Recent reviews by Designated Redshirt

Graphics crashed every few matches. "If that problem on my end? Probably."
Load it back up and... it doesn't allow rejoining the match. "Well that's stupid."
Can't play another match while the one you 'left' is ongoing. "Okay... fine."
Then after you wait for the match to finish it applies a penalty timeout. "Really?"
The timeout rapidly increases in length. The 4th time it crashed the penalty was 1.5 hours. "Right click > Manage> Uninstall"

I've only tried a fresh "game" with no outside or custom creatures.

Single celled evolution seems to work quite well but anything evolving into a multicellular species seems to be destined for extinction without direct intervention.

I had a latticework creature evolve that's arguably the ideal super-predator. As it swims around single cells get trapped inside the lattice and bounce around till they die and give up their tasty fat reserves. The problem is it, and anything similar that's evolved, doesn't swim unless I force it to. Which seems to be a problem shared by most of the multicellular species that evolve.

The multicellular species that do swim quickly become stuck somewhere and starve to death and even if you directly control them when they breed there's a high probability that their offspring will become entangled with them and die.

It seems the nature of the game mechanics heavily favor a single celled organism that swims at a medium pace and has sensory perception covering between 90 and 150 degree field of vision. As soon as something like that evolves it breeds quickly, out-competes everything else, and becomes a largely static monoculture. Manually killing every member of that dominant species just creates a temporary window of time until another species evolves those same traits.

I'm going to give this a positive review because it does actually do a decent job of simulating natural selection of random mutations within the confines of the environmental factors. It could use some tweaking as I'd expect to see at least one predator-prey relationship evolve but as it stands it seems to be either impossible or extremely improbable for that to happen.

6/10

Back and forth I ran between the wheel and the lines. Turning the sails to catch the wind; trimming them to carve tight turns and put the rocks between us and their cannons. Back and forth my one constant companion went; repairing sails, working the pumps, and hammering boards to seal the hull. The rest of our crew went ashore to capture the flags.

Half the enemy crew stayed aboard their galleon and gave chase, desperately trying to catch us in their broadside and destroy our sails. They didn't stand a chance.

Not a single one of them adjusted their sails. The only time they had any hope of sinking us was when we lapped them but they watched that opportunity slip through their fingers because the wind belonged to me.

In three rounds the only flag they'd ever held was one at the very beginning. All that earned them was their first ship being sunk, our crew shooting them, and then 10 minutes straight of learning what Captain Ahab must have felt like chasing that accursed whale.

From hells heart you stabbeth where my ship used to be!

9/10 I took a point away because I find the battle royale mode a bit slow paced. Sure it's fun but it would benefit a lot if the server player limit was 40 instead of 20. Conquest (galleons) is where the real action is at.

Note: I did get this game for free. Not from the devs but by snagging a key given away by a streamer.

I'd love to recommend this game but every time I try to design an large base, even with paper thin armor and no weapons, it can't be used on 99% of all public servers because Eleon in their infinite wisdom decided that:
- every structure will be artificially limited by a hard capped cost-per block mechanic called "CPU Power"
- basic concrete uses CPU power
- the maximum CPU power for a base is less than 2/10ths as much as the maximum CPU for a capital vessel
- the design of all mechanics will be entirely informed by the fools errand of trying to achieve the mythical state of "balanced PVP"

Oh and pvp? The most efficient design is the same as it is in every bloody voxel based game where you can build mobile PVP structures: A cube made of layers of checkerboarded high end blocks to maximize mitigation of all damage types. Interior space just large enough to fit a cockpit chair and a teleporter with no external access. Every device, including the thrusters, buried deep in the center under the armor. Sprinkle the surface with the maximum limit of each type of turret. Voila, your min-maxed murder cube is ready to fly.

I've played magic for years. The experience I've gotten out of this game so far has been dismal at best.


To initially earn some gold to purchase a few card packs a player will naturally start with the story mode. In story mode there are some instances in which fights at the beginning of a character's story are considerably harder to win than the fights at the end of their story. You will be completely at the mercy of the RNG gods and they will frown on you numerous times. Then when you win a particularly difficult battle you may find yourself being told to reconnect which 50% of the time will result in your win not being recorded, you receiving no gold reward, and you having to repeat that battle if you want to progress.

When you move on to playing real people you will be a level 0 player with barely more than the base set of cards and will find yourself being matched up with players as much as (and possibly more than) 15 levels higher than you. They will have all the advantages you would expect them to have (greater card diversity, better combinations, higher value to mana cost).


You are not able to pre-shuffle sort your deck. This means you cannot follow the common practice of spacing out your mana across the deck and as a result you will find yourself either drowning in mana but starved for cards to cast with it or drowning in cards to cast but starved for mana more frequently than you would playing the real game. You will of course also not be able to place relevant cards beside each other in hopes of increasing your chances in getting a good shuffle.

For fans of drafts this game has.... nothing. There is no drafting at all. Even if it's implemented in some way in the future consider the following:
The effort and time required to grind the cost of playing will of course be designed to encourage you to pay rather than grind.
If you do decide to but cards then you'll find a 6 pack is $1.99 USD. That makes the per-card cost for these virtual cards more than the per-card cost of real physical cards. Unlike the real physical cards these ones have absolutely no resale value, no collectors value, and can't be traded with other players.


If you've never played magic before, this can teach you about the basic phases of a turn and about different card abilities. After which you may as well uninstall it and check online if there are any game stores near you that host Draft nights for the real game because:
It will have a greater return per time invested ratio.
You won't spend 4 hours grinding out the same amount of cards that an hour of going to work can earn you.
Cards you actually pay for will cost you less money.
You will learn more about strategy and deck building from talking to the other players at a draft night than you will from playing this game.
You will be able to trade cards with other players.

And finally....

If you eventually tire of it you will be able to sell your cards and recoup some or all of your investment (if you pull some rare/valuable cards from packs you might even get back more than your initial investment).




Would fight a battle with the odds stacked against, finally win after over an hour, find out I've been DCed and the results weren't saved, and then go play hearthstone again.