Rebel Galaxy

Arubeto

Arubeto
Has anyone seen the trailer of Rebel Galaxy, that new space game that is being developed by a two-man team Double Damage Games, whose members were formerly involved in developing - among others - Diablo and Torchlight?

I think the premise sounds interesting:

You control a space ship, but not a small nimble fighter, but instead a larger vessel, something like a frigate (the smallest apparently having a crew of a few hundred). You manage your crew, explore the universe, meet aliens in shady backwater outposts and complete missions to amass credits and eventually upgrade your ship. Polygon describes the atmosphere as similar to that from the Firefly sci-fi series, which sounds pretty promising in my book! As far as I got it, it's a pure single player non-linear open world game focusing mainly on the battles between the large ships.

[video=youtube;Q9jr8uZ-UQI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9jr8uZ-UQI[/video]

The games scope ("dozens of solar s in each of the in game galaxies") and visuals (very colorful, the ship models look a little rough compared to ED) are miles behind Elite: Dangerous, but the overall feeling and atmosphere it conveys are interesting. I see it less as a rival to ED and more as a nice complement to it, filling another niche. It looks fun to control some heavy and slow moving battleships for a change instead of the normal dogfighting in other space games.

The trailer looks like fun, for all it's worth, has a nice "Star Wars" vibe to it and at least one other thing i'd really like to see in ED: NPCs with actual faces :D

So what do you guys think about the game? Could it be fun or will controlling those sluggish behemoths in battle be to tedious? Is it perhaps too ambitious for a team of two + contractors for art and music?
 

Arubeto

Arubeto
Pretty good and in-deep article about rebel galaxy:

http://www.onlysp.com/rebel-galaxy-...ulator-coming-to-ps4-xbox-one-and-pc-in-2015/

Sounds like those two guys managed to pull off a lot of features FD implemented into Elite: Dangerous - some of them apparently even more advanced then in ED:
- player influenced economies on each planet
- professions: mining, pirating, trading, smuggling
- reputation with multiple factions
- signal sources with clear descriptions (distress call etc.)
- jump gates (e.g. hyperjumps in ED) and in system warp (e.g. SC in ED)
- radar range depending on current speed
- security and military vessels scanning you for illegal cargo
- pulling other ships out of warp (e.g. interdictions in ED)

But on top of that, Double Damage (the name of the developing studio) even managed to put in some stuff ED is lacking:
- NPCs with dialog options
- five alien races
- spoken dialog!
- NPCs with faces and character models!
- shady bars in shady outposts where you can accept missions from shady alien barkeepers!
- NPC crew manning your ships stations

Granted, the game doesn't look or sound as good as ED and hasn't the same complex flight model or vast galaxy, but it's still seriously impressive what those two game developer veterans managed to pull off!
 

Helfix

H
Wow surprised I missed this little gem. It reminds of of Nexus the Jupiter Incident, where you control a capital ship instead of fighter sized. This could be a very fun game!
 

CMDR Cillian Raynor

C
yeah i caught that about a month ago. No cockpit views, focused on capital ships, way the universe is built looks boring, seems to be very combat oriented. looks like it has zero immersion factor. I welcome more space games but most of them are really boring unless done by good game designers. This will probably be like a better looking Starpoint Gemini 2. It's like space games made by people who were introduced to the concept by Eve......
 

CmdrJacks

CmdrJacks
I just bought it. Not expecting hundreds of hours from it, not even sure when I'll get a chance to play, but the graphics remind me of homeworld and the combat reminds me of Starfleet Command. On deal for less than £14, and it supports an indie developer. A preview/review here:

[video=youtube;dXP3Xk2bxgY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXP3Xk2bxgY[/video]
 

Arubeto

Arubeto
Bought it on release day, too. Only played a few minutes, visiting a space station, bar and alien quest giver, until the first fight, though, which totally overwhelmed be. I didn't have clue what the heck was going on. Totally different feeling to ED, for sure, but interesting nonetheless. But it definitely needs some getting used to. Didn't have time to learn all the bells and whistles of the fighting gameplay, so had to postpone further attempts until later.
 

CmdrJacks

CmdrJacks
I find it a very polished and fun game. The combat is a bit more tactical than it looks, like the Interplay Starfleet Command games crossed with Sid Meir's Pirates, all on a 2D plane.

I had quick go at mining for a mission using a basic mining laser, there is lots of other mining equipment you can purchase (some very expensive) and different kinds of asteroid fields.


[video=youtube_share;5E4NAoeG-io]https://youtu.be/5E4NAoeG-io[/video]

I'm enjoying it.
 

Falkenherz

Falkenherz
I like it. A small game with none too much depth, easy to learn and short term fun to be had. Just don´t expect too much play time from it. I think I explored every aspect after about 20 hours, and it is very easy once you found the op ship and equipment combination (Barracuda, Mining Laser turrets, Tachyon cannon, DF missiles, ramming shield).
 
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Hellhawk666

Hellhawk666
Bought it the other day. It's OK - a bit old fashioned in its presentation, actually. Some of the control interface feels "sub-intuitive" :)

I've not played it enough to really get a feel for it (tell the truth I don't know if I'll persevere).

- - - Updated - - -

CmdrJacks said:
The combat is a bit more tactical than it looks, like the Interplay Starfleet Command games crossed with Sid Meir's Pirates, all on a 2D plane.
Click to expand...

Good description - that's very much how it seems to me. Personally I'm not keen on the combat mechanism, but it's been implemented reasonably well.
 
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TMB1979

TMB1979
I think Elite has the latent potential to scale up to encompass these kind of gameplay facets (bigger ships, multiple crew members, capital ship battles). However, can every space sim do the opposite and scale down to the personal, intimate level of Elite? That is another way of looking at why Elite remains so popular. Lots of games can do what they do. Not every game can do what Elite does.
 

Wingo

W
Bought it, the day it came out on Steam. For me, it's a real fun game. Easy to learn, easy to use with gamepad. It offers a rich and interesting world with many missions, a multitude of different spaceships and lots of stuff to upgrade. Meanwhile I got 30 plus hours in it, and I'm soon out to play it again.

What I like most, is fighting my way through the Galaxy. As you are mostly confronted with whole enemy fleets, proper tactics are a necessity to save your day. The grafical representation of the fighting is not only beautiful, you are also able to have full orientation; were your most dangerous opponents are and were your allies stand.

-- Out now. There is a universe to save --
 

Memnoch

M
It's a good game but not without its flaws. A bit short, some weird mouse acceleration type thing going on where you can move your mouse all the way across the desktop without having your view budge an inch and some quite frustrating mechanics where ships spawn in out of nowhere in perfect circles and destroy you until you learn to build you ship for speed as the sole way of escaping.

Other than that its worth the money! ;-)
 
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