Deep Sky Derelicts

Review

Well, you’re in luck, scavenger! You just left the sub-Governor offices full of determination and looking a bit smug. After all, it’s not every day that a person like yourself and your team are given a chance to acquire a Galactic Citizenship. The hiccup is that you and your team have to find and secure the fabled Mothership, which is apparently hidden somewhere in this sector. To make this hiccup a burp, other scavenger groups are on the hunt as well for the same price. Burp might be too soft a word, as you actually have to enter abandoned and drifting spaceships full of unknown dangers in order to find clues that might lead you to the mothership in deep . . . Deep Sky Derelicts!

Deep Sky Derelicts is a turn-based strategy / RPG game where you control a team of three scavengers who have to explore drifting spaceships with a view to locating and securing the Fabled Mothership.

As you enter the main menu, you’ll be able to select whether you want to play a campaign or the arena modes. As soon as you have done so, you’ll be hand picking your team of three scavengers. There are six different classes in this game (Leader, Technician, Medic, scrapper, Tracker and Bruiser) to choose from and each of them will share the same set of skills – weaponry, tech, medical, scavenging and mental, with a number allocated next to them.  To give you an idea, the medic will have a larger number in the medical skills than the tracker, whose main skill is weaponry. On your first play through, it’s going to be a bit hard to choose the right combination. Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly.

In the campaign mode, you’ll start at the Deep Sky station with 600 credits. You can visit the mercenary hub where you can either pick up contracts to accumulate wealth, get patched up (mostly returning from the derelicts) at the medical centre, buy or sell items at the pawn shop or rush to the station hall to give the later news to the sub-governor. The other action is to jump in the shuttle and choose which derelicts you want to explore on your PDA. Oh, make sure you stack your inventory with Energy cells before you go.

You’ll start with 100 energy points each time you enter a new abandoned spaceship, but not if you return to it. Each movement will cost you one energy point. You’ll come across tiles (rooms) which you can search for items, and if you have a scrapper in your team, you’ll have a better chance to find interesting objects. You’ll also meet characters with whom you will be able to trade or talk (and plenty of enemies too). Some will be waiting for you on a specific tile while others will chase you, and they are usually the tough ones.

In battle, each of your characters will have a set of cards (minimum of four); the Bruiser and Tracker classes will have more attacking and defending cards.  As you progress through the game and win battles, enemies may drop additional items that you can pick up and add to your weapons, shields and tools, which will allow you to access more cards. Each time you use one card it will cost you an energy point. If you’re not happy with one of your character’s cards, you can swap it for 10 points. If you win the battle, you’ll usually be rewarded with items which you can use to upgrade your weapons, shields and tools, as well as gaining additional energy cells and experience points. There are several enemies to fight, ranging from worms and pirates, to robots and more. Bear in mind your goal is to find the bridge and information on the mothership as well as to have enough energy cells to return to the shuttle.

In the Arena mode, you have to win as many battles as possible.

Great comic style of graphics. The derelicts are randomly generated which gives you plenty of replay-ability in this Early Access version. Personally, I didn’t experience any crashes at all and I have really enjoyed this game so far.  It needs more content, however, and it would be nice to be able to save whenever you choose.