Starcom: Unknown Space is an action RPG of space exploration and adventure. Build your own starship while discovering an epic story in a universe of strange mysteries, alien factions and uncharted worlds.
Very Positive
4,061 Steam reviews
| LANGUAGE | AUDIO | SUBTITLES | INTERFACE |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | — | — | Y |
| French | — | — | Y |
| German | — | — | Y |
| Polish | — | — | Y |
| Portuguese (Brazil) | — | — | Y |
| Spanish (Spain) | — | — | Y |
| Turkish | — | — | Y |
| Ukrainian | — | — | Y |
Cool game
Considering the scope of this game and what it tries to accomplish, along with the fun I had playing, I would give this a 9/10. Thumbs up, would recommend.
Softlocked at first base I encountered
its good not great, its SPAZ with more Mass effect scanning, it gets dull then it gets exciting then scan rinse and repeat, will finish the game, but there will be no second play
TL:DR;
Fantastic concept, decent gameplay, idiotic storyline and almost no replayability.
So,
Graphics... let's say 7/10.
Decent, fits the setting, easy on the eyes.
Sound: 7/10,
Same, sound effects are okay-ish, I can't think of anything annoying.
Gameplay: 8/10
Main loop is actually pretty awesome. I like building my ship, but -2 points for extremely limited size and item selection.
We could use more research, more versions of existing stuff, larger ship sizes. Game engine would probably handle twice the vanilla ship size just fine.
Flying around and discovering secrets is also pretty great, even tho some entries about seen anomalies are missing from the log, so if you are in long transit and went to get something to drink or eat, your ship may have just past by one PoI and you will never know.
Fighting is suprisingly nice, steering and interface are fine too.
But!
Storyline: 2/10
Story line and quest are single dumbest entry in this title.
It starts fine, but then spirals out of control into multiverse destroying arc and your ship is supposed to stop it.
There is nothing really new if you plan a second playthrough. And this just sucks.
Imagine that you have that cool game mechanics, but rather than facing multiverse destroying crisis, you are in the golden era of exploration.
Humanity just started expanding into the stars, you explore and discover new stuff, both pre-crafted and procedurally generated, meet your first aliens, build your first jump gates and stuff.
What about random officers and ability to select who you recruit from starbases?
With procedural generation of random side quests and sectors, possibly affecting outcomes of crafted storyline quest slightly, that game would have a great replayability, because everything else is here.
Not recommended unless it is on sale and/or you want to support developers.
Exactly what I was looking for. I had it wishlisted for ever and finally got to play it. Glad it exist. Thanks developer.
its open open world. You get to find or do what you like. No rails.
Worth it, very fun game! Would enjoy another one
Great game, not overly complicated like some other space games, just the right mix of exploration, blowing stuff up and death. 8/10
Pretty fantastic single player roamer RPG game.
Ask Jingles
I've been playing this for a few days now and I'm really happy with it. It has everything I've been looking for from a space game like this. I like all of the dialog which really makes it feel like you have a star trek crew with you on the journey. The things you find through exploration are fun to read about and if you pay attention many of the away missions are connected. Together they craft a fun story with a bit of lore. it would have been better of course if it had been voice acted. The combat and ship building are really engaging and definitely the strongest point of the game, to the point they could have left everything else out and made a rogue lite out of the game. I'm glad they didn't though. My only real complaint is that all of the mouse buttons are locked and can't be changed from there default commands which is hyper annoying! still great game and worth investing time into.
The first review I saw here claimed Starcom Unknown Space is the best space sim ever. After completing the game, I feel compelled to respond to that. Starcom is a very good space sim, but taste accounts for too much to give it such a strong recommendation. In terms of the exploration and discovery, Starcom is top notch. It has one of the best story-driven game modes in the genre. The discovery aspect in particular has a strong emphasis, and people who enjoyed following clues from landing on random planets and picking up a thread to a larger plot in games like Escape Velocity: Nova or Endless Sky, will love how fleshed that aspect is in Starcom. The story is thin gruel, but works as an adequate medium for delivering some spectacular set pieces. The meat of the experience comes from the interesting and often deadly things you encounter Out There rather than from the characters in the story. That being said, the bar for game writing is depressingly low, and the writing and dialogue in Starcom is well above average. Thin gruel is welcome in a city filled with fiascos, and nobody asked for a novel anyway.
The combat has a good foundation, but rarely challenges the player. If you research the right things, you can steamroll almost everything you encounter. There are a handful of tough fights, but it's never tough enough to demand strategy or planning ahead. The research system is basic and reasonably fleshed out, but lacks the breadth of other systems in the genre because there is no looting aside from elemental resources. Everything you have comes from research, and the tree doesn't have enough branches in my opinion to support a "research only" approach. The ship construction is interesting and adds a lot to the combat. Locational damage is a consideration. I feel like the game could be more difficult for a player who doesn't build effectively, but the average player will find it hard to make an ineffective build in spite of that.
If you want a top-down space sim with amazing combat, play Starsector.
Overall, Starcom Unknown Space is fun, well made, and is worth the asking price for anyone looking for a Star Trek style adventure about exploration and discovery.
POV Stellaris Explorer but with more depth
Nice game of progression
Magnifique jeu d'exploration et de bataille spatiales en monde ouvert. La construction de vaisseau et l'aspect RPG de l'équipage rajoute encore à l'addiction.
[h2] Positif [/h2]
Comparé à starcom nexus le jeu est mieux sous tous les angles : beaucoup des problèmes de répétitivité, de lenteur, de déplacements sont corrigé.
[h3] gameplay [/h3]
L'exploration de l'espace est bien faite, difficile de savoir ce qui sera trouvé, une civilisation amicale, ennemie, un ancien champ de bataille…
Les combats peuvent finir en grandes batailles avec des dizaines de vaisseaux, mais majoritairement vous contre 4-5 vaisseaux
vous améliorez et personnalisez son vaisseau avec des nouvelles technologies que vous découvrez, achetez ou pillez en explorant
[h2] Négatif [/h2]
[h3] Équipage [/h3]
L'amélioration de l'équipe est trop limitée, 6 points de talent à attribuer entre 6 personnages à tous les niveaux ( 4max).
[h3] Bug[/h3]
bug graphique : en quittant la map, parfois votre vaisseau se téléporte,
dans le chantier naval, parfois impossible de placer des éléments. je n'ai pas eu d'autres bug.
[h3]Mission[/h3]
La quête principale a à la fois les meilleures missions et les pires : certaines missions sont incroyablement chiantes.
[h2] Conclusion [/h2]
Un bon jeu d'exploration, un combat spatial divertissant, je recommande le jeu.
MOOOOOOOOOOOORE StarCom,please!!!!!
Decent sequel to Starcom: Nexus, better looks and refined gameplay.
Open world spaced exploration game. Great, fun and engaging. Loved from start to finish
This game is a breath of fresh air. Easy to grasp, it gives one the opportunity to explore an interesting universe, trade, do research and design (and re-design...and re-re-design) ships and take them into battle. I had a really fun time, the story is interesting, the difficulty is not too steep, the grind is just enough to make achievements gratifying. I loved it and I'll definently play it again.
An sich wäre das Spiel sicherlich ganz ok, aber mit der deutschen Übersetzung möchte ich es nicht Spielen. Gendersprache hat da nichts zu suchen und ein Satz wie: "Der:die Kommandant:in gibt seine:n Erste:n Offizier:in einen Befehl" ist einfach nur furchtbar. Klar ich könnte das Spiel auf Englisch stellen, aber ich will so einen Müll nicht unterstützen, deswegen: Refund!
Love it
Great game never crashed. 40 hours felt like 5
Every time I boot up this game I think of the Rick and Morty episode where they are playing the super realistic space game so its just a huge empty void for countless hours. I'm not saying that there is nothing out in the vast reaches of this game, but it sure does feel like it enough of the time, so I got sad and turned it off.
This game isn't the easiest one to recommend to people. While it is extremely fun to play, never buy it if it isn't on sale. Depending on your ability to learn the game swiftly and your level of patience, this game can be completed easily or it can be completed quickly; that means you can grind everything out or you can speed through it if you know what you're doing. The more you read and pay attention to, the more you're rewarded.
The only thing that could make this game better is a post game. You get to a point where there isn't much to do. I would love if there were bigger ships and bigger fights after you complete the game. Maybe a paid DLC or a sequel that carries your save over could fix that.
So much fun for every age, love love love it
Начать обзор стоит с той информации, что меня прет от всего космического. Звездолеты, планеты, ксеносы, всякая неизведанная эпическая хрень и прочие космические движения. Все это имеется в этой игре. Почему-то сильно напомнило "Рейнджеров", но там больше про цивилизацию, а здесь про исследование чужой вселенной и я исследовал ее всю, я исследовал даже тогда, когда мой собственный экипаж присылал мне уведомления, что я е**утый и исследовать тут уже нечего.
Сюжет: интересный, довольно эпичный, дает понять насколько же ты мелкий таракан в этой вселенной.
Боевка: простенькая, но не надоедает до самого конца.
Строительство кораблей: на своем корыте вы будете исследовать космос и устраивать геноцид (по желанию) ксеносов. Конструктор довольно простой, но все же можно построить что-то красивое и мощное. По мере открытия новых модулей вы будете регулярно перестраивать свой кораблик с нуля. Довольно залипательное занятие.
Графика грасивая, разрабы заморочились. Планеты, звезды, прочие космические обьекты выглядят классно.
Куча второстепенных квестов, многие из которых начинаются/продолжаются по мере того, как экипаж "проанализирует" данные после нахождения какой нибудь инопланетной шляпы. Также дают подсказки по выполнению квестов, если коммандир тупит. Однажды я пытался уничтожить базу на орбите, но что-то с планеты ее постоянно восстанавливало и после нескольких попыток, мой помощник намекнул, что идея тупорылая и надо что-то другое придумать, я бы и без нее разобрался, но все же...
А как-то раз исследовал "цепочку" систем, в которых разраб явно издевался надо мной.
Еще была грустная история про молодую расу, которая сидела на своей планете и посылала сигналы в космос...
Команда общается между собой и вообще комментируют многие действия и события. Создается впечатление "живой" команды. На базе есть что-то вроде журнала оповещений для персонала, мелочь, но приятная.
Игру крайне рекомендую, взял по фулл прайсу и вообще не жалею. Да и цена ни о чем.
By the time I got around to writing this I hadn't played in nearly a couple of months (when checking my game list of things to uninstall)
I realised I got to a point in this game where it wasn't completed, but I played a very decent amount of; yet had no real compelling reason to go back
Early on it's very good, you feel a sense of progression both in story and tech advancement - building up your ship , getting better weapons and systems is very fun and I enjoyed that element.
But by mid-late game it really grinds to a halt. You're doing the same repeating cycle over and over; go to a new system, scan stuff, maybe do an rng event, maybe fight a bit, and so on. System after system - and none of it really means or impacts anything, beyond perhaps you triggered some other quest gate you had long forgotten about, and get a few resources you probably already have lots of.
That's the other problem, the resources. It's an absolute chore to decide how you want to upgrade your ship (have to fly back to HQ) then since various traders only trade certain items you pretty much need to visit most of them (all over the galaxy) to balance out what you might want. It's just a massive pain to even bother with, to the point that it's just easier to out-range an enemy and kill them even though you might be subjectively 'weaker'.
The story also really loses its' way and I found myself just engaging in the affairs of other lifeforms' tasks and it might unlock something story related along the way, but I wasn't hugely invested in it by that later point.
On the plus side the characters are pretty interesting. the science lady was particularly amusing, and the alien species genuinely felt like that had their own different ways of thinking and agendas.
That all aside it is genuinely enjoyable as a sort of space explorer game - I'd give it a neutral rating if I could - it's somewhat akin perhaps to something like Freelancer, except worse in almost every way except modern (albeit basic) graphics.
This is, by a good margin, one of the best space-faring games available.
I think outside the box. I don't approach problems the normal way, but notice small details and find new ways. This game goes beyond any other I've played in rewarding lateral thinking and unconventional solutions.
The ability to customize your ship without penalty allows true freedom in how you interact with your environment. It allows a steady progression that isn't pre-defined, and allows you to try different approaches without feeling like you're handicapping yourself. In fact, it even links with the workshop to allow you to share ship designs with the community and to try theirs.
I went in expecting to enjoy the game's trading and exploration. But the subtlety of the deep lore surprised me. The ability to handle different races in different ways allows you to make the universe your own based on your personal choices (and abilities).
I simply cannot recommend this game enough. On or off sale, it delivers. I only wish there were more game once it's all complete. It truly will leave you wanting more, which is where the community sharing really comes into play.
Good mix of exploration, combat and humor
7.5/10 Nice little Space Exploring Game with relaxing music and sometime butt clenching arcade action!
Highly recommend for explorers and expanse/void loving nerds
The space exploration aspect of this game is incredible.
Simpelt lækkert univers. Mangler dog en smule for at blive spillet igen og igen efter at have gennemført spillet.
10/10 amazing game. The art, sound design, world building, plot, all perfect. I would 100% reccommend to anyone. Great game!
Игра качественная. Сделана с душой. Он начала до самого финала!
Fun little indie game, bought after seen one of Jingles Youtube vids and was not disappointed
Cool ... I never finished it though, so ... eh?
I enjoyed the game so much the only thing that I didn't like was the story ended I wanted more and wish there way more too.
Great fun, has a small reminder of early game of Asteroids.
Really liking the space travel. Enjoy folks!
Star Trek 2D
Первые несколько часов интересно, но потом наступает софтлок. Софтлок наступает когда исследуешь все доступные звёздные системы. Софтлок заключается в том что полети туда не знаю куда сделай то не знаю что. Ну то есть есть задание "слетай снова к заброшенной станции наблюдения" а где она эта станция х@й её знает - иди ищи её по всей галактике, маркера не будет.
Поиграйте лучше в первую часть:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/863590/Starcom_Nexus/
Very nice gameflow, I like the puzzle parts where you sometimes have to figure stuff out for yourself, not just wait for a quest to update. Combat is dynamic and possible for several different playstyles, ship upgrade and design actually matter. Biggest downside for me are the default keybinds. They seem to favour playing with both hands on the keyboard, not primarily keyboard + mouse. Slightly weird at first but you learn pretty quick.
GREAT EXPLORING GAME, LOVE THE SHIP BUILDING AND SOME OF THE QUESTS ARE RATHER AMBIGIOUS.
Nice 20 hour or so game, I'd give it a 7/7.5 out of 10. Engaging but wears thin after a while, and some of the quests are hard to make out. Still, made me read a walkthrough to see the ending. Would buy again.
This is what I play when I want a chill experience.
so why not
Wow, I wasn't expecting it. This was really good and not as "simplistic" as it looked on gameplays and screens.
Positives:
- Fun to build your own ship
- Good combat once you have more toys to play around with
- Good writing
- Fun and well-made banter among your crew
- Many interesting short stories on planets
- A nice amount of side missions with no hand holding where you had to read the description and figure out what to do.
- The difficulty level felt perfect for me so the game stayed satisfying.
Negatives:
- The first 2-3 hours make the game look very simple, empty and uninteresting
- Multiple moments were I had to fly around the explored part of the map back and forth trying to figure out how to unlock more content, or it was blocked behind a resource requirement that was a grind to get.
- My Crew reached their max XP limit and stopped leveling somewhere around the 70% point of the game.
- By the end it felt like the points of interest on planets got a little bit old and there was nothing new and surprising (they didn't repeat, just not as many memorable and surprising moments on planets like in the mid-game).
There's something magical about this game. The ship building really is the highlight of the game. There were times when the game felt frustrating with what appeared to be a lack of direction. Not the case though as it was usually from my own inability to pay attention to hints and crew banter. After I started to use the Log and its search function.
Thank you for this amazing game
Yes. Fans of Maelstrom and Transcenence will enjoy this immensely/
im completly lost in space
Probably the first time I review a game so I'll keep it short. This game is truly Star Trek in spirit if not in IP. It's got combat but doesn't limit itself to it, it's got oodles of exploration, it's got feisty insectoids. Dialogue and crew banter is good, story isn't anything ground breaking but well tied together. Could some aspects be polished, could it go further with the exploration content? Sure. Even so, 9/10 for me, well worth the price and look forward to their next title.
Extremely fun game, didn't play the first one but it wasn't needed to enjoy this one. Looking forward to more playthroughs.
Incredible game - so much entertainment.
I did not think this would be a game for me, however I gave it a try - and now I am on my second playthrough!
I end up having the "ohhh, I just need to do this thing, then I can go to bed" and then I just need to do this other thing as well - then I will go to bed.
It is well written and addictive.
The game was a lot of fun. The story is good. Love the Star Trek feel of it.
Game is good except for some of the planet RNG stuff can become burdensome when you get a bunch of bad outcomes.
Upplevs som ett tidigt 2000-tals spel med 2 D grafik och dialog bilder från ett tidigt Star Trek spel.
Surprisingly entertaining space game. If you like building your own space ships, exploring, resource gathering, and a bit of strategy, you will like this. You only get one ship but it is 100% able to be customized to your strategy or play style. The only downside is some of the more advanced components only appear near the end of the story and limit the amount of time you get to play with those new techs. Otherwise good job!
I was enjoying this game until I seem to have somehow lost after I received a message that the Alethia was lost because I didn't open the gateway. Weird because I didn't know that was an issue, no warnings. My impression was I was about 1/2 though the game but I guess not.
Basically an expanded version of Starcom Nexus. Better particle effects than I remember. I would swear some of the music and sound effects are the same but the atmosphere is still good. I played that game all the way through several years ago. I have a review of that too.
I'm pretty sure I got this in Early Access but it's languished in my backlog until now. This time there are better annotations on systems/quests, but you still better be making notes on the map (right click star map, there is a checkbox on the starmap too to highlight unexplored areas which includes traders - I'd turn that on too). You can set auto-aim in your Ship Systems (default Z) which I recommend at least for asteroid field farming. I'm not a Trekkie, but this is clearly inspired by that, exploration is the focus. So far I haven't noticed any bugs and the last game was well made too.
3/15/26 - I 'finished' the game yesterday. There were still maybe half a dozen side things I could have done. It's a great game, I would recommend especially to Trekkies. I do have some nitpicks.
- Resource scarcity. Even sometimes just logging in to farm for materials, and doing some trading, which I did a fair bit, I never had enough materials to build the last two ship classes at all. I finished the game with over 1900 research points remaining, and only two weapon types maxed out.
[spoiler] The problem is even a cursory look will show you some of them are not worth pursuing. I focused mostly on speed and range (missiles/plasma) and never built past Cruiser. Drones are underpowered. If you manually aim you get a tighter spread which means you can pick things apart more easily with Plasma and the range becomes enough to out range most things until end game, it doubles as perfectly good at shooting down drones and missiles too which means Havoc guns or whatever serve no purpose, this is fine but why would you use anything else? Lasers have heat problems, Plasma also doesn't have any heat so less to worry about and less spaces on designs too. Plasma is hands down the best all around choice and it's what you start with. Shields require manual activation, which immediately turned me off those too, I only needed forward deflectors and then I'd scuttle backwards picking things apart. Fixed guns might be okay, but they're fixed and short range and didn't seem worth it either. What I'm saying is Plasma is fine, Missiles are fine, everything else could use buffs. The gravity thing you're forced to use would have been a lot cooler if you could use it to do things like throw enemies in to the sun or whatever. Sure you can KIND of do that but not without eating a lot of ♥♥♥♥ which makes it not worth even trying.
[/spoiler]
Missing QoL things:
- UI scaling, this might be the one most needed. Everything is tiny on my 2K gaming monitor and I was forced to zoom in and out constantly to see anything and sometimes items are like 2 pixels. The game does mostly a good job at marking important things which are this small but not always.
- Warp gate radius is tiny, so autopilot often overshoots forcing you to out of the star map and back to the regular game to press the warp again before you can use it. Not game breaking but annoying.
- Autopilot, while it can map through warp gates which is cool, also always prioritizes those even it's 10x faster to just fly across empty space. It also pumps the breaks far too early when approaching stations and goes well out of its way around 'friendly' ships to the point where you're better off doing it manually.
Still overall well worth the time and effort. The game doesn't spoon feed you everything, you do have to solve some puzzles. I'd love to see a substantial DLC expansion or a 3rd game. Keep up the good work!
3/4/26 - TIL you can mouse over the type of mineral in a trading station and it will tell you what modules you have that use it and how much you need to build one. Super useful.
3/3/26 - You can die at 98% hull somehow. I assume this is from the crew module or whatever but there is absolutely no in game feedback about that. I still had 9/10 support staff alive too. This really should either be indicated or removed. It sucks pretty bad to lose like 30 minutes of whittling down an enemy fleet dancing around just to get killed out of nowhere with no warning.
Nice game, interesting story line and that drove things forwards.
Ability to select different research paths to increase capabilities with different branches.
Recommended.
For an early release game, this game is worth the money. The play area is huge. The amount of universe development is excellent. So many mysteries to uncover and solve. I've gotten lost in the game and forgotten to go to bed a couple of times.
exploração com bom enredo e combate recomendo pra quem gosta do gênero
good space game, exploration, secrets and combat
Thank you for giving us a game that feels very Star Trek at this level of quality.
Is it the best game you will ever play? Probably not. Is it great fun and delivers on what it says on the box? Absolutely yes. You explore weird space stuff, you talk to aliens through various means, and you will probably miss some things if you play like me! Enjoy your time in this little gem, it is moments well spent.
Chill, good combat, fun story and some clever writing. Insane that this is all just one (very skilled) person. Lots of chuckles as my crew played "I spy" to kill time while I was exploring empty nothingness.
It's more Starcom! Which is great. Highly recommended.
Jingles approved. No need to say anything else
Perty good game ya'll. Peace
It's quite awesome even tough it looks simple.
Combat and progress are satisfactory.
Really enjoy this game. If you like space games with some resource collection and upgrading ships, you will too.
This is a very nice space exploration game. It's not overly difficult, it's just fun and it has a lot of charm. It has an engaging story, you get to build your own ship then then upgrade/improve it, you get to shoot up a lot of bad guys with it on you travels. But the biggest draw of this game is the exploration of the galaxy, it's very addictive which I imagine is why about 25% of players have the end game achievement, which is way above average.
So...
I played this game for 40+ hours over a small number of days.
Which I have not done since I was much much younger.
If you have found memories of Starflight and Star Control, this is the first game Ive
played in decades that has done that.
To the devs:
Thank you, this was a blast.
This is a wonderful little space exploration game, where you control your single Starcom starship (an organization very similar to Star Trek's Federation) while exploring an alternate dimension that you've been trapped in. There's a lot of Star Trek inspiration here, and most of the gameplay is traveling from system to system, exploring planets, encountering anomalies, and meeting new alien cultures. The writing is excellent, and does a great job of portraying the feeling of exploring an unfamiliar galaxy. In true Star Trek-esque fashion, there will often be ways to resolve conflicts/anomalies that don't involve pew pew, which is satisfying to find.
There are some RPG mechanics, as your command crew has various skills which determine the success or failure of some anomalies. This gives you research points, which you can spend in the skill tree to unlock different technologies and abilities.
The combat is inspired by twin-stick shooters; if you play with a controller it largely becomes this. Your primary weapon, initially, are plasma cannons that have a 360 degree firing arc, allowing you to shoot in any direction. You can research other weapons also via the aforementioned skill tree.
Holy hell, this game is amazing. I get very strong vibes from Star Sector, Mass Effect (lore wise) and Star Trek. I've enjoyed every second so far and will give the first a game a try as soon as I have finished this one. Absolutely awesome!
I love this game. It's fun, addictive, gorgeous in it's simplicity and just a great little gem.
the ship designer is neat, sad it wasn't a fully sandbox and reactive galaxy.
One of the best games I ever played! :-)
This game is an absolute gem! A lot of people saying it gives off Star Trek vibes and I can confirm it absolutely does. Combat is fun but the main point of the game is the exploration. It actually made me think of Stellaris in a lot of ways, only the anomalies are a LOT more interesting and well-written. And there's SO MANY of them! I was no joke like 50-60% of the way through the game's main story before I finally saw a repeat anomaly. So far I've seen a few that are repeats but they're so rare it's actually amazing, and often even if they are repeats they're written in a way that reminds you that you've seen this before. It really scratches that "boldly going where no one has gone before" itch, as even though there are other races and empires in this universe, humanity barely has a presence here so you're basically the first "human" to go anywhere.
Again, the game is extremely enjoyable for the price. I'm about 30 hours in now and I haven't finished the main story and I'm pretty sure there are still tons more star systems to find. I have however maxed out my crew level which is kind of a bummer, so I guess that aspect of progression kinda stops too soon. The only other real gripe I have is that when it's time to move up to a bigger ship class, you can't upgrade your existing ship you have to start over from scratch every time. Not a huge pain but I would rather be able to modify my existing ship to fit the new modules. Other than those 2 things I have nothing but praise for this game, and I'm certainly going to check out Starcom Nexus next (even though the ships look kinda rough in that one).
Yes, I played 34 hours at the time of the review. Yes, I liked it for the first 20 hours or so. It's a lovely time sink. I paid the local currency equivalent of US$13,00 for the bundle of this game and the previous one and I think that's a fair price for the entertainment it gave me for 20 hours. However, beyond that time running the game feels like heading out to a date with someone you know you need to ditch. Purchase at your own risk.
Do you remember Journey, the game that was some student's thesis on game storytelling? Starcom Unknown Space seems to be a study on every time gate you can place in a game while toying with a player's expectation for progress or reward: travel time accumulates despite fast travel, there's random drops for tech progress, and random number generation for mission success. There's missions that can be reattempted or reset only after heading back to the home base half a galaxy away, the research screen is gated behind one specific location (the home base, although it's just comms), vague or inexistent hints to progress quest lines, ideas hidden behind crew member pop-up dialogueswhich you may miss if you stood up to get some coffee while traveling from one side of the map to the other. There's an autopilot function that can help with the travel, but be aware that if there's neutral or friendly ships near jump points the autopilot might not be able to resolve this.
The game flows as follows: Travel to a system, manually move to a planet, press X to analyze it at which point the game tells you if the planet has something to do for you. Then you press X again to do such thing. Sometimes it's just resources and others it's some item that moves the story forward. The player may even be faced with dice rolls to see if the mission was a success or a failure based on a dice plus whether you picked the right crew member to drop all the relevant skill points on. Then, travel back to the home base just to reset missions and talk to NPCs. Of course, you can respec your crew for the RNG missions, but this is not done at the base but at a planet you randomly find. Oh, and make sure to manually manoeuvre into the path of some comet to get the required item to make it work.
At the end of the 34 hours I feel like there's all of three interesting puzzles not based on RNG in the entire map.
The good: it's nice to see a game that can be enjoyed for one day that does not require a $2,000 rig. Battles can be a nice challenge and be visually entertaining.
Installed started playing...POOF! ... 3 hours gone.
Highly recommend if you like a space exploration, research tree, spaceship crew says snarky things kind of game.
Upd:
Переклассифицировано: из просто "Хорошие игра" в "Очень хорошая игра".
Причина: Великолепный сюжет. Я как будто ещё один "Вавилон 5" посмотрел.
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Определённо хорошая игра.
Да, оружия маловато, да, геймплей незамысловат.
Но, затягивает. Прикольная гомза, мне понравилась.
Like many others recently, I bought the game on a recommendation from The Mighty Jingles. I finished it because the game was easy to get immersed in and fun to play. The exploration aspect of the game is its strongest feature, and carries you through most of the run. Even when you are doing endgame objectives, you will be exploring new space and trying to gather clues. The keyword-searchable log system really helps in terms of trying to figure things out. I like the combat system also. I died a couple times doing dumb, reckless things, which feels fair. If you play smart and to your strengths, you can mostly avoid this. The game also allows you some choice of play style--you can make peace with many alien factions you meet, or you can keep them as enemies.
I will definitely be playing another run soon to check out higher difficulties, some different endgame decisions, and experiment with a couple weapon systems that I didn't have the research points to fully get into. The previous game, Starcom: Nexus, is on sale right now through Steam and was an instant purchase for me. I bought Unknown Space at full price and definitely feel like I got my money's worth. I sincerely hope the developer makes more Starcom in the future.
I love it. Its not to difficult to get into, but the more you progress, the more you need to remember. Great story, good vibe. Very Star Trekkie, but in its own right. Yeah, really a very good game.
I played the heck out of this game. I tried a bunch of different ship weapons, generally had fun with the combat, and really enjoyed the exploration.
Some minor issues such as some quests/missions being very confusing or even bugged, but those were the exception not the rule. You don't really get all the research points you need to try literally everything, but honestly by the time you get to endgame you probably know what configuration you want your ship to be in anyway.
The ship builder was a lot of fun once I got the hang of it. I just really can't complain about this game much. I mean, I guess travel times can be a bit long (until certain things happen).
Honestly it was just nice to have a game I could sink my teeth into that had a beginning, middle, and end. And a decent proper science fiction story as well that is wrapped up well with multiple endings. I actually think this game is worth full-price.
Amazing indie game. Must-play for any space exploration fans.
The game is great. I like stylistic and design choices, graphics and sounds are nice and organically filling the story. The main storyline is not trivial and interesting to find out. There are no too boring parts — it's always something new and changing: new races, new worlds, new quests, new ship parts. So the feel of progression is here for the whole game.
And one of the main parts of the game is building a ship. I was always a fan of such editors, when you have cell-based structure and different parts and then you're free to do whatever your heart desires. It allows to get something different every time you're getting back to the shipyard. Resource balance is quite good and you're always searching for something to expand your construction capabilities.
So, in general, ++ game.
About little downsides: one of the main downsides is that there are (for some reason) limits.
The limit for a crew level is 4. Why? Why not add possibility to get lvl 5 (which seems possible)? It loses the feel of progression investing anomalies after reaching XP limit. And 6 more points would not make the game unbalanced.
Then the limit for max hull. The whole game you're seeing giant battlecruisers of other races — Nimione, Brodigars, Wiskamug, etc. — and you're expecting: one day I'll build it. But no. You will be hard-limited to 155 tiles and that's it, and still there will be much bigger ships than yours. But why? Just give a very expensive option to get a battlecruiser core near the endgame with unlimited hexes — and give people freedom to create! Instead, you have to edit save and game files manually to allow that...
The second main con is that AI is stupid. I have started the game on “Normal” difficulty, but almost immediately went to 1.6, then to 2x, then to 3x, and the game still feels too easy… It's just AI movement feels like bugged. They are “stuck” on the verge of plasma/fixed guns range and then rotating there in one place. That way you can easily destroy their weapons and then kill them without any issue. And also, their weapons target drones and missiles first. So as long as you have at least 1–2 missile launchers or 1 drone station — you're invincible. On 3x difficulty I had almost no challenge after 1/3 of the game. Even the final battles (with the spiral station and battlecruisers) were easy for the same reasons. If AI would have a little bit more engines and would actually charge to get in range and unload all weapons — it would be much more interesting.
So, don't get me wrong, the game is really good. It's just that if AI would be a little bit better, and after ending the game it added some random-generated unlimited universes with random-generated AI ships (or randomly downloaded from Workshop :) ) with increasing damage/hexes every time and gave unlimited hull — I would easily spend 140h here instead of 40h. Would be great, but it is what it is. Still, excellent journey.
Scratches the space exploration itch!
Great game!
57h of play time when writing this, and enjoied every second of it! Kudos to the devs, this is an engaging and fun to play littte game with much replayability potential. Can't recomment enough!!
interesting combat, should include the ability to use astronomical observation from space telescopes to find new star systems,
Excellent little game. Could do with being longer. A good excuse for a sequel I think
The game is very engaging, well-made, but! The game is very sensitive; I can't complete it a second time because there are no active quests; I'm stuck somewhere in the middle.
I played this through, and went back to try the original game. Both are very good, with the UI slightly improved in the sequel. Recommended
Really good game. Story feels like a cross between Star Trek Voyager and Stargate's Ori arc.
Art direction is excelent. Combined with the ship customization and resource management aspect it really makes you feel those "lost in space" vibes.
Lengt is also perfect. Not so long that it overstays it's welcome but also not too short.
In my opinion more than worth it's full price.
Really enjoyable space exploration and combat game, reminds me a bit of star control, you control one ship but you have the freedom to design it the way you want, fairly large research tree and map, took me around 25 hours to beat.
The only negative is that sometimes it felt like I was a bit "stuck" i.e. missing direction where to go next as I ran out of active objectives and you have to solve that by exploring and waiting for dialogue to understand what to do next.
Fun RPG spaceship game with ship customization, excellent visuals and very immersive. Worth a buy!
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The game is nice enough - you fly ship, do tasks, explore, do events.
Main fun is combat, shooting away parts of enemy ships which disables their weapons and stuff (and eventually blows them up). This can become for the most part a bit trivial eventually, as you progress tech tree, most typical enemies can become kinda too easy to beat [spoiler] (at least with the fixed gun tree, once you build bunch of them angled on your side)[/spoiler]. There are few enemies/fights here and there that are an exception, but mostly.
Planetary events become kinda boring over time as one ceases to be all that invested in them, though there are variable outcomes and some choices to be made that are meaningful.
I dunno if there is some final boss yet.
Most interesting part of replayability is probably about trying different weapon combinations as you can't really unlock everything in single playthrough.
