Orch Star Reviews

[Holiday Update Review] Wow, man. I rarely get time to play games anymore, but I'm hooked between playing this... and praising it in this review. The 'Skirmish update' was just released, and it's awesome, especially since the game doesn't end if your AI allies are still fighting, which feels epic, because a lot of other games end the game when your 'own' forces are lost, even though you've put in a lot of effort and sacrifice to help your allies (You can exit via the menu if you've had enough popcorn). The campaign just gets better and trickier. This is strategy at it's best. The AI is top notch. Prepare to lose... and get right back in again.. with 'Magic', yes, 'Spaceships and Magic!' [Campaign only] [Original Review]Polished, balanced, tricky, fun, with great sound and atmosphere. It's great seeing VR 'Experiences' evolving from their humble beginnings. A must buy for strategy fans, and an intuitive intro to Real-Time Strategy games for the fans to be. Well worth the price. Ps. [Update! Just found the Zoom function. It looks even more awesome than I thought :) ]Don't be shy to skim the borders of the playing area, googling your ships. You'll be surprised at how detailed they are, when your eyeballs are so close to them. To the Devs, release a demo up to Level 3. I was compelled to write a review at how great this game is. Level 3 will have everyone hooked :) Well done.

This review is based on playing it on a monitor and is definitely not as immersive as playing it in VR. So mechanics wise, the game is pretty simple and straightforward; you click on your planet, percentage up your ships that you want to send into battle, and click and drag an arrow to where they will attack. Your ships will fly in formation and then attack the enemy ships, there will be a number representing how many ships are lost. You can use the WASD to focus your monitor view on the battle and then zoom in/out. Overall, there doesn't feel to be any depth to it. The game is a good time-waster and probably an even better time waster in VR. It's not a complicated game without much of a curve. The graphics are nice and it runs smooth. Is it worth its current price? Probably not. If you're interested, get it while it's on sale.

I have really enjoyed the simplicity and fun of other similar style games (e.g., Astraeus). So I went into this game knowing that I would like the genre of game that this is. While I knew this title wouldn't be super complex from other reviews - it does refresh the gameplay a bit and makes for a little more involved play than Astraeus. So, the base of the game is solid and can be quite enjoyable. Unfortunately, the controls on this game are very frustrating and non-intuitive. The in-game tutorials are incomplete, and leave a lot of menus unexplained and there is jargon that you just kinda are on your own to figure out. It took me hours of button mashing to try to figure out some of the more complex commands that you can give - mostly just because the controls were that frustrating and not well explained (for instance, how to break off a group of one type of fighters from the other ships they are associated with). Unfortunately, the use of these sort of advanced orders seems absolutely necessary in the later levels - which meant that there were hours of frustration knowing what I wanted to do, but unable to figure out how to make the command. Even once the right sequence of buttons to hit was clear to me, it is extremely easy to make mistakes depening on the submenu you are in - mistakes that can easily cost you the game. I similarly felt that the unintuitive nature of the off-hand controller (used for changing perspective, for instance) made it basically unusuable. I just set my left controller down for most of the later levels, choosing to just stick with one perspective (which does diminish the VR elements of the game). In the end, I did stick with this game - but it was at least as much out of stubbornness as out of fun. I want to recommend this for the core of the game, but think the controls (at least on HTC Cosmos controllers) severely diminished the experience.

I am very happy this was converted to the Windows Mixed Reality platform as well. I had purchased it before this had happend on the off chance it would work since I tried this at a game con and really liked it. Great game! Orch Star could use some more musical tracks though but aside from that this is so much fun.

Deep, beautiful and challenging space strategy game with great space opera music that has to be heavily influenced by Eve. Sets a new standard for me how I want to experience my space battles. Its going to be hard going back to keyboard and mouse now. Can be played both with VR glasses and without.

Orch Star gives me a combined feeling like playing Homeworld and Anthill which i love! Playing without VR and are having an awesome experience thus far, but this game really makes me wanna scramble for that Vive to make it complete... The strategy gameplay feels uniquely challenging and is addictingly mind boggling. The soundscape design is spot on and makes it pleasingly imersive and dreamy.

Well... it is difficul to like this game. It is very well done and the VR experience is nice. graphics are outstanding, gameplay is well thought... But I believe the game is just lacking essential element for me. Ressource management, building fleet etc... after a couple of scenario I was left to believe this is it, just capture point, get ships total increasing, send them to weak spot and so and so on... I did not find it especially existing. It is probably something appealing for anyone who do not want to bother with more complexity than that or we want only to focus on the strategy level. But I need more . I could advise everyone to look at an another game, void Link. It is not that fancy graphicaly but it is more a classic RTS with ressources gathering and fleet builder. PS : I will not refund your game because I think you desserve my money for your great effort and the editor. I support you :)

So i really wanted to like this game but it just isn't enough of a game for me. The visuals and overall presentation are great, also controls are easy to use and intuitive. Where it really lacks is in the actual gameplay department. Basically this is a "capture the flag" style game. You command your units to move to a position and capture it. Once you capture a point it starts producing more units for you. Then you send those units to capture the next point. It is basically the same gameplay as Eufloria or Auralux just with a lot better visuals and in VR obviously. I only played the first few levels because sending units from one planet to the other gets old really fast, no matter the visuals and story. There is no progression, you cannot seem to upgrade units and even though there are different types of units the game does not explain at all what their strengths and weaknesses are and in the end it doesn't really matter anyways because you just send in the big horde to capture the next flag. It's really a shame that so much work into doing all the outstanding visual design but so little work went into actual game design. So unless you really like your strategy as simple as waiting for your units to gather enough in numbers and then send all your units off to capture the next flag, I cannot really recommend this game. I still will not refund the game, because I think it could be salvaged with a few patches and I would like to support the developers (good VR games are hard to come by these days anyways). It already has a good foundation in terms of visuals and controls. Now it just needs to add a bit more on the gameplay side of things to keep it engaging.

Love this. Very difficult strategy masterpiece. Well recommended.

This game works surprisingly well without ar VR kits, but I've tested it with an HTC Vive as well, and let me tell you; it really brings an extra dimension to the game! (sorry). It is just a marvellous feeling to gaze upon this beautiful, vivid space and be there. I am a space nerd and honestly would not need an actual game, I could just travel around space and be happy. There is a game though! About an orc rebellion, and you are here to make sure it happens. You need to think levels through and most likely you wont pass them all on the first try. I have not played the game through yet, but the beginning is promising. Don't miss out on this if you have a VR kit!