Elite-style

Transcendence's developer, George Moromisato, says his game is inspired by Elite, Star Control II and NetHack -- at first glance, a rather odd combination. After all, the first two are open-ended space games, and the third a Rogue-like; yet on second thought, both game styles share certain characteristics. Both create algorithmically generated universes -- that is, instead of having preplanned levels, both generate the challenges faced by the player at runtime, in a semi-random fashion. Both give the player control of a single game token: in the case of Rogue-likes, a character, and in the case of Elite-style games, a starship. And both measure progress by the increasing capabilities of your game token--in terms of levels for Rogue-likes, and in terms of ship improvements (and newer and more powerful ships) in Elite-style games.

Take an Elite-style game like Flatspace II. Set it in a cartoony universe where Zombies and Ninjas are waging an interstellar war. Tool around in a "starship" that's more like a Buick with a stardrive and lasers. Wage space battles against, among other things, space-going galleons and pterodactyls, and trade goods like cheese, paper, and kittens--no "industrial goods" or other boring stuff here. All to a loud, frenetic neopunk score--that's Ninjastarmageddon!.

Starscape is a great example how a small team that knows what its doing can pack a lot of gameplay into a small package--and Moonpod, a team of long-term industry vets turned indie, know precisely what they're doing.

At its heart, Starscape is a space "shmup" (shoot-em-up) with the kind of fast, intense shooting action you expect in a game of that style; but layered atop that is a game of resource management and tech development.

Smugglers 3 hearkens back to an earlier generation of 4X space exploration and conquest games. In a way, it's the sort of game I might have played on my old Apple II--but of course much prettier graphics.

You're a starship captain during an interstellar civil war, belonging to one of four factions in the war. Your primary activities involve trading (including smuggling illegal goods, if you so choose); accepting combat missions in support of your faction; or becoming a pirate and attacking planets. As usual in games like this, you start off with a tiny ship, and progress is mainly in the form of earning enough money and rising in rank so that you can get bigger and better ships.

You can think of Flatspace II as a sort of shmuppy Elite by way of NetHack. Like NetHack, the universe is randomly generated each time you start a new game; like shmups, starship combat is fast and intense; like Elite, you're a starship captain exploring a huge universe--and there are a whole slew of different roles you can take (trader, mercenary, bounty hunter, assassin, police officer, or scavenger).

Flatspace II is a space trading, exploration, and combat game. Initially, you begin with a small starship with limited capacities, and have to work your way up by earning money and purchasing better equipment for your ship, and later on new and larger ships. Money can be earned in a wide variety of ways: trading the many commodities available in the Flatspace universe, performing missions (which are many of the Fedex variety), performing assassinations, tracking down criminals, mining asteroids, and so on.