Alpha Beta Gamer

Spacejacked is a tough, fast paced and very addictive 2D pixel art shooter/tower defense hybrid in which you must manage multiple rooms at the same time to survive the alien onslaught.

You play the engineer of a ship, stranded in space, facing wave after wave of attacks from evil blob-like aliens. To stave of this threat you must build upgradeable turrets in 3 separate bays of your ship (engine room, robotics and the sick bay) and repair any damage they do to the main terminals. As a last resort you also have a blaster, which is only good for short bursts, but does come in handy for mopping up any aliens tough enough to penetrate your defenses.

The aliens come in a variety of shapes and forms, and pose a formidable treat. It’s a tough game, but also immediately satisfying. The wonderful pixel art visuals, retro soundtrack, and fast paced gameplay give Spacejacked a distinct arcadey feel, and breathe new life into the Tower Defense genre.

An addictive retro infused arcade tower defense game you won’t want to put down.

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The Universim - a beautiful god sim with a universe full of proceduraly generated planetoids - each with their own unique ecosystems.

The planets really are a joy to behold – perfect miniature ecosystems that evolve over time, bursting with life, dynamic weather effects and realistic natural processes.

It’s your job to guide your civilization from the stone age to the space age, and beyond. The AI makes it’s own decisions, but you can influence them, helping them to become the best they can be. You also have direct control of their progression and evolution, researching technologies and making crucial discoveries.

The Prototype may not give you access to any of your god-like powers, but it’ll certainly wet your appetite for future releases. The Universim is shaping up to be a fantastic return to the glory days of god sims – we can’t wait to play around with more of those perfect little planets.

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Last Ark is an interesting roguelike space adventure that sees you controlling a symbiote who’s piloting a craft containing all that remains of the human race, as you search the Universe for a planet that can support life.

As you explore the Universe you’ll have to make some pretty tough decisions in order to manage your energy, health and resource levels. As you search for a suitable home, you’ll need to gather Oxygen and resources from planets ans use solar power to charge your batteries. Resources are used to upgrade the ship and keep your symbiote alive - but if you’re in a pinch, you can sacrifice a human (which will also stop your O2 levels dropping so fast).

There’s a constant balancing act in Last Ark as you race to find a suitable home planet. When you find a planet to land on and set down the game is over - so choose wisely. It has 5 different endings depending on how many humans are left alive, and you’ll have to be a very good captain (or very lucky) to save them all.

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ARC is a creepy Unreal Engine 4 powered first person horror/shooter set on a derelict spaceship controlled by a malfunctioning (and rather untrustworthy) HAL-Style AI.

All is not right on this ship - the crew is all missing, there are some nasty creatures lurking in the corridors and you’re getting dangerously close to a black hole. It’s your job to get the ship to safety, with the aid of a malfunctioning AI which doesn’t seem to care too much about your safety, infact if you die it’ll just thaw aout another crewmate from hypersleep and tell you to get on with it. The voiceover for this AI is a noticeable highlight of ARC, with seemingly inconspicuous statements being make to sound remarkably sinister thanks to the malfunctions in the AI’s speech banks.

The cargo of ARC has broken out of it’s containment and nature has overtaken the ship, leading to some pretty dangerous creatures roaming around, and some vast areas of greenery. The eerie beauty of all this greenery has quite an impact, as it’s really not something you’d expect to see on a spacecraft.

The first half of ARC is an exceptionally tense survival horror with hints of Bioshock and 2001: A Space Odyssey, then things kick up a gear for an action packed finale, full of gravity flipping chaos. Weighing in with a playthrough of around 15 minutes, ARC is a short, sharp blast of intense action and horror, full of spectacle and dark humor. Superb Sci-Fi horror with a pitch black heart.

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Starlite Astronaut Academy is a space exploration and construction game that’s being build in conjunction with NASA, that allows players to build habitats and spacecraft, acquire gear and explore the solar system.

The game has a sandbox focus and multiplayer building action for casual play, modding and trading elements for social play, and science missions you can complete and share with friends.

Officially developed in conjunction with NASA, Starlite: Astronaut Academy will appeal to Minecraft players, space/simulation enthusiasts, future astronauts, and casual game players with an inkling of the right stuff and a taste for the unknown. Starlite: Astronaut Academy will be available for Windows, Mac and iPad in 2015.

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Event[0] is an impressive first person sci-fi narrative thriller where your talk with an artificial intelligence and and explore a deserted space station to find what happened to its missing crew.

The atmosphere and visuals design of the game are excellent, pulling you into this mysterious adventure. Exploring the abandoned station and chatting with the station’s AI that you don’t know if it has a consciousness or not, out to hurt or help you is an interesting and thrilling experience. Conversations with the AI are surprisingly fluid, considering you can type whatever you want into the interface - making you feel like you’re actually having a conversation with a Sci-Fi AI like MU-TH-UR or HAL.

With it’s impressive AI conversations, unsettling atmosphere and mysteriously deserted space station setting, in Event[0] you really could be exploring the aftermath of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Just beware if you suddenly hear “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do….”

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The Chosen is an ambitious open-world online RPG with FPS and strategy elements that allows players to choose their own path between light and darkness, exploring a vast, persistent universe, discovering new civilisations, forging alliances and taking part in epic battles.

The Alpha Demo is single player only, but serves as a nice taster of what the finished game will feel like. It starts off with a slightly clunky handling, but well written section with you floating around in zero-gravity, with things picking up pace once you get your feet on the ground. As you explore the damaged ship your AI will assist you learning the ropes. Although you’re stranded on a damaged spaceship, full of nasty mutants, your character seems remarkably upbeat about the situation (although it may be the painkillers talking), leading to some pleasantly humorous dialogue between yourself and the AI.

Currently early in development, the finished massively multiplayer online game will feature a huge sprawling galaxy for you to explore full of mysteries, new civilisations and rich lore. You’ll be able to build and customise your own ship, hi-jack enemy ships, voice chat with NPCs and trade in a player driven ecomomy.

It’s an impressive project and sounds a lot like what we were promised from Destiny. The single player Alpha Demo shows off some solid foundations for The Chosen, if the developers can bring this level of innovation, wit, graphical prowess and gameplay to the online multiplayer, this could be something rather special.

Check out the Greenlight Page & Download the Free Alpha Demo

Even The Stars is a space exploration game with no objectives, quests or story-lines. You simply wander through space without a purpose, exploring alien planets, discovering strange landmarks, getting lost, getting old and eventually passing away.

You control the movement of your ship with the mouse and keyboard but other actions require you to type commands, such as ‘warp’ or ‘disembark’. When you come across an interesting landmark on a planet (from fun-fairs to Monoliths), you can explore or ‘stay’, allowing you to write a short log about your journey and making you grow a little older. You’ll eventually die of old age and be treated to picture of the universe, with your last route mapped out, accompanied with your logs describing your voyage.

It’s a short, sweet and simple game that encourages exploration for explorations sake. In Even the Stars there’s no levelling up, high scores or objectives, simply the joy of discovering weird stuff in space, writing about it and building your own story – Space Blogging.

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Devouring Stars is a beautiful strategy game where you play gods and titans able to “devour” entire starfields.

Designed to be played just with a mouse, Devouring Stars offers simple but compelling gameplay, with wonderful particle effects and a relaxed atmosphere.

You’re tasked with guiding your Gods/Titans across star systems, devouring starfields on your way to make you stronger, and battling other Gods/Titans who stand in your way. This process is relatively simple, with the intuitive controls mapped to the mouse buttons. As you progress you will unlock new Gods and Titans to use, and you can even combine them by left-clicking on one then right clicking on another.

It's a beautiful, Zen-like and mesmerising take on the strategy genre. If you get stressed out when you play Devouring Stars, then you’re playing it wrong!

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Posts tagged Space