By Kieron Gillen on February 13th, 2009 at 5:35 pm.
Positech (Kudos, etc) have announced a new game: Gratuitous Space Battles. That is all.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Gratuitous Space Battles
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13/02/2009 at 17:39 Colthor says:
Three words, four tiny screenshots. Enough to get my interest – sounds like it could be fun :)
13/02/2009 at 17:41 Heliocentric says:
Full 3d or flatspace?
13/02/2009 at 17:42 Deadpan says:
I’m going to go ahead and give it the Name of the Year Award. Everything is better with gratuitous space battles. That, and lesbians.
13/02/2009 at 17:46 James G says:
Hmm. The screenshots are making me think that this isn’t simply another space shooter. Are we perhaps looking at some form of intense arcade-RTS kind of thing?
13/02/2009 at 17:49 Juuso - Game Producer says:
Awesome.
Can’t wait to see how Cliff (Positech owner) manages to do with realtime gameplay (presumed this IS realtime…), he sure has done well with turn-based.
Thanks & congraz Cliff.
13/02/2009 at 17:50 dhex says:
i’ve always wished i could buy something from positech…and now i can. well, will. in the future.
from now, i mean.
13/02/2009 at 17:51 Korgan says:
I
WILL
FINALLY
PAY
FOR A POSITECH GAME
These four screenshots are the most promising ones I’ve seen in ages. Massive flat space battles are horribly underrepresented in gaming, even considering SC2 and EVN.
13/02/2009 at 17:52 Tycoon Games says:
Woot was about time you annouced it publicly! Now you must finish it :-)
13/02/2009 at 17:57 Right2Life says:
“I’m going to go ahead and give it the Name of the Year Award”
Sorry, Deadpan, “Stalin vs Martians” clinched that this morning.
Spaceships: Like Angry SPACE houses. Intruiging…
13/02/2009 at 18:05 cliffski says:
I’m honoured to even be mentioned alongside stalin vs martians.
13/02/2009 at 18:05 Tei says:
As the other people comment, this images send a powerfull message of awesomeness. Is that real, not, who cares. Hope the game is finished and something released, has this is a indie game, theres even the promise of some original gameplay :-)
It looks to me like a Gate88-ish game, with motherships.
http://www.queasygames.com/gate88/index.html
13/02/2009 at 18:14 Jonas says:
Hah! You’ve been teasing this for months via Twitter, it’s good to finally see what you’ve been working on. Great-looking shots, Cliffski : )
I’ll second the “at last I will buy a Positech game” sentiment.
13/02/2009 at 18:22 A-Scale says:
Enough of these “articles”. Where is my TF2 update news? Where is my update!?
13/02/2009 at 18:40 Rich_P says:
That looks damn sexy.
Anyone ever play SOE’s Infantry Online? If so, do you remember the Fleet! zone? The screens vaguely remind me of it.
13/02/2009 at 18:56 Pags says:
Several things I would like to know: does this game involve battling in space, and furthermore will these battles be gratuitous in nature? Thanks.
13/02/2009 at 18:58 dadioflex says:
If this game has you play an ensign in the space armada that has to make the right career and social choices in order to get promoted….
I honestly saw those screenies and like a few of you my first thought was “a Positech game I might actually buy”.
13/02/2009 at 19:02 Tei says:
@Rich_P: I have not played that area, but I have played the free game Subspace Continuum that looks like the evil twin of that one.
13/02/2009 at 19:04 Ian says:
How gratuitous?
13/02/2009 at 19:09 Tei says:
Another cool shi’ps game was Battleship Forever (IGF finalist in 2008):
http://www.wyrdysm.com/games.php
13/02/2009 at 19:11 Tei says:
postadata:
http://www.wyrdysm.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=85571
note to self:
It seems I will need to register on the forum, so I can edit my posts :I
13/02/2009 at 19:14 Leeks! says:
Gentlemen, lady… We’ve reached the end of history.
13/02/2009 at 19:49 Fitzmogwai says:
It’s Francis Fukuyama – BURN HIM!
13/02/2009 at 20:37 PHeMoX says:
Uhm, so this is a 2D space game? Awesome, ever since Flat Space 2 I’ve been looking for some more of this. It’s probably more an RTS, but that’s alright with me. Looks promising so far.
13/02/2009 at 21:14 AdrianWerner says:
Right2Life and Deapan, you are both wrong… this year the best name a game will have is obviously:
“AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity”
:D
13/02/2009 at 21:15 JonFitt says:
Great title, Cliffski. Care to give us the one line pitch?
Also: Is there any such thing as a gratuitous space battle? In my mind all space battles are entirely necessary.
13/02/2009 at 21:34 cliffski says:
more details to follow in good time…
13/02/2009 at 22:00 Turin Turambar says:
Pst, pst! Now that RPS staff doesn’t look, go here for more info
http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=50687
(Thread done by cliffski)
13/02/2009 at 22:07 Noc says:
I am getting very strong Battleships Forever vibes from this, which that thread seems to strengthen.
I approve of this.
13/02/2009 at 22:18 JonFitt says:
Aha. That thread explains it much better. Sounds fun. As someone who played a paper/model rpg (name escapes me) years ago, I say more complexity = better, for what it sounds like you’re going for.
One of the best bits about Elite II was attempting to build the absolute best ship for a given task.
I think the battle mechanics need to be sufficiently complex for the different builds to make a difference. Paper RPGs are probably a good place to research.
13/02/2009 at 22:29 JonFitt says:
@Cliffski: Full Thrust was the one I played.
There’s decades of gaming history here lots of broken links, but the descriptions might be useful for further research:
http://spaceship.brainiac.com/index.html
13/02/2009 at 22:54 qrter says:
Exactly!
13/02/2009 at 23:37 Taillefer says:
Gratuitous Space Battles. In Space!
Dyson’s put me in the mood for something like this. Assuming that this is the this this could be.
14/02/2009 at 00:33 Logo says:
It looks gratuitous but I’m worried that it’s not gratuitous enough. I would like to see more gratuitousness in future screen shots.
And yes this comment was almost entirely for the chance to excessively use the word ‘gratuitous’.
14/02/2009 at 01:13 Chis says:
STILL no mention of Pioneer?!
RPS fail epically.
14/02/2009 at 01:29 Pags says:
More like gratuitously.
14/02/2009 at 01:37 shinygerbil says:
I think all that needs to be said here is
PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW
14/02/2009 at 02:14 Ben Abraham says:
This. Looks. MENTAL.
14/02/2009 at 02:19 Al3xand3r says:
Looks like the battles in
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Digital_Eel/WW/WW_page.html
Only perhaps in larger scale. I like.
14/02/2009 at 03:26 Trousers says:
Reminds me of the little striker and bomber craft battles when you zoomed in all the way in Sins of a Solar empire.
Watching those little buggers zip around was my favorite part of the game.
Please oh please tell me this will bring similar joy Cliffski
14/02/2009 at 04:50 Doug F says:
I’m going to guess that Mr. McKelvie won’t be doing the art for this one?
14/02/2009 at 13:15 A:\Big.bat says:
Aargh, it’s Homeworld with ugly ship models!
14/02/2009 at 15:47 Clovis says:
The finished version is somehow already available at the Pirate Bay, har har.
14/02/2009 at 18:50 BooleanBob says:
It’s not the battles that are gratuitous, it’s space. There’s bloody loads of it.
14/02/2009 at 19:23 Heliocentric says:
Your wrong. The space is gratuitous the battles are just happening in the space which is gratuitous.
Someone finally admits that space is too thuging big.
14/02/2009 at 19:49 dadioflex says:
Jesus. I read that Q23 post and it’s like this is Kudos 2 in space. It’s another balance game except instead of balancing friends, jobs and lifestyle choices, you’re balancing weapon loads.
He’s re-skinned Kudos and made it an RTS.
Full marks for realising that your games only appeal to a niche of a niche product group. Not so happy that your social engineering RTS may actually encourage others to try the same.
Cliff, there are probably still data processing firms hiring. Do us a favour.
14/02/2009 at 19:55 Al3xand3r says:
Yes, choice is a bad thing to have out there, even if you personally hate the particular game style. It’s so natural to want everything you dislike gone out of this world. Oh wait, it’s not.
The game looks fun and balancing weapon loads sure sounds more fun than a sims style game, as long as that’s not ALL you do and you get more control of how the battles proceed, which I’m sure you will given the RTS claims. If all you could do is balance weapon loads before a fight then it would hardly be a RTS, the result would be pretty much determined before the fight and you’d just get a nice visualization of it instead of skip straight to the end.
14/02/2009 at 20:02 Heliocentric says:
When i opened this topic. That wasn’t there.
16/02/2009 at 04:15 sinister agent says:
Please finish this before July, as it will then be the first time you’ve released a game when I could actually afford to buy it. I know you’ve been doing it solely to spite me all this time, you dastard.
Also, it seems like a welcome thing. Spacey fighty action is rather underrepresented in my collection.
17/02/2009 at 06:38 Michael says:
Best. Name. EVER.