I really enjoyed playing this game in spite of it's shortcomings. It lacks polish, there's not many ship or items, and in spite of you having "frigates", all ships feel more like small fighters (no crew or significant size differences). No carriers and no (proper) fighters make all the units in the game feel more or less "small". The planets are totally unimportant, as you only interact with them if you take a mission, and then only to click on them and get XP.

Unlike Endless Sky, trading is shallow and quickly got boring (for me).

In spite of all those shortcomings, combat and controll are good, the interface is nice and the graphics well crafted. Also there's MOD support (not that many good MODS, sadly). I give this game a thumbs up, but there are better space RPGs out there (SPAZ, Endless Sky).

Also, I appreciate the Linux support.

Really cool and immersive game! RPG-based, with tons of space ready for exploring and tech customization. It has a very neat progression and quest system, with multiple dialogue options and a very well optimised character-class system, each with its own unique abilities and set of skills/perks, which allow for a diverse gameplay.

The UI is immersive, all the while keeping in theme with the arcade nature of the game. Also for the customization options, there's plenty of that, as the game offers a wide variety of ship upgrades, as well as useful consumables and other features, like mining lasers for extracting ore from asteroids. Furthermore, the tutorial is very explanatory, and there are details and descriptions following almost any action you make, that are sure to satisfy the lore-hungry gamers out there.

Last but not least, there's also a combat system which is well designed and that (at least on the lower levels, before you "master the stars") will be sure to introduce you to the thrills of space warfare, which will add to the exciting gameplay.

All around, i think this is a great game for fans of space exploration (like me). Albeit it's an arcade-ish game, it's fun and enjoyable to play. So, a big thumbs-up from me, and hopefully, from you guys too! :)

Meh. It is technically and mechanically solid, but it lacks soul. The game, quite frankly, is boring. I played on the default difficulty, but I can't imagine making the game harder is going to make it any more interesting. So, if you have money burning a hole in your pocket, it is probably worth the price for the ten or fifteen hours it will take you to get bored of it. But if you're on a budget? Go get something else.

I am still new to the game, but so far I like it. The dialogues are funny, and there's a lot of exploration to do. And I just Love the background pictures - those look fantastic!

The storyline revolves around alien invasion, but so far I've only fought pirates. Waiting forward to smashing some aliens!

I think this game has a lot of potential. Combat mechanics is fun, plot quests are mostly interesting, graphics also fine.
Give it a try

So, yeah, it's a game about space, pirates and aliens, with nice backgrounds, ships and a lot of skills to learn. I liked that it doesn't force me to do anything and I can just fly around, explore and destroy stuff. I'm quite tired of the games where you're forced to just go wherever they send you from the very beginning like on rails, so this one was a great relief from that. Of course, there's a storyline and whatever, but I'm fine with my pace and the game is fine with it too. So... I liked it.

For a 6 dollar game on sale, I am enjoying the crap out of this. I once played a game very similar and was always on the lookout for that type of game. FOUND IT! :-)

Don't think too hard on a game like this. There is no epic story line. No insane graphics. Just simple fun like a phone app. Is it worth six bucks. Absolutely. Is it worth ten or more... meh.. maybe. But, probably not.

I look at it this way. If I were to go to the theatre for a movie. I'm going to pay WAAAAYYY more than six bucks for maybe 2 hours (if I'm lucky) of entertainment. This doesn't count gas and driving time.

I've already put in almost 9 hours into the game and I feel like I've definitely gotten the value for the cost. That could be 4-6 movies right there. You get the point.

Let me first start by saying this is a "No, for now", not a "No", as most of the issues I see are fixable and the dev team does seem to be involved in discussion.

Simply put, despite lots of apparent customizations, they fall absolutely flat. There is very little point to choosing a class as you can easily get the starting skills/gear of one class with minimal playing early in the game. The skill trees fall into 3 catagories: offense/defense/make money; there is no unique skill to be seen for skill development besides the ability to see what ores an asteroid will give you before you mine it, flying bigger ships, and I'll even count driving in reverse at an acceptable rate. It's true that there is some playstyle choices to be made here as to whether you focus on combat or money earning, but at the end of the day you'll still need combat skills in order to defend yourself, so there's no incentive to go for one specialization over another besides "I wonder if I can" (yes, you can, does it make any difference in the core gameplay? no.).

While character customization is flat, ship customization is concave. Choose from 1 of 4 weapon types, make sure you skill up the ones you want so you can use them, then find the 1 or 2 ship frames with decent stats that allow you to use them. From there attach passive items to fit your playstyle, and get the biggest shield you can. The stats from ship to ship are woefully similar, 95% of the time you're going to care about only 1 thing: does the ship support the weapons I wanna use? Armor, hull plating, cargo space, manueverability etc are for the large part similar providing it's a ship in the same class. It's not so much "design your own ship" as it is "find the one with the right weapon slots and put stickers on it".

The quests are the largest downfall for me here. Most of your time is going to be spent in autopilot taking object from station "A" to station "B", then report back to "A", or "go blow up this one bad guy and come back". There are a few exceptions, the fleet combat story missions are particularly noteworthy, and there is a cute quest about "hacking" which relies on actual programming knowledge to get through (non-required so no real penalties for failing, but refreshing to see a "click through" quest break the 4th wall in subtle way like this).

The hopeful part is this: There are ways to improve customization using what is already in the game. Expanded skill trees, class-skills (even if passives like aforementioned mining skill), unique story options are all tools that could be used to diversify character development. Ship customization can be expanded upon with additional content. There are already a few interactive bits of ship design with modules like the EMP, more active and less passive options would make it feel much more unique. More and far more diversified ship frames will open up design space and has potential to actually allow players to make meaningful choices about the paths they will take in the game.

Some of these fixes are already or will be made available through modding.

But I can't in good faith recommend a game that needs mods to deliver on its promise. So, "No", for now.

This game has everything I like in it. Spaceships, free exploration, trading, mining, missions, and an optional story. If you liked Privateer and always wanted a 2d version of Privateer, that's almost exactly what this game is. And that might be enough for some people.

Unfortunately, the game is lacking polish in many respects. There are plenty of weapons, but aren't enough ships, engines, and shields to really create the kind of ship that will work well in the game. I think that the devs figured players would create these assets using mods, but the only mods out so far are cheaty ones. The economy is a bit off -- ships are a bit too cheap for what they are. There's no ties between resources being available and stations having more products or anything like that.

Piloting needs some work. Colliding with NPCs is far too easy (in fact, it's the only maneuver some NPCs know). Most player ships can't turn fast enough or move their weapons fast enough to target NPCs without themselves striking NPCs.

XP and leveling needs some work. Right now, the only way to level up quickly and easily is to shoot things. You can't level up easily by trading, hacking, or mining, except at the most basic levels. That might be because there are ways to break the system at later points in the game, but that just means that the system is weak and needs polish.

There are distinct periods of boredom in between being able to do things in game. You finish the first couple of missions at level 3 or 4. You can't take on the next storyline mission until Level 10, and can't upgrade ships until Level 15. To get to level 15, you need to clear approximately two low-level systems of pirates. That's a lot of pew pew pew. And it's only reasonable to gain that XP by going pew pew pew, even if you classed as a miner or trader.

I don't know right now if the game will age well and develop a following and some decent mods that will fix these problems. I haven't looked too closely at modding yet. There's a ton of promise here, but unless you're really grabbed by the story, there's very little good reason to play the game past the initial few hours.

The developer needs to finish this and create an actual game before I can recommend it. Great engine, decent multiplayer netcode, lots of potential, and super easy to mod, but a SEVERE lack of content (almost as if the developer expected modders to complete the game for them), and a completely asnine multiplayer mode that makes playing past level 10 pointless BY DESIGN. I was so excited after the first hour I set up a dedicated server and began pimping it to my gaming community. By the second day playing it I'd done literally everything there is in the game. Definitely regretting buying this one in its current state.