Astrobase Command

Astrobase Command

Salvage the remnants of your civilization by starting anew in uncharted space, with a small crew and the beginnings of an Astrobase. Grow your base by constructing modules on all three axes, put out fires both literal and metaphorical, and send characters with real personalities and emotions on non-linear text-based adventures across a procedural galaxy.

The only mode is ironman and every section, module, deck and crew member added to your Astrobase comes with implicit risks and reward, so choices matter. How long can you keep from succumbing to the dangers of space?

  • Grow - Expand your Astrobase in all three directions.

  • Nurture - Build a home for your crew and their daily lives

  • Design - Layout the Astrobase to counter crises such conduit leaks, compartment failures, explosions, fires, personnel issues, and more

The Astrobase can be constructed along three axes. Your crew can expand the base by building modules or contract it by salvaging them. They can add or remove functionality by building up or tearing down sections in the modules. They can even build ships that lets you explore the galaxy.

You choose what to build and when to build it. The crew needs to rest and they need to breathe, do you rush the construction of the Enlisted Quarters or the Air Pump first? What’s the optimal placement of the new module? Is it better to have the Plasma Reactor closer to storage or to the crew’s quarters? Keep the station well maintained and stocked with supplies or disastrous consequences may result.

  • Characters - Your crew make their own decisions as they interact with each other and the world around them.

  • Full AI lifecycle - They work, eat, sleep, use the bathroom, relax, and socialize all as part of their daily lives.

  • Morale - Your crew can get exhausted, or suffer from low morale which affects the quality of their lives and how they perform tasks.

  • Relationships - Your crew form personal, professional, and romantic relationships. The relationships can be either positive or negative based on how their personalities and actions align.

Your crew live their own lives on the Astrobase. They have things to do and people to meet. Exactly how well they perform depends on how good they fit into their job, what adventures they’ve had, and what horrors they have survived; even how well matched they are with their peers matters, some will become romantic partners while others become bitter work rivals.

You will run into stumbling blocks, maybe your crew is exhausted because you’ve pushed them too hard, or low morale makes slacking off more enticing, or maybe Jenkins and Rodriguez spend too much time arguing while the Fission Reactor goes critical. Figure out your problems and fix them!

  • Explore - Build and dispatch ships across the galaxy to explore planets, fight killbots, extract resources, and interact with other civilizations.

  • Delegate - The ranking officer of each ship will make decisions based on their personality, and take recommendations from their team.

  • Overrule - Change the decisions in the logs they send back, or let them make their own mistakes.

The procedural adventures of the crew assigned to your ships can be read and interacted with in the logs they send back. Carefully handpick the crew for each ship you send out. Monitor their progress or leave them to their own fate. Whatever you choose to do, the outcomes of their adventures will be felt in what resources they get, what injuries they suffer, and in how it changes their emotional state.

  • Assign - Choose the best person for each job based on their stats, personalities, and over 50 different skills.

  • Manage - Prioritize tasks, clear task blockers, optimize the routes that the crew take during their day.

  • Observe - Calculate resource depletion and stay on top of tasks to prevent the reactors from exploding, the conduits leaking, and compartments failing,

The desk is where you design the Astrobase into a functioning home for your crew, promote leaders, manage tasks, monitor resource consumption, read reports from your ships and give them your input.

Running the station means manning your desk. Be efficient, and use your time wisely or take a break and play some Asteroid Shooter.

  • Individuality - Characters maintain emotional memory, and experience psychological growth over time depending on how results align with expectations.

  • Expression - Each character’s personality is expressed in their conversations, thoughts, and ship log entries

  • Story - Over 100 personality traits and 42 intertwined emotions combine to author narratives that reflect how the crew are actually thinking and feeling.

The Astrobase’s crew will have conversations with each other, or insights about their lives. Crew members join the Astrobase with revealed personality traits that drive the emotions that effect their job suitability, choices and actions. More traits become unlocked as they experience emotional growth.

Ensure that your crew’s psychological needs are met and they have the ability to grow as people. When you’re processing recruit applications you’ll want to keep an eye out for personalities that might clash with your existing crew, or will be compatible and create lasting friendships.


Read More: Best Choices Matter RPG Games.


Astrobase Command on Steam

Fallen Gods

Fallen Gods

Once, the world was better, the gods greater, the wars over, the end farther. You were born in the Cloudlands during those bright days, one of the Ormfolk, forever young and strong, worshipped by those below for your forefathers’ deeds. But all has gone wrong. Wolves and worse haunt the night, the law holds no sway, and men’s hearts grow hard toward their gods. Fearful of their dwindling shares of souls, your kin turned against each other … and against you. And so you were cast down from the heavens, a fallen god broken upon the bitter earth. Now, you rise, free from death and ready to carve a bloody road back to your rightful home.

Features

Fallen Gods is a narrative “rogue-lite” RPG. You control the titular fallen god, who starts each game with different might, wits, health, and divine powers, and one of several animal familiars and magical artifacts. He has 90 days to win his way back to the Cloudlands, or he will lose his godhood forever. During that time, he must gather and manage a warband of up to five followers, find additional artifacts, and gain soul-strength by performing godly deeds (some kindly, some cruel). The world is full of barrows, caverns, swamps, towns, shrines, villages, castles, and other locations of interest. What you find in these places—what foes you will face in battle, what friends you can make, what dilemmas you must resolve, and what rewards you might win—changes every game. As your understanding of the world and its inhabitants grows, you will discover new strategies and develop new paths to victory, but the way will never be easy.

  • Decisions fit for a (fallen) god. Fallen Gods is about hard choices with fateful consequences. Where should you explore, what should you seek, and who should you trust? The answers are never easy, but the outcomes are always interesting.

  • Never the same story twice. Every game of Fallen Gods casts a different god into a different world, filled with different events, battles, dungeons, towns, and denizens. Even familiar encounters will change depending on your skills, followers, items, resources, and choices.

  • A rich setting inspired by sagas, myths, history, and folklore. The world of Fallen Gods is drawn from the old sources of classic fantasy with modern glosses stripped away, restoring the wonder, terror, and otherworldliness that have been lost. The themes and even language of the game are those of the great sagas.

  • A game of game-changers. The divine skills, animal familiars, human followers, and magical artifacts that you get in Fallen Gods meaningfully expand your options, rather than merely modifying some statistic.

  • Ups and downs. The protagonist of Fallen Gods starts out powerful, and while he can grow mightier, he also faces the danger of losing the strength and assets he’s gained. Weathering setbacks and taking calculated risks is the key to victory. For a fallen god, even death can be endured.


Read More: Best Choices Matter RPG Games.


Fallen Gods on Steam

Wildermyth

Wildermyth

I fell in love with this game. It’s cute, it’s emotional - a slightly more colourful and bright version of the Darkest Dungeon - here also your heroes can get hurt and die in a fight, so you need to be careful.

There is a lot of possibility to customize your characters - you can make them the way you want, customize each character’s looks, clothing colours and name. There is the mechanics of progress for your characters - their skills and gear - but also for your enemies, who get gradually stronger during each campaign!

Real player with 93.5 hrs in game


Read More: Best Choices Matter Turn-Based Tactics Games.


It’s like lovingly crafting dnd characters and then setting them loose like Sims to do quests, socialize, and die in horribly unpredictable ways.

In a particularly hairy situation my novice tank lost a leg and had to withdraw and I was left with one experienced mage, two apprentice mages and a new hunter. The wise elder mage and hunter were pinned by two gigantic automatons which had barreled through them, nearly killing the hunter and pinning the mage to a wall. Meanwhile my other two mages faced an onslaught of weaker mechs being churned out by another bot. My hunter entered grayplane and hid in the back of the room they had been jettisoned into. The pinned mage was, luckily, a stone mage that gained armor by interfusing with stone objects and was able to fend off attacks whilst whiltling down the automatons health enough for the hunter to bring them down. Meanwhile the nature and fire mage were working in tandem to block the onslaught of mechs with a wall of foliage that would then be set ablaze. The stone mage rallied and soon they were pushing a wall of debris and fire toward the last automaton as it feverishly churned bots into the ever-encompassing flames.

Real player with 63.5 hrs in game

Wildermyth on Steam

Above the Fold

Above the Fold

Full Disclosure- I got my key at no cost, from the developer, to playtest the game, from Alpha 4 on.

This in no way affects my review of the game. If it sucked, I would be brutally honest about it. I call then like I see them.

Okay, that said, up there ^^^…

I don’t really tend to enjoy manangement sim games, I usually find them too simple, shallow, or just plain uninteresting.

This game is different. It may be because I have been inside, watching it evolve (and will continue to do so through Early Access, and beyond…), but this game has depth. The subject matter, a paper print newspaper from the 1980’s- (when I was a teen and young adult) is very relatable for me. The game is still in development, but it already very rich with details that hold your interest, tension that makes you hustle and make snap decisions, humor that pops up and relieves some of the tension, in a very silly way, and more challenge than I expected. I like challenge.

Real player with 65.0 hrs in game

Its very early and developed by one person with a budget smaller then my allowance during all 4 years of high school combined. That probably isn’t true though.

Anyway, this game is a gem, and will be a gem in the future.

Yes, turn your music off asap or adjust using your systems audio mixer, that is a bit of feedback that can be acted on.

At the core this game is charming, you have a deadline you need to meet, an owner that can get angry with you, but also praise you. I imagine it is as similar to managing a news paper in the late 90’s was, and a news website today is. This is after all a simulation.

Real player with 47.8 hrs in game

Above the Fold on Steam

Shape Shooter

Shape Shooter

Even better than Counter-Strike.

Real player with 14.8 hrs in game

A lot of fun!

I absolutely adore the simplicity and drive of this game.

It’s easy to pick up, tricky to master and even trickier to stop playing.

Makes you want to try again, again and again to improve your progress without making you want to brake your controller.

Great job! :)

Real player with 0.6 hrs in game

Shape Shooter on Steam

DEADHUNTERS

DEADHUNTERS

A cooperative rogueplaying game.

Choose your hero, embark on missions and make decisions together.

Loot, level up and die again and again in an ever changing world of darkness.

Conquer the damned and earn your rightful place in the Guild of Deadhunters!

SKILL BASED HACK’N’SLASH COMBAT

In DEADHUNTERS every hit counts. You need to aim all of your attacks and make sure that you dodge those of your enemies! If you are skilled enough you can make your enemies hit each-other, helping you get rid of them all!

EXTENSIVE PROGRESSION SYSTEM

Collect a wide variety of weapons and magical artifacts to inflict as much damage on your foes as you can. Level up your characters and unlock their unique traits to help you defeat the Dead Plague!

CHOICE BASED NARRATIVE

Whether you play with others or alone you will have to make decisions on every mission you take on. On the way you need to choose where to go, who to fight and what to discover!

GRIM ATMOSPHERE IN A UNIQUE STYLE

Immerse yourself in this cursed world filled various intriguing characters. Enjoy their banter and get to know their stories as you progress in the game!

PROCEDURAL ENVIRONMENTS

Along with the changing narrative your surroundings change as well. The world of DEADHUNTERS is unforgiving and you will suffer ceaselessly but never in the same place!

DEADHUNTERS on Steam

Alien Life Lab

Alien Life Lab

The entire station, known as Alien Life Lab, has lost communications with society and fallen into chaos!

It’s up to you to traverse through Alien Life Lab Station to find any survivors, recover valuable lab resources and find what caused the station to go haywire.

-Procedural Generation to give you a new level every time!

-Electric Tranquilizer Gun uses actual (in-game) physical bullets to stun violent aliens!

-Tranquilize hostile aliens with sci fi pistol, shotgun and sword.

-Find survivors and tag aliens to earn credit coins.

-Go deeper into the station.

*Experiences Will Vary.

Story & Lore:

Several months ago, the Lab went black… Communications were lost with the outside worlds.

Residents on-board have no idea what triggered the Lab into stasis that released the dangerous exhibits to roam throughout the cargo-holds to search for sustenance.

Everyone and everything on the Lab has been reduced to utilizing whatever resources they have or can find to survive, not knowing when, or even if, help would arrive.

In the deep of space, you board the seemingly dead ghost ship…

Alien Life Lab on Steam

Minestrife

Minestrife

A fun little Minesweeper version with some extra modes available. Pros are that it’s lightweight plus has multimine and ‘clear the falling line’ modes. Cons are a faulty screen rescaling, obtuse multimine flagging with mouse controls, and a lack of middle click (‘smart select’). The dev probably thought it wouldn’t work with the multimine mode since flags are arbitrary

At only a buck during sales I’d say it’s a nice step up over the minesweeper that used to come with your computer

Real player with 25.5 hrs in game

edit: the game got patched quite a bit, so rewrote the review and turned it into a recommendation.

minestrife is a souped-up version of the original minesweeper. figure out where the mines are based on number clues, right click to mark as dangerous or potentially dangerous, left click to reveal. there’s a timer (can’t hide it) and a bomb counter, as expected, plus the following quality of life improvements: rebindable controls, zoom in/out and right click to move bigger levels around, hotkeys to open the 4 corners, unlimited hints (pressing it over a square reveals its contents, bomb or nothing), and there’s a compass, pointing to unrevealed and unflagged tiles, which can be handy on bigger boards.

Real player with 2.1 hrs in game

Minestrife on Steam

SpaceDominator

SpaceDominator

join World Of spacedominator!

SpaceDominator is strategy fantasy sci-fi open-world game where you can discover universe!

Contact other civilizations, make friends or enemies, start trading or fighting, expand your own area or help others to expand, increase your intelligence level.. and much more!

You can do anything what do you want! Do you want to be friendly? No problem. Would you rather be agressive? No problem. Play how do you wish!

Whole game uses procedual generation - it grants everyone will have different universe, different spawn of artifacts and valuables, different missions, animals, plants..

When you increase your inteligence level, others civilizations will do it too so game shouldn’t become boring after longer playtime!

You can also communicate with other players in CO-OP mode. You can join team, help each other, activate team boosters and more!

You can play this for unlimited time. Game will change difficulty regarding to your inteligence level.

If you meet more intelligent civilization, you can get their special technologies if you beat them or make them your friends! But be carefull, not everyone is friendly here.

Everything what you will done will impact your gameplay!

If you want to follow developing, you can join our discord! http://discord.gg/cqEZJ5J

And.. one more information: this game is being developed only by 1 person!

SpaceDominator on Steam

Quinterra

Quinterra

It is merely an okay game. The tactics portion of it isn’t very in depth, often times feeling very Rock-Paper-Scissors like, and the forces fit into at most two of those. The graphics are fine. The UI is usable though not helpful in any way and the text for the mission requirements is super tiny. Yet the missions end up feeling very much the same one after another, which would be fine if not for the Rock-Paper-Scissors element mentioned before. You can find yourself deep into a game and then because you are playing a force that has to group up (Lycans) vs. an enemy who poisons everything there is honestly nothing to do but quit the battle and find a port to get your morale back up.

Real player with 20.1 hrs in game

Summary & Positives

Quinterra has a really strong underlying mechanic set, loosely reminiscent of a faster-paced Faeria. Whilst highly comparable to a card based roguelite (like Slay the Spire or Monster Train), it’s not really fair to lump it into that genre.

The combat map is composed of tiles, each of which produce different ‘colours’. Each turn, you pick a tile up which lets you produce a new type of unit (a bit like setting up a building to produce a unit for you in a strategy game) for that battle, with some limits. Over time, you can sequence your tile collection in a way that lets you pick up more ‘colours’ to use, both to get a wider variety of units to play with but also to give yourself a variety of options to augment and enhance those units more with added effects.

Real player with 18.8 hrs in game

Quinterra on Steam