starcom: nexus
an indie star-control-like from nearly a decade ago. A fairly uninspired visual design but it makes up for this with the writing and exploration. You start the game commanding a little scout ship as it attempts to deliver some pottery to a local starbase. Without warning, your ship and that base are transported to a seemingly different galaxy and your goal is to find a way back to the galaxy you came from. To do this, you collect data on unexplained cosmic phenomena, explore planets, negotiate with sometimes hostile alien species, and solve mysteries. This part of the experience is mostly excellent (there are some scripting problems towards the end of the game that result in buggy or opaque progression). Every system you visit, and most of the planets in those systems, will have a little morsel of sci fi storytelling written by someone who has some actual familiarity with prose sf. This isn’t a game made by someone whose genre awareness stops at star wars, star trek, and mass effect. Messages hidden in cosmic microwave background radiation, plant-based aliens who maintain sentient planetary forests as observation posts, three distinct sentient machine factions, and a whole host of specific mysteries I won’t spoil.
There’s combat too and it works well enough for what it is: a top down 2d capital ship simulation that doesn’t bother with the newtonian physics of star control 1 and 2, but still obviously takes inspiration from them. You will mostly concern yourself with energy management and positioning. Early on when all you have is a fairly primitive scout ship at your disposal, combat will revolve around hit and run tactics, but as you add more modules to your ship and research more advanced technologies, you will start to stand your ground.
Your bread-and-butter weapon is the plasma turret, which fires where you aim and drains your energy reserves to use. There are many weapons beyond that (missiles, flak cannons, lasers, drone swarms, and the best of all, a wave motion gun taken straight from space battleship yamato) which all have unique advantages and disadvantages and provide much needed variety to such a simple combat system. After experimenting throughout the midgame, I found that I preferred lasers and the wave motion gun but all possible weapon combinations seemed viable. There’s even potential for an eccentric combat style based on doing warp jumps straight into enemy ships. Nonetheless, the game rarely offers any challenge, so combat decisions are mostly about preference rather than necessity.
There’s also some space trading but it is mostly an afterthought. Resource management is rarely an issue and the economy is rudimentary: each alien species uses a different resource as its basic currency and each has a specific resource that they wlll pay too much for. Once you know which alien to sell a given resource to, you’ll never think about the economy again.
I found the game compelling overall but it had enough annoyances that I find it difficult to recommend without reservations. There is a sequel that may address my complaints, as petty as they are. I’ll post about it when I get to it
