Spacing Out: Procedural Generation Gets Me Hot

1 - Busy Galaxy

I Do Love Those Random Galaxies…

Over the past couple of years, I’ve noticed that there are two words — as well as variations of these words — that get me more excited than almost any other. Those are “procedurally generated”, as well as its cousin, “randomly generated”. I mean, I’ve always loved randomness in games because replayability is a big factor in my enjoyment of a game, but lately this one factor has been even more important than ever. I started thinking of this topic because recently a game I had NO interest in called Don’t Starve shot to the top of my interest meter once I read “Randomly Generated New Worlds” in the list of the game’s features. I don’t even LIKE survival games that much, but randomly generated worlds? Sign me the hell up. This made me begin to wonder both why I love procedural generation so much, and how it figures into the realm of space gaming.

Continue reading “Spacing Out: Procedural Generation Gets Me Hot” »

Posted in Featured, Op-Ed | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Spacey News and Deals 5/15-17/13: The Bring On the Weekend Edition

Drowning in News

SO MANY NEWSIDEALSNESS!

Hellllllloooo my friends, and happy Friday! The weekend is FINALLY upon us! YES! Sorry about the lack of news for the past couple of days, there was some other stuff I needed to get done first before this, so I hope y’all don’t mind. :) Even though my time has been consumed with Distant Worlds: Shadows, I’ve still managed to fit in some X3: Albion Prelude, so I’ll have something on that early next week. I also hope to tackle some more TIE Fighter this weekend as well. But enough about me, there’s a LOT of newsiness to talk about!!!

Now we have deals!!! First, I suppose to celebrate the release of its major 3.0 patch as noted above, some of the X games are on sale at a few places, such as:

Next in deals, Amazon is having a HUGE Digital Games Mayhem sale, yet it only includes a few space games (of which are of questionable quality, but I mention ‘em regardless), such as:

Finally in deals, we have some randoms, such as Dawnstar (which I still need to play) for $5.00 on Green Man Gaming and Unstoppable Gorg for…whatever you want on IndieGameStand.

Finally in related stuff, the folks at the amazing Three Moves Ahead podcast had a great podcast on 4X games.

That’s it!! WHEW! Have a great weekend everyone.

Continue reading “Spacey News and Deals 5/15-17/13: The Bring On the Weekend Edition” »

Posted in Deals, News | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Spacey Gamey News and Deals 4/30/13: Bring on the Devs!

Drink In the News...

I Really Need More News Graphics…

Haaaaaaaaaallllloooooo folks, and happy Tuesday! I hope your week is flowing along swimmingly. Now there’s a good chunk of news today to end the month on, much of it from some awesome game devs, so let’s take a look!

  • Strike Suit Infinity – This endless score chaser standaloney thingy based on Strike Suit Zero is out now, and you can see the launch trailer at their Kickstarter page (I can’t seem to embed it, sorry). It’s $7 on its own, but if you kicked to ‘em before, you get a discount code. I snagged a copy, and will let’cha know what I think as soon as I get some time with it.
  • Limit Theory – Hot on the heels of the recent Prototype video, Josh has released his latest dev update for April which includes new screenshots and news of a new artist!
  • Drox Operative – There’s a new beta patch that has just a ton of changes, which you can read about here.
  • StarDrive – Space Sector has posted their review of the game. Hopefully more reviews will come in soon.
  • Rogue System – There’s a new dev posting about the progress of the game, as well as a video showing off dynamic orbital motion, which I’ll embed below.
  • Void of Darkness – On our own forum, the game’s dev has outlined a progress update, and wow, the game is a fair bit along! Yay!
  • StarMade – There’s some new pilot girl concept art. Why can’t it just be called a pilot? ;)
  • Star Citizen – Thanks to VGN24/7 for letting us know that crowdfunding for the game has passed the $9 million mark! Congrats to Mr. Roberts and his team!
  • Star Trek Online – In a recent dev blog entry, they’ve detailed subscriber rewards for the new Romulan expansion.

Finally, in deals, I missed one from GamersGate yesterday, a 1C Space Strategy Pack that includes Star Wolves 3: Civil War and The Tomorrow War for $12.48.

That’s it for now! :)Thanks for reading folks, and have a lovely day!

Continue reading “Spacey Gamey News and Deals 4/30/13: Bring on the Devs!” »

Posted in Deals, News | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Spacey Gamey Newsies & Dealsies 4/11-17/13: The Freaking Finally Edition

Stack of Newspapers

SO MUCH NEWSINESS!

Helllllloooooo my wonderful awesome friends! I’m back! I think! *checks* Yes, I’m back! Sorry for the lack of news posts, got surprisingly busy all over the place and just didn’t have the time. I do now though, yay! There’s a lot to go over, so let’s dive in, it’s all warm and stuff! ;)

We’re not done yet folks! We have DEALS too!! Let’s do this!

FINALLY, the folks at Arcen games (who made the aforementioned AI War) have announced a new game called Skyward Collapse, which looks awesome.

That’s it! Have a great day folks!

Get’cher Videos Right Here…

Posted in Deals, News | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Massive Newsey Updatey Thingy!!

All those little dots are news stories...

So Many Pieces of News…

Haaaaaaaayyyyy folks, happy Whenever-I-Finally-Post-This! ;) I hope these last weeks have found you all well, and less busy/tired than I’ve been. ;) I’ve just not had time to do the news (or much else) in the past several weeks. That’s a-changing though, for a couple of reasons. First, work is slowing down, so I’ll have more physical and mental energy to put toward the blog. Secondly, I found I was more productive on the blog before my awesome girlfriend moved in, so I’ve come up with the hopeful solution of setting aside certain nights of the week, and weekends when I have time, to dedicate time and energy solely to this blog. This should help me find a better balance and begin to put out content more regularly again. :)

As for news, let’s just dive in, as there’s a TON to go over (so much so I’m putting it under a cut):

Enjoy the Onslaught…

Posted in Deals, News | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

SGJ Podcast #07: Getting Sold on Swords and Stars

Pew to the Power of Pew!

Pew to the Power of Pew!

Welcome to this week’s episode of the Space Game Junkie Podcast! This time Jim and I talk to Paul Tobia, or Rorschach on several forums, who is something of an expert on the Sword of the Stars series. I was fairly “meh” on Sword of the Stars II a little while back, so we asked Paul on to help convince us (and hopefully, you folks), that the game is worth our time.

We hope you enjoy this week’s episode, and as always, invite your comments either below or on the forum. Thanks for listening!

Continue reading “SGJ Podcast #07: Getting Sold on Swords and Stars” »

Posted in Featured, Interviews, Podcasts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

SGJ Podcast #04: Chris. Freaking. Roberts.

Chris Roberts Directing

The Man Himself

Oh. My. God. I’m still so flabbergasted and amazed we got to talk to this industry legend that I can mostly talk in one-two word sentences. Oh.  My. God. ;) Seriously, Jim and I were lucky enough to sit down to talk to the man himself about his games and his movies, and it was completely fascinating. Mr. Roberts was very generous with his time and his candor, and we can’t thank him enough for spending some of his valuable time with us.

Oh, and OMG, he said he liked my site. SQUEEEEEEE! Seriously, I’m still on a cloud folks, no lie. :) We hope you enjoy the podcast, and invite your comments and questions below in the comments or on the forum. Thanks for listening, and please feel free as always to follow our RSS feed or iTunes feed. :) Have a great day!

Continue reading “SGJ Podcast #04: Chris. Freaking. Roberts.” »

Posted in Featured, Interviews, Podcasts | Tagged , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Spacey Game News 3/12/13 – Light News Day

Folded Newspapers

A Light Graphic for a Light News Day.

Hey folks, happy Tuesday! I hope your week is cruising along splendidly! Not a lot of news today, sadly, but sometimes it’s nice to have a break after yesterday’s onslaught. ;) Let’s get to it…

And that’s it! Have a great day folks!!

Continue reading “Spacey Game News 3/12/13 – Light News Day” »

Posted in News | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

SGJ Podcast #03: Rogue System Q&A with Michael Juliano

Rogue System Alpha Screenshot

Learn More about this Awesome Looking Game!

Welcome to episode 03 of the Space Game Junkie Podcast! While we will usually try to do one of these a week, this week you get two for the price of one! In this episode, we talk to Michael Juliano, the programmer behind Rogue System. He’s running a Kickstarter and we want to give him as much help as possible in its final two weeks, so we sat down and asked him all sorts of his questions about his background, his game, his Kickstarter and so on. Jim did most of the talking this time because I still have a cough and didn’t wanna cough all over the interview, sadly :/

Notes for the show are below the cut as always. If you have any quesitions or comments, please leave ‘em in the comments below or on the forum. Don’t forget to follow us through RSS or iTunes, and thanks for listening. :)

Continue reading “SGJ Podcast #03: Rogue System Q&A with Michael Juliano” »

Posted in Featured, Interviews, Podcasts | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Spacey Game News and Deals 3/2-6/13: OMG I’M SO BEHIND AAHHH

Drowning in News

Glug Glug SO MUCH NEWS Glug

Hey folks, happy Wednesday! Sorry for the severe delay in, well, nearly everything, but I’ve had a HELLUVA week. I was out of town most of the weekend and had to put in several extra hours at work so I could take some time off today, but it’s all for a good reason. ;) Now I’m back in town and kinda rested up, and there’s a TON of news to go through, so let’s get to it…

And you thought we were done?! HAH! We still have some deals to go over! These include:

ALMOST THERE. You can now but an unofficial Serenity LEGO set, which looks amazing. FINALLY, there’s an amazing article by John Shafer about how diplomacy works in his 4X game that I’d LOVE to see adapted to space 4X games.

THAT’S it. I need a drink. Or several. *collapse*

This Way for a BOATLOAD if Videos…

Posted in Deals, News | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments
« Older