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[Dohon]

Haven't found a topic on this game, so, here goes!

In short, the game feels like a mixture Star Control 2, Master of Orion, XCOM and even Final Fantasy. You build a base, explore with fleets, fight turn-based with a "party" of ships, have soldiers smash one another (oncemore turn-based). I can't quite describe it without creating ludicrous amounts of excitement, so I'll let the Steam Store page and the trailer speak for itself.

Spoiler: Steam Store Page Info (click to show/hide)

The Game
On the edge of Terran space lies Halcyon 6, a derelict starbase left behind by a mysterious precursor race. Your mission is to reclaim the derelict station and rebuild it.
A mysterious alien force is making a beeline towards Earth and this starbase is the best chance for the New Terran Federation to establish new alliances, research new technologies and otherwise figure out a way to stop the impending invasion.

Using only the resources you can salvage from the derelict station and gathered from nearby star systems, it’s up to you to rebuild the starbase to lead the Terran Republic’s scientific research, exploration and diplomatic efforts on the edge of known space.

Halcyon 6 is a passion project who’s design is inspired by our years spent playing classic games like Star Control, Master of Orion, X-COM, Civilization and new classics like FTL.

Features:
Base Building: spend resources to build station facilities (rooms) to enhance your production and technological capabilities, or build ships to help you control more territory
Exploration: assign your fleets to nearby star clusters, where they can handle emerging enemy threats, do missions for alien factions or secure bonus resources
Crew Management: assign crew to station facilities to greatly improve their output efficiency, or to ships where they can contribute in unique ways to combat, missions and events
Deep Tactical Combat: fight tactical ship or ground battles to resolve hostile events, create a foothold in the sector and ultimately defeat the enemy mothership!
Story Events: based on game criteria like rooms-built, alien diplomacy scores or officer traits/skills, the game will produce story events (often with multiple choice outcomes) that can lead to combat, time-related applied bonuses/negatives, officer attribute changes or any number of crazy in-game stories.


Project Goals
Unlimited Replayability: Each playthrough has players dealing with a new randomly generated derelict station, surrounding galaxy, crew recruits, and alien factions

Motley Crew: Each crew member has unlimited potential for acquiring unique behaviours, traits and abilities, for better or for worse. Making the best use of your dysfunctional crew will be one of the keys to success. Who should be your main Science Officer? The insomniac that works insane hours but has an addictive personality or the agoraphobic mad genius?

Encounters of the Weird Kind: There are 6 alien factions in Halcyon 6 and they are all quite different with varying objectives and personalities. Only your wit and your crew’s skills will help you navigate the diplomatic waters to gain them as key allies or valuable trading partners.

Rock Paper Shotgun Preview
Trailer
Kickstarter Page

And the best part? Version 1.0 released today! Get it here!

[BuriBuriZaemon]

I'm interested, but does it have an ending or can you keep on playing (sandbox)?

[Dohon]

I'm interested, but does it have an ending or can you keep on playing (sandbox)?

From what I have read so far, it seems that there is an "endgame" (defeat the invaders in their own lair), but you can keep going for a loooong time. Plenty of side-missions to do, along with research.

[Majestic7]

I have a holy quest for you guys - tell me why I should not buy this when I'm back home Monday. You have three days, proceed.

[jhxmt]

I have a holy quest for you guys - tell me why I should not buy this when I'm back home Monday. You have three days, proceed.

While you have the means and the motive, deep down you're cynical.  You know that the shine of a game that looks this good can, all too often, be found false in the playing, and you worry that you'll get a scant few hours of enjoyment out of it before the remorse sets in.

Not true buyer's remorse - you won't be upset, or feel deceived, or be so disappointed that you'll want to return the game (if that's even still an option).  But the gentle, quiet remorse that comes from not being quite as bowled over as you expected.  Not a negative feeling, but an undeniable gap between where you hoped you'd be and where you've ended up.

Gradually, as time goes on, you'll play the game less and less, never quite putting in the hours needed to 'complete' it (because that starts to feel too much like work rather than play), but just enough that you can't justify writing it off and leaving it alone.  Your Steam library (or other library of choice) will sit there, a hundred ranks of quietly judgemental games that you once felt enamoured by but which now stand as a testament to your lack of impulse control and inability to follow through.  Over time, Halcyon will become just another small grey-lettered monument to this history, and on those occasions late on a Sunday (too late to do anything productive, too soon to start anything anew) when you click from 'Installed' to 'All Games', looking for something to assuage that growing emptiness inside, your eye will barely pause as it scrolls past Halcyon and onto its identical, unchanging, unsatisfying brethren.

When your time finally comes to an end and you pass away, an old man(?) with a lifetime of minor but still grating regrets, your final thoughts won't even register this game's existence, and it will fade from history along with every other quickly-purchased, quickly-forgotten mistake.

------------

Quest completed?  No, but seriously, it looks awesome, buy it. 

[Sharp]

That's very dark, and hits home. I feel sad now jhxmt.

[jocan2003]

I have a holy quest for you guys - tell me why I should not buy this when I'm back home Monday. You have three days, proceed.

While you have the means and the motive, deep down you're cynical.  You know that the shine of a game that looks this good can, all too often, be found false in the playing, and you worry that you'll get a scant few hours of enjoyment out of it before the remorse sets in.

Not true buyer's remorse - you won't be upset, or feel deceived, or be so disappointed that you'll want to return the game (if that's even still an option).  But the gentle, quiet remorse that comes from not being quite as bowled over as you expected.  Not a negative feeling, but an undeniable gap between where you hoped you'd be and where you've ended up.

Gradually, as time goes on, you'll play the game less and less, never quite putting in the hours needed to 'complete' it (because that starts to feel too much like work rather than play), but just enough that you can't justify writing it off and leaving it alone.  Your Steam library (or other library of choice) will sit there, a hundred ranks of quietly judgemental games that you once felt enamoured by but which now stand as a testament to your lack of impulse control and inability to follow through.  Over time, Halcyon will become just another small grey-lettered monument to this history, and on those occasions late on a Sunday (too late to do anything productive, too soon to start anything anew) when you click from 'Installed' to 'All Games', looking for something to assuage that growing emptiness inside, your eye will barely pause as it scrolls past Halcyon and onto its identical, unchanging, unsatisfying brethren.

When your time finally comes to an end and you pass away, an old man(?) with a lifetime of minor but still grating regrets, your final thoughts won't even register this game's existence, and it will fade from history along with every other quickly-purchased, quickly-forgotten mistake.

------------

Quest completed?  No, but seriously, it looks awesome, buy it. 

Aww man, that was dark and so often true XD!

[jhxmt]

That's very dark, and hits home. I feel sad now jhxmt.

Aww man, that was dark and so often true XD!

The only consolation (and hopefully the only one you'll need) is that you're definitely, certainly, absolutely not alone in this plight! 

[Malus]

It looked pretty good so I picked it up, but I'm not really a fan so far. It feels like it needs another UI pass or more polish or something. I guess the game is a bunch of JRPG-style battles? I felt like I was missing something. The interface certainly makes it seem like there's a lot going on, but most of the screens are just horribly laid out. Character progression is just a couple of boring skill trees that are all incremental upgrades -- I don't think there are items or stats or anything? I've only played about half an hour, but I probably won't be playing much more unless they release some major updates.

I guess I was expecting something like Solar War except with some more XCOM-style progression, and instead I got a bland series of ultra light JRPG battles with a thin pastiche of a tech tree. It reminded me of Darkest Dungeon if you stripped out everything that makes that game worth playing.

[Drakale]

Kinda agree, it need a more complex strategy layer. Also the mechanic of milking the stations manually for resources is really not fun and grindy.

I like the concept though hopefully they improve on it.

[Wiles]

I was intrigued, but after watching some gameplay it reminded me more of Knights of Pen and Paper than it did of FTL so I thought I'd give it a pass. It looks like the kind of game I'd enjoy more on my phone.

[Neonivek]

I got it... but refunded before playing it after reading this thread.

[EuchreJack]

If it was good, it should feel like Deep Space Nine.

But maybe I'll wait for a little bit, based upon what I'm reading...

[Frumple]

Yeeaaah, looking into it a bit more the bulk of the game plays like a middling-if-not-bad flash RPG (in the style of the Epic Fantasy Battle stuff), with a thin veneer of strategy that's... well, you can make the x-com comparison but the comparison you'd be making is "Like x-com but shallower and more annoying". I can see what they're trying to do with the combat, and to be fair the whole "consume debuff for extra damage" thing isn't something you see all that often, but it's pretty flat as implemented. Tech tree's maybe better but it's still just kinda' straightforward and only so-so in terms of interest... same for the station clearing stuff, so far as I've seen.

Similarly the strategy layer approaches more annoying than fun due to the manual resource collection -- that sort of thing would be okay in the beginning, if you could set up convoys or something to do it for you (and bonus, that could add another opportunity to do something interesting, with having to defend the things or whatev'), but as near as I've noticed you can't, and it's not -- and just how the travel works... even just moving the station would have helped there, make it more centralized so the tedium stuff (resource collection, fending off the desultory raids) didn't involve much travel and the interesting was actually doing stuff beyond that area.

The aesthetics are pretty solid if like that sort of thing, if nothing else, though the music seemed fairly repetitive (bar maybe the racial stuff, but you kinda' don't hear that enough and what you do hear constantly is... pretty constant). Not something I could blame a small studio for, really, but still.

... basically the game's not exactly offensively bad, but there's zero chance I'd spend more than five bucks on it. Probably less, tbh. The production values seem pretty good but the gameplay is "found buried in a pile of 3 star flash games on kongregate", if definitely something I could see being improved pretty substantially. The 1.0 release isn't a game I could recommend to someone, though.

[SharpKris]

^ hit on the nail!

tbh i was expecting more from the game and i'm kinda disappointed that i paid 17$ for it