaint: that the GOG version saves to only one slot and no option to choose a slot, only 'game saved' shows on the screen. So back-up the save each time in case of calamity: It saves to the user/apps/ folder of the game, hidden on most systems; again is my only complaint. The developer says he has no experience with 'Star Flight', some Others have also politely compared this game to. But I agree it reminds me most of THAT game, with only a single player not a crew. I did NOT miss setting up a crew; this was not fun for me back then. Lol: 'Star Explorers' gets right into the game; there's also an online tutorial by the author and plenty of help from reviewers and fans. And finally, as for we 'fans', and I think I am one now: one said if you want a game you can just install and play this is probably not for you, but if you do not mind putting a little time (and did not take me long) into learning the star map function, for instance, it's a VERY good game. It's also a work-in-progress, keep in mind, but well worth the price here: I give it four stars; and with further developement (promised in the latest changelog) it could be five. It's again a retro-style space exploration game; graphics and all are sufficient, a BIG upgrade from old-school titles, but not like mind-blowing later games that I also enjoy. But I was hoping for a newer spin on the EARLIER era, and this IS It for me! I am running it with no issues on an i5, 4gb nv1050, 16gb memory, Win10 machine: GOOD game; THANKS again, GOG! :-)
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