Voidship: The Long Journey Reviews

Quite fun for the first 1~2 hours, but as you play, you will encounter tougher encounters that WILL destroy your ship parts leaving you unable to replace those broken parts. From there, you will go on a downward spiral of scrapping by. A lot of the parts are expensive and not to mention, depends on your luck to unlock them. Its a 5/10 for me

A combat heavy, procedural space opera with some interesting mechanics rooted in the unforgiving timescales of spaceflight. Gameplay is reminiscent of Reassembly, but I found this game more compelling despite the lower playtime. I completed the game within six hours, but could certainly replay it and attempt a completely different build for my starship. Recommended! [b]Pros:[/b] [list] [*]Serviceable graphics that do a particularly good job of visually depicting the diversity of weapons and ships. The heavy cannons in particular sound and look awesome and enemy capital ships explode in a most satisfying way! [*]Unique take on the importance of officers and shaping your people via cultural advancement (positive and negative attributes) against a backdrop of hundreds of years of space travel. Time is not your friend... [*]Successful emphasis on customising your ship, with a simple editor providing for a wide variety of viable builds. Each build will be more suited to one of the two control schemes on offer (WASD and RTS-like), which can also be toggled in combat where necessary. [*]Multiple factions with distinct enemy capabilities and tactics make for challenging and interesting combat; a few builds may feel overpowered at times, however weaknesses will be ruthlessly exploited by foes. [*]Easy config-based modding allows you to tweak certain key parameters (e.g. crew lifespan) if that is of interest. [/list] [b]Cons:[/b] [list] [*]Sectors contain only a minor range of possible random events and they tend to get stale quickly. The lack of variety exacerbates the frequent feeling that you are on an endless resource-gathering treadmill. [*]Random access to technologies can result in being largely overpowered or frustratingly stymied for a large part of the game. [*]The wide variety of foes and the fact that the initial enemy positions are random means you need to be ready for anything. However, the constant cycling of officers due to age and the high cost of re-configuring your ship means that sometimes you will simply be outclassed. Having the entire enemy fleet spawn on top of your manoeuvrable and range-focused starship usually spells immediate disaster. Certainly realistic, but crushing when it occurs. [/list]

So much potential in this game but it just became tedious and boring. - The ship building works well - Good selection of weapons and different paths to have a successful battleship - Missions aren't varied (destroy, destroy with friends, destroy with fog of war) - RPG elements are simplistic and a little annoying - mission guidance is lacking A good attempt but I lost interest...

Many space games are too slow and tedious to learn, [u]but not this one![/u] This is probably the only game I have played where the tutorial is as thrilling as the game itself. As soon as you have assembled your crew the game throws you right into the action and from there onward every battle is an exciting challenge. [b]Things I like the most:[/b] [list] [*] So many ways to design your ship. [*] Huge variety of ship modules (most you have to unlock first). [*] Massive battles with a lot of drones, rockets and lasers everywhere. [*] Strategic decisions between the battles don't take much time but are still impactful. [/list] One problem of this game is that it is really hard to put down. There is always some new module you have just unlocked and need to try out. And of course once you have finished a run you want to start the next one right away. So far I have played it just for few hours, but it is already my money worth! Honestly, this game is more fun than most AAA titles.

It's a ship-and-crew builder with some rogue-lite elements. Ship building and crew assigning is streamlined and the first few runs are interestings as you discover the various events and systems. Every run end the same but the way to get there is what differ. You're "the last real terran ship" but there's no big bad (or other system) on your trail so you can progress at your pace while the difficulty climb fairly slowly. The story is standard fare but the music track(s) manage to convey the rare "depressing but not actually depressing" feeling. The game flow: You're assigned a basic ship (3 or 4 block and expandable to 25) and three very random starting Crews which you use to traverse randomly generate block-based paths, full of factions ships and various kind of events. You gain ressources, technologies and perks based on those events and your reactions. As your crew get older and wiser they get better and eventually die from old age as the long travel time between system takes their toll. Perks that extend their live expectancy are thus particularly prized. As you realize events are not randomized you find out they can be exploited. A big system of the game, technologies, just stop in a complete black hole without the game so much as acknowledging it. At the worst there's a few glaring bugs like annoying sound issues of weapons that keep firing while they already sopped and here's some really broken stuff, like this one perk that allow you to just quickly farm money, or that teleport that doesn't have any kind of safeguard against moving out of the map boundaries. So the game has some rough edges but it's still very enjoyable.

There is both a lot to like and a lot to be desired about this game. Voidship: The Long Journey is about a ship with a name of your choosing traversing the galaxy after humanities empire is brought to heel by an ancient alien race. You travel the galaxy building your ship as you go along, in the hopes of rebuilding humanity. Voidship is interesting, for those who have played FTL: Faster Than Light you may find this to be very similar in that you’re the captain of a ship traveling the galaxy trying to save the Terran Empire what sets this apart from FTL is the fact that you can build your own ship, lack of crew customization, space travel taking YEARS to do, (don’t worry it’s not real time) but your officers are going to die of old age (explaining the lack of character customization.) One thing I did like is this new tradition system, it doesn’t look to developed but to think that the political sphere of your ship can change is very interesting. The customization is decent allowing you to fit different modules on your ship to fit your play style (me personally hitting the enemy hard and fast) but outside of that there is no customization, sure you can name the ship, but there’s no paint selection thruster colors, etc. The games combat is going to get very repetitive it claims to have complex strategic gameplay but not really you have several special abilities that your crew and some modules give you but out side of that you just avoid being shot, the AI takes care of combat for you. Overall, I was personally disappointed by this game, as I prefer open world, open ended games that allow you to go out and do your own thing, this game is not that. If you liked FTL you may like this, you may not, I think it’s up to the player to decide.

While the concept for this game is excellent I can't recommend it for one reason: Not enough content. There are only a few (~10) randomly generated events that exist at all, with each system being a random combination of them + 5 story events which don't scale with difficulty progression. There are 3 factions of enemies with different styles of fighting, and allies that are just copies of one of the enemies but friendly. The amount of available modules for your ship is decent, but not huge, and you're limited to a 5x5 box of modules whose positioning is only relevant for shielding and nothing else. Also, making the same choice in the same event will produce the same guaranteed result more often than not. The ability to use both RTS and WASD modes is good, but somewhat buggy and missing useful functionality: In WASD mode you lose the ability to use different weapons independently and using module targeting in RTS screws up your defense turrets for some reason (almost certainly a bug) If it goes heavily on sale maybe pick it up for a few bucks but that's it. Not a ton of replayability here despite being a roguelike.

Pick it up on sale -- for me, $5 was the sweet spot. The game is buggy (looping sound effects, accidentally nuking yourself while picking story dialogue options, etc), and has some broken mechanics, such as: - enemy capital ships spawning directly in front of you in some random encounters - ramming-type vessels destroying your ship within the first few seconds of a battle (not an exaggeration: I once died immediately after the battle started, before I could start moving) But, it's got an interesting story, and can help you pass an hour or two.

I bought the game cause i loved the screenshots, but then I realized I am one of "those few" that don't like FTL and I did notice the resemblance. So I started sorta cold, but now I have to confess I am warming up a lot with my ship getting stronger and better equipped and battles getting bloodiers. The game is polished, well executed and very pleasant in visuals, UX and gameplay in general. I absolutely adore the enemies AIs. Whilte simple there's such a good variety of behavioral patterns that make some battles very challenging. The crew mechanic is very nice, i like the idea of them getting older and more skilled and also dying. I also do like a lot the society management in the ship, it's simple but gives a pleasant additional flavor. You see, dragged in by screenshot, then almost scared away by the genre, then hooked again by a very well executed game. Well done, will definitely play more of it.

I loved Faster Than Light and I was very happy to see a fresh take on the genre. Actually my expectations were exceeded due to the [b]strategic freedom[/b] you are given: the fact you can move the ship during combat adds a huge amount of depth since [b]you have to devise different fighting tactics depending on your ship design[/b]. For instance you can build a heavy fortress based on defense and powerful short range weapons. Running from enemies won't be an option and evasive movements will be effective only against slow weapons, but it's the enemy who has to be afraid of getting near you: the defense turrets will neutralize projectile attacks, shields+armor+rotation will help against the rest together with repair modules to keep you healthy. Meanwhile, your cannons whoever tries to molest you. But what if you prefer speed and evasion? No problem, build a fast ship with long range weapons to stay at a safe distance and the enemy will never get to you. [b]Do you like both firepower and speed and feel a little reckless Han-Solo style? The word "safety" is not in your vocabulary?[/b] Put together a glass cannon ship for quick incursions and leave the kids at home. Just don't forget to mind your positioning and approaching/evading techniques if you like to live. Your arsenal: monodirectional weapons, omnidirectional weapons, fighters, drones, bombs, missiles, the only lethal thing you won't have is disco music from the 60s. [b]With the wide array of modules available[/b], many of which I didn't discover yet, [b]possibilities seem endless[/b]. [b]Crew management is an additional layer[/b]: each crewmember has its own skills, perks and defects. They can level up and improve, but ultimately they die by old age and are replaced by new members with different characteristics. Can you feel the tension? Every couple of system jumps you'll find yourself wondering: [b]will this super useful crewmember survive the next travel?[/b] Do I try to keep a high quality crew by acquiring extra members, research ways to extend their lifespan and planning carefully my journey? Do I sacrifice many crews to explore the universe? This review is getting long, huh? [b]After playing Voidship just a couple hours I have so much to say and this proves that the game offers a ton of depth and replayability.[/b] Add to that the maps generated randomly. And did I mention [b]modding[/b] possibilities? I have to investigate about it, but only the word "[i]modding[/i]" makes me wet. [b]Voidship is without a shade of doubt an addictive little gem, the best gift you should make yourself right now.[/b]