Note: Please disregard the play time. I'm running the game without Steam, so it does not reflect my actual play time.

First of all, I would like to correct a common misunderstanding. You do not require 6 people to play. Each ship has 6 roles that can be filled with "up to 6 people". Having one person take care of one thing makes it really comfortable and this is the way, this game is meant to be played. But it is perfectly possible for 3 people to have the responsibility of 2 stations, and fly the ship with its full potential (in a single instance of game client). I have 4 friends that got comfortable with the game, and now we're running comparatively easier set games with 2 separate ships (3 and 2 people per ship). Sometimes I like playing the game solo, even though it's hard to do so and possible only under lower difficulty settings. I'd say having 5-6 people per ship is ideal, but with 3+ people the game is absolutely playable.

Second false information all over the place. You do not need a separate pc with its own copy of the game to be the server. Go in the Steam/Steamapps/Common/Artemis and run artemis.exe. First window should be set to server mode. Now run it again, and make the second window the client. I personally connect my huge TV to my laptop and become the server, use the TV for the server screen (which is also the outside view of the ship), and use my laptop screen for the client screen (which is the screen of whatever role I'm filling). Entering 'localhost' will connect to the server running on the same machine.

I realize that this is more like a troubleshoot, instead of being a review. But in the process of deciding to buy the game, I immediately recognized how awesome this game is. The questions I had was the ones I just described. You don't need this review to know that this game is awesome, it's already all over the place. What you need to know is that the most frightening part of the game (6 people minimum thing), is actually incorrect. Also; it is possible for up to 8 ships to play Co-Op or PvP modes. Talk about awesome.

Me: "Helmsman, set a course for DS3."
Helm: "Aye, Cap'n."
Me: "...A little more to port, Helmsman...no, MY port!"
Helm: "Warp?"
Me: "No, PORT."
Helm: "Roger."
Warp Drive: BRRRRRRRRRRRRWWWWWWWWWWWOOOO
Me: "FUUUUUU-MR ABRAMS, KILL ALL POWER TO THE LENS FLARES AND THE WARP DRIVES!"
Engineer: "...So am I Mr Abrams?"
Me: "You said your name was JJ, right?"
Engineer: "Yeah."
Me: "THEN YES, YOU'RE MR ABRAMS!"
Engineer: "Killing warp power, sir."
Me: "Jesus, thank you Mr Abrams. HELMSMAN! You're relieved from duty, report to the galley and bring daddy another beer."
Helm: "Sir, I'd like to lodge a formal complaint, I have a problem with the way you're running this crew."
Me: "SAYS THE GUY WHO WARP DRIVED US SO FAR INTO THE ♥♥♥♥ING SPACE BOONIES THAT WE CAN'T EVEN FIND A SPACE WAL-MART!! You overshot DS3 by five sectors!"

Easily the best 35 bucks I've ever spent on a video game.

This is not a pretty game, there's no way around that. The sound isn't amazing either and there are technical glitches (see: Data Console). But it's fun. Really, really, fun. And you know what? That's all that matters.

If I had the time, I would make sure to find every person who gets this and add them to my friends list, so we could jam on this all day long. It is an epic game, but do be warned its multiplayer not single player. There are ways to play solo, but its almost impossible to beat anything higher than dificulty 4 solo (there are 12 levels), but the game is meant to be multiplayer with others. That being said, it is everything I wished for in a spacebridge simulation, and I wish more people had this game

Great game! Highly recommended. Best when played LAN in the same room, but still fun online. I purchased one copy and installed it on the other computers in my home and played with my wife and three kids! Requires cooperation and communication skills. You can play it single player if you want by launching one instance of the game as the a server and then connecting to it from the same computer (best to do this from the actual exe file, not from within Steam) as a client in another instance.

The game gets somewhat repetative with the stock missions, but you can play custom-made missions, and they even have a game-master mode. I'm not that familiar with it, but my 7 year old was spawning ships like mad on one mission.

When I ordered the helms man to charge into an enemy missle to save a cruise liner I knew this was a great game

QUICK DISCLAIMER: Ignore my hours of playtime as reported by Steam. I have played a few times and most of the time I am running the EXE outside of Steam. I probably have several hours of game time now.

This game is a little buggy, a little uneven, and does not feel like it's yet been fully realized. Having said that, I can still fully and wholeheartedly recommend it, but with a few caveats that I will get to later. The bottom line is: this game is so much fun! Seriously, if you are into, or were ever into Star Trek then you owe it to yourself to get it. Artemis is a simulation of what it might be like to be part of the bridge crew on a starship like the Enterprise.

Here's how it works: You run one instance of the game as a server and then each player (up to six for a full bridge crew) runs another instance and those clients connect to the server. Each player picks one or more stations to manage (captain, helm, tactical, engineering, science, and communications) and each station gets its own interface needed to perform its functions to run the ship. So the helm gets a control layout to be able to fly the ship, engineering gets controls to manage power to various systems and mitigate damage, and the tactical officer gets to fire the weapons. The captain ties it all together, making decisions and issuing orders to other crew members. The captain has his own view which is a map with some basic information, or s/he can simply use the main view screen which is provided by the server.

The developer clearly intended originally that this game would be played by people all in the same room and the simulation lends itself well to LARPing and role-playing. An ideal setup would be all six players in the same room using their own machines and whichever machine is running the server (any one of the machines could run the server and one of the clients--you DO NOT need a separate machine and/or copy of the game to play) would be connected to a big screen tv to show the main screen. Thankfully, the latest version of the game allows for playing over the internet. My gaming group uses Skype for voice chat since the game provides no native voice chat. It works fine for us.

The server is what runs the actual simulation and it allows for setting up various scenarios in the game and tweaking all sorts of parameters to increase or decrease difficulty. The are various sorts of ally and enemy ships to encounter and bases to dock with and defend. The game has modes for multiple ships with their own crews that can go head-to-head or do missions cooperatively. One server can support up to 36 players (six bridges with each having their own crews of up to 6 players).

Each role has different things to do to keep the ship running smoothly. Admittedly, some stations are more fun to play than others. Also, some stations feel very heavy on the micro-managing and others feel like there's not much to do; many people complain about the communications station for being sort of thin in this area. I actually don't mind playing Communications Officer You can hail friendly or enemy ships, monitor distress calls from friendly bases or ships being attacked, demand that enemy ships surrender, taunt enemy ships into attacking, direct friendly ships away from deadly areas of space, order friendly ships to attack, prepare bases for docking to improve refuel and rearm performance. And most importantly, you have the button to set off the red alert klaxon. As Communications Officer, you may also get side quests from friendly forces which usually take the form of, "Dock with this base to download this data, then take it to this friendly ship and then come back and dock with use to get more energy/coolant/weapons/etc."

So once again, I do recommend this game if you have at least two friends to play with. You DO NOT need six people to play this game. At the very least, you need helm, tactical, and engineering, but personally, I like playing with five or six people. Also, as I said before, the game has no native voice chat if you are going to playing over the internet. Something else to be aware of is that the game does nothing for you in terms of matchmaking or anything like that. You'll need to have each player connect to the server via IP address and you'll need to set up port forwarding on TCP 2010 to be able to have any of the clients be able to connect. One other gotcha to to be aware that when you play over the internet, you won't be able to use the IP address of the server that is reported in the game. That IP will only work when playing over a LAN. You'll need your internet-facing IP address to hand out to the players for connecting to the server.

I bought the six pack and gave the five other copies to my gaming group. I've had fun playing this game over the internet as well as all in the same room. It's a lot of fun especially if you have a madcap gang to play with like I do.

I just hope the developer continues to work on this game. It's good already but it feels like it could go a lot farther.

I shot two nukes at a space station, they told us to stop, then they built us more nukes. - 10/10

It's even funnier when you play with people who've got no idea what they're doing.

Great game if you enjoy space games and more importantly team work..
Originally developed as a LAN Party game, it has been given some basic internet connectivity and works *somewhat well*..

Artemis puts you and 3-5 (recommended min 4 players - max 6 players) of your friends in command of a star ship.

Each person has specific roles assigned to them, the roles are:
- Captain (The boss)
- Helm (The driver)
- Weapons (Pew Pew Officer)
- Engineering (Must be short, scottish and unable to reach the control panels)
- Science (Sensors, Scanning and Voyeur)
- Communications (Intergalactic Receptionist)

You can easily condense Science and Coms into one role as they are the least demanding.
It is also possible to play the game with as little as 3 people but not as efficiently as with 4 or more.

Those with multiple screens are able to run a role on each screen simply by running the executable from the game folder, dragging the resolution dialog that pops up at the start to the screen they want and pressing start.

Multiple roles can also be handled by single screen users also via tabs that appear along the top of the screen.

The game is simple and does not have a huge amount of content but is highly enjoyable as one of those now and then small event/group games.

Grab a group of your friends you think might be into this type of game, fire it up, forward the needed ports (See guides) and have a blast or just sit back and wait for someone to make a silly decision, hit the wrong button or warp everyone into the middle of a mine field..

Also, if you are into lighting systems, the game actually has DMX support so you can hook it up to DMX enable lights and program cues.
http://artemiswiki.pbworks.com/w/page/68387358/DMX%20Interface

Finally if you are after a better video demonstrating the gameplay and fun to be had watch this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9Q2X32hZNk

Great game, online or off!

As captain of the USS Burning Orphan I can claim that this simulator is an accurate depiction of my duties aboard the most advanced peace keeping missle cruiser in the galaxy.

Even though the graphics really suck, this game has brought me more fun than any AAA title since quite a while! I play it in a group of 3, each manning 2 Stations simutaniously via 2 screens or laptop+pc. I guessthis is an insanely fun Lan-Party game but i wouldnt recommend playing it if you have at least 2 People to play with.

I told my Helms to punch the hyperdrive and in the confusion my engineering overheated the ship blowing us up 11/10

I really wanted to like Artemis - but it wasn't always easy!

I tried Artemis in a LAN setup with 5 friends. The setup was epic: 1 TV, 6 monitors, 5 guys and 1 spaceship we were all in charge of! There certainly were some high expectations going into the simulation.

The problems started right at the beginning. We started the game and had absolutely no idea how everything worked. There were no tutorials and no hints. Everything seemed alien to us and even downloading the game manual didn't help, because it was made for an earlier version of the game.

Determined not to give up, we started googling for help. Luckily, some guy had made a 30 minutes long "short tutorial" to Artemis. Our captain watched the whole thing and each of crew members watched their own section. This was by far the easiest way to get to know the controls of the game. Once they were explained to you in youtube, it was not so complicated after all.

Spirits were high when we finally launched a random scenario and were able to defeat it. It was fun playing as a team and there were even some very nerdy roleplaying going on with our captain walking around with a coffee mug in hand giving orders.

However, the random scenarios were all kind of the same. You have to defend your bases and eliminate the enemies, that's pretty much it. We were hungry for some exploration and plot, so we tried to launch some of the custom scenarios.

The custom scenarios are a very nice idea - they allow people to create scenarios with plots and twists and turns for your delight. However, much of the scenarios were made for game version 2.0 and we had the newest version from steam (2.1.1) and I guess this is why all the scenarios had severe problems - game simply stopped running etc. Even after much trying, we couldn't get the custom scenarios to work.

Now I realize Artemis is a single-man project and it's awesome how awesome it is, even now. But you should be aware it is not really a finished game with good support. It's a single-man coding project with a small community that has made a handful of scenarios.

Right now Artemis is more of a simulator and less of a game - though it could change in the future. It's unique, however, and if you are really into space and stuff and have a couple of friends living close by who feels the same way, I definitely say it's worth your money to try it together (just don't expect everything to be perfect)!

This game is excatly what it says it is - a spaceship BRIDGE simulator. No fancy graphics, just a ton of sliders and switches.

And I LOVE it. It's basically a space RPG session you can have over the internet. Nothing beats having your captain screaming "Course 260, set beams to full, torpedoes fire at will!"

With even a few halfway competent friends and voice chat, this game is incredible. Blasting bad guys in space has never been this detailed or fun! Get it on mobile to increase your interactivity as well!

If you ever dreamed of manning a Star Trek.. err SPACE bridge sim with a team of your buddies? Were you bitterly disaapointed that Star Trek Online - once seemed to be heading this direction before becoming a generic MMO... do you just want to have a blast at your LAN party? This game is for you... seriously it's fun, there's some great mods out there.

This is an excellent game, fun for getting a few friends together and pretending you're the crew of the Enterprise.

That said, it's a total lan game, you can play it online (but skype/teamspeak/ventrilo is heavily advised unless you have some sort of psychic network), but it's probably best played at a lan party.

I have it on my iPhone/iPad so i hook up my computer with all of those and i can play it alone .... i make my comp host sreen so i can sit on the other side of the room and make people freak out when i move stuff on my comp screen without being near it lol

You need at least 4 copies of this game (1 for you, 3 for friends), and peferably 6 (1 for a main screen).

You also should play this group in a lan party setting, not over the internet. You all want to be in the same room.

That said, playing this game is fun, leads to hilarity, and is strongly suggested, and isn't like most other games you've played. It needs its own genre.