Mayhem Intergalactic

Is it “Risk in space”, or is it the 4X genre stripped down to its core? Ultimately, you may wind up asking yourself if those two aren’t the same questions.

Here is an indie gem which presents a game that is both too simple and yet too rewarding to resist. If you are a Risk fan (which I generally am not) you will feel right at home, as the dynamic of capturing territory with each territory providing more units with which to capture more territory is essentially the core of the gameplay. Likewise, if you are a fan of Master of Orion or Galactic Civilizations, you will also find yourself in comfortable environs, and after you come to grips with the fact that it doesn’t have any (any) of the complexity that comes with those gargantuan undertakings, gosh it sure does feel familiar.

The fact is, this is 4X reduced as far as it can be reduced. Lookit:

You have explore: the planets DO have a relative value to be discovered, in terms of how many base units they create.

You have expand: you use your spaceships to conquer neighboring (or not so neighboring) planets.

You have exploit: use your empire to build up an unstoppable force.

You have exterminate: you kill everyone else to win.

Christ, you even have technology upgrades, but in Mayhem Intergalactic, as you might expect, there’s only one upgrade you can make. But it’s there!

And is the joy of winning a 15-minute game of MI really that much less than the satisfaction of tearing around the universe in a 20-hour GC marathon? Try it for yourself, but I sure wasn’t convinced.

On top of that, this is just one of those indie titles that you want to get behind. Developed by one guy, put out there, priced maybe a little too high, but he’s right there, developing updates, doing beta test programs, responding to every request and suggestion that comes his way — dude cares, man. And though he didn’t pick the most challenging of all genres to tackle, he at least cared enough to get it right, and to keep working on it.

I dunno, it’s just a “feel good” title to me. And even if you’re scoffing the whole time, don’t tell me after playing the demo for a half hour or so that you didn’t have a good time.