No ship that small has a cloaking device.
After allowing us to subsist on the merest scraps of information about the recently revealed iPad-bound Sid Meier’s Starships, devs Firaxis are letting it all hang out at PAX South. At a panel there, Uncle Sid himself played through Starships live, showing off a big chunk of gameplay.
When we scrutinized the few available screenshots a couple of weeks back, some PT readers saw the influence of Ace Patrol, Sid Meier’s Pirates, and Civilization. Clearly, Starships is borrowing ideas from those games, but after watching the video, it’s not easily pigeon-holed as a spiritual successor to any of those. Starships is most definitely its own freaky space animal.
What really grabbed my attention in this video is the “Shore Leave” mechanic (jump to around the 45-minute mark to see that specifically) — it’s a totally fresh approach to the way turn-based games play. Your crew’s stamina is a push-your-luck system: you can take on almost as many missions as you like, but the further you push your crew, the worse they perform in combat. When you grant your crew shore leave, the other empires in the game play their turns. That’s a very cool idea.
The whole video is after the jump. I’ve been in touch with 2K about release dates and the possibility of an Android port — I’ll hear back about that soon, hopefully.
Hat-tip to Jon S.
If you want to cut straight to the gameplay, jump to about 30:00.
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