I'm a pretty big fan of sci-fi in general, and a slightly darker, and occasionally a bit harder form of sci-fi, whether or not it's fully realistic. Hell, I once wrote a sci-fi book on Steem. But I don't necessarily need gritty reality so much as just the grit and feeling like it could happen, even if it wouldn't in a million years and is pretty much fantasy. Star Wars is a little bit more of the fantasy side of this spectrum, with shows like Star Trek just being a slight big more realistic than that, while things like Firefly seem to have a bit more of that gritty realism I like, even with the murderous little psycho psychic witch sis.
So is it any wonder that today I'm finding myself really like Deep Sky Derelicts?
Yeah, not really.
The hanger of the space port that is your sort of home base.
Deep Sky Derelicts is a game centered around crew of scroungers in space, sent off to find data that's somewhere on a few derelict space ships in the area. What makes the game a bit interesting and unusual for me is that it's kind of a card game.
I'm not particularly fond of many card games on PC. Many of them feel inhibited by the cards to me. They feel like they're trying to base their game on card games, and bring them to life, but just end up feeling to me like they slapped bad graphics on top of a shitty card game. Deep Sky Derelicts is different. Or at least it feels that way to me.
You have three characters of different types, either attackers or support basically. They use cards for their abilities. You may use one card to restore shields or attack, for example, using your equipment on your character as the base to modify. You then move around these ships using up energy for every movement, representing your space suits.
So it's card game and board game RPG, basically.
The "PDA" in the game, showing your inventory and the equipment for one of the characters. This character is a "Technician", which is mainly a support character. They help with shields, and deploying bots, and things. On the bottom you can see all the cards that this character can play during a battle, which are given by the various equipment. Attack cards usually come from weapons and their mods, while support cards and some other effects come from the Tools and Shield Core and their mods.
It probably wouldn't be that hard to turn into a table top game, if you were so inclined. You'd either need one player to act as a sort of game master though, or have it use some sort of assist from a phone or tablet.
The weapons, shield modules, engineer modules, scavenger modules, etc, all come with their own cards, or they can, that then get put into your deck to pull from for random attacks while exploring derelict star ships. Kind of hard to explain.
The star ships are represented by a number of squares, kind of like a big board from a board game, in the shape of a ship. You explore the ship, either blindly, or with the use of energy pulses, using energy with every step. If you run out, and can't get back to a hanger bay fast enough, you run out of oxygen and die. Certain squares on the board represent things like consoles, or possible items to salvage, or junk that has to be cleared, using energy, but that can also reveal items. Enemies can also be seen moving through the derelicts, at least after a scan. The main part of the game is really the enemy encounters.
One of the derelict space ship "boards".
In the enemy encounters, you face off on either side of the screen, usually with 2 or 3 enemies on the right, though occasionally more, and you on the left. Each character has a number of cards they draw, and by the luck of the draw, you may either end up wiping the floor with them, or end up as a puddle of goo on the floor. Though not really that graphic, as the graphics of the game are very stylistic and independent, using large drawings of your characters and the monsters, with action poses for the various cards that you play. It very clearly is influenced by comics. The end result in a very artistic indie feeling game. Though they probably paid a pretty penny to their artists to make the game.
You can see a battle above. On the left are your player characters, while the enemies are on the right. The characters and enemy avatars are on the right, and the cards for the currently active character, if they're yours and you're allowed to see them, are on the left. You can see the health of the various characters and enemies above their heads in red, with the shields in blue.
The battles are turn based, with each character playing a different card on their turn. It's very similar to a JRPG card game in how the battles work. I usually prefer American style computer RPG's with a map based combat system, but I don't mind it in this game because it does fit with the card based combat.
The use of a Pulse Grenade card during a battle, which affects up to three adjacent enemies.
One of the enemies evaded. When an enemy evades an attack, their sprite isn't shown. You can very clearly see the comic influence.
The cards give the game a very clear collection aspect. You'll be trying everything you can to get better equipment and their related cards, to build a better deck. But with every piece of equipment, there is also the negative that they may just fill your deck with cards you don't want. If you have a bunch of the same card on different equipment, you might just find your hand filled with multiple cards and them not being useful in that situation.
After a battle you'll see a display of any items that you picked up from it.
You'll get the usual drop of items that you might find in any RPG once you defeat a few monsters. I've found that most times you'll find a lot better equipment in random monster drops than in the "Pawn Shop" at the star base. I'm not sure if this is intentional or not, because you don't wanna be always broke with a ton of sweet items in the store. The items do seem to level up with you in the Pawn Shop though, which is convenient. So you won't end up never using the Pawn Shop at all.
The Pawn Shop in the game. This is the buy window.
Although I usually prefer the items from monster drops, the Pawn Shop does occasionally have some good stuff. Although it won't always be what you want for your character. You'll pay a pretty penny to get the items you want though. They don't want you getting insanely powerful items, if they ever show up, and not paying through the nose for them.
Standard economic game balancing.
You can compare equipment with the equipment in compatible slots of your characters, either when buying it, or in this case, after a battle.
I can't even explain how nice it is that they have a comparison window for items. In some RPG's you have to just go back and forth between your equipment and the store. Depending on how difficult it is to get between the store window and your character, it may be a nightmare. You either need to memorize what your character has, or take screenshots to compare. A comparison window might seem simple and natural, but the fact that Deep Sky Derelicts has one makes it so convenient and easy. Even if you might dismiss it as a normal thing in many games, having played a few RPG's without one, it matters a lot.
A hangar on a derelict. You can see I lost a character in a battle. Thankfully they're only considered unconscious, so the doctor can revive them at the star base.
One challenge in the game might just be trying to get back to the star base after a battle to heal yourself before a monster attacks you. Trying to fight with an unbalanced team, either without your fighter, or without your healer, is not fun. At least not for me. It is very challenging though. And stressful.
"Deep Sky Medical, the doctor of the star base, where you can patch up your characters, if you make it back from a derelict. The medical is split up into three different levels, but if you only need a certain amount of medical, the prices and health restored will adjust.
It is really convenient that characters aren't considered "dead" when they are killed in battle. I believe they are in harder difficulties. Even at normal difficulty, I died, a LOT, the first few times I played. I thought it was horribly challenging at first. I really had to figure out how to play it better and constantly go back to the star base after every battle at first until I managed to get better equipment and level up my players.
It's a fun and challenging game. But you might find yourself limping back to the star base at times, or reloading from a save, a lot.
Over all I like the game a lot. I haven't played a whole lot of it yet, just started playing it yesterday, but so far I like it. If it turns out to suddenly end after I explore a few more derelicts, I might be a bit annoyed, but we'll see.
You should check it out. Especially if you can get it for a good price.
It even runs native on Linux!