Between the Stars on Steam

[trek]

This game came out in EA for sale yesterday for $17.99. Price is good until June 4 when it will revert to $19.99. There is a Demo which is the prologue and play duration is about an hour.  BTS is a space-shooter-rpg game. I'd call it a combo of Fractured Space-X4 Lite with a little of Rebel Galaxy thrown in. I DL'd the demo with low expectations considering the two-man team dev and low price.

I have to say that this game IMHO is a little gem. The capital ship combat is much deeper than I expected. You have to maneuver you vessel frequently to protect both side of you ship. You have a wide array of weaponry including my favorite a "nuke launcher" which you can manually guide to hit the exact spot on the enemy ship you target.

You dock at stations (but no going inside), and up pops a screen with crew and weapons management. There is also scrapping and crafting skills and even a sick bay for healing wounded crew members.  There is a system map and a warp drive on your ship for distant planets. At the station you can pick and choose your missions like bounty hunting, etc.

When boarding enemy vessels you get another pop-up screen that's using a boardgame-like mechanic of a dice-roll and you go through various options you can choose to resolve the encounter. Not my favorite part of the game but it works OK.

The graphics are beautiful and the music is very good for an indie game. Special FX like explosions are 1st rate as well and the sound is great too. I especially like the spooling up sound of the warp drive.  The voice acting is variable as it goes from bad to good sporadically. According to the devs the game is only 50% complete and you WILL be able to land on planets. They've already issued a patch as of this morning.

Anyway, if you're interested go over to Steam and give the Demo a try and let me know what you guys think.  I keep going back and playing it  more and more as it seems to have a special charm all its' own at least for me.

Almost forgot, the enemy faction is called the "Children of the Sun." Reminds me of that song from 1979 by the Aussie Rocker Billy Thorpe also titled "Children of the Sun". The devs missed an opportunity by not including it in the game. Last time I heard the track was on the second season of the mini-series "Fargo" on the FX channel. YouTube has it though if you want to give it a listen.

[Jarhead0331]

This was on my wishlist and I picked it up yesterday based on feedback, reviews and YouTube videos. I haven't had a chance to check it out yet, though. Something to look forward to.

[Gusington]

It sounds great - I loved Rebel Galaxy. Thanks for posting, I will have to get this.

[Anguille]

 I think it is also available on GOG

[mbar]

I think it is also available on GOG

It is. https://www.gog.com/game/between_the_stars