Starcom: Nexus

It is a fun game that works well within its limitation. A long time ago I enjoyed playing
a game called Starflight which seems to have been a strong inspiration for this game.
This updated version of the same basic concept works well. The main attraction is the
curiosity that the bits of information you find on each planet sparks about what is on
the next one, and then one after that ...

This is a very enjoyable game!
The puzzles, sense of adventure and tech progression are well paced.
Had a few crashes near the end of the game, but it saves frequently so no big deal.
Thoroughly enjoyed playing it!

great game. solid 9/10 if you like indie games with space exploration and combat. I found a couple missions too puzzly for my taste and just googled them. Combat is fun, ship design, tech tree all fun. It doesn't hold your hand at all but you can take notes on the map in game for places you can't progress to come back later.

By all indications, this was made by a tiny team or even just a single programmer; as such, the width and depth of the universe is truly impressive.

It feels very well balanced - that said, after some twenty to thirty hours I feel like I'm now approaching the end game, and the hunt for the last few missing pieces might quickly turn into a pool of molasses if I overlooked that one vital clue...
Exploration feels rewarding, gathering resources goes reasonably smooth once you get the hang of it, and "research" points are never really too rare either.
Combat feels just about right as well - not insurmountable, but keeping you on your toes for most of the time; that is, if you like the game's top-down, somewhat arcade-y presentation.

Of course, there are points for criticism, like the somewhat bland and generic "red-shirt" crew. You'll gain some, you'll lose some, but for the most part, they're just another resource to manage. The three leading officers of one space station are all you get to know in at least some not-too-deep depth.
In the end, this is neither a deep simulation of a living universe down to the molecule, nor is it an intricate space combat simulator, nor an all-encompassing massive scifi role playing game. If that's what you're looking for, better look elsewhere, there may be products that fill their specific role - or maybe they're just smoke and mirrors, too.
On the other hand, it is all of that and more, in a lightweight, dare I say almost casual, presentation, in the best tradition of good old space games...

The technical side is unspectacular, not much needs to be said.
The game uses Unity as its engine, which in my view is its worst flaw, and one that put me off literally years. Usually I avoid Unity games like the plague, but I'd watched a couple of gameplay videos, and this game really hit the spot.
That said, the Linux version works out of the box, so there is that ;)
If you couldn't care less about "achievements" and Steam tracking your play time, the game can be run behind a firewall with no outside connection, and works just fine without a constant stream of tracking "telemetry" sent back to some greedy megacorporation, an extra big "thank you" for that.

9/10, will play again.

Not much to this game. I thought it would be like the Star Control games where you could explore the galaxy, talk to aliens, do quests, and make a big bad battleship to blow stuff up with. Well, you can do all these things, but even taking my time, I pretty much explored everything in less than 10 hours. Only have a couple annoying quests to complete and that's pretty much it. It was fun for a while, but this game has so little content it's just not worth buying.

Solid game, especially for the price.

I found the story compelling with plenty of good sci-fi tropes, fun choices and exploration. A good little bit of randomization of when/where you find what side quests and events, so decent replayability. Similar to other games I've played like "Space Pirates and Zombies" and "Rebel Galaxy" which I also enjoyed.

Gave me vibes along the lines of "If Voyager from Star Trek was stranded in space with Deep Space 9"

I spent the last 10 hours with my main quest softlocked because there's a thousand planets to check and the only hint I have is "there's jamming stations out there, go find them"

The last straw was when I thought the game was finally taking pity on me by highlighting a bunch of systems. I went and got the special crystals from all those systems, only for my quest log to say "good job, you've found five crystals! We don't know how many you need, though"

I'm glad others are enjoying the game, but this feels deliberately obtuse for no reason other than inflating playtime with endless busywork.

Great game. Enjoyable story that you piece together as you explore star systems and encounter alien races. The combat is also a lot of fun and supported by a well-rounded tech tree and ship building system.

I did encounter a couple glitches with some of the missions, but nothing that was a showstopper and kept me from completing the game or the missions in question. My only other critique is that I thought the story ended abruptly, and I think the ending could have been fleshed out better.

Overall, I whole-heartedly recommend giving this game a try, especially if you like games like Starsector. I'm definitely looking forward to playing the sequel.

Nostalgic 2-D space game. It's got decent content, good for about 30 hours of play time.

This is the middest game I've ever played. I got a good 33 hours of fun out of it, but I can hardly for the life of me remember how or why.

It has a pretty good story and intriguing lore. Combat is adequate and ship building is generally fun, though it becomes clear pretty quickly that the optimal solution is almost always your plasma starting guns. Missiles are helpful too, up until the point where you get the spinal mount gun and that's what you'll use 90% of the time.

As can be expected from a Star Control clone, none of the characters are memorable - which is probably why I never got too invested.

Worth the buy.

Quite a technical little game but very fun to play and not too difficult to master.

Simple yet satisfying gameplay loop and an intriguing story. I think fans of Star Control 2: The Uq-quan Masters would enjoy this game, this one is similar albeit with less comedy elements.

I know a lot of people are saying they had no idea what to do next, but so far I feel like the game gave pretty clear direction on what to do next and clues to help so you are never just flying blindly into the black.

Really fun space RPG with good gameplay. Be prepared for some very vague quest hints in the manner of older style games like Morrowind though.

fantastic game. has all the same game elemens as "Starcom Unknown Space" but is way larger scale. unfortunately, being the earlier game with larger scale the social interactions are lesser and you're even less likely to find resource trading before you already have enough of it.

highly recommended but Starcom: Unknown Space is obviously a work of improvement.

i would love to see a third title that acknowledges "we've jumped to new universes before, but need to reinvent the wheel before we can return to reality" (where maybe we can play like the "Original Star Trek Enterprise" and end up leaving the clues for the future star-chasers to follow.

VERY COOL GAMES ! I'm off to play Starcom Uknown Space. What a lovely discovery !

Fun, low-intensity space exploration game. I am enjoying this game quite a lot.

Great writing, worldbuilding, exploration. Combat is fun, too

Great storyline with a twist I've not come across before. Simple but fun combat mechanics. Completing some missions is a bit of a grind because it's not always clear what needs to be done next.

Very fun, combat does seem a bit odd as it's basically impossible to die. However I still really enjoyed the story, exploration and ship building.

Simple, but entertaining. Not many options for game play, but still engaging.

Its a great little space game. Explore, fight and trade through a rather large galaxy map following the main story line. This game doesn't require major brain power to play, has quite a bit of depth story wise (at least more than you would expect for an indy), the build a bear style of creating your own ships is great and it has some good humour in places. Really enjoyable game to unwind too.

OK Space Cadets! Prepare to hurtle through the cosmos!

nice game! neat music and good gameplay.

A neat idea that was poorly executed. Really needs more polish and bug fixes

i like the gameplay and the puzzles. A bit of shoot em up is good too.

I've only been playing this game for a few hours so far, but already i can say without a shadow of a doubt that It's great. The controls are easy to grasp, you can modify your own ship, turning it from a puny little shuttle into a MONSTROUSLY overpowered dreadnought class battleship, and you don't just sell one ship and buy a bigger one, Oh no no no, You add extra pieces to your shuttle, turning it into the Ultimate space vessel. I think its AWESOME!!!

Okay first things first - ONLY BUY WHEN ON SALE TO NOT SUPPORT THIS DEV!

Why does it trigger me? Cause it´s a GREAT idea destroyed by bad debugging and game breaking crashes. Good story and build but riddles you can´t solve, artifacts and comets and quest which don´t spawn cause of bugs. So you end finishing the game to not complete it cause of bugs.

Even more achievements won´t drop. In the end a broken game...

Dear Dev,
DEBUG IT, so we can like it!

Quite a cool game from a small studio! The music is well done, and becomes appropriately slow or heavy depending on deep space exploration or gratuitous space battles. The ship-building is both accessible and moderately deep, with a good learning curve. Difficulty is not a barrier to play, and at the end of the game, you can certainly live out a fantasy of commanding a true battlestar. The story is actually really cool, and well-plotted. My only gripe is about the pathing for some quests, and a few bugs I encountered in the final battles. Would definitely recommend this game, and that any user keep a couple save files running, along with a bookmark on the Steam community for hints and guidance where needed. Per ardua ad astra!

Had my eye on this game for a while, finally glad I got it and got to play it. This game was able to help scratch that particular itch I've been having regarding space games lately.

Pros - Good ship builder, fun gameplay loop, good visuals, pretty decent story.

Cons - Quest log got incredibly full and had slowdown, there are some small bugs that needed ironed out/typos in dialogue that got missed, we got next to nothing on the Chitik (first enemies) after their initial introduction, and the ending was a bit anticlimactic.

All in all, I'd definitely recommend. Going to have to give the sequel a try.

reminded me of solar winds, i absolutely loved it

I enjoyed exploring and piecing things together. Standard difficulty is pretty forgiving but you can also turn it up quite a bit if you're seeking a challenge.

This game does a fantastic job of slowly growing with options and map locations as you progress, providing a feel of achievement and discovery. The story is interesting with intrigue and aliens while the gameplay is simple, but satisfying. I tried with the gamepad, but most of the controls weren't working (possibly a fix with re-mapping?) so I stuck to keyboard.

Unfortunately the late-game has issues with bugs where it's hard to know if you missed something or the quest simply didn't toggle. Most of the bugs can be fixed by simply closing the game and re-opening while others require you to perform the same task over and over until the next part triggers so you can finish the game. This left a bad taste in my mouth, but still didn't outweigh the merits of the game overall - hopefully the creator does a better job on eliminating bugs and clarifying direction of quests (at one point I spent over 20 minutes trying to figure out what to do just to find I had a new research available that would continue the story).

Buy....but on sale only IMO.

I have not stopped playing since I started! Beat the game after about 30 hours.

Loads of exploring to do while scanning different types of planets. Get ready to sit back and relax as you fly around the map. It definitely can be worthwhile to explore the regions that you haven't before just to see what is out there. You never know when something interesting will happen. Many different alien types to encounter with their own stories.

Building and creating your own ship with each individual part is so much fun! Loads of different pieces and having multiple ones can have better effects (like more shield modules will make your shields stronger). Armor also gives more armor around to other pieces adjacent to it so you don't have to just have armor on the outside edges of your ship. Plasma turrets, laser weapons, missles, drones and more to help you blast away the baddies!

TLDR: Enthusiastic thumbs up and a high five!

8/10

This game captures those 90s space exploration games like starflight, star control, The Ur-Quan Masters, etc. these are very unique space exploration games that act more like exploration based rpgs than typical space games you find today.
The game starts off really great., I played it on hardest and found the progression to be very good although I didn't like how limited the ship parts were. like it's "mostly" pointless to have anything other than missiles for example. The perk tree is a lot of fun though despite it being simple dmg, range etc bonuses but it's always fun because it intertwines so well with the exploration. Towards the end after you've explored almost everything and you're just trying to solve the last quests the game goes downhill a fair amount. even the last boss and the ending are pretty bad compared to how good the exploration and progression feels. Thankfully the last section of the game doesn't go on for too long and it can be fun going back to wrap up some loose ends but I mostly just looked up stuff online as I don't enjoy this aspect of old games that much despite being a massive retro gamer.

Cute game to fill my Galaxy on Fire crave. There are many games that fit my criteria, this one included. It does the feel right. You can also see its amateurish yet thoughtful designs by its clear-cut UI and surprisingly modern settings options, and a "I can't say if it'd be a good idea, but it's there and it works" mission system. (but sometimes you never figure it out until you wiki, thankfully the main stories don't really have this problem)

Speaking of Sci-fi, this game has good little stuffs in it. I think you will like it, it's in them writings. That's what I have to say.

I already bought the second game, looking forward to it. This game has its flaws and things, so take it easy, buy it on discount, chill and play.

(or buy on full price if you are not strapped for cash like me)

The only thing of value i can say about this game is that it is WAY BETTER than it looks initially, simple but very enjoyable and well made! Get it at sale if you can other than that it is worth your time for sure

SN is a good sci-fi, space exploration game. Kind of reminds me of the classic Starflight from the 80's. I recommend it is you're into exploration with some RPG elements in a space travel context.

played similar "explore the galaxy and fight bad guys/factions and make enemies or friends" type of games
14 hours in and i feel like I am only 1/4 the way into the game...

so far pretty good and only got game for 4$ so deff worth if u can snag super on sale like i did.
This is likely going to make me want to by sequal too if it goes on super sale as well.

Great 2d space exploration game. Lacks a robust trading aspect to ascend it past a story and a combat RPG, but it's a fun experience regardless. I enjoyed it to a point, but some of the mysteries shift the game almost to a puzzle game experience. I don't quite have the patience to play whack-a-mole past this point, but I had fun, especially at the pricepoint.

Currently a few hours into the newer starcom game? and the QoL improvements are excellent. Definitely play this one first if you are considering any of this series.

What a wonderful little game, Which I got much more off than many "bigger" games.
This reminds me of Star Flight 2 which is one of my favorite space games ever.
Simple to get,fun combat and research.. Space is fun to explore and discover.
There is a tid bit problem with missions and following on what you have to do.. you need to write a lot down or youll forget where to go and where to return.. other than that it was a fun voyage.

Pains me to downvote an otherwise great game, but it's absolutely disrespectful to the players time. The main loop involves exploring solar sectors to amass resources, build/upgrade your ship (and there's quite a lot of them) and progress through quests. It's mostly fine up until you need to explore deeper parts of the map. There are quite a lot of fixed teleport locations and fast travel spots, but you're still going to spend most of the time just waiting for your ship to get to it's destination. I'm a patient sort so I saw it through the end but I'm 100% positive I'm not the average player. The story positively surprised me and the lore/trivia you find in some planets is actually quite well written. Still, for all it does right, the amount of time spent just walking around hoping to find your objectives (specially in the later parts of the game) can be very disengaging. It's not a bad game, but I honestly wouldn't reccomend it to most people unless it was more dynamic.

Only four hours in at the time of writing, but this is an engrossing and distinctive space game that's already sucked me in. I get the impression I'm nowhere into it yet... Watch this... er, space.

Really fun little space exploration game with some good pew pew. Good story with really interesting and imaginative content, and very addictive game-play loop. Excited to play the next one now.

It's neat, but I can't recommend it. That said the price is pretty low when it's on sale so there isn't any harm. It has some neat sci-fi ideas and concepts but getting to them isn't really all that enjoyable, and can be quite irritating.

fun little game, ideal for Star Trek fans(dont expect too much of the combat, this is more story focus), be warned there are some bugs that were never fixed that might block you from getting one archievement
("our Nyctian friends", gets blocked after you meet the "phage" finished both missions, still blocked)

also write EVERYTHING on the notes in the map it might help you later

Wow! Apart from the entertaining gameplay - the story! Your ship gets sucked through a space rift into an unknown galaxy. Little by little the game feeds you with mysterious hints about this strange place, culminating into a grandiose plot twist...

So yes, for me the game was about solving a mystery and gladly I read all the exploration logs, enjoyed them while hunting for clues.

To the devs - thank you!

[■■■■□] [Gameplay] 🕹️

The game is a space-themed 2D exploration shooting game. In the main story, you leave your main base to discover new places and progress the storyline. Besides the main story, there are also side quests. You can upgrade and modify your ship, weapons, and shields as you like. Additionally, there are different alien races in the game, and you can trade with them too.

[■■■□□] [Graphics] 🖼️

The game is 2D, so you shouldn't expect high-end graphics. However, I think planets, stars, and nebulae are nicely depicted considering the game's release year. You can zoom in during the game, allowing you to see your small ship in detail.

[■□□□□] [Audio]👂

Unfortunately, there are no dialogue voices in the game, which I think is a significant drawback. The sound effects in space, such as entering and exiting wormholes, are average. However, you can expect a mostly quiet atmosphere.

[■■■□□] [Storytelling] ✒️

The game has an existing storyline, which is your main mission. In a sense, you and your space base are in survival mode. You are in an unknown place, and you need to find a way out. As you travel to different star systems, you advance the storyline further. Additionally, you learn some information about the new places you arrive at.

[■■■■□] [Difficulty] 💪

The game's difficulty is at an adequate level. Research on your ship makes the game easier. Some areas and alien races might be challenging initially. The only major issue is that the game's missions don't properly explain what you're supposed to do, and your quests often remain unfinished. I think the game has been disappointing in mission explanations.

Absolutely beautiful game, I'll be playing the sequel as well for sure!

It's a simpler version of Starsector, however it has open world combat instead of battle sessions, you control only your own ship and you have no fleet.

The research is very streamlined and well thought out and the ship building is very easy and allows you to be creative with visual designs while not limiting your build (other than physics).

Every build works, there is no meta. You play however you like and at whichever pace you prefer. Extremely good game design for such a simple game. Once I picked it up, i just had to finish it!.

Kudos to the dev team. Looking forward to more games!

Still recommending this game because I know some people don't think as deeply about shit like this and it was, for the most part, a fun and worthwhile experience. Maybe not 20 dollars, I got it for 4 dollars - but I would've gotten it for 10 even if I knew what was in store.

The first part of this review is essentially spoiler free, and I mark where the actual spoilers come in. The spoiler free section goes over some of the basic aspects of why I think the world building in this game is incredibly flawed - if you want my consensus from beyond that point without spoilers it is that - all of the issues listed with the story, scale, technology, etc - get progressively worse.

If you don't care about inconsistencies like that, but want a space exploration game with some fun combat and interesting ideas, then you'll enjoy the game.

Addendum; I don't give a shit if you are or are not analytical about these kinds of things - you can like whatever you like, for whatever reason. Your preferences are your own. I am only publishing this review because the content matters *to me* and it might to some other people as well.
________________________

So I just beat this game a few hours ago - I didn't complete every single anomaly/quest I found but I feel as if I covered roughly 90-95% of the content, got some of the rarest achievements on steam, etc - and was able to piece the story together myself.

I haven't played the sequel, and I do enjoy this game - but from a narrative to game play standpoint, there's a lot of contradictions and inconsistencies that drive me insane.

I'll start with the most simple one, research progression. In some cases, you go about and make deals with aliens or find advanced technology that you can research to improve your own tech.

Okay, that's cool.

However the entire narrative starts to fall apart when you have to collect pieces of alien technology to "figure out" how to build a missile launcher. I'm sorry, what?
Did the brightest mind at Starcom, stationed on Kite, along with their heaps of engineers and pilots suddenly forget how propulsion works? How are you building engines for your star ship? For your landing craft? We understand how to make Plasma weaponry, but not how to make lasers..? The Lander itself has a laser that can be used on survey missions all the time though.

You just, conveniently forget how to make technology humanity has had for 500-600 years.

The size of objects are, horribly inconsistent. I believe we're meant to see it as you are flying relatively far and above the planets, that is why the perspective is that your ship can be a large fraction of, to several times larger than the planet below you. That would be fine, you do fly "over" them.

But you don't fly over stars :) You fly through stars. So the stars are on the same plane as you and can be several times smaller than the planets orbiting them or even your own ship.

And then you see the Derelicts. Which are, literally, utterly insane in scale. 1 AU = 150,000,000 kilometers or 93,000,000 million miles. Some of them are at least 100~ au in length, and they are set off in the distance.




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So, the planets can be relatively big, especially compared to the stars, but the Derelicts compared to the stars and planets are fucking unfathomably massive. So it is clear the Developer (justkevin) did not have an issue with making some things large in scale, so planets, stars - whatever, could have been more aptly scaled.

And then there is Eso.

The dyson sphere takes up an entire sector. It is several thousands of AU in size. To try and give any degree of perspective - pluto is roughly 30-40 AU from the sun. The sun itself is not even a 1/10th of an AU. (it is only 1.4 million miles.)

I just - why? Was this a specific artistic choice to make the size of all these objects hilariously inaccurate? I'm to believe 15 people are piloting a ship bigger than a star? Who also don't know how to build rockets? What the fuck, man.

I could actually forgive a lot of this, the gamification of things (like collecting technology to make a missile launcher), wonky scales, if the game did not try to approach actual science/speculative fiction in a lot of it's world building and then actively contradicting itself. Make it a shooty pewpew alien twin stick shooter kinda game with some fun stories or commit to the hard science fiction, or at least don't put in stuff that doesn't make any sense at all.

For instance, in one system - a species on a planet orbiting a pulsar describes gamma ray bursts as life giving. (This is incredibly inaccurate.) If you get hit by one of the ray jets while piloting your craft, it deals massive damage. (That makes more sense.)

In another star system, a gamma ray burst obliterates all life on the planets. (This is the most accurate depiction of what might happen.)

It ruins the immersion for me, in your setting are GRB's capable of giving or taking life? It's worse when you consider that the system hit with the GRB is described as being a "long gamma ray burst" - so a burst lasting longer than 2 seconds - likely from an entirely different point in the galaxy, meaning the GRB would have dissipated somewhat in potency. The planet, orbiting the pulsar - could be being hit with gamma rays every few milliseconds, so essentially constantly :)

Gas giant that is capable of being used like a cloud chamber? Damn that's super fucking cool. We boutta learn a shit load about particle physics. (My actual, excited response to finding actual science terminology being applied in the setting, before becoming progressively more disappointed)

- Oh btw, we found this entire skeleton made from adamantine. Yeah the xenobiologist thinks it might be legit, but we think it might just be a art project or something. Take it aboard the ship to study/set up an exhibition? Never find out if it's actually a naturally formed skeleton or if it was manufactured. Lose all the adamantine you coulda gotten if when studied it turned out to be fake. I get there was supposed to be a decision to be made here, but maybe the decision should've been to either melt it down, or set up an archeology exhibit or research site on the planet instead..?

- Yo so, there is currently a sincere existential threat going on buddy. Like uhh, immortal metahumans from inside this fucking giant dome, controlled by a genocidal AI whose goal is to exterminate literally all life in the universe and or keep any other life from ever evolving, and replace it with humanity before going back in time to do it again. We've literally uploaded every single log our ship has made since we came here to a lightwave frequency(?), including any weapons, science, technology, etc - that we discovered in the hope that someone knows something about stopping them, or could at least help hold them back while we work on figuring out what to do.
Oh, uhhhh,.,.,,.,, ,, you'd-- uhm. You'd rather continue to shoot at us, while getting shot at by them, because we didn't give you enough free technology, even though we've just shared with literally the entire galaxy (possibly entire universe since this shit apparently distorts the CMB or someshit) everything that we fucking know??? Okay cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool that is rational and makes sense.

Game is fun, if you turn up the difficulty combat can be rewarding. Some of the concepts are neat, even provoking an emotional response - like the crashed ship with 3 guys, two of which died with a ton of wealth and valuables, with the third one only having a couple of empty bottles. The remainder of humanity after the NGL sentinels continued to kill every human they came across being forced to evolve into the other species to survive is a very cool concept.

But uhhh, the rest of the shit was driving me insane.

Imaginative, but very poorly polished. There's way too much time spent watching your ship slowwwwwwwly travel between start systems, as in that's often more than half your gameplay time at certain spots in the game. Friendly factions will randomly turn hostile, trade is a joke, and the mission log is almost useless. Good ideas, but not executed well at all.