July 7, 2010
You Come Across A Foxbunny Blogger with a Game Review.
Flotilla is a space combat roguelike.
Sort of.
Basically, you go on an adventure. However, you have a terminal illness, so each one is only so long. You wander to planets and get into a series of random encounters. These could be space combats, or adventures where you have to make a choice. These choices affect future adventures. For example, if I happen to come Karaoke Champ of the Universe, then assassins wanting to claim that crown are going to come to kill me. You do your best to survive until your illness kills you, and rack up the most points along the way.
The combat itself is simple, and once you get the hang of it isn’t too hard, but it’s still very enjoyable. You move your ships in 30 second “turns,” giving orders, then watching those 30 seconds play out before giving orders again. You have different types of ships you can find and add to you Flotilla, like the “melee” Beam Frigates to the simple, missile-slinging Destroyers, each of which requires a slightly different strategy to effectively use. In the end, though, it all comes down to using the three commands you have to out-maneuver and destroy the enemy. You can Attack-Move, which has you move and attack a target, Focus Attack, which increases your rate of fire, but you can barely move, or Flank Move, which doesn’t shoot, but lets you move farther. You maneuver completely in 3-dimensional space, fight these battles, and win or lose.
It’s simple, but deep, and it kept me coming back for more, again and again. It starts as just a silly game with silly encounters, but as you see how the encounters affect future encounters, it quickly becomes very strategic as you have to plan ahead a bit based on how you’re doing at the time. This was certainly one of the best, if not the best, game I bought during the crazy Steam Sale. It is totally worth the 10 bucks that it’s asking for on PC, and I think it’s on the XBLA Indie Games thing as well for only 5. You should really pick up Flotilla and give it a try. It is a lot of fun.
It is fun, but it seems like salvaging that Dreadnought early is a total gamebreaker. Those beams are just so much stronger than any other weapon! I got a +1 regenerator onto it and pretty much was unstoppable.
I also wish that you got some sort of reward or ongoing buff for doing well in the game, so it wasn’t totally new each time. Something like sticking stuff in a warehouse for your future incarnations, like in Shiren the Wanderer, would have been nice.
Comment by S — July 7, 2010 @ 5:12 am