After enjoying Moonpod’s Mr. Robot, I downloaded Starscape, their other acclaimed independent game. Starscape is in an entirely different genre. Unlike the puzzle adventure Mr. Robot, Starscape is about space mining and ship building. The shipbuilding element is reminiscent of Homeworld, but is presented in a highly stylized way. The entire game is simple in design but never to a fault; it captures the essence of a casual game, where it is easy to play, but hard to master.

The game is presented in a unique style. The cutscenes and characters are styled in a hybrid of 90’s cartoons and anime. The colors are bright but not garish and the people are attractive without looking impossibly beautiful. The non-people elements (mainly outside the ship) are mostly ships in space. The ships look great, as does space. The game takes place on a 2D plane, but the backdrop looked so great that it fooled me at first – I thought that I was on a 3D plane.

The gameplay feels polished like Mr. Robot, but I had a few issues with the controls. The initial ship you control to mine resources was a slightly difficult to steer. Pressing left or right on the directional keys would cause it to make a wide turn. I missed the subtlety of a mouse for movement, as I prefer to follow more refined paths, even in space. The controls didn’t become much of a problem until I had to shoot other ships. Then it became a little bit challenging to aim. Also, I found myself constantly mixing up the keys. Instead of a default return key or spacebar to fire, the keys Q and W were used to fire, while E was a tractor beam. I found myself shooting the resources that I wanted to mine, as I would get the keys mixed up. While the key controls are customizable in the menus, I always try to follow the designers’ original plan, as it is often done for a reason. However, I would have to disagree with the designers in this case, as I felt the controls were often counterintuitive.

Outside of the controls, the game was fairly straightforward. Mining was simple and fun. Like Mr. Robot, the amount of text was perfect – just enough to get you the important information without being overwhelming. There is also a fantastic ship customization component, where you work to build elements for ships, such as a bridge, engines, and cannons. There is a large resource management element here, where you distribute the resources you mine according to your goals. This type of customization has never been my favorite part of games, but there is certainly a large audience of gamers who thrive on it.

Starscape is an interesting independent game. I would recommend Mr. Robot before Starscape, but they are both polished experiences. They both have low system requirements and a free demo, making them highly accessible to a variety of gamers. The unique style of Starscape makes it fun and it is certainly an engaging game.