Gameplay: 8/10 Graphics: Minimal Sound: Minimal Originality: 9/10 Overall: 8/10
Play at: http://np.ironhelmet.com
Neptune’s Pride is a multiplayer, real-time strategy game with the emphases on “real,” and “strategy,” and a heavy dose of diplomacy. Whereas Starcraft and its ilk unfold at a breakneck pace and stress reaction time and memorization of effective development sequences, Neptune’s Pride is slow-paced, maddeningly so… and that’s what makes it brilliant.
Starting from a small number of stars and a handful of ships, the players seek to expand their territory and vie for dominance of the galaxy. This is not remotely original. What makes it special is that space travel is slow, as it’s meant to be. Of course, your fleets, even with starting technology, still travel at physically impossible speeds, measured in light years per day. But compared to most so-called “real time” games, where events happen on the scale of seconds, sending your fleet to a “nearby” star and seeing an ETA of 8, or 12, or 14 hours is a very different feeling.
The graphics and sound are extremely minimal, too, just simple dots to represent stars, chevrons for fleets, and lines for plotted trajectories. There is a pretty nebula in the background, but that can be turned off for those seeking the ultimate in stripped-down experiences.
You’d expect that a game paced so slowly would take advantage of the added time to allow players to do more of the fussy micro-management that characterizes many other “4X” (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) strategy games, but in fact, Neptune’s Pride goes completely to the other end of the spectrum. Most of the time, there’s really very little to be done except wait.
If one has the cash, stars can be upgraded in terms of Economy (cash production), Industry (ship production) or Science (technology production). However, cash is only paid out once every 24 hours, and one is generally wise to invest most of it as soon as possible. Fleets can be moved around, but as stated earlier, they take hours or days to arrive at their destination, and cannot be redirected in mid-trip. Moreover, waypoints can be set, so that one can plan a multi-leg journey in advance, and let the fleet plod along on its own. Finally, one can switch one’s area of technological research; the four options are Weapons, Range (that is, the distance that one’s ships can travel in a single jump), Speed and Scanning. That is all there is to it - three stats per star, one per fleet (number of ships is all that matters), and four kinds of technology.
Despite all this, for the entire course of my first game, I found myself compulsively logging in about once every two hours. And, in fact, I came to the conclusion that doing so was instrumental in my victory. There are two reasons for this.
Firstly, one’s visibility is limited to a certain distance from one’s occupied stars, as determined by one’s level of Scanning technology. Especially in the early middle game, when players’ expanding borders first make contact with each other, it’s critical to take a look around frequently, to see if any potential enemy ships have entered scanning range.
Secondly, and more importantly, Neptune’s Pride is a game of communication and diplomacy. Battles are a straightforward numerical comparison, with no luck involved and the advantage going to the defender. Thus, it’s very difficult to make headway in a one-on-one confrontation. Rather, the game places an emphasis on strategic alliances, persuasion, sharing of information and, of course, betrayal. Although a single fleet may take half a day to make a single jump to an adjacent star, the ramifications of that jump may involve several players, and may necessitate several exchanges of in-game messages in order to avoid (or instigate) a war. Thus, the players who log in most frequently have the most opportunity to communicate with one another, and therefore have an advantage compared to players who plan their movements for the coming day and then don’t log in for another 24 hours.
Someone over at RPS mentioned Neptune’s Pride in passing, in an article about another game. He brought it up as part of a list of games that he says he wishes the gaming media were giving more coverage. I found it funny, because I’d been thinking for a while about making a blog post about it, but I know exactly why it’s not covered very much.
The reason why I was waiting, and the reason few people have written about Neptune’s Pride, is that any respectable journalist wants to give a game a fair shake before writing anything about it. For a multiplayer game, that implies playing at least one full game… but in the case of Neptune’s Pride, that can take a week or more. That’s a big time commitment for a game reviewer who has new titles showing up for review on a daily basis.
So, now, I’ve finished (and won, I’m proud to say) my first game of Neptune’s Pride, and I think I can now assess it fairly.
First of all, and most importantly, it’s a fun game. From beginning to end, there will be plenty of tense moments, watching your fleets inch their way across the void, worrying about whether a larger enemy fleet is hovering just beyond the range of one’s scanners, negotiating for much-needed support from a neighbour of dubious character…
Also important, from my point of view, it’s a good example of minimalism in game design, as I discussed in my post Density, not Volume. I can think of a few flourishes that probably wouldn’t hurt the game, but I definitely can’t think of anything else that could be taken away. The mechanics of the game take only minutes to grasp fully, but have pretty deep implications.
One thing that’s sorely lacking is email alerts. The game reminds you once per day that it’s still going on, and that you’ve had your daily paycheque come in and should log in to spend it… but other than that, you simply have to log in to see what’s going on. Having an option to turn on alerts for e.g. new ships coming into scanning range, battles being fought, etc. would help immensely, especially for those who work 9-5 jobs and can’t be logging in constantly.
Another addition I’d like to see is some sort of numerical player ranking, similar to an ELO rating in chess. Aside from pleasing those with competitive natures, like myself, it would serve the important function of keeping losing players in the game - if finishing in 6th place resulted in less loss of rating than finishing 8th, players with no hope of taking 1st would be given an incentive to keep struggling, and looking for alliances with stronger players. As it is, my experience in my game was that only one losing player kept going until the end - everyone else, once crippled, either simply stopped playing and was placed under AI administration after 48 hours of inactivity, or began “donating” all their stars and fleets to whichever opponent they hated the least, or whichever was most likely to hurt the one who’d attacked them.
Although I love this game, and I’m glad someone made it, I have grave doubts about its possibilities for financial success. I’m a big fan of the micropayment model, and that’s how Neptune’s Pride works - you can play small, standard games for free, or buy credits to play in larger and/or custom games. Joining someone else’s custom game costs the equivalent of $1, while creating one’s own is $2. These are reasonable prices, and in fact, I doubt many people would pay more than that for a single game of anything, especially not something as minimalist as Neptune’s Pride.
The problem, however, is that the game’s innovation is also its probable financial downfall. It simply takes too long to play. Most gamers these days lose interest in a new game after a week or two, if that. That’s how long it takes for someone to get through their first free game. Even those who like the free trial enough to by credits will probably get their fix after only one or two games, and not buy any more credits. Given that some of the larger games could go on for over a month, even the most dedicated users will only be netting the site maybe $10-15 a year, which is a low subscription fee by any standard.
Furthermore, I suspect that many players will not get the strategy right away… and given the game’s slow pace, the trial-and-error method of strategy formulation adopted by most players will take too long to get them there. Many will simply decide that they’re not good at the game, and abandon it early. As for me, I learned a lot in the course of just one play through. I’ll do my part in helping this game’s chances of success by posting a strategy guide tomorrow, with tips to help first-time players. It may seem a little pretentious to be making assertions about “correct” strategy after only playing a game once, but I doubt many people have played two or more full games, and we all know what they say about one-eyed men in the Land of the Blind.
