Welcome to episode #09 of the Space Game junkie Podcast! In this episode, Jim and I bring on Gamers With Jobs CEO Shawn “Certis” Andrich to discuss if space games are just “chasing a dot”, as he called them previous. In a surprise — to me at least, and pleasantly so — the discussion evolves and turns into an intervention where we discuss how space action games have become kinda samey in terms of lack of space, lack of place and so on to help Shawn find some new games. It was a fun, spirited discussion. :)
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We talked about a looooooot of games, and you can find links to all of them below in the show notes. We hope you enjoy the show, and invite you to comment here or on the forum, as well as use our RSS or iTunes feeds to subscribe to us. Thanks for listening, and have a great day! :)
Podcast #09 Show Notes
Space Games Mentioned:
- Dangerous
- Darkstar One
- Diaspora
- Drox Operative
- EVE Online
- Evochron Mercenary
- Freelancer
- Freespace 2
- Freespace Open (Installation Guide)
- Frontier: Elite II
- FTL
- Galaxy on Fire Series
- Homeworld
- Independence War 2
- Limit Theory
- Rules of Engagement Series
- SkyJacker
- Space Rangers 2
- Star Citizen
- Starshatter Open Source
- Star Wars: TIE Fighter
- Star Wars: X-Wing
- Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance
- Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter
- Strike Suit Zero
- Wing Commander
- Wing Commander Saga: The Darkest Dawn
- X Series
Non-Space Games Mentioned:
- 1942: Pacific Air War
- Age of Wushu
- Bioshock Infinite
- Breach Series
- Civilization IV
- Din’s Curse
- Everquest
- Dwarf Fortress
- Elder Scrolls: Arena
- Half Life
- Kinect Star Wars
- Mass Effect 3
- Minecraft
- Second Life
- SimCity
- Space Hulk (Board Game) (90s Version)
- The Longest Journey
- WarThunder
- World of Tanks
- World of Warcraft
- World of Warplanes
- X-COM: UFO Defense
- XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Freespace 2 was a magnificent game. You should do an LP of Blue Planet: War in Heaven!
Not a bad idea. Maybe after TIE Fighter (which will be a while). ;)
The secondlife bit was a bit close to home…
I’m a builder, I make a few hundred USD a month from selling my stuff there. It even taught me to be a 3d modeler (I’ve learned blender) I wouldn’t say its particularly hard… in fact building in SL is really easy. The problem is the cost. To build you need a place to build… you can go to some one’s sandbox, but anything you build will be returned in an hour or two. So you have to buy your own parcel to build on, and the number of prims is a serious premium. Like for around 1000 prims (maximum number of prims per object is 255.. so that is a reasonable amount to build with) is about 7$ a week. Which for most people is a little more than they want to pay. More even than say playing WoW.
That also doesn’t include the price of uploading textures and what not. So the economy is there, its vibrant and has a lot of really interesting builds… but the threshold is “you need money to make money”
Sounds…..fun….?
it can be.. :p I treat SL mostly as a chat service like IRC and a business. XD so less fun than when I first started.
Do you make decent money with it at least?
Like I said, a couple hundred a month, enough for spending cash… and I’ve dumped most of it in to bitcoins through a marketplace that exchanges Secondlife Linden for Bitcoins (which in the past 4 months saw ~800% spike then collapse and spiking again) So I’ve done well with it.
Bitcoins? Wow this sounds shady…;)
shady? XD I’d call Linden Dollars shady… bitcoins at least are an actual currency ;)
Are they? Are they really? ;)
Yes. I’ve purchased new shoes, a 200$ monitor, and even a used car with them… so yes, they are a real currency :P
Why did I have to moderate this? Are you doing something shady to my site? Also, that URL, evil-spork.net, doesn’t have anything there.
O.o not sure why you had to moderate this… Maybe I’m replying to fast?
As for evil-spork, the root page is empty right now… there are a few subdomains used, but havn’t had any need/want to put anything on the main page. for a time my friends and I were using our wiki hosted on it to manage stuff, but now its defunct just sitting there.. :p Have a mercurial repo sitting on an odd port too and its easier to type kalethia.evil-spork.net than remember IP addresses XD
Possibly. Why are you linking to it then if nothing is there?
nothing, didn’t even know it was filling it in. XD it has autofilled it every time i’ve come to this site for the past few months.
Well stop it. ;)
okay :p
Awesomesauce. :)
can someone recommend a good space game in the last 4 years? or a good space game for linux (ubuntu)?
Hey bob, welcome. Now, what kind of space game are you looking for?
are there any good space colony games? like you get sent to a planet with resources and have to build your colony and harvest and process resources, (not the big scale like sin of solar empire) i am looking for each mission to be a different planet or section of a planet
Er….hmmm….what comes to mind first off is Space Colony, Startopia, Alien Legacy and Outpost 2. Are those in the vein you’re looking for?
yes those games are great but are there any newer ones since 2006?
I dunno if I like your attitude, mister. ;) As for colonization games, there were never really a lot to begin with so…not really, no.
the reason why i ask about date of release is because the space ship fighter type kickstarter has a bunch of great games (star citizen, elite) but the i notice that the space colony building sim type (like simcity on mars or an asteroid or a inner planet moon) has not really been successful on kickstarter, i have been digging around desura and indiedb and the custom games on battle.net (starcraft 2 WoL) to see if there have been good mods or indie games but i have found nothing.
i would pay so much money for an FTL style space colony game where all you have is top view of your colonization base that is more like PvE and you send out drones to find resources and build structures on the surface of the planet (or moon or rock) and then your drones get stuck in a storm and you have to repair them and you could only get picked up when you have met your contract for target resources gathered (etc..).
I really hope hardware: shipbreakers is as amazing at it looks but i want more indie games in this area also. thanks for helping me look for space games, you website is great, i really enjoy the podcasts.
I feel ya man, however the space colonization subgenre has never been as popular as the more traditional types of space games, which likely explains why they’re not seeing the same resurgence that other space games are, which is a damned shame. Also, the few colonization Kickstarters I’ve seen really haven’t been run well, sadly, which also doesn’t help. :/