Games for which they collected the whole world with the help of Kickstarter, slowly begin to go out. As a rule, so far these are small projects, developed by small teams of enthusiasts, or even lonely. But in many ways, the fate of crowdfunding in the game industry depends on the success of the first releases – whether it will become a popular way of creating a budget for independent developers or will go down in history as a funny incident, which has been hoped for so many hopes. To the shots of the main calibers such as Wasteland 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera or Project Eternity, the creation of which fans allocated six -digit sums, still far away, but near -fight artillery is already in the case. Faster than Light, collecting money 20 times more than the authors requested, showed that the simplicity of idea and performance does not mean the lack of interest in the public. Stardrive, Another seemingly uncomplicated brainchild of Kickstarter, even though it cannot boast of astronomical indicators of donations, but the curiosity of 4x strategies causes no less curiosity.

If you start a new game for people, the starting area will be our native solar system with all planets.

Dreams come true

The main source of inspiration of the authors is the famous series Master of Orion. Stardrive overflowed with references to this untying classics – from the characteristics of gameplay, ending with the names and appearance of some alien races. But borrowings (in this case, this is not a blind imitation, but rather an attempt to breathe a new life into interesting ideas) alone) Moo Not limited. It seems that the developers decided to take all the vivid ideas of both classic 4x strategies and indie-hovodels on space topics that have been noticeably bred recently, and to blind from all this variety such a game that it will be able to get closer to the unattainable ideal 4x.

How many strategies, so similar to each other in an attempt to reach glory Master of Orion, Over the past ten years? So in Stardrive, At first glance, there is nothing unusual – but only at first glance. The player, as it happened, is trusted by the brothers of the reign of one of the beginners to master the space of civilizations, which he should lead to dominance over the whole galaxy. The battles of huge fleets of interstellar ships, the bombardment and landing of enemy planets, research and colonization of unknown worlds-all this is unlikely to surprise anyone now. But soon you understand that everything is not as simple as it seems. And the matter is not at all in Real-Time, which is quite atypical for space 4x.

The whole point, as usual, is in the little things. Take, for example, the creation of your own race: the process is not limited to the choice of one option of eight proposed – in addition to the individual characteristics of each empire, it is possible to choose a unique combination of virtues and disadvantages in accordance with the chosen strategy. For example, if you want to win, not with rude force, but with cunning, then you can make representatives of their civilization with clumsy intricate, which gives a fine to pilot skills, and the released glasses are spent on the purchase of a racial skill, thanks to which spies will be much more efficient.

If the process of creating its race in some strategies also had the best embodiment, then the designer of ships, also the usual “chip” of such games, has been brought to perfection here. Each vessel is divided into many small cells, which can be filled manually, by yourself choosing a complete set. The shipyard provides only the appearance of the ship (each race has its own set of housings) and the number of available equipment slots, and what happens in the end – depends only on the general designer, in the role of which you will have to spend more than one hour. It is quite difficult to create a successful starship model, because the design is not limited to clogging the available cells with the most powerful “guns” – it is necessary to take into account energy reserves, lay power cables along the optimal path, protect important nodes of the ship with armor and shields, arrange anti -aircraft turrets so that enemy fighters are notCould sneak up closely … The further you are moving along a special chain of scientific research, the more affordable body models and higher the variety of equipment. At the end of the party, you have to spend a lot of time on the shipyard: there are no hopes for ready -made templates – it is better to create each model for yourself, depending on the tasks assigned to the star.

It will not work to collect the perfect ship – against the “charged” by the very last word “death star” the size of the moon, sooner or later there is a means. For example, one well -aimed shot of the pilot of a small fighter can lead to the destruction of even such a monster – and all because the nuclear reactor, the heart of each vessel, was not covered with armor. And also Stardrive It does not hesitate to transfer projects of the player to artificial intelligence, so do not be surprised by meeting in another party your unique design as the basis for starships of other races.

On the construction of the fuss of fuss with the ships does not end. We change the costume of the chief designer to the general uniform – at our service a well -designed fleet editor, which allows not only to indicate the composition and number of the flotilla, but also set the line of behavior in battle for each particular ship in its composition. This approach to the tactics of space battles allows you to get rid of, as far as possible, from microcontrol in battles. One of the main shortcomings of the majority of 4x is the need to independently lead into battle almost every boat – in a very deplorable way affected the pleasure of the game during protracted parties. Here you can feel like an author of a military doctrine, but not “vanka-rot”, indicating the goals for each individual “unit”.

Surprisingly, in Stardrive There is another “chip”, directly opposite to the editor of the fleet. If anyone likes microcontrol – so let it be the most complete! Yes, at a convenient moment you can take any ship to direct control. We set the movement of the keys, we shoot the mouse – something similar was in arcade battles „Space Rangers“, Only here starships are slightly more clumsy. Of course, these two approaches to managing ships can and should be combined – for example, nothing prevents the fleet so that its main task is to ensure the protection of the flagship taken by the player under his direct command.

Creation Zero Sum Games not quite 4x in the usual sense. Of the four components of the classic formula – “Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate” – more attention is paid to the last element. The economy and other “peaceful” things will have to be engaged in the post-clock, and this part of the game has been worked out is very scarce-this is a strategy about the war, and not about the development of civilization and the study of the cosmos. But who said it was bad?

It’s time to clean the native systems of pirates, while good relations with other races allow you to forget about the external threat for a while.

Everything is just beginning

Stardrive, created almost alone, unlike most

projects for authorship of small teams, it looks extremely pretty. The graphics cannot boast of the use of the latest technologies, but it looks stylish and does without clumsy in the spirit of Distant Worlds. An animated screen of diplomacy is simply made – from there the very place on the desktop as a “wallpaper” or screen screensaver. There is no 3D at all (and it is not necessary here), but you can freely change the scale: from a review of half of the galaxy to the maximum approximation, in which one ship occupies most of the screen, one turn of the mouse wheel wheel. And everything is surprisingly smooth. However, with performance in Stardrive So far, not everything is so rosy – preferring not to exchange for such a trifle as “brakes”, the game quite often flew out on the desktop. The developers are soothing, they say, this is fixable, and regularly release new patches.

The authors promise not only to work on stability. The opportunities that are currently available are far from the most interesting. It is already known for sure that in Stardrive add multiplayer, which fans are dreamed of from the moment the first beta version is released. But perhaps the most intriguing of promises is a new gaming mode, where it will be necessary to manage not an entire empire, but just by one boat, while the rest of the races find out relations in a standard 4x strategy. It should turn out something between Drox Operative and Star Control 2;Moreover, this mode will be available in multiplayer. It looks very tempting, but for the implementation of this idea, you will have to thoroughly work – whether it will be possible to make a decent RPG from a strategy?

However, the architecture of the game is quite simple for alteration. Long before the release Stardrive managed to acquire many amateur mods – support for modifications from the very beginning was far from the last item in the list of priorities of development. There are enough mods – from simple, like replacing textures, to global, quite strongly changing the process of conquering the galaxy.

The party from the very beginning promises to be difficult – unfriendly neighbors noticeably ahead of my empire in development.

The approach to creating the games “From fans -fans” once again confirmed his right to life, and Kickstarter can make another “hazard on the butt” – a good strategy appeared for a completely frivolous budget that will be interesting to both connoisseurs of the genre and those who who areI just started acquaintance with the world of 4x strategies. Well, a stable growing community, replenishing the piggy bank of mods, and the assurances of the developers not to stop there, backed up, backed up, they say that the game has a great future.

Pros: Great graphics;The editor of the flotillas and the designer of the ships for capabilities;Atmospheric „cosmic“ music;Support for modifications.
Cons: It is necessary to get used to the interface, which sometimes focus;Frequent flights to the desktop.