Jolt Country

I can't take it anymore. Three years now of everyone telling me this is the best space 4x game out there right now by a pretty wide margin. It was way too expensive though.

Well, the latest expansion came out, and the whole thing with all the expansions was bundled together at a big sale price. The big sale price is still WAY too expensive, but I hate all my other games, and I'm sick of everything, and I'm just TIRED OF IT ALL. So, here we are. I got it.

I'm GOIN' IN.

I finished "Basic Tutorial" and then fired up a "New Game".

You start with like ten planets and two colonies and there are like 100 ships flying around but only six of them belong to you!

On the one hand, I am digging the "the universe is huge and there are like, billions of people living in it and doing stuff in it other than you, jackass" vibe it's got going on.

On the other hand, I saved the game 30 seconds into it and quit because I had no idea what was going on.

We'll try again this weekend!

I was hoping this was a thread about how boring Earth is.

Okay, I've now completed all of the tutorials and am ready to start the "Introductory Game"!

PROGRESS!

I'm one hour into the "introductory game"! I have no idea what's happening!

I know I'm prone to hyperbole, but I don't think there's anything like this. Thing is enormous. Thing is happy to play itself if you don't want to intervene. It's a galaxy simulator, and you can conquer it if you feel like it.

The graphics and interface are questionable at best, but the galaxy map is so huge and full of... STUFF... that (so far) I don't even mind.

Really quite fascinating. And a nice break from standard 4x "click the giant build button, now click the giant research button, now click end turn until something happens". Something's always happening. And not all of it concerns you.

Let's have a screenshot. I can't keep all these 4x games straight. I want to take this journey with you but they are all running together.

I'm two hours into the "introductory game"! All of the above still applies! This is... this is pretty amazing, I will admit.

I will supply screenshots for all of my recently mentioned space 4x games.

Here's a shot of the Distant Worlds map! Note the general differences between this and the screenshots in the other thread!



(BTW check out the minimap in the bottom right to get a sense of how huge this thing is.)

Now three hours into the "introductory game"! It still feels like the very beginning of the game! Almost everything starts automated, so my input is the occasional "sure, do that!" and "maybe make some more ships? You guys?"

This is the most incredible "4x" experience I've ever had. But it doesn't feel like that. Like I said. It feels like you're watching a universe unfold, and nudging it in the direction you want, if you want.

FASCINATING.

Well, I "won" the introductory game, although the last half of it, I just cranked it up to fast-forward and basically set everything to automate.

I had no idea what was happening. News updates occurred at the rate of about 5 per second. I had to turn most of them off just to keep my computer from beeping 5 times per second.

This is a screenshot of the game minutes before the victory screen (consisting of the words "You have achieved victory" overlaid on the regular empire graph screen) appeared.

What the fuck is going on? I have no idea. But I "won".

It's too much. It's an amazing thing, and I'm glad it exists, but I don't know how anyone could play it. I'm not sure it wants you to play it. Roger Ebert once said of "I (Heart) Huckabees" that it was the first movie he'd ever seen that didn't care if you watched it or not.

Distant Worlds doesn't care if you play it or not.

Still, quite amazing.

In fact, I think the game should get the DARWIN AWARD for not caring if you pirate it!

Well, it kinda makes me sad. DW is basically the game I've always wanted (except for E4, of course). And now I have it. And I just... I mean, I "enjoyed" it in the sense that I was impressed by it, but I dunno if I'd ever play it again.

I don't think I like the games I think I like. That's really what it comes down to.

A complex 4x game sounds like my favorite thing ever, but then I always hate them.

I need help.