Two days ago I became acquainted with 10 Minute Space Strategy a 4x turn-based space strategy game being developed by The Goblin Lunatics, a small game developer team from Hungary.

They announced the game in a SpaceSector’s forum thread 2 days ago. Goblin Lunatics introduced 10 Minute Space Strategy and provided a link for their Alpha 2 demo (that’s the way to go guys, thumbs up!). The devs haven’t announced a release date yet and are still working on the game. (Edit 17/11/11: The game was already released and it is free. The latest available version can be downloaded from the Goblin Lunatics website. You can find a review here).

You can get all the information about this minimalistic but very interesting and fun 4x game at The Goblin Lunatics blog and at moddb. Although you will get all the information you need in the blog (very interesting by the way) I will summarize 10 Minute Space Strategy in a few paragraphs. I will also provide you with my very first impressions. I only played a 10 minute game (appropriately).

In Goblin Lunatics own words, 10 Minute Space Strategy is “a turn-based space strategy [game] that is focused on quick play sessions, abstract mechanisms and high replayability“.

10 Minute Space Strategy Features

The game has a race editor where you can customize your race abilities. You can choose to specialize in warfare, industry, research, buildings, population or in other traits.

The game features a random generated map that contains many things. It contains Planets that you can colonize. Sometimes planets will be guarded by space monsters (cool!) that you have to defeat before being able to colonize them. You can build things on the planets (e.g. research centers, factories, bomber factories). The map also contains anomalies, derelicts (alien wrecks) and asteroid fields, which are rich in minerals and give you bonuses.

The game also provides research features. There are five technology branches which you can choose to do research on. There is also space combat, although this is fully cinematic. There are 3 types of spaceships: fighters (the main force), bombers and colonizer ships. The devs humorously stated “No dreadnoughts and Death Stars… yet :)“

The devs also decided to cut Diplomacy completely and, by doing so keep the game simple. Remember that the devs’ objective is for 10 Minute Space Strategy to be as straightforward, simple and intuitive as possible. They explain in their blog that they were inspired by the Desktop Dungeons game which, although being a small RPG game with a one screen world, 2d graphics and minimal sounds, the devs felt that it “WORKED”. This inspired them to do the same in the space strategy genre, the one they stated to be their favorite.

My 10 Minute Gameplay First Impressions

I installed the demo and played for 10 minutes, here are my very first impressions.

I had no crashes and found no bugs, but I had trouble understanding how to split my fleets. But then … wait,I got it! First, I chose the number of “move” and “stay” and then I right clicked to move the selection. The game is really very easy to play. The rules are simple and intuitive. In 10 minutes I could not grasp how research worked, but I’ll get there :) I liked the idea of the question marks hanging in the map. I felt curious to go there, and eager to be surprised.

Sound and music are appropriate, they set a good atmosphere. Visuals are ok. However, I would like to see my worlds in more detail, a “click to enlarge” kind of thing, but that’s a personal choice.. There are always things going on every turn, so I felt engaged and entertained. I felt the challenge. I was ass kicked starting right on turn 2 and that is good :)

At some point I felt the need to: extend my range to reach other planets (with propulsion) and get more fighters and bombers, so that I could blow the other guys away. So yes, the game is challenging enough.

I think 10 Minutes Space Strategy is fun. You have a winner here guys! I’ll play more than 10 minutes to see what else I’m missing.

Some Screenshots (click to enlarge)

About Goblin Lunatics

In Goblin Lunatics own words.

“We currently have 3 members; our programmer and C guru HomeGnome, our incredible music composer and community manager Vincenzo, and some sucky artist/designer, yeah, thats me, Archenemy :) We sometimes also involve specialists of different fields (Hey Nauris!). I don’t want to burden you with a lot of unnecessary details about us, our hobbies, favourite games, lifestyle, age and all these boring stuff; so why not go straight to the point and read a bit about our game?”

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