About This Game In Starship Rubicon, Earth has been casually destroyed by a mysterious race of space-faring invertebrates. You are a fighter pilot whose cryopod has been collected by a possibly-insane AI, who has placed you in the unenviable position of being humanity’s savior. Shanghaied and alone, you must gather the remaining human survivors and traverse the surprising biodiversity of deep space to find a new home.{NeoGAF writeup}Key FeaturesQuick Gameplay - Pilot your ship in fast-paced shoot-em-up, featuring a unique approach to arcade physics and controls.Customize Your Ship - Upgrade your ship with a Tetris-styled hangar bay as you find weapons and items on your quest.Randomized Universe - Make your way through a diverse galaxy as you encounter interesting new lifeforms. Each play session generates a new path of enemies, allies, and items.Casual Roguelike - When your ship blows up, that's the end of the line for that game. However, if you collect enough crystal shards by the end of a sector you can save your ship to re-launch it on another level.A Fleet Of Ships To Play - Do you prefer fast ships for run and gun? Do you like something that takes a punch but isn't as agile? Start the game with 3 different ships and spend shards to unlock more ships with unique abilities!Mod-friendly - Since ships and weapons are exposed in simple external .lua scripts, modding and creating your own content only requires a text editor! 6d5b4406ea Title: Starship RubiconGenre: Action, IndieDeveloper:WickworksPublisher:Cheerful GhostRelease Date: 12 Dec, 2014 Starship Rubicon Download Without Key Clearly inspired by the best elements of the genre (arcade gaming, FTL, Starfox) with tons of nice throwbacks. Exciting gameplay with an adventurous streak is enhanced by some seriously delightful sci-fi music and sound design.Starship Rubicon also features surprisingly creative writing, a fun equipment allocation system (symmetry rules!) and even more customization. Memorable and easy to get into, the game is a good introduction to the indie scene. Easily one of my favorites.. An excellent game, the dev clearly put a lot of time and effort into it, and it shows.Pros:* Good starting loadout variety. My personal favourite is the Pakiceph.* Good enemy type variety. There are varieties that teleport, swarm, form laser networks, and much more.* Good equipment variety. All sorts of weapons, abilities, and upgrades are available.* Interesting tetris-esque outfitting system.* Variety of level types.* Amusing dialogue.Cons: * The plot is thin, and somewhat clicheI've been playing this on Windows 10 for a while with no issues, so it seems the issues the author mentioned do not occur on all Windows 10 machines.. It's like a modern take on asteroids, the controls are simple, the gameplay is simple, yet has enough finesse for you not to just fall asleep at the keyboard. The game has a good sense of humor, and the customization aspect, like the rest of the game: is simple but rewarding.My only real problem with the game is that it's really short. But you can make your own missions and ships too, so that's pretty cool.. So, I havent had all that much time with this game just yet, but... even after just 90 minutes, I can honestly say, I think this game is brilliant. It's good enough that it leaves this impression on me that quickly... for me, this is very rare.Starship Rubicon is an interesting beast.... it uses a whole pile of different elements that were inspired by many seperate games. But the thing that makes it so good is that it takes all of these disparate elements, smashes them together... and they WORK together. They dont conflict with each other at any point.At it's base, this game uses Asteroids-style gameplay and controls. You have a "thrust" button to move your ship forwards, and then other buttons to turn it left or right; you also have a "boost" function that you can use. There are even actual asteroids floating around in many areas, which work pretty much as you'd expect, and generally making your life that much tougher. From there though, the game goes in it's own seperate directions. Your ship is not static, but is instead made of various "parts" that you can equip, that give abilities or change stats, or things like that. This includes changing both your basic weapon (and you can have more than one) or your special weapon, an activated ability that has a cooldown and also knocks out your shields for a bit upon use. You cant just equip everything though; each piece of equipment has a shape to it, sort of like blocks in Tetris. You have to fit these blocks inside the ship properly, or they cannot be used. What's more, some items are meant to modify others, and will only work if linked to the system they're modifying, which means you have to place it adjacent to that system for it to function whatsoever. So this can create some interesting decisioni-making when you're changing your equipment. Equipment can be either found in battlefields, or bought in stores. Stores are easily the most frequent way to get equipment. The rate of equipment actually being FOUND is very low... a bit TOO low in my opinion. You end up not getting all that much total, which is a shame, because it reduces the amount of interesting decisions that you'd need to make. There's no need to decide between two items after all if both of them easily fit onto the ship. If you're not getting enough items, you wont be filling it. So there's a bit of RNG issues here with this system, but it's not enough of an issue at all to detract from how well it works. There are many different weapons and things to find, so look for them, and try them out, and see what kinds of builds you can make for yourself. Most of these different items and such are also just plain fun to use.... that's ALWAYS a plus.Between missions, you're sent to sort of an overall sector map. It's very similar to the map that FTL uses, in that you move forward from one node to the next, with each individual node having specific links to other nodes to choose from. Around each node, you can see icons representing the different enemy types that are going to appear in that area, so it's important to learn these and have a look as you make decisions. Other things will appear here too, such as hazards, or the existence of items or "money asteroids" or shops or various other things. You can also find other ships to rescue, and if you are successful in saving them, they will join you on your quest. Each one provides a unique ability that becomes active whenever they participate in a battle with you, and you choose when to bring them in by clicking them on the sector map. They have a cooldown time afterwards, and can also be knocked out by enemies during battle... so take care of them, when you bring them with you. The one big problem with them though is that they just arent very bright. Asteroids in particular will give your AI allies alot of trouble as they repeatedly crash into them. By the late game, these guys arent as useful, simply due to the fact that they'll be knocked out of the fight too quickly to help much.And on the note of the enemies you face, each type is different from the last, and you quickly learn to recognize each by it's appearance, which is very important. There are different approaches that you should take depending on just what you're fighting, and what weapon you're using, and there can be many enemies at once. Some enemies may have beam weapons, or maybe homing missiles, or shields, or even the ability to shield other enemies. And of course, it wouldnt be a shmup of any sort if there werent gigantic bosses to fight at the end of each sector.All in all, there's alot going on for this game, and I think there's plenty of replay value; naturally, everything is procedural when it comes to the maps and sectors and such, so each game will be different. The campaign is short, but that's typical for this genre, and probably for the best.Is it worth your money? If you like shmups at all.... I'd definitely say yes. It easily lives up to it's asking price and more, I think. I can definitely recommend this one!. It's a cute, entertaining Asteroids-style Newtonian space shooter with some Roguelike elements, a bit of humor, a nice spacey and retro vibe, and an easy to understand but actually rather interesting ship customization system. And, thankfully, no sideways thrusters, which are just silly in games like this.. An excellent game, the dev clearly put a lot of time and effort into it, and it shows.Pros:* Good starting loadout variety. My personal favourite is the Pakiceph.* Good enemy type variety. There are varieties that teleport, swarm, form laser networks, and much more.* Good equipment variety. All sorts of weapons, abilities, and upgrades are available.* Interesting tetris-esque outfitting system.* Variety of level types.* Amusing dialogue.Cons: * The plot is thin, and somewhat clicheI've been playing this on Windows 10 for a while with no issues, so it seems the issues the author mentioned do not occur on all Windows 10 machines.. It's like a modern take on asteroids, the controls are simple, the gameplay is simple, yet has enough finesse for you not to just fall asleep at the keyboard. The game has a good sense of humor, and the customization aspect, like the rest of the game: is simple but rewarding.My only real problem with the game is that it's really short. But you can make your own missions and ships too, so that's pretty cool.. This is quite a pleasant 2D space shooter. Simple yet satisfying combat, nice flight controls, entertaining and unique chacacters, and a nice almost tetris-esque minigame for modifying your ship with bonus points for those with OCD about everything being symmetrical. The game is maybe a little on the short side, but was definately enjoyable and well worth the small price. The only thing I feel like it lacks is appropriate recognition, so show this game some love!. So, I havent had all that much time with this game just yet, but... even after just 90 minutes, I can honestly say, I think this game is brilliant. It's good enough that it leaves this impression on me that quickly... for me, this is very rare.Starship Rubicon is an interesting beast.... it uses a whole pile of different elements that were inspired by many seperate games. But the thing that makes it so good is that it takes all of these disparate elements, smashes them together... and they WORK together. They dont conflict with each other at any point.At it's base, this game uses Asteroids-style gameplay and controls. You have a "thrust" button to move your ship forwards, and then other buttons to turn it left or right; you also have a "boost" function that you can use. There are even actual asteroids floating around in many areas, which work pretty much as you'd expect, and generally making your life that much tougher. From there though, the game goes in it's own seperate directions. Your ship is not static, but is instead made of various "parts" that you can equip, that give abilities or change stats, or things like that. This includes changing both your basic weapon (and you can have more than one) or your special weapon, an activated ability that has a cooldown and also knocks out your shields for a bit upon use. You cant just equip everything though; each piece of equipment has a shape to it, sort of like blocks in Tetris. You have to fit these blocks inside the ship properly, or they cannot be used. What's more, some items are meant to modify others, and will only work if linked to the system they're modifying, which means you have to place it adjacent to that system for it to function whatsoever. So this can create some interesting decisioni-making when you're changing your equipment. Equipment can be either found in battlefields, or bought in stores. Stores are easily the most frequent way to get equipment. The rate of equipment actually being FOUND is very low... a bit TOO low in my opinion. You end up not getting all that much total, which is a shame, because it reduces the amount of interesting decisions that you'd need to make. There's no need to decide between two items after all if both of them easily fit onto the ship. If you're not getting enough items, you wont be filling it. So there's a bit of RNG issues here with this system, but it's not enough of an issue at all to detract from how well it works. There are many different weapons and things to find, so look for them, and try them out, and see what kinds of builds you can make for yourself. Most of these different items and such are also just plain fun to use.... that's ALWAYS a plus.Between missions, you're sent to sort of an overall sector map. It's very similar to the map that FTL uses, in that you move forward from one node to the next, with each individual node having specific links to other nodes to choose from. Around each node, you can see icons representing the different enemy types that are going to appear in that area, so it's important to learn these and have a look as you make decisions. Other things will appear here too, such as hazards, or the existence of items or "money asteroids" or shops or various other things. You can also find other ships to rescue, and if you are successful in saving them, they will join you on your quest. Each one provides a unique ability that becomes active whenever they participate in a battle with you, and you choose when to bring them in by clicking them on the sector map. They have a cooldown time afterwards, and can also be knocked out by enemies during battle... so take care of them, when you bring them with you. The one big problem with them though is that they just arent very bright. Asteroids in particular will give your AI allies alot of trouble as they repeatedly crash into them. By the late game, these guys arent as useful, simply due to the fact that they'll be knocked out of the fight too quickly to help much.And on the note of the enemies you face, each type is different from the last, and you quickly learn to recognize each by it's appearance, which is very important. There are different approaches that you should take depending on just what you're fighting, and what weapon you're using, and there can be many enemies at once. Some enemies may have beam weapons, or maybe homing missiles, or shields, or even the ability to shield other enemies. And of course, it wouldnt be a shmup of any sort if there werent gigantic bosses to fight at the end of each sector.All in all, there's alot going on for this game, and I think there's plenty of replay value; naturally, everything is procedural when it comes to the maps and sectors and such, so each game will be different. The campaign is short, but that's typical for this genre, and probably for the best.Is it worth your money? If you like shmups at all.... I'd definitely say yes. It easily lives up to it's asking price and more, I think. I can definitely recommend this one!. More thorough reviews already exist. I'll just laud a couple of things: the clever writing (scientifically literate item texts, cohorts capable of changing a run's tenor, and a just payoff not in spite, but in light of railroading). the aversion of power creep (few strict upgrades, elegant ship designs receive stat boosts and cheaper maintenance).Oh, and there's a couple of pseudo-features (deleting the only layout of a ship in the hangar produces unintended UI behavior and re-locks the ship; reloading a mid-campaign save adds to the bank each time) that I don't mind at all, really.
- derganassunsdis