Shameless Plug: Weird Worlds

Cafe Society
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Okay, this is a shameless plug for a game I really like: Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space. If you played Strange Adventures in Infinite Space, this is the sequel.

It’s the coolest space adventure game you’ve never heard of – a deceptively simple space conquest game that reminds me a lot of Star Fleet Battles. I like it a lot. It has a surprising amount of depth and replayability, so it takes multiple times playing it (games last 10-30 minutes) to experience everything it has to offer. Even then, it still throws surprises at you – like new kinds of marauding space aliens, or undead space lords. :slight_smile: It’s really pretty, too. Plus, it’s easy to create mods for it – the original game had a small but lively mod community, and this new version is even easier to mod.

If you like desktop space exploration/conquest, check out the demo.

Disclaimer: I’m one of the Fearless Testers for the game. I have no financial stake in it, but I am proud to have helped stamp out bugs and suggest improvements.

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Hey, I’m not alone: Tycho over at Penny Arcade also likes Weird Worlds.

Woot. Validation is mine! :slight_smile:

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I just posted our review of it for my gaming site. It won’t go public until 12/12 but my reviewer digs it a lot and has been actively promoting it to the rest of the staff.

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I snagged the demo, and will give it a whirl when I have the time…

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I hope you get a chance to play the demo… I so want to geek out and talk WW strategy.

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Jonathan, have you played it yet yourself?

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No, not yet. But the pressure is getting to me.

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I preordered this because I liked Strange Adventures and I like the devs, Digital Eel. I like to support indie game studios, if I can.

I haven’t played enough to really talk strategy (beyond “don’t mess with guys who can fold space!”) I mostly look at it as a sort of lunch break game to fool around with when I’m short on time. The highlight of the game for me is all the oddball items you can find while you’re exploring. The descriptions are Sims-clever and often bring a smile to my face.

The demo’s definitely worth a look, imo.

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I’ve enjoyed SAIS a lot, and waited and waited for the WW demo to appear. Only to discover that my laptop computer sucks too much ass to run it. Fortunately, I’m getting a new one before Christmas. Hurry up Santa–I mean Dell!

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Definitely do not mess with the Zorg flotillas that include fighters unless you have really pimped out your ride. They’re among the deadliest foes, since they can jump behind you out of your firing arc, and they sport shields, making them hard to kill.

In general, avoiding fights is a good idea until you have some upgrades in place – especially shielding and weapons. Better drives are good as well, because if you can outrun the enemy, you can control how you engage with them. It’s much like “having the weather gage” in the age of sail.

One tactic to consider is putting a good drive on a smaller ship – one of the fighter is ideal – and using that one as a decoy. Enemies target on the closest ship, and you can use that to distract them. Get a fighter out in front of your formation, then take the enemy off to the side, while your other ship(s) bear in on the side of the enemy flotilla. This keeps you outside of their weapon firing arcs and them inside yours.

One weapon to look for is the Particle Vortex Cannon. The PVC was my favorite in Strange Adventures, and it’s still the king in Weird Worlds (the Multi-Missile Launcher is nice, but I loves me some PVC). The PVC is the gun that shoots spinning disks that emit lightning bolts. You’ll see it used against you by the red Tan Ru ships (also ones to avoid, as massed PVC fire will eat through even the hardiest shieding in a trice).

And be sure to try out ramming. There are two ships you can get that are ram-capable – the Bloodfang and the Damocles. The Damocles is a special event ship, and it’s huge and slow, so not a great rammer. But the Bloodfang is great. Put a good shield on it, good drives and send it after the enemy. If you can cloak it, it’s totally awesome. Bear in mind that ramming works better against the rear or side of an enemy ship.

You can ram with other ships, but they take more damage because they’re not built for ramming, and are fairly likely to be taken out with the target, unless you have a really good shield on them (the Meson Lattice shield is good for this, as it’s the second-toughest after the Temporal Flux shield, and it regenerates, which the TF shield does not).

Heh. Can you tell I have played a lot?

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I tried out the demo on another computer, and I admit–that is a sweet game! I thought it would be too similar to Strange Adventures to be worth shelling out for, but it’s not. It’s much better than SA.

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Just out of curiosity, how’d you get involved in play-testing it, Brainiac?

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I’ve known Rich “Zdim” Carlson for a few years. We met through another friend, who I had met running tournaments at GenCon. I’d done some playtesting of board games, so when Rich and Iikka “Fingers”’ Keranen were working on a board game, I volunteered to test it out.

That original board game never got done, because Rich and Iikka decided to make a computer game version of it instead. That was Strange Adventures in Infinite Space, the second game from Digital Eel (the first was Plasmaworm). Rich offered to let me and a few others test it, and we had a blast. I’ve playtested other games, but usually as part of a large set of beta testers. For SAIS, Dr. Blob’s Organism and WW, the “Fearless Testers” played an active role in development. The Aethric Mirror, for example, was a suggestion from Nihilix (my best friend and one of the other Fearless Testers) during playtesting of SAIS.

The vast majority of credit goes to the Eels, of course – it’s their game. But we did help. :slight_smile:

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Oh yes, it’s soooo much better than SAIS. I like SAIS rather a lot, but after playing WW, I just can’t go back to it – it feels like I am playing on an Amiga or something. The new graphics are intensely better.

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Jonathan, **Gamera **-- did either of you get a chance to play yet?

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I’m really amazed at the interconnected little creative micro-community that seems to exist in Seattle and focus–loosely–around gaming (and which I just happened to stumble upon as a consumer–thanks to Blue Kangaroo): Studio Foglio, James Earnest & Cheapass Games, Digital Eel, and I’m not sure what else. I suppose WotC had something to do with it, but it’s still fairly amazing.

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Late getting back to this, but thanks for the tips, Brainiac! I’ll definitely keep them in mind.

Zdim also did some mods for Morrowind that I’m quite fond of, especially Three Shades of Darkness. Tell him his mods still get mentioned by MW fans and Three Shades is on the big Must Have Mods list that everyone points to. Here’s hoping he enjoys Oblivion too!

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I sent that on. I’m sure he will be pleased. And I think he is planning on enjoying Oblivion, as all right-thinking people are.

Back on WW – have you run into either of the two special events? Stars going nova in series, or a starship protected by a ring of drones?

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Nein, Dragon Quest 8, Soul Calibur III, Movies, Comic sorting… it all takes time.

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Me. neither. The ironic thing about owning and running two small businesses is that I mostly never get to actually play a game unless it’s something I have to write about.