2012 started off as a year of renewed hope and possibility following the bitter taste Sword of the Stars II left the space 4x market with, with new games on the way hoping to redeem an under-served sub-genre. Sadly despite the best efforts of Kalypso, Iceberg, and newcomers Amplitude, no-one could quite hit the mark. Going into 2013 then, there was nothing really on the radar until a preview build of StarDrive was dropped onto my lap. Well, I say dropped, but really I should lie and say a wormhole opened and it flew out and hit me in the face. Debut title from indie-newcomers Zero Sum Games, StarDrive seems to have taken notes on the recent space 4x release and tried to learn from their success and mistakes.

For starters, it forgoes the flashy 3D engines of Sword of the Stars II or Legends of Pegasus, instead keeping it to a simple top-down interface that looks 3D, but isn’t quite 3D. What is that? 2.75D? Anyway – it’s also got several hallmarks you’d expect from a game like this and a few you may not. Big, randomly generated galaxy maps, ship customisation (think Pegasus but with more flexibility), race customisation like in Endless Space, Empire management… space battles (not like Endless Space). It reminds me a little of Galactic Civilizations, in a way, and everything seems familiar so you shouldn’t have any trouble just dropping into this game and giving it a go.

Ships can range from fighters, to freighters, to massive dreadnoughts. That’s a frigate

It’s real-time as well, so there are no turns or anything, not even for combat: you can set the speed manually, with a slow and ‘pause’ button if you need to take stock of the situation. Travel between solar systems is done via warping (and there are environmental effects that can prevent warp), and warping can be enhanced by placing down subspace projectors. This part of the game isn’t really explained well, as it’s hard to tell what a good placement plan is for these projectors, especially since they cost upkeep, but there benefits can be felt. Expanding your empire means colonising other solar systems, and to help boost your new colonies you can build freighters to ferry food, production and even new colonists to these new worlds – a process that can take a while if they’re far away.

StarDrive has a certain charm to it as well – if you look at the names of all the different species, the way they talk on the diplomatic screen… you can see their influences plain and simple, which is kind of endearing. There are also hints of a lot of potential exploration value – pre-warp species, ancient artefacts and terrors, if Zero Sum can build on this, it could really add an extra dimension to the game other than expansion and fighting.

The diplomacy screen scared the shite out of me when it first popped up

StarDrive still has a way to go yet – but unlike Pegasus or SOTS, which could hide behind their excellent visuals, this game has no such luxury. The fact then that what we’ve seen and played so far looks promising is reassuring, as there’s unlikely to be any nasty surprises. Even now, the game is pretty playable, with no major bugs or glitches that could be lurking, but there are several gameplay elements that need sprucing up. Fleet battles, for example, need a bit of work, although mainly because of the Fleet behaviour AI. There’s also a lot of clunkiness to the interface. As you unlock new techs, more ‘pre-set’ ship load-outs unlock, but you can also create your own as well. Figuring you what’s good and what’s bad though is a bit of a chore, as essentially all you have is some numbers to work with. Also, if you do end up creating your own load-outs, the build menu can get a little crowded, and there’s no way to filter out the pre-sets (And no way to tell the stats of a ship from the build menu itself, only the Shipyard). It’s a stark contrast to the diplomacy and tech screens, which are all very intuitive and give a lot of feedback to the player.

What it lacks in truly ‘original’ ideas, StarDrive seems to make up in execution: the team have looked at what has worked in the past and used it to their own advantage. The code seems pretty complete now, so there’s unlikely to be anything brand new to see, but provided they work out some of the kinks and flesh out some of the features that are still lacking, then this could actually be something special. You won’t even miss the SOTS2 or Pegasus level of visuals, as the fake 3D affect actually works pretty well. We’ll be keeping an eye on this one, and you should too.

Most Anticipated Feature: Designing your ships is pretty cool when you can figure it all out.