GalCon

[Rimbo]

No relation to GalCiv. (http://www.imitationpickles.org/galcon/index.html)

Fun!

It's Risk, but real-time, with planets and spaceships instead of Earth and armies.

[Rorschach]

Fun game, not too sure I'll pay $20 for it though.

[Rimbo]

Agreed, and the free version's nerfing is horrible. You only get to play one of a dozen types of games, and only three days? I don't even know what I'm going to eat for dinner tonight; I can't figure out if a game's worth $20 in three days.

I'm pleasantly surprised at how much fun it is. The UI is great; a handful of standard mouse controls to simply send ships to targets, and rate of production is more important than rate of mouse-clicking. The graphics are exactly enough to draw your eye and represent all the information you need. It's like an ultra-minimalist Total Annihilation.

[Joel]

Awise!

I just reviewed the iPhone version of this and it's absofreakinglutely an essential purchase now for iPhone/iPod Touch owners, especially now that they've added multiplayer and dropped the price to $5.

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/10/09/review-a-few-hours-w.html#more

[Therlun]

It is fun indeed, especially in multiplayer!

I didn't buy it because the payment seemed so complicated, but the three days the demo lasted provided many fun MP matches for me.

I'd certainly recommend everyone trying it in MP!
If they provide a better way of payment (isnt there an easy to set up thing planned for indie games on Impulse?!) I'll buy it.

There is also the (SP only I think) Dyson. http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2008/06/freeware_game_pick_dyson_alex.html
It uses the same basic game mechanics, but at a slower pace and with a different focus (its fun to see your flies fight :) ).

[Pentadact]

This is ace. Shades of DEFCON, Dice Wars and Total Annihilation. Peewees, rush!

Currently my tactic is to send 80% of everything to everything I want to conquer, and let the AI take my homeworld as I spread across the galaxy like a plague, losing the worlds I leave but gaining all the ones I attack very quickly.

It's a great strategy if you like losing.

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[Bahimiron]

Shades of DEFCON

Hot damn. I was just thinking the other day that DEFCON would be perfect for the iPhone. Set it up in the morning. Right around midmorning break you're ready for defcon 3. By mid-afternoon the nukes are flying and on your way home you're checking your phone at each stoplight and figuring up bodycounts.

[Brian Rubin]

Awise!

I just reviewed the iPhone version of this and it's absofreakinglutely an essential purchase now for iPhone/iPod Touch owners, especially now that they've added multiplayer and dropped the price to $5.

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/10/09/review-a-few-hours-w.html#more
Agreed, I love this game on the iPhone hard core.

[Talisker]

I'd pay $5 for it on the PC, maybe even $10, but not $20.

The iphone version must suck if it's only a quarter as good as the PC version :)

[Pentadact]

Aw. I was having fun till I realised I could just send everything at their home planet from the word go, then take a couple of single-digit worlds while they're pinned down to tip the balance in my favour. I can't even beat an Easy using real tactics, but even a Hard can't counter that.

I don't have to play that way, but I'm always going to feel like I'm pulling my punches.

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[Joel]

Aw. I was having fun till I realised I could just send everything at their home planet from the word go, then take a couple of single-digit worlds while they're pinned down to tip the balance in my favour. I can't even beat an Easy using real tactics, but even a Hard can't counter that.

I don't have to play that way, but I'm always going to feel like I'm pulling my punches.

-

That seemed to work for me up until the Admiral-level difficulties, when the AI started to do the same thing to me. We'd end up swapping home planets and then rush around trying to clean up. It is a very effective strat in single-player, though. Not so much in multi.

[Marcin]

You could always try it out on Instant Action ... (http://www.instantaction.com/galcon)

/shill :)

[mkozlows]

So there used to be (well, probably still is, but) a shareware text-mode turn-based DOS strategy game called GalCon. You had planets named by letters, and you'd produce fleets and send them off to conquer other planets -- and you couldn't communicate, monitor, or modify your fleets in-flight. It had a hotseat mode, and I played it obsessively with friends (best tactic: secretly taking their turn for them when they weren't looking and sending all their ships away to far planets, which always ended with the computer being turned off in disgust). It seemed to have faded into obscurity, only now here it is again.

Which should be awesome, but... real-time. Hmm.

[Pentadact]

Fun thing my friend Graham discovered today: once you know you've won, against the lesser AIs, you can leave them with two planets and Alt+Tab away. Your ships accumulate in the background. Come back half an hour later, scroll up to 100%, select-all, right click on an enemy planet.

20,000 ships on-screen.

It needs to be their second-to-last planet, because if their last falls before all your ships have launched, the game ends too soon to see the full spectacle.

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[ElGuapo]

It's a great strategy if you like losing.

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Snort.

Seriously, didn't see that coming.