The Space Game

February 16, 2009 9:06 AM

The Space Game-- Friday U.S. Federal Holiday Flash Fun. This Flash game combines the resource gathering and management of a standard strategy game with the tower-defendiness of a tower defense game. Build a network of mining stations and solar collectors, and protect them from pirate raiders with repair stations and missile and laser turrets.
posted by CrunchyFrog (22 comments total)

I played this for like an hour last night.

I found it too easy, to be honest. I got through every mission on the first try.
posted by empath at 9:18 AM on February 16, 2009

I played this too for about an hour last night. It was easy, yeah, but sometimes that's OK. The Interface is interesting enough, and reasonably designed for the genre. I enjoyed myself.
posted by kalessin at 9:34 AM on February 16, 2009

Not sure if it's been mentioned here, but Minions by the same guys is an amazing team flash game which is reminiscent of Bolo. Minions basically eats up all my free time.
posted by kcalder at 9:50 AM on February 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

Wow, this was great. The flows of energy and minerals work much like Total Annhilation and Supreme Commander, although the design of your energy network is something else. I was surprised that asteroids block your energy network but don't block attacks; you could get some interesting tactics if things could hide behind asteroids. I'd love to see a player vs. player version of this.

I think "too easy" is just fine for casual games like this, at least until it's boring. FWIW I had a mildly challenging time on mission 3, then I got bored and stopped.
posted by Nelson at 10:13 AM on February 16, 2009

Also if people get the Minions bug, my username on casual collective is keith.
posted by kcalder at 10:21 AM on February 16, 2009

This is absolutely.the.best.tower.defense.game I've ever played.
posted by the dief at 10:57 AM on February 16, 2009

Is it just me or does the difficulty curve swoop up dramatically for the last level?
posted by shakespeherian at 11:53 AM on February 16, 2009 [3 favorites]

Yeah last level is pretty much unbeatable. That wave of ~75 fighters followed closely by the ringships just stops me dead.
posted by schwa at 12:15 PM on February 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

Reminiscent of Harvest. Good quality Flash game nonetheless.
posted by surrendering monkey at 1:40 PM on February 16, 2009

I read empath's "Too easy" and thought, Great! Just what I'm looking for. Then I got to the last round. The second time through I made it to 2 minutes and change remaining before being overwhelmed. I think one of the keys is energy storage, something that is completely unnecessary in the other 9 levels. A couple upgraded banks got me four minutes closer to survival. I'm trying to decide if it's worth another go.
posted by the christopher hundreds at 2:00 PM on February 16, 2009

Nice one, thanks for the post
posted by Outlawyr at 2:40 PM on February 16, 2009

Hmm.

I didn't really have much problem on the last level.

Start with 4 solar panels immediately, then start building miners, and keep upgrading your solar panels until you start seeing your energy going up faster than it's being used. Once that's done, build at least 2 energy storage things.

You really need to get some fully upgraded missles and the $500 lasers up and fully upgraded fairly quickly or you'll get hosed when the o-ships come.
posted by empath at 3:37 PM on February 16, 2009

Also, don't get stingy with the miners. Drop 2-3 by each asteroid and upgrade them.
posted by empath at 3:38 PM on February 16, 2009

If you want a challenge, try the 'mining missions' where you basically get to build an empire, and see how far you can get. There are a couple of different difficulty levels.
posted by delmoi at 3:47 PM on February 16, 2009

Okay, the Mothership Mission, WTF?

I can't hold them off any serious way. I think I'm missing something.
posted by The Whelk at 10:55 PM on February 16, 2009

For motherships you want a bunch of upgraded THELs. And those are all about power, so batteries and solar generators is the key.
posted by aubilenon at 1:41 AM on February 17, 2009

The trick with the mother ships is that they'll attack what's closest at their max range, and the THELs have a longer range. Build some crappy pulsers to take out fighters, and put them in a circle around your base. Then, build some THELs behind them, and maybe a missile launcher or two (keep some minerals around, as they fire minerals and not just energy). Get your generator maxed out and a battery (THELs eat a ton of power), and also build a repair station to keep the pulsers up so that the motherships are at a good distance for the THELs to attack without being hurt.
posted by mccarty.tim at 7:31 AM on February 17, 2009

I found missiles to be much more key to the Mothership mission, personally.

But then, I suck hardcore at RTS. I do love that this one has a pause function. And you can place buildings and give orders while paused! If only Starcraft had had that option, I wouldn't have had to cheat in order to beat it...
posted by Scattercat at 8:11 AM on February 17, 2009

I've found that enough THELs will take out all the waves of motherships on their own -- but you need to store enough juice to power them. Start out with a bunch of generators and a bunch of energy storage units. The trick is to save just enough to keep the THELs firing until the last enemy is defeated.

I'm really enjoying this game.
posted by evilcolonel at 11:44 AM on February 17, 2009

motherships are stupid and will attack energy conduits. build a large network of cheap conduits to distract if you find yourself vulnerable
posted by eustatic at 11:16 PM on February 17, 2009

This game just ate my week.
posted by intermod at 9:06 PM on March 6, 2009

I hear ya
posted by Acey at 7:44 PM on March 7, 2009