As the title insinuates I shall be finding, playing and then letting you know about free games that need no money to be enjoyed. Although if they do have features that can be bought I will state their relevance.
Steam description : “In Istrolid you design your own unique spaceships from a large number of parts to fit your strategy and play style. With no set units or factions you are free to create a fleet where each ship has its own balanced strengths and weaknesses, from basic fighters and bombers to hulking battleships and speedy destroyers.”
When I found Istrolid I could not believe my luck. After watching the trailer it all looked too god to be true, Design your own ships with a modular system, Detailed stats, RTS unit control even programmable A.I.
Adding parts to your ships increases its deploy cost with there been a £1000 cap to balance the fact that mechanically the stats of a massive ship along with the fact ships work at 100% effectiveness no matter the damage they have received would doom the game to a 1v1 ship fight, then victory or defeat. That said Istrolid does have a cap and the game is a wonderful Real time strategy with you designing the units you have access too.
While my Tankship doesn’t function I rather like it.
With ninety-two parts to mix and match you are spoilt for choice when it comes to making a ship. A fleet consists of nine designs allowing you to make a mix of ships for different purposes but if this isn’t enough for you, you are able to change your selected fleet mid-game not affecting your currently deployed ships but changing your deployment options. combat in Istrolid normally ramps up as a game goes on, Unlike most RTS game that suffer from dwindling resources as a match progresses. The capture points award funds on a capture and funds over time with them also been the victory condition, capturing all the points wins a match.
The campaign is a great introduction to the game with you having limited parts meaning you naturally learn what each part does. Beating a mission unlocks more, expanding your possible designs and reinforcing that editing ships is a large part of the game and best done after a battle so you can make calculated decisions. And while not applicable in the campaign you can add A.I to your ships for use in multiplayer one of the most useful A.I I quickly set up were a set of tiny ships that create themselves at game start and split up in a bid to capture any point I do not own meaning I can micro manage my combat ships and just build a capture ship to capture things for me and they also do their best to avoid other ships and projectiles.
As you can see setting up an A.I is done with text blocks and simple variables meaning it is very accessible while still remaining useful and relevant. With so much customisation and satisfying battles that your creations participate in I recommend spending some time on Istrolid, and if you really like it a seven pound DLC is available that allows you to paint and name your ships for multiplayer just keep in mind the last update was at the end of November, But i have contacted the developer and have been told that an update in the works that said I’m still shocked this game is free and it is definitely worth your time and if you like pretty colours your money too.
You can find Istrolid here on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/449140/
…and check out the developer’s website here: http://www.istrolid.com/
