Brendan Drain, the lead developer of Predestination, sends word that the first of four planned beta stages is now under way and available to kickstarter backers who signed for the beta. Stage two will be about Planetary Colonization, stage three about Galaxy Gameplay, stage four will be the final beta with all three combined. In this first beta wave they want to test out their turn-based fleet combat system. It’s looking good. I hope they manage to keep the fights interesting all the way through, especially the bigger ones. The use of an initiative system seems to be a good step in the right direction.

Predestination is a turn-based space 4X strategy project by Brain and Nerd, an indie game studio from Northern Ireland. The project kickstarted at the end of 2012 with about $50,000 raised (double the amount asked). This was one Stellar Indie Venture that made it. Or, at least they seem to be well on their way. They even won their first award recently, given for outstanding work in Northern Ireland’s digital media industries. They’re trying to get on Steam, so, if you want to give them a hand you can always go to their Steam Greenlight page and vote for them. Of course, they still have a long road ahead.

In a nutshell, Predestination seems to be a space 4X game in the traditional sense, with ship design, terraforming, colony management, tech progression, diplomacy and all the other usual features expected to see in a space 4X game. On top, they propose a 3D galaxy map, custom races, a particular attention to exploration aspects and a concept to reduce late-game micromanagement, which will make use of building blueprints as plans for building and running a particular type of colony. All this in turn-based fashion. You can know more about Predestination in our interview with the lead developer Brendan Drain.

Here’s a video showing off the current fleet combat system used for the beta.

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