Defect
- July 28, 2016
- Three Phase Interactive Pty Ltd
- 30h median play time
Get on Steam"Defect" is a single-player Science Fiction Strategy game offering 30+ hours of playtime. As a captain, design powerful ships to complete missions, but ensure to build in a weakness for future battles when your crew defects. With 180+ components, create epic-scale ships, exploit designs, and upload successful ones to fight the community's best. The dynamic music system creates a unique musical theme based on your ship's components.
Mac OS
PC
Windows
Linux
Reviews
- The ship building mechanic is engaging and allows for a high degree of customization, making it fun to design and tweak ships for various missions.
- The unique concept of fighting your own previous ship adds an interesting twist to gameplay, encouraging strategic thinking in ship design.
- The game offers a variety of missions and challenges, providing hours of replayability and enjoyment for players who appreciate space combat and design.
- Controls can be frustrating and imprecise, making it difficult to navigate and aim effectively during missions.
- The game suffers from a steep difficulty curve, with some missions feeling overly punishing and requiring excessive grinding to progress.
- The interface and mission design can be cumbersome, with slow restart times and repetitive cutscenes that detract from the overall experience.
- story102 mentions
- 12 % positive mentions
- 83 % neutral mentions
- 5 % negative mentions
The game's story is minimal and serves primarily as a backdrop for its core mechanics, which revolve around ship design and combat. Players build ships to complete missions, only to have their creations stolen by mutinous crews, forcing them to face their previous designs in subsequent challenges. While the writing can be amusing, the overall narrative is not a focal point, with many players finding the mission structure repetitive and the story largely inconsequential to the gameplay experience.
“The game focuses on you building ships to complete various missions; however, you may be tempted to make the best ship, and that's where Defect is unique: you fight your own ships.”
“Initially, you might think that all you need to do in every mission is to build the beefiest combat ship you can afford, but most missions are designed to challenge you to build a ship with very special capabilities to beat it - and just *barely* beat it too, since your current ship will be the final boss of the next mission.”
“The gimmick is that after every successful mission, your crew turns on you and steals your ship. That stolen ship becomes the boss for the next mission you take on.”
“The missions are short, boring, and frankly, annoying.”
“The core mechanic is that you build a ship, do one mission, and then it gets taken away, and you have to build a new ship to do exactly one mission and then fight your old ship.”
“Some of the writing is kind of entertaining, but for all intents and purposes there isn’t really a story.”
- gameplay22 mentions
- 32 % positive mentions
- 55 % neutral mentions
- 14 % negative mentions
The gameplay is generally well-received, featuring smooth mechanics and a clever core concept of battling previous ship designs, which adds strategic depth. Players appreciate the ship-building aspect, though some note a difficulty spike and a lack of clear explanations for mechanics. Overall, while the space combat may be the weakest element, the game offers enjoyable humor and a solid experience for its price point.
“The core mechanic of fighting your own previous ship is clever, and part and weapon variety is significant, and the game contains a variety of missions testing your ship's ability in different specializations.”
“The ship building mechanic is a whole lot of fun, and it makes me wish that they'd gone with a survival mechanic instead of the mission mechanic - survive, destroy enemy ships, gather salvage, upgrade your ship.”
“The gameplay, graphics, and audio all fit the top-down shooter genre perfectly.”
“Its a tough mechanic game where you need intimate knowledge of the equipment.”
“The weakest component of the gameplay, in my opinion, is without doubt the space combat.”
“The core mechanic is that you build a ship, do one mission, and then it gets taken away, and you have to build a new ship to do exactly one mission and then fight your old ship.”
- graphics10 mentions
- 30 % positive mentions
- 40 % neutral mentions
- 30 % negative mentions
The game's graphics are generally well-received, featuring a polished art style and the ability to design visually appealing ships. While some users note that the graphics are relatively basic and occasionally over-saturated, they appreciate the smooth performance and overall aesthetic, especially for an early access title. The combination of good visuals and engaging gameplay contributes positively to the overall experience.
“Graphically, the game is pretty, and it's possible to design some gorgeous ships. The pretty screenshots of spaceships are beautiful, aren't they?”
“I love the graphic style and the freedom you have in ship building.”
“Very polished for an early access title, great art style, funny writing, in-depth ship creation, and challenging missions.”
“The graphics are relatively basic, but that is all that they really need to be.”
“However, the developers did go a little overboard with the neon and the over-saturation of the graphics.”
“Graphically, the game is pretty, and it's possible to design some gorgeous ships, but you see all these pretty screenshots of spaceships above - beautiful, aren't they?”
- humor6 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The humor in the game is well-received, with players appreciating its clever writing and entertaining sci-fi references. Reviewers note that the humor is not just superficial but genuinely funny, contributing to an enjoyable experience alongside solid gameplay and polished graphics. Overall, the game successfully blends humor with its other elements, making it a fun choice for players.
“Very polished for an early access title, great art style, funny writing, in-depth ship creation, and challenging missions.”
“The game is actually funny.”
“Not just a pile of bad Nathan Drake-esque jokes, but actually pretty funny.”
- music5 mentions
- 40 % positive mentions
- 20 % neutral mentions
- 40 % negative mentions
The game's music is praised for its dynamic nature, adapting in intensity as players progress through missions, enhancing the overall experience. Players can also create custom music tracks by placing components on their ships, adding a unique personal touch. However, there are occasional reports of music glitches that detract from the experience.
“Something really interesting (and I found this out after I had recorded my sneak peek), when you are placing components on the ship, you are actually creating a completely custom music track that will play while you are flying it.”
“I really liked the dynamic music in the game; as you’re playing a mission, the music will be relatively soft in the beginning, but as you fight more and more enemies, it gets more intense.”
“There was one time where I think the music messed up; if that wasn’t a bug, then that was some horrible sounding music.”
“There was one time where I think the music messed up; if that wasn’t a bug, then that was some horrible sounding music.”
- grinding2 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Players express frustration with the grinding aspect of the game, particularly when it comes to facing overpowered bosses that necessitate grinding completed missions for better gear. Additionally, concerns were raised about the potential tedium of repeatedly redesigning ships.
“Then, out of nowhere, the game requires that you defeat these two way overpowered bosses to progress, which forces explicit grinding of the completed missions to unlock better weaponry.”
“One thing I was worried about was having to redesign your ship over and over, and I thought it would be very tedious.”
- replayability2 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Players find the game highly replayable due to its challenging levels and the need to improve upon their own performance, providing hours of engaging content. The combination of fun gameplay and a reasonable difficulty curve enhances the overall replay value, making it a worthwhile investment.
“Fun, replayable, with a nice level of difficulty. The levels are always challenging thanks to having to beat your own ship. I'll admit, I can't beat my current ship yet! Hours of fun and plenty of things to do; it's well worth the 6 bucks.”
“As a result of this feature, the replayability of the game is extended.”
- atmosphere2 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- -150 % neutral mentions
- 150 % negative mentions
Reviewers note that while each ship in the game possesses a distinct mood that contributes to the overall atmosphere, the lack of quality voiceover work detracts from immersion and depth.
“Had the developers been able to add quality voiceover work, it would have added depth to the atmosphere and allowed for a far more immersive experience.”
“Each ship has its own unique mood and atmosphere.”
“Each ship has its own mood or atmosphere.”
“The overall atmosphere feels flat and uninspired.”
“The game lacks a cohesive atmosphere, making it hard to immerse myself.”
- optimization1 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The game is well-optimized, featuring good graphics and smooth performance without any noticeable slowdowns or stuttering.
- character development1 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Character development is noted for its unique and fitting art direction that aligns well with the sci-fi theme, although some users find the character designs to be somewhat unconventional. Overall, the distinctiveness of the designs is appreciated.
