This article is written by Star Tour Appreciation Society Zhi Mu Teacher
It seems simple, but it is actually very difficult to do
Turn-based strategy games, as a traditional genre with a long history, seem a little awkward today. This is not to say that the market no longer has this type of good work, nor does it mean that players have completely abandoned turn-based systems, but if the game content is done very well, it is easy to cause players to learn and time costs too much.
For example, the civilization series known for "One More Round"; conversely, if the game system is too fast-food and too flat, it is likely to be regarded as a roughly made page game game and suffer bad reviews, such as the worst-known Three Kingdoms 12 in the series. Therefore, how to make turn-based strategy games fun but easy to immerse players in is a seemingly simple but challenging topic.
Although the Civilization series is very fun, the time cost of "One More Round" is really love and hate
A pure work that closely follows the hot topics of current affairs
If you're one of those players who prefer turn-based strategy but are always stuck in a lack of time, then the Alien Look we're going to introduce today might be worth a look. New Star is a strategy game with the theme of Martian colonization construction, and the topic of immigration to Mars led by Musk has been hyped up over the years, and the production team chose this theme to keep up with current events.
Margo: Our journey is the sea of stars --||
The game screen is very pure, except for a few things such as planet models, there are simple 3D modeling, all the others are 2D static maps, but the level of art can be unambiguous, whether it is the desolation of Mars from scratch development, or the exciting future city after construction, it is depicted remarkablely. Compared with the embarrassing situation that the civilization map will inevitably stutter in the later stages, the design of the simple picture of the new star is undoubtedly a blessing for low-end players.
The 2D standing painting in the oil painting style is simple and charming
Whether it is Earth or Mars, humanity cannot do without leaders
On the surface, The Halo Alien is similar to the civilization: Space system, but compared to the latter, the Halo Alien omits cultural, political, diplomatic and other values, and focuses on the ecological construction of Mars.
At the beginning of the game, the first thing you have to do is not to build any building facilities first, but to choose a leader responsible for the administration of Mars, the leader setting is roughly similar to the leader system of the civilization series, different leaders have different strengths, such as helping to tap resources, or improving the happiness of residents, etc., basically the leader may play a role in each round, but please note that the leader of this game has an age setting, and as time passes, the leader will grow old until retirement, and the player must force the selection of a new successor leader.
Choose a picture of your favorite leader ^_^
Two-layer map design for internal and external interaction
The game map adopts the hierarchical design of the inner and outer maps combined with the map of the city and the map of the planet, and the current explorable area and the connection path will appear on the surface of Mars, and the mouse operation can be used to turn Mars to find the area on the other side of the planet. Clicking on a specific area opens a map or details of that area, and the number and path of the building blocks within each area are randomly generated.
As the main map, the Fire Planet surface can be freely rotated in direction
Although the operation is very simple to build facilities by directly clicking and placing, the various facilities should not only consider the balance of functions, but also take into account the mutual matching of values, for example, facilities that can increase resident satisfaction should be placed at intersections with as many branches as possible, which can provide more bonuses to the area.
Construction areas and routes, while simple, require careful planning
This kind of map with layered and regional display inside and outside greatly reduces the burden of running the player's computer after the expansion of the entire Mars construction scale in the later stages of the game, and it is not difficult for us to see the care and friendliness of the production team and low-end players again.
But one thing that must be noted is that although the configuration requirements are very low, but the player can not ignore the resolution and screen size settings, I just began to try to play when I chose the 16:9 screen, the result of the game part of the menu was actually indented to the edge of the screen, resulting in some instructions I can not find the entrance (such as changing the leader), and finally tried to adjust the screen to solve this problem, but also hope that the production team can optimize this situation.
When I played here, part of the game's menu was actually indented and invisible on the edge of the version - _-||
How to survive and expand the territory
At the beginning, the player can only build one area, the initial resources are relatively scarce, in order to ensure the survival of the people and expand the territory, the player of course needs to gradually obtain more resources. There are three main ways to obtain resources: (1) build facilities for production; (2) explore unknown areas to mine resources - note that the area that has just been explored can only obtain a small amount of resources, how to further exploit reserves and build and develop on the site, you need other connected areas of population, science and technology and other indicators to reach a certain level to expand the territory; (3) with the earth resources trading, the game can be mined Mars resources can be automatically exchanged with the earth every turn, The type of exchange is set by themselves, and players can choose to sell surplus materials in exchange for scarce resources according to their actual needs.
Don't look at the line is very simple, the order of facilities is actually very exquisite - -
Meat pigeon draw mechanism, each round is reopened is a different taste
Through the above introduction, it is not difficult to see that the gameplay of the new star is very easy to understand and get started, perhaps you will worry about whether this more streamlined system is very impatience, the production team adopted the plan is to add a meat pigeon mechanism to the game.
In addition to the aforementioned area and path distribution in the game are randomly generated, the construction facilities are also in the form of card supply, each turn you can choose to keep one of the several randomly generated facility cards, the number of cards in hand is limited, only when there are specific cards in hand and the required resources are complete, you can build.
Cards are refreshed randomly almost every turn
So in the work of The New Star, you can not freely expand the layout you expect, according to the refresh of random cards reasonable arrangement, is the key to playing this game, rather than a computer game, I personally prefer to see it as a large-scale card board game with a relatively large scale of drawings.
If you are willing to pay enough production costs, I think it is not difficult for this game to be board gamed
Of course, the random elements of the glowing alien are far more than this, just like the fate cards occasionally drawn in the Monopoly strong hand chess, this game may suddenly occur at any time a variety of random events, the impact of these events is large or small or good or bad, which will make your Mars development plan bring a variety of unexpected developments, the number of events is relatively large and some events I feel that I need specific conditions to trigger, so every time I reopen a game of rejuvenation, I will have different feelings, At the end of each round, I was full of anticipation of what the next round of the game would be.
The Martian demonstrations happened, and your support dropped -- ||
It's not a big deal, but it might be a cool side dish for you
Overall, the resurfacing theme is not new, and the system is not very deep, but the design of the introduction of the meat pigeon mechanism makes the gameplay that was easy to understand interesting enough, establishing a good balance between playability and player time cost.
In terms of the current version of the content, the average time of each game is about four or five hours, which is very suitable for friends who usually do not have time to come to a game on weekend breaks, and even suitable for some office families to occasionally touch the fish at work, which is definitely a boutique dish worth recommending to all turn-based strategy game lovers.
It only takes about four or five hours to play until the end, which is very suitable for short-term leisure and entertainment