I'm playing Space Colony HD,
a real-time base-building strategy game by Firefly
Studios.
The game is actually a re-release of
the 2003 title with enhanced graphics, a free upgrade for owners of
the original. The campaign mode offers specific objectives and
scripted events, and the design of your base carries over to future
missions, adding a sense of persistence to the proceedings. The
galaxy mode offers a number of single missions with varied starting
conditions and objectives, and the sandbox mode starts you out with a
bare design and no restrictions or goals. Map and campaign editors
are included to expand the game, and the voiced tutorials do a decent
job teaching the basics. The interface does have some areas that need
improvement: the bridge screen, which displays colonist information,
oxygen and power supplies, financial information, and trade controls,
should have been incorporated into the main screen (now that there is
plenty of room at HD resolutions). The tool-tips are also
insufficient: the skill icons specifically are in desperate need of
detail when you mouse over them. Your colonists can have any number
of nineteen skills, which allows them to run a particular building on
your base. They will also need to attend to a number of needs (food,
sleep, hygiene, entertainment), some of which may be of more
importance to them. Gameplay involves constructing your base to
excavate resources and defend against alien attacks, while placing
structures to fulfill the various needs of your habitants. More
exotic resources can be used to construct enhanced items, such as
robot workers or improved medicine, and alien attacks (that will
destroy buildings they encounter) will need to be repelled. While
Space Colony HD does feel like an old game because of the interface
and sprite-based graphics, the colonist needs, varied mission
objectives, and chaos during alien battles makes the game a worthy
base builder, especially at a friendly price.
