Geeezzzzyyy What a Week… – Hailing Frequencies for 9/21/17

Hello Thursday as I type this from Wednesday! How’s the future!!? ;) Seriously, folks, I’m just BOGGED. DOWN. So Wednesday I’m gonna jot the numerous bits of news down, then today I’ll write the bloggy op-ed stuff. Things have slowed down enough now, on Thursday as I write this, that I actually have some brain juice left to write this. Yay!

So let’s start off with the game of the week, 3030 Deathwar Redux. It’s been a few days since I posted about it, so a lot has happened. I’ve upgraded through a few ships, moved the crazy and hilarious story forward a bit and explored several derelicts. While this game has the typical courier and taxi missions, I also love that it has photography and junk shooting missions. It’s really just such a fun game, so much so I’ve been playing a lot of it in my off-time. It helps that not only is the gameplay really streamlined, or that the soundtrack is just amazing, but it really helps that nothing feels too grindy or out of reach. You always feel like you’re making progress, which is SO important in games like this. It really is awesome stuff.

Besides 3030 Deathwar, I’ve just been mired in LOGistICAL Hawaii. I finally upgraded all of the industries, which should give them enough producing power to make all the commodities I need to fix all the towns. The problems are distance and consumption. I was fixing towns just fine until I came across one large town that required over fifty tons of three different commodities apiece. The problem is that one of the commodities is on the other side of the island chain, so now I have to upgrade the storage for that commodity — which is at a midpoint — in order to get the commodities filled up before the town consumed them all. It’s really a puzzling pickle, but one I’m really enjoying a lot. It’s just really, really great to pop on a podcast like The Dollop (which I’m currently working through, and is tremendous) and play some of this game. I think I’ve put about three hours into it this week alone, which is a lot for me. :)

I also played a bit of SpaceDweller, which just came out, to see how it felt for coverage for next week. It’s certainly a fun little thing, if a bit odd (and lacking any kind of tutorial). I also managed to get a copy of BAJA: Edge of Control HD, which is just really fun so far. I really like open racers, and this reminds me of the amazing Fuel bit with more structure, which I actually like and need. Wow, according to Steam I’ve got about twenty-hours of gaming in in the last two weeks. That’s lovely! :) Tonight I’ll be getting a little more with some Borderlands 2! Yay!

Now with that said, here’s all the news!

• SO MANY GAMES hit Steam recently: SpaceDweller, Voxel Interceptor, Space Commander 9, Ancient Frontier, Heat Signature and Stellaris: Synthetic Dawn. No idea when I’ll find time to play all of these, but don’t you worry, I will!
• Found a couple of games hitting Steam in the next couple of weeks, including AstroShift and, apparently, Allegiance!
• Vendetta Online is now available for the iPhone!
• Starsector’s blog has been updated with a ton of new info about the game’s revamped economy. It’s a great read y’all.
• Alliance of the Sacred Suns will release its big Archimedes update in October, and with that, a price change. The game will be $7.99 once the update goes live.
• Battlestar Galactica Deadlock’s developers and Slitherine are launching a tournament!
• Interstellar Transport Company has been updated with fourteen new languages apparently! Wow!
• Space Impossible’s developer wrote up a new developer blog about how Alpha 10 is coming along.
• Stellaris’ Čapek update adds a bunch of new stuff in the wake of Synthetic Dawn’s release.
• Game of the week 3030 Deathwar Redux got an awesomely meaty patch.
• Interplanetary: Enhanced Edition got a small patch with some fixes and adjustments.
• Starship Corporation got a substantial patch that adds a character interaction framework.
• Empyrean Frontier got a teeeeensy little patch.
• Star Story: The Horizon Escape adds a 32-bit version and more in its latest update.
• Heathen Engineering’s Terran has a new beta patch which strives to update and revamp NPC AI.
• Impulse: Space Combat’s developer has posted a small update saying some more content will be coming in the next few weeks.
• Angels Fall First got a small update which improves the lighting and a host of other little things.
• Wayward Terran Frontier: Zero Falls got a fairly sizeable update with many fixes to the EVA mechanics.
• Infinity: Battlescape latest dev update shows off a massively simulated battle in the game! 400 ships, I tells ya!
• Voxel Interceptor got a tiny patch which fixes two things. Then another patch which fixed more things!
• Endless Space 2 got a sizeable patch which adds better Mac compatibility, among other things.
• Hellion’s developers launched a dev blog talking about upcoming features like equipment degradation and more.
• Interstellar Rift has a new development update talking their beta patch with UI improvements and more.
• Gangs of Space got a patch that adds permadeath protection, among other things.
• Slizer Battle Management System got a lovely new patch which fixes many things.
• Star Explorers’ developer is considering crowdfunding.
• Speaking of, a game called Star Zeal 4X is crowdfunding on IndieGoGo RIGHT NOW. ;)

Finally, a couple of big sales going on. Stardock is having a massive publisher sale this weekend, and Paradox is having a grand strategy weekend that includes the aforementioned Stellaris.

That’s it for this entry my friends! See y’all tonight!