Space Demo Trio (PC)
The other day, I was looking through Steam and came across a game called 'Light of Altair', of which a free demo was available. I downloaded and played it. Unfortunately, this game me a bit of a thirst for space management games, like the Spore space stage. As a result, I found two other similar game demos that I thought I'd share my opinions of. The thought occurs ofcourse that, if I desire to play something like the Spore space stage, then I should probably play that, but that wouldn't be any fun now, would it?
Light of Altair
My first thoughts about Light of Altair were about how similar it was to the Spore space stage. You travel around the different planets within the game area and place colonies on the planets, then placing buildings in the colonies to start them producing the relevant 'stuff'. While the Spore space stage had a much more real sense of scale about the sizes of the colonies, the planets, the 'people', etc, Light of Altair has a much more exaggerated sense of scale about it. The planets are, relatively, a lot smaller and the colonies cover a much larger area of the planet. This may sound like a good thing but it actually hinders the game a fair bit. The actual area the colony covers is too small, especially new ones, resulting in you always being pushed for space. This is made worse by the fact that each colony needs to be powered separately and so half of each colony is taken up by the solar panels needed to provide the power needed. This problem is made worse by the fact that the mining buildings are extremely power hunger. Having too many mines in one colony can result in you having to give some up, permanently, just to keep the colony powered and fed. Food brings me on to another issue. Supposedly, excess food gets transferred to the main colony to be traded, as does mined material. The problem is there's not real way of knowing how much of anything is getting transferred to be sold so you just have to try and work it out. I gave up trying fairly quickly. This also means that you have to balance the mining, food and power with no real way of knowing what you need. The amount of excess food, as far as I can tell is indicated only by population growth which only shows on the alt-text of the colony. You additionally have to try and keep the colonists happy be providing the appropriate buildings and, in a situation where space is already limited, this isn't helpful. The end result is that the resources are frustrating to balance.
The game is also hindered by the fact that not a lot is ever going on on-screen. The buildings are static models and the tech tree is fairly limited which results in all of the colonies looking more or less the same. And, when you have a dozen colonies on a planet, some of whom are next to each other (the layout is based on tessellating hexagons, so the colonies can literally be next to each other), it gets confusing and very quickly. That's confusing and frustrating. Not good so far.
The one place the game does better than spore space stage is 'ship-to-ship' combat. You can choose from a number of chassis designs (from fighter to carrier) and put relevant technologies (shields, weapons, etc) into the available slots on the chassis. You can then order the ships to be built and then send them off to where you want them to go. When you get there the battle plays out. It's entirely automated which, while not ideal, isn't a deal breaker as it's fun to watch the ships go at it. The deal breaker is the fact that the ship AI is pathetic, with ships that are clearly designed for long range heavy fire engaging in close-quarters combat and vice versa. Fortunately your ship are not particular stupid, compared to the non-player teams, so you aren't hinders by it, but that's not the point. If you could give the ships some basic strategy (you = defend, you = short range attack, etc), that would be much better. As it stands, it's just boring and annoying.
All in all, it's a nice idea but poorly executed. The demo is worth checking out because it's fun while it's new but once the novelty wears off, the frustrations quickly shine through.
Space Colony
This game is less 'Spore in space' and more 'Sims in space'. You are given pseudo-control of a bunch of misfits as they try and get a colony to work, which you can expand as needed. Unfortunately, this is where the praise ends. This game is one of the worst I've ever played. The graphics are blocky and disjointed, with characters disappearing and reappearing doing their jobs. The building units are all set shapes and cannot be deleted, resulting in the annoying fact of, if you place even a lamp in the wrong place, you are stuck and unable to build certain object in that area. No real introduction to the technologies so you have to find them and then work out what they do and who can use it. Finding them isn't easy since the techs are split into weird categories with no real distinction as to which one each will be in, and the interface is confusing enough already. 'Who can use it' is an interesting exercise since only certain characters can do each particular job. It seemed by the end that there were only two really useful characters and the rest were just sinks for oxygen and power, which you have to assign character to in order to get each of which in the first place. There's also a focus on the relationships between the characters which you have to maintain in order to get them to work. Unlike the Sims where work is done independently of relationships, the happiness of the characters determines how much work they do. This sounds like a good idea, but you have to tell them to maintain their relationships, so if you forget, they'll quickly revert back to doing nothing but fighting with each other. This is made even worse when the Scottish guy shows up, as he would have a fight with the walls if he could.
That's it really. Nothing good the say about this game. I should point out that playing this game made me feel ill (although on reflection that may have been bacuse I hadn't eaten for a while). Anyway, avoid this game at all costs.
StarTopia
Last but not least, StarTopia. This game is a lot like 'Evil Genius' in that you are given an area in which to play and you are allowed to place your buildings wherever you want within that area. The game area can be a little cramped at first but that is fixed as you progress. Nothing wrong with the gameplay to speak of. In fact the biggest problems are with the user interface. The camera movement and the character interaction can be quiet annoying as there some button confusion on the mouse. You go to interact with something and click the left mouse button when you should have clicked the right one and something unexpected happens. I'm sure this confusion will pass in time, as you get used to the controls.
Dispite my praise so far there are two problems with the game. The biggest problem is with hiring alien employees. To do this you must go to the population list, choose to one you want and let the screen take you to them in the game world. From here you can select them and hire them. Sounds good in theory, but if they're in the middle of something (eg, sleeping), then you have to wait for them to finish before you can select them. This can take a minute so if you let your mind wander, they could finish up and wander off before you know what's happening. This could easily have been fixed with an option on the population menu, which is what makes this problem more annoying than any other words I could use to describe it. The other problem is that you need to provide the facilities to keep you population happy. Unfortunately, there's no clear readout as to what you population wants/needs (at least not that I could find) so you need to look on the population list and where the characters are to attempt to work it out. While this doesn't stop the game working, it does add complications to matters that could easily be resolved. So, again, it's more annoying than anything else.
Not much more I can say here since I actually liked this game, which isn't very funny. So I'll leave by saying, of the three I looked at, buy StarTopia. It's cheap if nothing else.
Later people.
Light of Altair
My first thoughts about Light of Altair were about how similar it was to the Spore space stage. You travel around the different planets within the game area and place colonies on the planets, then placing buildings in the colonies to start them producing the relevant 'stuff'. While the Spore space stage had a much more real sense of scale about the sizes of the colonies, the planets, the 'people', etc, Light of Altair has a much more exaggerated sense of scale about it. The planets are, relatively, a lot smaller and the colonies cover a much larger area of the planet. This may sound like a good thing but it actually hinders the game a fair bit. The actual area the colony covers is too small, especially new ones, resulting in you always being pushed for space. This is made worse by the fact that each colony needs to be powered separately and so half of each colony is taken up by the solar panels needed to provide the power needed. This problem is made worse by the fact that the mining buildings are extremely power hunger. Having too many mines in one colony can result in you having to give some up, permanently, just to keep the colony powered and fed. Food brings me on to another issue. Supposedly, excess food gets transferred to the main colony to be traded, as does mined material. The problem is there's not real way of knowing how much of anything is getting transferred to be sold so you just have to try and work it out. I gave up trying fairly quickly. This also means that you have to balance the mining, food and power with no real way of knowing what you need. The amount of excess food, as far as I can tell is indicated only by population growth which only shows on the alt-text of the colony. You additionally have to try and keep the colonists happy be providing the appropriate buildings and, in a situation where space is already limited, this isn't helpful. The end result is that the resources are frustrating to balance.
The game is also hindered by the fact that not a lot is ever going on on-screen. The buildings are static models and the tech tree is fairly limited which results in all of the colonies looking more or less the same. And, when you have a dozen colonies on a planet, some of whom are next to each other (the layout is based on tessellating hexagons, so the colonies can literally be next to each other), it gets confusing and very quickly. That's confusing and frustrating. Not good so far.
The one place the game does better than spore space stage is 'ship-to-ship' combat. You can choose from a number of chassis designs (from fighter to carrier) and put relevant technologies (shields, weapons, etc) into the available slots on the chassis. You can then order the ships to be built and then send them off to where you want them to go. When you get there the battle plays out. It's entirely automated which, while not ideal, isn't a deal breaker as it's fun to watch the ships go at it. The deal breaker is the fact that the ship AI is pathetic, with ships that are clearly designed for long range heavy fire engaging in close-quarters combat and vice versa. Fortunately your ship are not particular stupid, compared to the non-player teams, so you aren't hinders by it, but that's not the point. If you could give the ships some basic strategy (you = defend, you = short range attack, etc), that would be much better. As it stands, it's just boring and annoying.
All in all, it's a nice idea but poorly executed. The demo is worth checking out because it's fun while it's new but once the novelty wears off, the frustrations quickly shine through.
Space Colony
This game is less 'Spore in space' and more 'Sims in space'. You are given pseudo-control of a bunch of misfits as they try and get a colony to work, which you can expand as needed. Unfortunately, this is where the praise ends. This game is one of the worst I've ever played. The graphics are blocky and disjointed, with characters disappearing and reappearing doing their jobs. The building units are all set shapes and cannot be deleted, resulting in the annoying fact of, if you place even a lamp in the wrong place, you are stuck and unable to build certain object in that area. No real introduction to the technologies so you have to find them and then work out what they do and who can use it. Finding them isn't easy since the techs are split into weird categories with no real distinction as to which one each will be in, and the interface is confusing enough already. 'Who can use it' is an interesting exercise since only certain characters can do each particular job. It seemed by the end that there were only two really useful characters and the rest were just sinks for oxygen and power, which you have to assign character to in order to get each of which in the first place. There's also a focus on the relationships between the characters which you have to maintain in order to get them to work. Unlike the Sims where work is done independently of relationships, the happiness of the characters determines how much work they do. This sounds like a good idea, but you have to tell them to maintain their relationships, so if you forget, they'll quickly revert back to doing nothing but fighting with each other. This is made even worse when the Scottish guy shows up, as he would have a fight with the walls if he could.
That's it really. Nothing good the say about this game. I should point out that playing this game made me feel ill (although on reflection that may have been bacuse I hadn't eaten for a while). Anyway, avoid this game at all costs.
StarTopia
Last but not least, StarTopia. This game is a lot like 'Evil Genius' in that you are given an area in which to play and you are allowed to place your buildings wherever you want within that area. The game area can be a little cramped at first but that is fixed as you progress. Nothing wrong with the gameplay to speak of. In fact the biggest problems are with the user interface. The camera movement and the character interaction can be quiet annoying as there some button confusion on the mouse. You go to interact with something and click the left mouse button when you should have clicked the right one and something unexpected happens. I'm sure this confusion will pass in time, as you get used to the controls.
Dispite my praise so far there are two problems with the game. The biggest problem is with hiring alien employees. To do this you must go to the population list, choose to one you want and let the screen take you to them in the game world. From here you can select them and hire them. Sounds good in theory, but if they're in the middle of something (eg, sleeping), then you have to wait for them to finish before you can select them. This can take a minute so if you let your mind wander, they could finish up and wander off before you know what's happening. This could easily have been fixed with an option on the population menu, which is what makes this problem more annoying than any other words I could use to describe it. The other problem is that you need to provide the facilities to keep you population happy. Unfortunately, there's no clear readout as to what you population wants/needs (at least not that I could find) so you need to look on the population list and where the characters are to attempt to work it out. While this doesn't stop the game working, it does add complications to matters that could easily be resolved. So, again, it's more annoying than anything else.
Not much more I can say here since I actually liked this game, which isn't very funny. So I'll leave by saying, of the three I looked at, buy StarTopia. It's cheap if nothing else.
Later people.