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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Three words, four tiny screenshots. Enough to get my interest – sounds like it could be fun :)
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Full 3d or flatspace?
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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.
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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?
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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.
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i’ve always wished i could buy something from positech…and now i can. well, will. in the future.
from now, i mean.
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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.
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Woot was about time you annouced it publicly! Now you must finish it :-)
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“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…
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I’m honoured to even be mentioned alongside stalin vs martians.
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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
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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.
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Enough of these “articles”. Where is my TF2 update news? Where is my update!?
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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.
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Several things I would like to know: does this game involve battling in space, and furthermore will these battles be gratuitous in nature? Thanks.
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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”.
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@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.
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How gratuitous?
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Another cool shi’ps game was Battleship Forever (IGF finalist in 2008):
http://www.wyrdysm.com/games.php
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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
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Gentlemen, lady… We’ve reached the end of history.
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It’s Francis Fukuyama – BURN HIM!
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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.
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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
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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.
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more details to follow in good time…
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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)
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I am getting very strong Battleships Forever vibes from this, which that thread seems to strengthen.
I approve of this.
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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.
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@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
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Exactly!
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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.
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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’.
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STILL no mention of Pioneer?!
RPS fail epically.
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More like gratuitously.
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I think all that needs to be said here is
PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW
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This. Looks. MENTAL.
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Looks like the battles in
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Digital_Eel/WW/WW_page.html
Only perhaps in larger scale. I like.
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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
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I’m going to guess that Mr. McKelvie won’t be doing the art for this one?
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Aargh, it’s Homeworld with ugly ship models!
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The finished version is somehow already available at the Pirate Bay, har har.
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It’s not the battles that are gratuitous, it’s space. There’s bloody loads of it.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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When i opened this topic. That wasn’t there.
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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.
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Best. Name. EVER.
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