Rymdkapsel was first introduced to me by my brother. I was initially intrigued, as both a strategy-game lover and interpretive Tetris fan (Rampart, Fortress, maybe others). Once I finally got the game for myself, I found it to be quite the experience.
In Rymdkapsel you build several resource facilities in order to build defensive structures to defend against increadingly difficult waves. It is somewhat like a tower defense game, but it differs in that the majority of the play takes effect planning and building, as there is only a single sort of defensive structure.
The twist that Rymdkapsel adds is that each building/facility (resource, material, garden, kitchen, quarters and defense) must be placed on the interstellar map in the form of tetrominoes, and connected by corridors. This element makes the game unique, and since completing activities relies on the speed that minions (automated workers) travel between facilities, the layout you build has consequence.
Each facility has a slightly different build cost, consisting of units of resource, material and food. I will not bother explaining each, as the concept is simple enough - you must build facilities with the initial resource stock in order to receive more resources and build more. The end goal is building more defense facilities to defend against waves of enemies that attack increasingly faster and in higher quantity. In addition, building quarters provide you with more minions to operate more defense facilities when the enemies come.
The most interesting part of progressing through the waves, aside from laying out your facilities, is managing the minions. They can either engineer, work food, construct, defend, and eventually research. The time between turns you generally engage your minions in food work and construction, which both take resources to build and expand. Engineering in effect is not to exciting - it simply uses a minion to increase the speed at which one facility produces more building material. Defense is essential of course, but until later waves a minion can usually operate defense and then return to its previous task from before the enemy attack. Research is difficult, and is unlocked upon completing a pathway to one of four "monoliths." It can take multiple waves to finish researching a single one, so planning the timing of minions to research adds a healthy variable to experiment with.
The game play is addicting and time consuming, and I am almost inclined to say it's a perfect game for the platform. Unfortunately, there is only one map, and after acquiring the five achievements, little is left to do except attempt a better score. The matches also become rather passive, as one resource that is required to build anything is of limited abundance. Once you have extracted all materials on the map, you can only get more by destroying previous structures, resulting in a process of waiting to see how many turns you go with little interaction. The minions could also operate with greater control, as sometimes I found a minion going towards the building that I gave priority to be built, and then turning away after a different minion completed its planed task. Finally, the Tetris-style mechanics become less interesting once you realize you can plan and and then cancel structures to get to that piece you really need.
Even with these drawbacks, I was thrilled to have played Rymdkapsel, as in the several days it took me to get the achievements, I had difficulty putting the game down. This game is well-polished and celebrates a classic 8-bit aesthetic style, and I would love to see the developer either expand the game or build/port another game to the Android platform.
My rating: 92/100
My rating: 92/100
