Starcom: Unknown Space

I dunno, this is one of those games that, at first, is super-cool. The longer you play the more the cracks appear, and the bigger those cracks get. Positives: -The graphics in this game are really nice. Planets look pretty cool, space in the background is not migraine-inducing. The stars and effects all look really sharp. The art and art-style are impressive. -Ship-building is a good mix of simple, but detailed. You can customize but you don't get lost in technical mumbo-jumbo. You can make a missle frigate or a laser focused point-defense ship with plasma batteries. It's pretty cool. -The story starts out interestingly enough. -The universe is expansive.. although that leads to the next section.... Negatives: - When your universe gets too expansive you have to balance that open space with convenient travel. This game tries, but it just has too many times where you just set the auto-pilot and go make dinner. There are star-systems with [i]zero[/i] 'flingers' or wormholes to wa...

The game is a lot of fun at the beginning (maybe 10 hours?) You discover new stuff all the time (planets, events, technologies, quests, vessel types, enemies, etc) I'm now at 18hrs and the fun has kind of died out. All the quests feel kinda stuck. Traverling aimlessly in unknown space hoping to stumble on an unknown star system is quite slow (travelling is sloooooow if you're not going to an actual place through a worm hole). So right now I'm doing other stuff (eg writing this very review) with the steamdeck on my lap waiting for anything to happen while I'm crossing the map West to East and back 2 clicks higher ..... I still believe it's a fun game, definitely worth its cost, and an impressive piece of work for a solo dev, but unless something happens in my game very soon I'm going to quit without having completed the game!

This was an amazing game and I’m really pleased to have played it. Here’s some of the key areas I liked most: Fun gameplay Great match of exploration, discovery and combat Shipbuilding was very well done Visual and art style Sound engineering & music Graphic effects Good quality of life Improvements: Mission system: was hard to follow at times. I understand the need to think, use reason and look for clues, but despite honest attempts I still had to do Internet searches to complete several missions. Some I left unfinished. Needs a “Home” button / keybind to auto-target the home base for travel there. It was a little annoying that the crew comment box pops up while I’m trying to read the mission activity / results box, then I have to go to the Log to see what the crewmember said. The positives of this game are great and it was a really fun experience. I highly recommend!

STARCOM: UNKNOWN SPACE had me for the game's entire runtime (about 30 hours or so) and I was enamored with the loop of exploring distant star systems, gathering resources, researching new ship parts, building said parts, and then getting back out there with a new ship. The loop! It compells! That said, I barely remember anything about the game's story, which is disappointing considering how much of it is in there and how generally well-written it is! I just didn't particularly care about any of the alien races I met or their quests beyond the rewards offered. Just give me my money. I think what disappointed me most was how the aliens lacked character? In theory, you've got the proud warrior aliens locked in a war with the sneaky backstabby aliens and there's also the trade union playing both sides and so forth ALL THE TROPES but in practice they all just kinda talk the same? Perhaps unfairly, I compare this game with STAR CONTROL 2 which also compelled me with a similar gather-resea...

It's a nice little game obviously made with love. However, it gets a thumbs-down from me due to the lack of objective markers at key points in the story. I don't want to be hand-held but this takes things too far; incomplete missions on the mission log with no clue how to complete. Key findings a short distance from your main path but just about far enough away not to be seen.

[h1]Starcom: Unknown Universe - Pure Space Fun![/h1] [hr][/hr] Very fun, for space-loving genre fans. And let's be real, who [i]doesn't[/i] love space? Don't answer that. This isn't your grandpappy's overly complicated space opera. No convoluted meta builds or spreadsheets required. Want to be a plasma-slinging maniac? Go for it. Prefer a missile barrage that would make a battleship blush? You do you. Or mix and match like a mad scientist – it all works, baby! [b]Freedom of choice is king here.[/b] Now, it's not all sunshine and nebula dust. Some quests are a bit like trying to find a black cat in a coal cellar at midnight – a little blurry around the edges. And the Portuguese translation? Bless its heart, it tried. (Devs, if you're reading this, I'm available for consultations. My rates are reasonable, and my humor is free.) All that said, the overall vibe is just cool. It lacks voice acting, which is a shame, but hey, maybe some AI magic in the future? A guy can dream....

I really want to recommend this game; the creator and developer has put a TON of time into making this game, including localization, expanding multiple systems (like crew management, tech trees, story, and art), and continually updating and patching the game for bugs and improvements. Unfortunately, I found it really too difficult in the mid- to late-game to manage all the tech at my disposal in an increasingly hostile galaxy. I would be routinely routed by upgraded enemies because I couldn't swap or target my weapons fast enough on controller, and more than once I experienced game over when hordes swarmed by base. Thankfully, there is a good autosave system that made re-tries not awful. The game has a lot of potential, but you may have to grind at it.

Horrifically tedious in the name of being "old school". Old school is only good if it's good. Not even having names on planets so you know which one to go back to is not old school, it is just plain bad. Have fun playing for 25 hours not being able to find a planet you need to progress the main quest of the game.

Fun game, much like the last Starcom game but with significant quality of life improvements

If you think you might like this, you'll like it. If you see the screenshot with the anomaly text and the guy commenting on it in the popup, or you see the ship design interface, or the tech tree, or the top-down view with the warp nexus portal, and think to yourself "I like that kind of stuff," you'll enjoy this. I know this is a niche sliver of "people who buy games" but if you ever played the Starflight games and have been looking for something that feels like Starflight 2 especially, this actually does. If you played Star Control II/Free Stars/Ur-Quan Masters or the Escape Velocity games or Solar Winds or Sid Meier's Pirates!, this is in that area, but this feels very specifically like a Starflight game except with all mod cons. This isn't like the greatest possible Gaming Experience but it's pretty much exactly what it should be. Enough resources to keep exploring, not enough that you can stop exploring, exploration raises more questions than it answers without feeling like e...