Automata Empire

This is excellent! I got to try a demo of it at PAX South a month ago, and I thought it was a cool concept, but I wasn't sure how well it would actually work as a strategy game. I can now confirm that it works rather well indeed! It's very different from any RTS I've played before. Instead of issuing orders to individual units, you're trying to shape an every-shifting pattern into something resembling an army. And, seemingly inevitably, the whole thing grows out of your control: you can't be everywhere at once, and if you spend a minute focussing on one side of the map you're likely to find that your monsters on the other side have mindlessly spread out and populated whole areas. The standard "WAR!" deathmatch mode is pretty easy once you've learned some basic tactics: just flood the map with your units and you'll probably win. The other modes introduce some interesting twists; I've tried Capture the Flag a few times now, and every time I think I've got it figured out the AI does som...

Games mechanics are quite interesting. Takes a bit of time to get the hang of it, definitely one of those 'easy to learn, hard to master' experiences. Main gripe is the music track, there is only one, repeating track which while quite nice, will destroy your soul after half an hour. Game modes, difficulty settings, customisable number of AI per match, even an autoplay mode where you 'do not' play, but watch AI duke it out. Needs multiplayer, but apparently it is coming. Game seems to be worth the price all in all. Defininitely recommend assuming you like the genre.

Extremely basic game. I started a game on highest difficulty without going through the tutorial and was able to beat the game simply be eliminating all my own buildings. Any game that can be beaten without interaction from the player isn't worth any money or time.

I'll lay my cards on the table now- I LOVE the game! BUT The game is broken. EDIT: The developer just got back to me regarding the review, and they've told me that AI changes are in the works, so I will change my recommendation to a tentative "Yea" considering the level of dev involvement and the fact that the AI will be changing in the future! I'm sure with the inclusion of multiplayer, the game will soon grow into it's own! - - - Bear with me, you'll enjoy learning about the system behind the game: I'm very familiar with cellular automata, and there are tons of different formulas in which the "Game of Life" can be played. Some are made for creating interesting patterns, others can run for hours on end and then fizzle out suddenly, but designing a formula requires balance. Too many ways to reproduce? The entire screen will be choked out by rabidly deviding cells. Too few and the system will fizzle out with nary an interesting pattern. This game's problem is with the former. I...

Really additive. The game mechanics are simple but quite tricky. always wanna find out how to produce men efficiently,

An interesting and unique RTS game which is somewhat hard to grasp. You have an army of creatures which move around and multiply in a way somewhat resembling the rules of Conway's "Life" game. You build roads, walls, taverns and other buildings, but all this only controls the army indirectly and in non-obvious ways. The good: - intersting basic idea to use game-of-life like principle, I've never seen this anywhere else The so-so: - I found the graphics cute and appropriate for the setting, but I can imagine that many players will find them too simplistic. - sounds are functional but not much more - the map is really big. Completing a single battle takes ages because the enemies spawn new and new taverns and you need to cover the whole map with your soldiers until you finally win. Or at least that's my impression so far. The bad: - the music gets pretty annoying after a while because it's too repetitive. Also, the plain piano track feels very low-budget. I understand it's there to f...

Rather bland and boring; bit slow placed. Maybe more variety in game types which actually include differant mechanics and features would help; or some way to speed up and slow down the game.

No singlerplayer campaign. Only skirmish. Only text tutorials, and are somewhat overwhelming. Hard to catch on.

Not a bad game, but lacks the depth I was hoping for.

As far as I can tell, while using strategy might improve the speed of winning, using none will still result in winning.