Starcom: Unknown Space
- September 2, 2024
- Wx3 Labs, LLC
- 21h median play time
Get on Steam"Starcom: Unknown Space" is a single-player survival exploration game set in an expansive, procedurally generated universe. As a pilot of a advanced starship, players must mine resources, upgrade their ship, and complete missions to unravel the mysteries of an unknown galaxy. With challenging encounters, various alien races, and a dynamic environment, Starcom offers a rich and immersive experience for fans of the genre.
Reviews
- Engaging exploration and ship customization mechanics that evoke nostalgia for classic space games like Star Control II and Escape Velocity.
- Well-written story and character interactions that enhance the immersive experience of space exploration.
- Smooth gameplay with a satisfying combat system that balances exploration and resource management.
- Some quests can be vague or confusing, leading to moments of aimless wandering in search of objectives.
- Resource acquisition can feel grindy, with limited availability of certain materials impacting ship upgrades.
- The game may lack replayability due to its linear story progression and finite content.
- story653 mentions
- 30 % positive mentions
- 67 % neutral mentions
- 4 % negative mentions
The story in "Starcom: Unknown Space" is generally well-received, with many players appreciating its engaging narrative and sci-fi themes reminiscent of classic titles like "Star Control 2." However, some critiques highlight issues with pacing, vague mission objectives, and a lack of clear guidance, which can lead to confusion and frustration during gameplay. Overall, while the story is compelling and immersive, it could benefit from improved quest tracking and clearer progression cues to enhance the player experience.
“The story is intriguing and very well written, and despite the things I've mentioned, encouraged exploration.”
“The story kept going where I expected it to be cut and written out on several occasions.”
“The story is engaging and branches out with different smaller plot points.”
“The story kept going where I expected it to be cut and written out on several occasions.”
“The only real bad thing about the game is, the quests will say 'active' and the quest leads will just say something like 'you met with the cxtv people they suspect you're an agent for the trade guild' and this side quest thing will never clear even after you talk with the trade guild many times.”
“The game urgently needs better guidance tools built in to guide you back to the story line.”
- gameplay197 mentions
- 37 % positive mentions
- 60 % neutral mentions
- 3 % negative mentions
The gameplay is generally well-received, featuring a solid core loop of exploration, combat, and ship-building mechanics that many players find engaging and addictive. While some reviewers note that the gameplay can become repetitive over time, the balance of mechanics and the immersive story help maintain interest for a significant duration. Overall, the game builds on its predecessor with improved visuals and mechanics, though some players desire more variety and depth in gameplay elements.
“The game is well made and the gameplay loop is solid.”
“Gameplay is intuitive, well balanced.”
“The gameplay is very fun, the story is engaging, the characters are well written and witty, and the graphics are gorgeous.”
“Sadly, the gameplay is not very deep and can get boring after a few hours, but it's enough to go through the story and finish the missions + explore a bit.”
“The combat rapidly becomes too easy; once you get multiple cannons, it's more of a resource collection mechanic than an actual threat.”
“For example, it will take ~30-45 minutes for a mission that has enough content for about 4 minutes of actual gameplay, the rest is either just trying to get where you need to go, getting lost, getting random new side quests with no real direction to any of them, or just getting bored and giving up.”
- graphics113 mentions
- 54 % positive mentions
- 44 % neutral mentions
- 2 % negative mentions
The graphics in the game have received widespread praise for their beauty and polish, with many reviewers highlighting the stunning visuals of planets, ships, and space environments. While some noted a nostalgic, old-school aesthetic, the overall consensus is that the graphics are well-designed and enhance the immersive experience, making it a significant improvement over its predecessor. The visuals, combined with effective sound design, contribute to a captivating atmosphere that complements the engaging gameplay.
“The graphics are beautifully polished, the music is sublime, but the gameplay is also engaging.”
“Beautiful graphics, great sound, rewarding exploration, and engaging gameplay - what more can you ask?”
“The graphics are nice enough and polished, but everything else seems to be extremely dull.”
“There's a severe lack of cinematic detail and no ground-level visuals except for still images of what are typically pyramids.”
“Visuals: ships, despite being improved somewhat with upgrades, look overly segmented and blocky.”
“Only the performance is pretty bad for the graphics.”
- grinding44 mentions
- 7 % positive mentions
- 2 % neutral mentions
- 91 % negative mentions
The grinding aspect of the game has received mixed reviews, with many players finding it tedious and frustrating, particularly when it comes to resource farming and exploration. While some appreciate the ship-building mechanics and overall gameplay, they note that the grind can feel excessive and minimally rewarding, especially in the later stages. Overall, the game offers engaging elements but suffers from a lack of balance in its resource management and exploration mechanics, leading to a repetitive experience for some players.
“The puzzle of building a ship is nice, but not too tedious.”
“No tedious game mechanics; it just respects your time and is simply fun to play.”
“Not too grindy; you get a nice steady progression.”
“What was fast and well flowing began to feel really tedious and frustrating.”
“Exploring space for quests that only hint at where something may be (so you have to do a spiral or grid search) is extremely tedious.”
“The game is long and grindy.”
- music34 mentions
- 44 % positive mentions
- 41 % neutral mentions
- 15 % negative mentions
The music in the game receives mixed reviews, with some players appreciating its ambient and immersive qualities, while others find it generic and uninspiring. Many suggest that a more dynamic or synthwave soundtrack could enhance the overall experience, and some players express a desire for the option to add their own music. Overall, while the music contributes positively to the atmosphere, it is often described as average and lacking in variety.
“The music is great, the ship building is simple and easy to do, the overall exploration experience is great and the crew writing is believable.”
“The graphics are just beautiful and the atmospheric music is consistently brilliant.”
“This is a really nice game, good lore, chill music, nice battles, tons of exploration and we still get more!”
“While overall atmosphere is very good, I think music is somewhat lacking and generic.”
“The soundtrack is super average and uninspiring.”
“There's very few soundtracks, so it gets repetitive.”
- humor27 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The game features a cheeky and engaging sense of humor, with witty dialogue and amusing crew interactions that enhance the immersive experience. While not overly goofy, the humor is well-integrated into the gameplay, providing funny asides and clever commentary that resonate with fans of space exploration. Overall, players appreciate the balance of humor with engaging storytelling and gameplay mechanics, making for a delightful experience.
“But the gameplay is great and the story can be really immersive and fascinating, with funny little asides by your crew.”
“The game has a nice touch of humor too; planar objects and ships are wildly and disproportionately larger and smaller than they should be, but this is explained in a funny way.”
“The character dialogues are funny and witty.”
- replayability18 mentions
- 22 % positive mentions
- 67 % neutral mentions
- 11 % negative mentions
Overall, the game's replayability is viewed as limited due to its static map and lack of procedural generation, with many players expressing that once the content is experienced, there is little incentive to replay. While some enjoy experimenting with different strategies or builds, the consensus is that the game does not offer significant replay value, making it more suitable for a one-time playthrough rather than repeated sessions.
“A good fun replayability part of the game.”
“I anticipate the majority of replayability will come in the form of taking a very different tech approach (currently I am going lite on armor and buffing repair speed + heavy investment in missiles -- seems to be working so far but I'm sure other approaches are equally good or better).”
“Also a lot of replay value, I start a new run with every new build.”
“Same map every time, so it's pretty limited replay value. I don't see playing it again, mostly because the end game is so frustrating.”
“Should be $15 max considering it has no replay value, being a static game with zero procedurally generated quests/maps.”
“Replayability is a little crippled as the game map was painstakingly crafted and seemingly not randomized, meaning once you've played the game once or twice, you've probably seen everything.”
- atmosphere14 mentions
- 43 % positive mentions
- 57 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The game's atmosphere is generally praised for its beautiful visuals and effective sound design, creating a chill and immersive experience, despite some critiques of the music being generic. Players appreciate the simplistic yet elegant aesthetic, which enhances the overall ambiance, particularly in space exploration contexts. While the game may lack extensive content, its atmospheric qualities and engaging gameplay suggest significant potential for future development.
“The visuals are very nice, the planets and scale are great and some of the atmosphere in some of the systems or universes is top notch.”
“The graphics are just beautiful and the atmospheric music is consistently brilliant.”
“The simple, clear, and elegant aesthetic vaguely reminiscent of an art-deco style contributes to this atmosphere.”
“The atmosphere is helped by the fact that there are little to no unrealistic game mechanics that are not explained lore-wise.”
“The simple, clear, and elegant aesthetic vaguely reminiscent of an art-deco style contributes to this atmosphere.”
“It's not much content right now, but I love the gameplay, the atmosphere, and it has huge potential.”
- optimization11 mentions
- 64 % positive mentions
- 27 % neutral mentions
- 9 % negative mentions
Overall, the game is highly praised for its optimization, with users reporting smooth performance, no crashes, and a polished experience even on older systems. However, there is a contrasting opinion that suggests the performance may not match the quality of the graphics, indicating some inconsistency in user experiences.
“It's very well designed and optimized, the graphics are nice, and the UI is pretty easy to understand.”
“No crashes, performance issues, or bugs during my 50 hours.”
“Flawless performance on my system and no bugs experienced yet on the 1.0 release - well done.”
“Scanning planets with the push of a button, shooting enemies and asteroids, and ship optimization: that's all there is, and honestly, this gets old quite fast.”
“Only the performance is pretty bad for the graphics.”
- stability6 mentions
- 33 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 67 % negative mentions
Overall, the game's stability is mixed; while some players report a smooth experience with minimal bugs, others encounter significant issues with the mission system, including buggy quest directions and lockouts that hinder progress. Despite these problems, many still find the game enjoyable and playable, indicating that while it has its flaws, it can provide a fun experience.
“$20 for approximately 20 hours is a good deal; the game was bug-free in my experience.”
“Runs great.”
“It's a great little game, however, the mission system is buggy and can result in multiple in-progress missions simply going static and failing to proceed.”
“Where it all falls apart is with bad quest directions (this is by far the worst offender), buggy lockouts of quests. It's supposed to be a finished game, but there's a lot of confusion due to poor directions, leading to frustration when quests just don't work.”
“There are a few glitches as well, which detract from the overall experience, even though it's a fun 2D space adventure/shooter.”
- emotional4 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Players appreciate the emotional depth of the game, noting that it evokes a sense of wonder and agency reminiscent of classic space exploration narratives like Star Trek. However, some critiques highlight that the game's overly safe environment diminishes the initial thrill of exploring an uncharted world, leading to a feeling of complacency as the experience progresses.
“I'm a huge fan of Nexus and what that experience made me feel, and again I get that sense of wonder exploring an uncharted star system.”
“One of the very few space-type games that made me feel like I was actually in Star Trek.”
“The first two hours of the game made me feel like I was in a new world establishing a beachhead.”
- character development3 mentions
- 67 % positive mentions
- 33 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Character development in the game is limited, as it focuses more on story and choices within a space exploration context. While there are moments of humor and some character growth, the writing excels more in world-building than in deep character exploration, contributing to a sense of discovery and wonder.
“With minimal effort, there is nice character development with a little humor thrown in.”
“None of this content is procedural, and the writing is pretty good (more so for world building than character development), so the feeling of discovery and wonder is really there.”
“Character development was not highly available, as this was a space exploration game that is more story and choice motivated.”
“The characters felt one-dimensional and lacked meaningful growth throughout the game.”
“I was disappointed by the lack of depth in character arcs; they didn't evolve in a way that felt satisfying.”
- monetization1 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Reviewers suggest that the game would benefit from a prominently featured "sandbox" mode with unlocked technology and infinite resources, which could enhance player creativity and engagement. They recommend marketing this mode as a core feature, highlighting ship design and sharing capabilities on platforms like Steam Workshop.
“The monetization model feels overly aggressive, making it hard to enjoy the game without spending extra money.”
“I find the in-game purchases to be frustratingly necessary to progress, which detracts from the overall experience.”
“The constant prompts to buy premium currency disrupt the gameplay and make it feel more like a cash grab than a well-designed game.”
