Flotilla Demo Impression

 

Blendo Games really impressed me with their short form indie game, Gravity Bone, which I did a write up on sometime last year. When I heard they were doing a new game that involved space warfare with a turn based strategy mechanic, my interest piqued. Flotilla takes some cue from Gravity Bone with its quirky humour and serene music, but gameplay wise it couldn’t be more different.

 

Flotilla despite its Homeworld like aesthetics, does not play like the classic at all. You control a bunch of ships that you set move and attack instructions for. They then go about doing what they were told to do in a turn, which lasts 30 seconds. It’s called simultaneous turns as in this 30 seconds, enemies move as well.

 

Much of the games depth comes with the Z axis movement which is vital to winning some of the tougher battles. Ships take more damage from the rear and the bottom. The only disadvantage to this is that a battle is often a z axis race as it’s mostly a who can get below the opponent leading to a ‘how low can you go mentality’.

 

There are some interesting additional choices in movement type. Flanking increases movement speed but sacrifices fire power. Focus fire sacrifices speed for fire power. Flotilla keeps things simple and doesn’t give you a ton of choice.

 

As you win battles, you gain new parts or upgrades that improve your ships, adding a nice motivation and progression to the game. What I found interesting was that a second time a played the same level, I was against a much larger opposition. An earlier(on that same level) playthrough only had two enemies. The game’s levels are randomly generated. Enemy numbers and space objects (like debris) change in every playthrough.

 

I’ve got one problem with this game though. It’s the clunky mouse controls. Flotilla supports a game controller and I suspect plays better with it. However if you play this with a mouse and keyboard combo, you might find it tough to get used to moving your units especially as they get really down on the Z axis.

 

 

I’d say, give it a try at least. If you have any interest in indie games and strategy games, you should give this one a try. The demo is a sizable on with many scenarios. It’s only USD$ 10, if you find the controls workable, it’s a fine purchase.