Basic premise of this game is to get as high of a score as possible within a 30-turn time limit. You get scored on almost every aspect of the game (population happiness and its increase, population, resource production, terraforming done and terraforming rate). It takes a couple runs to get the hang of it, after which you will see your score increase. There is quite a bit of random (which leaders you, which projects you can build, what is available to explore), which makes every game different. On the other hand, when just going for a high score, it can get a little frustrating as some things are better than other at different parts of the game. Getting a good start is very important for a good score, even if your choices do matter quite a bit as well. A single run is about 30 - 60 minutes for me. The game is easy to get started with, but your experience with it will change as you get a better feel for the mechanics. The game autosaves every turn (no manual save), so you can quit in the middle of a run and come back to it later. So this is a game you can play if you have limited time for gaming. I feel it stands on its own as some kind of rogue-like, turn-based strategy game. But I am happy to know the devs are working on a version with a campaign (which I hope includes longer turn limits or even an endless mode).
Game seems to be working perfect under windows 7 for me except for the sound. Sound contributes a lot to the atmosphere of the game so it's sad that it doesn't work, but the game is still addicting nonetheless :-).
