Star Command Galaxies

It causes my laptop to overheat and shut down after about 3 minutes. It is truly remarkable that a modern "retro" game is able to be so incredibly inefficient.

This game is a mixture of fun and pain.

pros:
Star Trek feeling
nice pixelgraphics
nice animations
nice sound, nice audio
nice humor
cool items
good game mechanics
tactical decicions, nice combat
customization (ship inventory, crew- and shipname)
good difficulty, not to easy and not too hard
pretty fun
no game-crashes so far

cons:
this game is not finished, feels like early access, at best
lots of bugs, you can play the game but be aware to encounter a lot of strange things like stuff not working, UI randomly missing items, buttons not accessible, UI not scaling correctly, wrong sprites showing up or sprites missing, people walking backwards, aliens hard to interact, lots of path finding issues and stupid behavior, quest triggers not working correctly, items not accessible, ...
controls are terrible, It takes some time to get how it works
a lot of things doesn't make sense, useless unfinished game mechanics, inconsistencies etc.
a story campain but thats it, lack of content after story is finished, lack of balancing

This game is for you If you are a captain that like stupid challenges, commanding (and babysit) a crew of idiots, going on adventures, encountering wtfs, solving other poeples problems, killing and robbing space aliens, collecting lots of trash that piles up in your ship, not being afraid of some pain and frustration, being prepared of allies attacking each other, blowing up ships and having some fun.

This game is not for you if you want a fully developed game. There are way better space management games out there.

This game costs 13 bugs, for this money you get a game with more than 13 bugs, but 13h of playtime too
I recomment waiting for a discount or until the game is more finished and bugfixed.
I like this game but I cannot recommend it in its current state.

This game still feels unfinished. Mobile version is preferable to this, even with it lacking the features of this version. This game feels like a scam especially to those who have been around since the Kickstarter days. If you are looking for a spaceship management game where your crew can get up to outer space shenanigans buy Space Haven instead. It is actually polished and has many more features despite the fact it is still in early access. I am convinced nobody would prefer this game unless they are specifically looking for a 1:1 Start Trek parody, in which case they should probably just get the mobile Star Command game. It actually felt polished and meant to be played. Would refund if I didn't purchase it ages ago like a tool.

Very Promising game, really fun concept - Almost like Sims in Space. It has a really nice retro feel and design.

At this stage, it still is struggling with a few bugs and glitches which can be frustrating. I'm optimistic about what the devs are working on, and hopefully the game will be in a much stabler place soon!

Okay, changing my review to recomend.

Having went past the first two missions the crashes stopped and game became what its supposed to be. Completed the story and and loved every second of it. The game surely needs some polish, but its potential is enormous.
Also learned that 1.5 people were working on i on their free time. And with that - this game is a tremendous achievement as is already.

Hopefully the sales will allow to bump the team to at least 10 fulltime devs - then it may become what it's authors envision it to be in meaningful time. And it and the authors surely deserve it.

I still vividly remember tracking the release of the original Star Command on IOS when I was a kid, and fondly recall finishing my first of a handful of playthroughs sitting through AP Bio as a high school freshman. The experience was more linear than I had hoped for, but the style was charming and the gameplay was novel for the time and platform. I was always a fan of FTL, and this scratched a similar itch while also being distinct enough to warrant its own existence. I was excited when Galaxies was first announced all those years ago, but it was in the oven for so long it simply slipped off the radar. I am now 4 years post *college* graduation, but seeing this product finally enter 'full release' means more to me than I thought it would. Its not perfect, but the passion for the project shines through and I can only hope Warballoon will continue to tweak and polish.

I only just finished the introductory order, and my thoughts are positive overall. I do agree with the criticisms regarding UI scaling and font readability, and I personally experienced some weird overlap issues with my ship and other ships that resulted in me being unable to properly navigate either and thus needed to restart that mission. It can also be finicky when you are trying to issue movement orders or select something on the ground and the game does the opposite. Pathing can be weird too. It is my understanding that this game is more procedural in nature, so stuff like that is bound to happen I suppose. Being able to save mid-mission, rather than only between excursions at a station would help these soft-lock issues.

Even if you disregard my personal sentimentality towards this project I believe the experience is more than worth the cost of entry, and I hope the game gets enough attention to justify continued development. I suspect some features fell by the wayside over the years, such as planetary deployments, but maybe things can get moving again if they get some momentum. Regardless, I am very happy to see this thing finally get out of the door and am looking forward to playing around with it some more when I can.

Wow. Finally 1.0, almost 10 years later

Too bad it is still complete unplayable hot garbage.
AI is dumb as a brick, doesn't listen to commands and doesn't attack enemies
UI is a mess, battles are boring
Random floor pixels of destroyed ships flying all over the place from one map to another
Bricked save after 2 hrs of playtime

Fuck that.