New release: StarCrawlers
The premise:
You’re a Crawler, and that means you work for those that can pay. Asset recovery, commercial espionage, and mayhem for hire are just a few of your crew’s specialized services. If something shady needs doing, chances are a Crawler will be involved. Succeed and you’ll be rewarded with better pay then any corp drone can dream of. Plus, you’ll earn the respect of the eclectic assortment of merchants, opportunists and adventurers who make their home in the fringes of space.
As I recall, combat is skill-based and actions cost specific amounts of time units. I spent a little time with it at PAX a few years back, and I remember the system working well. But why rely on my hazy recollections when you can watch the release trailer?
Meanwhile, here’s the list of features:
- Wage strategic battles against futuristic enemies with an innovative time unit turn-based combat system.
- Procedurally-generated dungeons and events create endless replayability.
- Choose your allies and your foes wisely. Your choices will change how the story unfolds.
- Eight player classes each with unique abilities, both in combat and when exploring.
- Randomly generated weapons, armor and gear with upgradeable enhancements.
- Easy to Hardcore difficulty modes and optional permadeath.
You can nab StarCrawlers on Steam and on GOG for $19.99 (currently with a 25% launch week discount). Windows, Mac, and Linux.
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This one looked like it might be fun. I read a review elsewhere which spoke of some very strange and interesting PC classes, such as one that accumulates tons of malfunctions over battles but can then (using a skill) apply a percentage of the damage resulting from the number of malfunctions to attacking enemies.
My grandniece bought it, and I played it a while on Steam.
The good:
Wonderfully mordant sense of humor.
Classes that are for the most part distinctive, especially the schizoid Void Psykers and the Prototypes that can do special damage as they build up malfunctions.
Playing off pleasing different corporations against other whose hatred you build.
The bad:
Colors are washed out green, black, purples, blues. Gets monotonous.
The usual white-green-blue-purple swag weapons and armor you find, with a mix of fairly standard positives and negatives.
Despite great flavor in the corporation phonecalls, the very few businesses you can visit feel fairly dull.
Gameplay is procedural spaceships and feels repetitive after a short time.
Couple of other negatives:
Though you can see enemies at a distance depending upon line of vision, you only see a single individual, when it may be anywhere from one on up–and may include many different species.
…And, sometimes, you run into monsters that for don’t show up. Who aren’t invisible, but still can’t be seen before you run into them and trigger a battle.