This. Game. Is. Jewel.
Can just recommend it as lover of deck building. Lovely graphics, immense amount of cards, greatly done system, character development... Real jewel among games.
Had some minor issue with difficulty on game start, but was solved as game continued. But I get feeling that not even normal difficulty let you snowball game with random characters, so some planning is requied (will i go 3 damage dealers, or add tank, or even support?).
I hope to see some more content or more games like this from developer. Without hesitation 5-star. Excellent job.
Grinding is fine, but grinding in a boring environment is painful... In this game you explore almost empty dungeons (=ships), each movement needing some energy. You can scan around your position but this does not guaranty you will identify interesting rooms. Some will nevertheless have some loot in there.
The difficulty levels seems fine, until you hit some wall, and probably need to backtrack and explore some other dungeons to grind (I have not experienced backtracking to a fully explored ship. There might be opportunity for leveling through random encounters but have not tried it (remember, bored).
The combat system and cards seem fine, at least I was interested enough to try it for a longer time. However, you have to guess much of it. Hence the 2 stars.
Now for the really blocking and game killing aspect: the interface looks like it was built for a touch screen with no keyboard. EVERY INTERACTION needs to click. Going to the inventory == click on the PDA button on the top right, then click on the Inventory button. Hey, Devs, do you know the 'I' key on a keyboard? Or 'M' by the way, or ESC to get the Menu system, or 1-9 to choose action, etc.
The game is very expensive for that kind of execution; I have got it with a 66% discount but this does not make a better game. Please devs.... make an update with a proper PC interface.
A surprisingly excellent experience - I came in expecting a decent space combat strategy, and I got that... but also, a brilliant feeling that yes, I was exploring derelict space ships. Hulking wrecks scattered with barely valuable loot and the occasionaly piece of scrap that might just get you through the day. Trying to make it just a bit further into the wreck before turning back, then taking the wrong gamble and dying to a janitor you didn't know would be in that one-more-square.
The game's obviously not completely ready yet, but it's a solid experience (no crashes or major bugs), but the user interface is clunky and inconsistent here and there - I totally overlooked the non-navigation panels of the PDA menu on my first run, which got me rather dead rather fast. Despite these issues, there's a good amount of content (I'm 3 hours in - not very good at the genre admitedly - 2 deaths so far and one more in progress)
Perhaps the biggest suprise of the game was a good one: just how brilliant the card based combat was. I'm not a huge fan of the mechanism normally, but here it works brilliantly. Each item and modifier adds cards to the character's deck, and the result is a simple intuitive form of deck building and combat that results in interesting combat decisions every battle (again, 3h in, but the variety I've encountered so far has been pretty huge)
In summary, if you're a fan of the genre, theme, or Revelation Space (I was somehow deeply reminded of it), I recommend getting it! If you are interested but less of a fan, maybe wait till it comes out of in-dev, but... you don't need to. The game is in a great shape already!
I like how the game looks. I like how the game tells its story, I like how the presentation of the gameplay is.
Unfortunately, the game falls flat regarding the gameplay. Fights are incredibly slow and dull. When you need to kill the last enemy, who has no hope of even defeating one of your guys, you're basically just grinding the hitpoints away with the slow, slow pace of card combat.
Based on 4-5 hours that I've spend with it.
Wasted potential. Mechanics and the visuals are there, but the lack of a decent writing and (even slightly) captivating plot line kills the game for me.
Pros:
- looks good
- mechanics is enjoyable for some time
Cons:
- repetitive gameplay; encounters are not challenging, so I didn't really have to think about constructing my decks; ended up doing the same stuff in each encounter
- repetitive and monotone music; not sure, but there might be 2 tracks in the soundtrack, and they won't make you feel anything
- game did nothing to motivate me to play: the writing is not good and not interesting, I know next to nothing about the game world, and the tiny bits that I'm given read like produced by a generator, not a writer
- lacks even a minimal plot line: explore the derelict vessels and you shall be rewarded, that's basically it. I couldn't care less.
