Game Play: Galcon

Galcon may be best described as an "action strategy game". Action as in during one round, I simply gave up because I couldn't click nearly enough to keep up with the computer sacking my planets.

The mechanics are simple and take about five minutes to learn. There's a set planets which vary in size, allegiance and number of ships. All occupied (not neutral) planets produce ships; larger planets produce faster. To attack a planet, click from a planet allied to you to any other planet. If the planet is neutral, you can see how many ships defend it. Otherwise, you have to guess.

When either you or the computer (or another human, there's an online option I haven't tried yet) has no planets occupied and no ships - they lose. That's it. That's the game.

There's no diversity of units, no differing unit commands (although you can redirect ships), no way to force planets to produce more (though you do decide what percentage of ships leave when you select a planet), no alliances, no secondary goals, no nothing else. It's simple, it's extremely fast (you end up clicking furiously in response to the computer at times) and it's addictive as crack.

Registered version is $20. Worth every penny. Demo available for both Windows and Mac.



tagged: game, gaming