Posted on: February 28, 2019

X-Codes

Games: 196 Reviews: 9

It wants to be MoO 2, but...

Let me start by saying that Stars in Shadow is a solid, modern take on Master of Orion 2, and that a large part of the score reductions are for UI and performance issues. Starting off, MoO 2 is *much* deeper than this game. There's a wider variety of weapons, greater customization in ships, a battery of different colony improvements, custom races, and an espionage system that's simply absent from this game. All that said, this game does do *some* things to play up their takes, but in my opinion not enough. For example, this game takes the very open-ended ship design system of MoO 2 and replaces it with pre-designed ship chassis with hardpoints. This could be a plus, since the pre-designed ship chassis restricts strapping 1,000 of the best guns you've got to a ship and just throwing it out there, but for the most part there's only one or two ship chassis designs for each size class of warship, so that's kind of what you do anyway. That's a real lost opportunity, and there are examples of this happening . As an aside, the ship design UI is also pretty atrocious. The big issues I have with this game are performance issues. Even though 90% of the game's assets are 2D sprites and the closest thing this game has to animations are sliding static sprites across the game screen, particle effects, and dashed lines that crawl across the galaxy map, the startup time for this game is obscene and loading or generating galaxy maps also takes far too long, seemingly in spite of how basic these maps appear in practice. The AI is also quite time-consuming for how simplistic it is, making you wait for quite a while with each 'end turn' come endgame.

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Posted on: December 25, 2018

SpyHunter7

Verified owner

Games: 1209 Reviews: 26

Space 4X for people in a hurry

I find 4x game interesting but most of them are quite complex and with a steep learning curve. I've tried Distant Worlds and Stellaris and although they offer great amount of customization and numerous ways to expand your space empire(especially Distant World offer insane amount of control) I find them a bit intimidating. Stars in Shadow on other hand is reasonably easy to pick up and play and I' haven't felt overwhelmed with what's going on the way I felt with Distant Worlds or even Stellaris. This of course means that the gameplay is a bit simplified but for me this is a plus. The art style is appealing and one of the distinguishing traits of the game. The music while not being exceptional is fitting and quite enjoyable. On the negative side I find the UI to be clunky and not intuitive. As an example of what I mean I can give the way you queue building projects. In most games you click on the thing you want to build and it goes to the building queue. Here when you click on a building or a ship it does not go in the queue but becomes the active building project no matter that before that you have selected something else. If you want to queue it you have to click on a small button on the portrait of the object. This might seem like nitpicking on my side but it feels weird and is only one of the few other things in the UI that is not working as I would expect. As a whole the game is enjoyable and scratching the 4x itch while not demanding a huge time investment in order to learn how to play.

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Posted on: August 6, 2019

cmndr_i

Verified owner

Games: 158 Reviews: 6

not hungry - give it 2 more years to fix

I'm MOO2 player. if you really looking for a new MOO - try this. If you don't - stay away. In short, this is unfinished, un-balanced and massively not-optimized promissing indy. I play Feb'19 release and I don't have any crash or obvious interface problem like manual boarding/unboarding colonists. I see game got random diplomatic events - like techology gifted by alies and settlers from other race asked to join your colony for free; ability to settle other race concerns by dimplomacy efforts once you colonize/outpost their star. Intersting, huh? Still diplomacy is kind an absent. There are only few standard action available to you and the only passive way to accumulate diplomacy points. No tech trade at all. Expand planner is missed. Food consumtion forecast is a subject of in-mind calculation. You never know how many farms you need for this exact planets - you either dye starving or got extra 20 foods... Spoiling your slots. Ship upgrade - it's a pain. One just can't set fleet to upgrade to newer version of ship pre-designed. You either pay for instant upgrade or set upgrade routine manually for each ship. Manageble... but it must be fixed. Ballance... you either outrun competitor easily or just face him much more advanced than you. Stars position around homeworld would be a key for your expanse. No room for expand - you're loser. And the optimization... minus 2 stars. each next turn may take 1+ minute to calculate, while you see nothing changed in your empire or around. Remember MOO2 automatically runs through 15turns till next major event? you will easily spent 20 minites here just clicking next turn. Finally if it's not war - it's boring. Try it once developer reports about optimization. p.s. while you waiting this game to be polished and optimized - try Distant Worlds

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Posted on: October 22, 2017

Picard85

Verified owner

Games: 147 Reviews: 3

One of the best recent space 4x games.

Some people have described SiS's art style as cartoony. I prefer to say it's comic book-like. It's colorful but not exaggerated or caricature-ish. Regardless don't let the visual style make you think it's a "kiddie game". On the surface SiS is a pretty straightforward space 4x with a streamlined strategic layer and more focus on turn based combat. When you look closely there are many neat little details and features that make it a lot more interesting. For example, planets are not simply Icy or Desert. Most planets contain multiple climate zones which provide degrees of suitability for different races allowing even multiple different ones to coexist on the same planet and make use of the different zones. Pirates will raid your planet and abduct your people and you can pay them off to stop but you can also buy slaves from them and hire their ships as mercenaries. There are multiple minor races with different strengths and dispositions which may help or hinder your colonization efforts. Different means of boarding allow you to capture ships and keep, scrap or use reverse engineer them for research. While made with a small budget SiS is rich with flavor and interesting features and is arguably the best Master of Orion 2 "remake" to date with just enough of its own additions feel new. The weakest part of the game is probably the interface which is still lacking in hotkeys and polish and can be problematic for new players.

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Posted on: March 22, 2022

mharmless

Games: 964 Reviews: 3

One of the best children of MOO

Other people have covered the bulk of what I have to say about this game, but I do want to mention that Humanity in this game is straight worse than the other races and serves as a further difficulty level kick above and beyond whatever difficulty you actually picked. Humans produce no extra resources of any kind, do not have exceptionally good habitability ranges, do not reproduce faster, do not have special technologies to speak of, and do not even start with a homeworld. You begin the game with a fleet and a refueling outpost orbiting a gas giant in a system with a very poor world similar to Mars. This world is not even colonized, and frankly probably isn't worth colonizing. Your only infrastructure is that fuel outpost, although you do start with more ships than other players. Finding and securing a half decent planet is your number one goal, and from then on you will be playing catch-up with your entirely ordinary human colonists. I _really_ love this concept and it was the cherry on top of a 4-star game that made it into 5.

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