It’s always the way, isn’t it? You wait years for a bus, then two great big spaceships come along at once. I love Star Trek, I also love Battlestar Galactica – for slightly different reasons, mind you – but they still fill the same corner of my mind: space travel, occasional robots, a surprising amount of talking.
Not only was I treated to a flawed but oddly enjoyable Star Trek game recently, but I also got to dig into the new Battlestar Galactica Scattered Hopes demo. I’m in charge of a Gunstar (which is a smaller version of a Battlestar – a Babystar, if you will), and it kind of follows a similar start to the TV show – Cyclons attack, our home planet is totally ruined, we have to do a runner.
The show is an exercise in time-keeping, really. Decisions must be swift, lest the chrome bad guys destroy everything that’s left – I’m super happy to report that Scattered Hopes is much the same. It absolutely nails the feel of the show, with Frostpunk-like tough decisions to be made and surprisingly deep, authentic battle sequences to be fought as I try to outpace my demise.
These systems, coupled with a pixel interior and voxel exterior, make Scattered Hopes one of the most true-to-itself adaptations I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t look exactly like the show, but it feels like it. Jumping away at the last second before the nukes hit, putting all of your faith in one particular fighter squadron – the nuts and bolts are as close to perfect as I could hope for from a strategy game like this.
It isn’t all blowing up Cyclons, though. There are civilian ships in my little fleet, and they all have issues. There are POIs that need to be investigated. There is a bar. The basic cycle of Scattered Hopes runs like a roguelike in many ways, with random rewards to choose from with each level up, and each branch of my journey offering unforeseen events.
Each sector I visit gives me a certain number of turns to accomplish whatever it is the fleet needs. If I took a battering from the last fight, it’s about patching myself up, ready to go again when the inevitable happens. If I’m slightly ahead of the curve, however, much like in other roguelikes, I can start to build my power, adding new ships to my squadrons or buffing the combat power of my Gunstar.
It dawns on me as I near the end of the demo that this won’t be my only playthrough, that I can do better, which is confirmed when, at the end, I can permanently buff my future runs with extra resources. I will come back stronger, of course, and I probably won’t leave the unarmed civilian ship to its own devices next time.
The last-minute escapes, the quarrels between the underworld and those disconnected in the CIC – this is typical Battlestar Galactica. Spinning plates and keeping the peace while also defending the fleet at the same time becomes second nature, and keeping everything running for just one more turn is super compelling. I can’t wait to jump in when Scattered Hopes is released later this year.
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