Hurrah! Cliffski‘s announced that the Galactic Conquest expansion for Gratuitous Space Battles is now available for purchase, although the expansion isn’t actually out yet and technically the £5 you’re dropping is a pre-order that gets you access to the beta, which may have a bug or three.

Galactic Conquest is a big ol’ update, adding a brand new campaign mode where you battle for planets and gradually build up fleets using captured shipyards and academies. As Jim pointed out, a campaign mode surely makes all those space battles much less gratuitous. Less Gratuitous: Space Battles, that’s what Cliffski should have called it. Full, lengthy features list and video after the jump. (more…)

If there was a significant problem with fleet-management game Gratuitous Space Battles, it was that it was almost too> gratuitous. There were a lot of space battles, with nothing to link or contextualise them. To fix this black hole in the space-time of his creation, Cliff “Positech” Harris has been constructing some DLC, a “massively single-player” non-linear campaign, which is now nearing completion. I had a quick chat with him about this development, which you can read below. (more…)

Cliffski really does have a knack at this. He’s just released his latest bit of Gratuitous Space Battles DLC, introducing the Nomads, a whole new race with ships, weapons and similar. Oldest race in the galaxy, according to the GSB fiction. But the trick is the spin he’s given to this. There’s two editions of the DLC you can buy. One is $5.99, the other is $2.99. There’s no difference between ‘em. It’s simply an experiment, to try and cater for the people who say they can’t afford that amount of money. Look at your life, decide what you can afford, then pay it. He’s also keeping a running tally of the results. Currently, 28 $5.99 editions and 10 $2.99 editions. And if you’ve never played GSB, you can try the demo. Oh – the new trailer follows. (more…)

There was a problem with the rather clever space-battle fleet manager game Gratuitous Space Battles. It was this: there was no campaign mode. I’ve no idea how you would fix a problem like that, but fortunately one man development army Cliffski has plenty of ideas. One of them is relevant: he’s going to add a campaign mode>. He explains: “The GSB campaign is a singleplayer ‘conquer-the-galaxy’ style game, where you build up vast space fleets and kick interstellar ass. Rather than set, pre-determined fleets to battle against, the game utilises the fleets designed by other GSB players to provide an endless variety of opponent, so you will be pitted against real carbon-based intelligence on every step of your path to galactic dominance.” Read more about this extraordinary move here. It will be paid DLC, price TBC.

Cliff “Cliffski” Harris, creator of Kudos, Democracy and Gratuitous Space Battles, is launching another survey of his Positech customers to learn about their purchasing habits. Or more specifically, their lack of purchasing habits. He’s asking people, “Why didn’t you buy Gratuitous Space Battles?”

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Positech’s popular hands-off build-and-release strategy game Gratuitous Space Battles have just released an expansion pack. How does it expandier the game’s expansosity? Well, for six dollars you get a whole new race, 2 scenarios and a cent. The aliens in question are the swarm who deploy masses of fleets with smart bombs and focusing-in disruptor beams. All the while looking like the big gold bird out of Mysterious Cities of Gold. And a trailer follows! Yes! No, really. (more…)