Recent reviews by Lithier

This game has everything other strategy games should have and don't. In a better timeline, the devs took all of the great ideas and design choices in this game and turned out a sequel that capitalized on all of them with a bigger budget to really get attention across the field and inspire a new wave of strategy games that are actually fun to play. Instead, for a sequel we got a buggy mess of even more new ideas that just didn't pan out as well. And... they never remastered the game, they never made another sequel, they just made other things in the universe. Which is cool, but it's not what the gaming industry NEEDS from this game.

Sword of the Stars has six different playable species that actually feel different in meaningful ways. The gameplay is fundamentally different and creates a soft rock-paper-scissors situation between races that shifts over time as technology develops. The very method of travel is unique for each and fundamentally changes the feel of playing each race, making each threat more varied and each playthrough more rewarding.

Every species actually has a basic explanation for its biology and culture, and the details come through as you play. Each command you give, you hear your scientists or your captains or your engineers respond, and you get a feel for the attitude of your people, the way they live, the way they think and see the universe. The voice acting is a little goofy sometimes, but it's full of heart and well-directed to give you what you need: the feeling you're actually directing a people, not just some empty ships flying between rocks in the void.

I love this game, and I hate that it is so obscure. Any other strategy game I play, I never feel this kind of connection with the people I command. I never get so excited to try another game as another faction. This game might be janky, but the fact that it has not been a greater influence on games as a whole is a crime. We need more games like this. We need a proper sequel to this game, direct or spiritual.

To be perfectly honest, I play it in a way most people would probably see as boring. I skip (autoresolve) basically every single actual battle-- all the "flashy" stuff you see with the ships actually moving around on a battlefield. I don't care for that. I just love building an empire up from one or two planets, forming fronts and piercing them, pushing the advantage of my race and shoring up its weaknesses, actually employing real principles of strategy for once in a strategic game, all while the people I command call out to me that they're ready for my next move. Even decades old, when we have to get Hamachi out to play it together, this game still hits a sweet spot for folks. I've gotten many of my friends hooked on it, and I'm proud of it. This game deserves so much more, and we deserve so much more of it.

If you're debating, please give it a shot. It can be confusing at first, but there's a great satisfaction and charm in this game that I haven't found anywhere else. And if nothing else, I want more people crying out, like I do, for another game like Sword of the Stars 1. For a hundred more.

Incredibly satisfying.

Takes the addictive expansion/industrialization of Factorio and makes it more accessible, more beautiful, and more flexible. It is the logical next step for this burgeoning genre, executed with great care and love.

The writing and the story end up a little silly, and sass the player rather more than necessary, but the gameplay itself is outstanding. Explore, exploit, learn, improve. So many little touches to improve the experience, I've played for a few hundred hours and I'm still learning how I can do things better, smarter, in a more satisfying way.

Settings available for rendering any dangers harmless if you want a more chill experience. Lots of settings for custom play, it's pretty great, but they do disable achievements if you use these.

I dearly hope we get a million more games based on this one, because we just don't have enough factory-building games, and this is an excellent example of what they should be.

I had a lot of fun with this game. I wasn't expecting too much, but it really came through.

+Strikes a great balance between stealth and xcom-style tactics that I wish more games had.
+Level design and humor takes a lot of the best elements from classic games from the late 90s.
+Achievements hit that sweet spot of being interesting and making you want to play some more, without being a huge hassle.
+Being able to grow and enhance your "squad" over the course of the level is really satisfying.

-Maybe a little cheesy for some tastes
-Maybe a little slow-paced for some tastes?

I definitely recommend it as a very solid indie title if you enjoy stealth games and/or tactics games.

It looks a little silly, and it plays a little silly, but the game is actually pretty fun. If you've played Sanctum, it's roughly the same idea, but they don't force you to be really good at playing shooters just to get past level 3. There can be a lot of satisfaction in chewing through hordes and hordes of orcs with nothing more than a few well placed traps and a twitchy trigger finger.