Long before FTL, Strange Adventures in Infinite Space was the original roguelite Star Trek game, and part 3 is the best of the series. The premise is you're a shady starship captain financed by gangsters to explore a newly discovered region of space and steal everything not nailed down before the government with its pesky prime directive can work through the red tape and do a proper outreach. You'll steal priceless artifacts, start wars, upgrade your ships, equip deadly particle vortex cannons, build a rag-tag fleet, and maybe (definitely) save the galaxy from imminent destruction while you're at it. All in the space of a normal coffee break. Gameplay is like if the 4X game Sword of the Stars got the King's Bounty singleplayer treatment. Half the game is played in the 3D galaxy map where you plot course to hit as many planets as possible before time is up, the other half in pause-able RTS tactical battles where turret facing is crucial. For people who played the previous games, the 3D galaxy map is a huge improvement because you'll never be trapped in a corner, there's always SOME route you can squeeze through with minimal slowing. If you have trouble orienting yourself, the upper-left corner of the screen has buttons to turn on visualizers to help. One change I'm ambivalent on is you no longer need to return to your home planet to finish the game, you can cash in anywhere. You can now upgrade ships, including alien ships at their homeworlds, so you can have your own Garthan Light Carrier with its unlimited fighters. Combat controls are slightly different, with drag-to-move, but it gives you more fine control once you're used to it. Note that the the AI for starfighters can't handle certain fastest-engine/slow gun builds. The main downside of 3 compared to the previous games is the original artist died, and all his pictures that couldn't scale have been redone in a less striking cartoon style. Absolutely wonderful game, and dirt cheap to boot. Recommended!
AIM is a 1st/3rd person open world action RPG that takes place in "the range," a gigantic exercise in machine learning for the development of new weapon technologies for a war that ended years ago. On a remote planet far from Earth, artificial intelligences in mostly indestructible housings are mounted inside hovertanks then fight endlessly for leaderboard dominance, the weapons and vehicles they use being tracked and iterated on constantly by the system's dominant intelligence. But humanity disappeared from space and the machine learning has been going on so long, AIs have begun deviating from the program and forming clans, and some seek entirely new forms of existence. You play the first of a new generation of AIs, tasked by the central intelligence with bringing order back to the range. Will you restore the program, or lead the AIs to a new existence? Gameplay strongly resembles the hovertank combat of Battlezone, but more nimble. You can deliver goods between facilities, follow faction quest chains, and gradually gain access to the whole of the range. No enemies are random, each has a name and a pattern. If a particular group of bullies get on your nerves, you can take them out and they'll be gone from that spot for days until they respawn with fresh tanks. The story is intriguing, but the whole thing feels like a proof of concept more than its sequel AIM 2: Clan Wars. But AIM 2's plot will be incomprehensible unless you played this first. The story picks up exactly where this one leaves off. If you like this game, you'll love AIM 2, if you don't, move on. At less than a dollar, I'd be crazy not to recommend.
(Based on 0.7.0) Songs of Conquest is a turn-based strategy conquest game in a high fantasy world currently going through a Neverending Story-esque apocalypse. Lets get the obvious out of the way: this is one of the most beautiful strategy games ever made. The music and voice talent match the quality of the visuals. The gameplay most resembles Warlords 3: Darklords Rising. You are conquering a map with a large amount of nodes (strongholds, hamlets, temples, etc), each of which has its own unique units you can recruit, and all of which can be upgraded to level 3 and house a defensive garrison. You don't build colonizers and found cities from scratch, you can only rebuild ruins. Other than your heroes, units don't gain XP. To facilitate conquering so many nodes without becoming exhausting, the battles are intentionally breezy affairs that are over in a few short minutes. The most important part is arranging your army's formation beforehand so archers are covered by infantry, slow troops are at the front, etc. Once the battle starts, your troops fight automatically, but you can pause at any time to play spell and tactic cards. The cards are just fancy buttons in this game. That there isn't any deckbuilder gameplay. Instead of watching a fireball icon fill up then clicking it, you drag a card. Same with recruiting infantry and upgrading nodes. Just pretty buttons. Heroes function like in Heroes of Might and Magic. Each army must have a hero leading it, heroes level up and gain random skills that can be upgraded to level 3. By necessity some heroes are the main fighters while others get put in charge of transporting fresh troops. Heroes don't get equipment, but they can find artifact caravans that give their armies passive bonuses when held in their reserve. There is currently a 5 mission fully voice-acted campaign with more missions to come. You can also generate random skirmish maps. The base game has 3 unique factions plus wildlife. This game is a delight!
Sequel to Starcom Nexus, but with a different storyline, Starcom: Unknown Space is a 2D overhead action RPG about exploring a semi-randomly generated universe in a modular custom ship. Powerful Star Trek vibes! The basic loop is you entering an unexplored system and fighting off hostile ships that can be broken apart piece-by-piece. Once there are no hostiles, you scan the surrounding planets and send down away teams. Away team missions play out as short text adventures, sometimes with puzzle elements. You are rewarded with research points and materials that can be cashed in at your home space station. Research points are spent to unlock and improve ship components from a tech tree that wouldn't look out of place in a 4X. Materials are used to build new ship components that are installed to your custom ship hex-by-hex. Exploration is the main focus of this game. Mission-critical locations are in the same place every run, but side mission star systems are randomly placed each new game. Don't expect Starsector-style fleet combat, it's just your one custom ship against the galaxy. Expect a lot of flying through space listening to ambient new age music until stumbling across new planets and space hulks. If you played Nexus, not only is the game prettier, but they added an autopilot! Ctrl-click any location on the map and your ship will go there at best speed making use of any fast-travel wormhole gates and flingers along the way! If I'm ambivalent about anything, it's that Unknown Space gets you into the thick of it much faster than Nexus and loses some of that sense of being lost and alone far from home. Nexus was a diamond in the rough and Unknown Space has polished that diamond to a shining gleam. If it's a Star Trek exploration game you want, this is highly recommended!
