Galaxy Squad

This game is a bit rough around the edges but the galaxy conquest mode it has is worth checking out. XCOM-like gameplay but with a ship to manage instead of a base (and less complicated), but in the galaxy conquest mode you are redirecting fleets around the map in a 4x-lite strategy layer on a randomly generated map. I wish more games would do this!

Fun game, worth the discount.

poor mans xcom. the overworld map is inspired by ftl and the fights are inspired by xcom. here you are running away from the red line or you'll get really hard fights. you'll run into stations to acquire gear/ship stuff/new people/quests also you can find planet's, ships, and other events. you'll find items at these places or get into fights and no there are no ship battles like ftl. your ship can be upgraded but there isn't really much to it outside the combat upgrades.

combat is done like xcom. you get 2 actions but if you attack or reload (without the upgrade) these will take both actions...well unless you use them as your 2nd action. you can have a squad of up to 5 with a choice of 6 classes (3 are unlockables) and most things from xcom are here nads, healing, defib, overwatch, cover and missing a 100% hit rate attack to a dodge.

if you're not into roguelite games maybe pass on this as they expect you to fail a few times before you can unlock the random chance of beater stuff popping up in a run. it's good for only 1+ people working on it and this is great for a indie game. if you like xcom and can handle the graphics and rogeliteness of the game then maybe give this a shot.

Galaxy Squad is what happens when someone watched FireFly, played some XCOM and wanted to cross it with FTL but had no idea about game design.

It's a mish-mash of a lot of ideas, none which really work together and all of them with a substandard quality. The rogue-like approach is great until you realize that there's a very limited amount of items, enemies and events to find.

The promise of the game is great, the writing is atrocious, and the storylines don't even conclude after the final battle.

And yet, it's a fascinating game design bit, especially coming from a single developer. Grab it on a sale, spend a few hours saving or selling out the galaxy, then get back to XCOM.

Pros:
- The music is fairly good.
- Battle has that XCOM feel.
- Decent selection of weapons and armor.
- Choice of starting ship and bonuses.

Cons:
The game keeps forgetting that it's in space. Space stations have roads and trees that are open to space; the structures have peaked roofs and smokestacks.

I rescued a guy from a derelict ship. He offered to join my crew, then immediately stole some money and ran away. In space.

I didn't see any ship combat. Instead, your team beams aboard the enemy ship (strangely, yours never gets boarded). You can install weapons on your ship, but they work like fire support, shooting through the other ship's hull at enemy units with pinpoint accuracy during close quarters combat. Seriously?

You can build a defensive system on your ship. It can project shields around your troops -- through the other ship's hull. The defibrillator can somehow remotely revive a fallen soldier. This all works even when the system is powered off to conserve energy.

Some games manage a lot of charm with low resolution graphics. This isn't one of them. Planets look like crumpled paper balls. Team members are so blocky that pixel graphics would have been better. It's nice that you can customize things like clothing color, except that it can also change the hair color (green outfit, green hair).

Combat chatter ("I'm going, I'm going!") quickly becomes annoying. It can't be turned off.

I got the game for 90% off, but it just isn't enjoyable enough to put time into.

Cheap, rough graphics, but working combination as a low budget game.
For some reason I just play again and again. After 500 hours there still happens new things to me. New quests, new weapon and so on...And sometimes a whole game is over and I still did not find my favourite weapon...Not a single one...
Worth it's price, if under 50€....

I thought I had left a very scathing review of Galaxy Squad first time trying it... and gave up on it after an hour or so...

I came to correct that review, but find it missing.

So, why did I hate it, and why do I not now? It was extremely bland and buggy to begin with and the difficulty didn't balance well... Went from super easy to impossible.

Well, decided to give it another go and... Well, it seems pretty easy so far, (but I'm not on hardest difficulty, so thats OK).

It doesn't seem buggy anymore, appears the developer has done a lot of work.

The game still seems a little bland. The Engrish is amusingly bad at times... But... It's a decent casual xcom-light that provides some decent entertainment now.

Don't spend a lot of money on this, but for under $5, for a casual Turnbased game, it's worth that for a change from replaying XCOM or Xenonauts for the umpteenth time.

Even though I actually like the idea and features of the game (roguelike, turnbased and the pressure from being chased), I can't recommend a buy. Not at the current pricetag and only partly when on a massive discount.

The simple reason is the technical issues the game has.
In my gametime so far, I wasn't able to successfully finish a single run, because all my trys were stopped by dev-console error messages (sometimes you're able to collapse them, sometimes the game hangs completely).
Furthermore, the save function doesn't seem to work properly. Sometimes you loose progress, sometimes items, or in the worst case the savegame becomes corrupted and you can't continue at all.
For a Roguelike with only one savefile that becomes unbearable quite quick.

There is some sort of modding tool integrated to theoretical create content, but I wasn't able (maybe I'm too dumb...) to get any mod running without a crash within the first few turns.

However, if the technical issues (especially the save function) would be fixed, it could become a little game to do some quick fun missions when you ain't got much time, but in the current state: Better save your money.

The bad reviews for this game are due to players not unlocking everything (which takes a few game runs) or not playing all the game modes.

I have logged 17.6 hours and have beaten the campaign twice. Extreme difficulty can kill you early, eventually you do get pretty bad ass and then it is hard to die. The story has different branches that have different cut scenes and fights - I had two completely different stories in both play throughs. The story is kinds silly but the ending can surprise you - I had an ending that did not even have a final fight ... just a satisfying cut scene.

There is definitely content in this game ... i have not unlocked everything yet. The battles are strange at first because you need to realize to use the number keys and space bar to confirm actions ... not the mouse.

The battles are weak in the start but get more complicated. I kind of wish the enemies had your own skills - your mercs have some very cool abilities and the enemies have their own unique abilities but they never use your own. It would be cool to fight enemies that used your tank skills etc.

Overall it is a good game, it glitched twice while buying gear in a store BUT the game auto saves your progress so you lose nothing.

Please remember however to use the keyboard more than mouse. Once you do that the fights are comfortable.

While on sale for $1.99 its a rather fun time killing game. However it becomes repetitive real quick and the game is so cut dry. Lots of bugs still.

Most of the time I played, I just wanted to play in free mode... I'll get there one of these days as its a locked function.

A fun if somewhat generic mix of xcom tactical turn based squad combat with RPG leveling mechanics plus a FTL style galaxy to explore with the Feds hot on your trail as an impetus against lollygagging. The game allows for a lot of customization with different gamemodes you can unlock plus different difficulty options that increase your scoring multiplier which in turn nets you more 'glory points' that can be used to unlock new character classes, weapons, ship types, upgrades and game modes.

Overall the game certainly punches above its weight class and should offer a few dozen hours of tactical RPG fun for genre fans.

Oh one very nice feature the game has is you can speed up animations up to 300%. Always great to see a dev that respects your time like that.

The premise of Galaxy Squad sounds good. XCom-like tactical combat, with an FTL-like strategic layer. You move your ship along a tree of connected stars, with an unbeatable pursuit force slowly blocking off one side of the map. You run ground combat missions, defeat enemies, collect cash and equipment, and hopefully get strong enough to beat the final encounter.

The graphics are incredibly crude low poly models with no textures, like something out of the 90's. I can live with that. What I can't live with so much is that the game design's also pretty crude. It borrows liberally from XCom 1's mechanics, including the two-action mechanic, high / low cover, classes including "assault," "support," and "shooter" (read: sniper), and special abilities like thrown sensors, but that's not enough to save it.

In the early game, lethality is very low, and you can safely ignore cover and just rush around shooting the closest target. Map design is poor-to-awful, often with no meaningful cover. There's even one map where you face a pack of 10 enemies in an open arena with no cover at all. The game doesn't steal ENOUGH from XCom, so the ability trees and weapon selection are pretty sparse. AI's pretty dumb, often leaving hostiles out in the open (though admittedly sometimes the maps give no good choices).

The FTL-like strategic layer is minimal, mainly just a way of picking up missions and spending cash on equipment. There's a ship-building element, but it doesn't really go anywhere. Mostly it gives you the option of one-time special actions like an area effect attack or reviving one dead crewmember.

The tipping point for me, though was that I couldn't finish my first campaign, The final mission node was just not connected to the rest of the stars. That's just sloppy, and killed my waning interest.

Oversimplified turn-based combat, very little terrain, very small maps, 'movement points' that do not account for how dificult something is to use and provide very little flexibility. It is not the charming and deceptive simplicity of FTL, but something that feels more fit for limited controls and screens of smartophones than for keyboard and mouse of PC.
If you like tactical turn based combat in modern/sci-fi setting, various X-COM/UFO/e.t.c clones are infinitely better, space 'exploration' aspect of Galaxy squad is not worth mentioning from my point of view, every other game I played does it better.

I was not expecting a lot from this game and the graphics leave a lot to be desired but wow, it turned out to be a LOT of fun. The tactical combat is very rich and deep with support characters that are actually extremely useful. The varied character classes each offer very different ways to play and there's a decent variety in the way you can arm and armor your units. Also, the choices of different ships in which your crew can take on the campaign offer even more variety,

The biggest drawbacks are that the interface is a bit clunky and old-school but not in the cool way. Also, the dialog and writing are not translated very well but it's enough to follow along and stay interested. It's a game that - if it were put into a development house and released again or a sequel was made (while keeping the core game play and design elements in tact) - could be a big, big hit.

Oh, also, they tried to include melee combat as an option but unless you get the plasma sword, you're better off just sticking to firearms and explosives. It could be really awesome if melee were more of an option.

I felt like playing XCOM again, but I didn't want to go back through the same story. So I searched for a game that would have a new story, but play just like XCOM. Galaxy Squad is that game. The strategic game is almost exactly FTL, and the tactical game is almost exactly XCOM. The two blend together quite seamlessly for an overall very satisfying experience. If you liked FTL and XCOM, you'll like Galaxy Squad.

First impressions, might update later, coming from someone with experience in Xcom but hasn't played FTL, my only roguelike has been slay the spire.

The pros:
Xcom-like gameplay but seemingly less blatant rng manipulation (I haven't had a 99% miss and 100% to hit actually exists in GS) will see if this continues later on but %s seem to be accurate, at least more so then Xcom, and in general feels like GS has more consistency as a feeling in general.

4 modes, Story, Sandbox/Freeplay, Conquest, and Survival, everything aside from conquest seems self explanatory, with 4 separate modes one of them seeming to be a fairly competent (if cliche starting) story I'd say it's above expectation for an indie roguelike/strategy.

an 'out of game' unlock system, giving reason to continue playing and feel like you're achieving something even if you get screwed over in a run, also giving a reason to opt into difficulty increasing/decreasing options pre-run like less/more loot drops, harder difficulty, etc.

A few more personal 'problems' I had with Xcom, 1. THERE'S NO BLOODY TURN LIMIT at least on most missions as far as I can tell. 2. Down-but-not-out seems to always happen (I don't know if enabling permadeath disables this) while I don't yet know how it's implemented (ie. do I need to go tap them, do I have to end the fight in 4 turns or less, do I need to medkit them, etc.) it's just nice to know that even if an enemy gets a crit headshot and instant downs them, there's still some way to respond other then reload save or move on. 3. There seems to be no save scumming, more about that in the 'meh' section.

hovering over an enemy will show a short description of what they can do, whether they're ranged, their health, etc. simple but a neat little thing so you don't have to remember every single thing every enemy does.

The mehs: (aka neither good nor bad IMO)
save scumming doesn't seem to exist, while there was a pop up that said something about restarting a mission but I haven't yet tried that. I managed to get myself into a 10 v 3 fight that ended up killing all my characters, on the final death it kicked back to menu and there simply was no save file anymore, while had this happened a bit further along I may have been peeved a bit more about progress simply gone it's the kind of thing you already know about or only make the mistake of once. Saves are only done via a save and quit to main menu, then a continue option, no manual or savestates along the way. Which is likely how it works with most roguelikes but someone coming from a more tactical turn based gameset I can see this being a negative, especially first time if not expected. Personally I like everything about this system as is.

Very clearly an indie game, instead of being good or bad this is the opposite and is both at once, the graphics are stylized but lower quality, the story cutscenes are janky, have clipping, etc. but actually have your characters in them rather then be pre-set ones that your character(s) are nowhere to be seen, the voiceacting is really hit or miss (mostly miss and kind of repetitive imo) but still exists and has alien voices as well. There's more of course but mostly just affecting graphics and animation, the gameplay is entirely unaffected negatively. (this is also a bonus if you've got a very mediocre desktop/laptop, I mean just look at those system requirements)

While not translated perfectly, with quite a few weird wordings, it's definitely serviceable and is fluid enough to be read without too much trouble, but might throw some people off a bit initially or require re-reading a line or two here and there.

The cons:
Very few control/misc options, everything from keybind changes to camera rotation speed is entirely missing (although as a pro it actually has fluid camera unlike a certain other game I keep referencing) while everything can be done with mouse I'd like to see alot more options in the future, it does have an ok amount of graphic options but mostly on the basic side as well.

Alot of systems unexplained, three or four popups happen at the very begining and give a barebones overview of the buttons to press to get to the equipment menu and move around the map, almost everything is trial/error

No tooltips, I really hope to see these in the future, having tooltips on the options menu and pre-run options especially (what does enabling permadeath do exactly? What does difficulty actually change? Etc.) learning mechanics of the game is one thing trying to learn the options shouldn't really be another.

that's alotta words, thank you for your time.

Overall game to price:
With everything at a base price of $10 it's absolutely worth it, $15-20 would seem more fitting but hopefully the lower cost means more people can experience this and even with this already low price GS even dropped another 25% off for opening week out of early access (which is one of the reasons it showed up on my store suggested I'm pretty sure) what else really are you planning on buying with a whole $10? I highly doubt something that easily hits 10-30 hours minimum.

TL;DR
It's like xcom but roguelike with a bunch of stuff to do, 4 modes (gotta unlock 3 by playing the story though) that you can easily get 10-30 hours minimum for $10. Graphics are lower end but perfectly good for indie and are more stylized then realistic. while control and keybind options are lacking somewhat it's by no means a dealbreaker and everything can be done by mouse anyway, be prepared to learn what things do by trial and error rather then tooltips. 100% worth the buy.

decent game, great price. FTL is a perfect title, Galaxy Squad is clunky in small ways. XCOM battles felt more decided by how the events unfold, Galaxy Squad feels more determined by what you came to the battle with. on sale its almost free, and the dev seems like a sincere dude. hopefully he keeps revising it over time, but i think its almost done.

there is a lot of in-game content to 'unlock', its not tricky just takes many play-throughs.

idk pretty much mixed review, but its definitely not trash

one thing i dislike is the tapping through the potential targets, wish there was an alternate target selection method. also i dislike how easy it is to accidently take an action with no roll-back button. a small thing is rotating the camera during character animation, right now you are stuck with the current angle until the acting stops. the unlocks take too much time imo. also the gaps between difficulty modes seem too big, wish there were 5 steps of difficulty instead of 3.

This is pretty much a shame.

-edit-

My Steam circle of friends, mostly turn-based strategy and tactics fans, 150 of them, and only one 10 !!! owns Galaxy Squad.

You might hold off like I did before since the game is offered for such a low price that's hard to believe there is a game in it.
Or maybe you hold off because the game is labeled as EA.
Is the huge discount on sales make you believe the project is already abandoned in EA?

Galaxy Squad at the core is heavenly inspired by X-com series.
X-com series is driven on Unreal Engine and made by a huge team of respectable designers.
Galaxy Squad seems to be a one man project.

Is this project too ambitious? Yes it is I think, but I welcome it.
Is it rough around the edges? Yes it is. Even more then the screenshots on the store page shows you.
Let me start with the flaws:

- Not shown in the screenshots, the mission logs and all other texts and UI elements in the screen looks very much like a mobile game. Huge boxes with a huge font chosen. It looks terrible.

- The characters are made in low poly style seen in many other games. While the unique enemy and alien lore is done well, specially the body style and animation, the heads looks ugly almost all of them. Too bad the heads are copied to be used as character portraits as well. Logical step, but not nice to look at.

- While you can move the map with WASD, and even rotate the map with EQ, I did not found a way to change the view angle. This cause frustration sometimes by not having the exact view you want.

- There are spelling errors (beond instead of beyond etc) and text missing while completing objectives for example.

All of this isn't really distracting from the game itself and what is offered is a very complete experience in terms of replay value, huge starmap and freedom to choose missions, characters and gear.

Enemies are original and unique like artifact creatures, drone creatures, aliens and soldiers. Mission types contain protect, serve and kill mission types on a variety of big and small tactical maps (tile based).
Maps contains destructible objects, reinforcements arrivals, loot and artifacts.
There are many static objects on the map and the 3D design and the diversity of those objects is good.
Think of X-com again when it's about the fighting itself. I did not experienced the random misses at 50% view range as annoying. Enemies miss as often as you do and for both sides the healthbars are big enough to survive a few turns before new reinforcements eventually spam.

Between missions the starmap contains spacebases, surprise planets, surprise ships, factions, ship workshop, weapon shops, story teller missions and an FTL like red light that force you to move (if you choose so and the speed it happens is configurable. The star map isn't just a random bunch of triggers alone (like in Darkest dungeon, Slay the Spire and many others) but contains story missions as well.

This is were the game really shines imo. Even while made by a single dev, even with the low budget assets, he managed to create fully animated cut scenes. Immersive and very well done. Also the sound effects in the game itself are exceptional good or simply fits very well.

Your team consist of different classes with unique abilities, an inventory and XP system.
You can upgrade your ship with neat utilities as well.

The developer is organizing strawpolls often to add features and lore requested by players. Even at the moment of writing there is a poll available.

Compared to a 60 dollar big budget game there is a lot to complain about this title, but not in terms of a very nice gameplay experience. Good balance between skill and use of random in missions, fighting and starmap progress.

Well done! Keep up the good work.

If this is a one man effort, I'm impressed. This does indeed play like FTL as far as events and movement, and XCOM for combat. Cover is essential, as are healing and grenade weapons. You can't quicksave/quickload if you mess up, which makes for more tense gameplay. However you can restart tactical battles, which is a good compromise.

Hopefully in the future we could get multiplayer, this would be great with friends.

I also like the art style, minimalist but very good.

I absolutely do NOT criticize this game for being early access. It seems an heroic one-man effort with a lot of potential. Also, my low-ish rating is partly a matter of taste. My criticisms have to do with design decisions, rather than design competence.

Pro’s:
Cool ideas, lots to do (in a sketched-out form at present), and more-or-less sandbox, which I love. There are not enough Sci Fi (well, space opera …) RPGs or Sandboxes for me.
I like that you can recruit and develop new characters, and can develop your ship.
Different stations have different resources, there is a good amount of randomization, and the game keeps you busy.

Con’s:
I did not realize this is rogue-like game, or I would have avoided it. Some people like those, I guess.
Option to turn off perma-death would be nice. Other games often offer the choice.
Compounding is that there is now way to gauge the difficulty of an encounter before diving in, no way out once you find yourself overmatched, and no real way to grind your characters to competence. You bump up your characters to level three, go on to the next stop, and run into 4 250-point rocket-firing mechs and fifteen foot soldiers. All your investment and gear is simply gone.
Systems are dead once you visit them, so cycling through more manageable combats for a while is not an option. It’s like walking down the street picking fights with random strangers without training.
Money is slow, though manageable.
The artwork is butt-ugly, I’m hoping it is a placeholder.
Special abilities must be activated BEFORE you know what you are facing, and accumulate so slowly that you can only use them once every 3-5 encounters.
Very minimal and inadequate instructions.

Suggestions:
1. A way to estimate difficulty ahead of time.
2. A way to withdraw from unwinnable encounters, possibly with some penalty.
3. A way to opt out of perma-death
4. Systems re-spawn at about their former level of difficulty, possibly after some delay, though they might still be randomized as to maps and specific opponents.
5. Make the special ability lightning bolts (i.e., Mana) re-accumulate more rapidly, or give us some activity to re-accumulate it. Let us activate special abilities AFTER we see what we’re up against.
6. System icons indicating where missions might be picked up, and recommended level for encounters.

I’m uninstalling Galaxy Squad now, but will probably look at it again in a year or so.

I've played dozens of games like this but oh my. The quality of this game is amazing even in its early access state. Strongly recommend the game! I've rarely seen as charming a game.

Pros -- graphics are outstanding
-- reminds me of xcom in it's tactical battles
-- lots of customization, of individual crew and ship
Cons - Early Access bugs, but I expect over time those to be corrected.

Bottom line -- This could be an A level game in the making.

Bearing in mind that this game is early access, it's not all that bad and has the usual potential most early access games have.

There is quite a decent amount within it to enjoy about a solid hour of the game and to see where the game aims to go. The groundwork for something pretty fun is already there, it'll of course need a lot of work as with most/all early access games but it's not exactly an extortionate price and if you enjoyed FTL and you enjoy turn based games then you can see why it's enjoyable pretty quick.

Naturally there are currently some issues, the voice acting on characters is a little grating and the animations can be somewhat janky. But I've found for every somewhat jarring aspect to the game there is something quite charming to counter it,

There is part of the main storyline implemented and has 'cutscenes', which are a little janky as per most of the animations in game but are also quite interesting. The art style chosen is nothing new but still has quite a charm to it and there is already a fair variety of enemy types.

There would be no harm in waiting to see how much more is added into the game/how much is worked on but it's hardly a bad buy if you want to support the dev and spend a little of your time enjoying what quite literally feels like a hybrid of XCOM and FTL