STARPORT DELTA Preview on Steam

Developed and released by Cloudfire Studios, Starport Delta is a galactic, real-time strategy game where players must strategically build their own space station in such a way where they must keep track of station maintenance, resident requirements, and managing resources — all whilst various galactic enemies pose threat to the integrity of one’s infrastructure.

Sound

            Pros:

• Music soundtrack is very clear, soothing, and fitting to gameplay. Character voices are also clear, with proper actors that uphold the appropriate amount of urgency for the dire significance of each mission..
• I am impressed that there are so many languages that the character NPCs can speak in. I don’t think I’ve seen so many languages readily available in gameplay in such an early release of a game.
• One can adjust various parts of the audio, such as music, sound, and voices. This is very helpful as sometimes, the default ratio of music to sound to character voices are usually quite a bit off for me when starting games, and I assume for other players as well.

            Cons:

• Gameplay sounds are not the most original, but I would consider this a minor con, since the rest of the Starport Delta design is original and well-executed enough to well make up for unnotable gameplay sounds.

Graphics

            Pros:

• Graphics are very clear and sophisticatedly done. Colors are vibrant and have a subtle draw of attention to them, and are not at all distracting to gameplay.
• The entire graphical design sets the appropriate tone to get the player really into the gameplay — It reminds me a lot of Galactic Pinball on Nintendo’s shortly debuted Virtual Boy. Even though it was just pinball, I remember getting extremely into it because of the detail and sophistication of the graphics.

            Cons:

• Perhaps, one could argue that there is too much going on on the screen, but I believe it is easy to get used to. I do wish that I were able to rotate around building structures and zoom-in while doing so, but maybe that’s just me having poor eyesight.

Plot

            Pros:

• Actually quite a challenging mission to uphold; Various threats such as space worms, alien pirates, and space storms are all things that the player must look out for whilst trying to maintain the integrity of their ports and citizens.
• I believe the objective of the game has a very consistently reliable level of difficulty, which makes it interesting and easy to sink many hours into.
• There are multiple stages to clear, and an entire lot of missions of varying difficulties that the player can advance in. It’s actually quite easy to mentally get into the commanding role intended for the player to undertake.

            Cons:

• I, personally, am very poor at strategy based games, such as Starport Delta, so any cons I could mention would inevitably be quite biased.

Gameplay

            Pros:

• Gameplay controls are fairly easy and quick to figure out. A very basic premise is related to the player upon first playing, as well as some small tips here-and-there to help player achieve some degree of success.
• The entire gameplay objective and mechanics are familiar and nostalgic to me, but they are certainly refreshingly presented. As aforementioned in my reviews of the Plot aspects of the game, I very well can see its straightforward and simple foundations as most advantageous in its ability to commit players long-term.

            Cons:

• There is a helpful artificial intelligent humanoid figure holding the player’s hand ever so slightly while learning the mechanics of the game, but I did not personally find this to be enough. It took me quite a bit of maneuvering and trial-and-error to figure out how to efficiently navigate and build.
• There isn’t really a proper introduction to the player as to what their objective is, so in starting my builds, I did not realize that I didn’t have a lot of time before the structure of my space ports were tested (and soon after destroyed, as I panicked trying to figure out what to do). Though I admit, I also didn’t understand until quite a bit later that there were consequential stages to clear, and that the stage the player starts out is the easiest stage/training/tutorial stage. I uphold, though, that I wish becoming familiar with controls was given more time.

Reviewer’s Opinion

Starport Delta reminds me of the board game Pandemic: Rapid Response and a bit of Virtual Boy’s Galactic Pinball combined (I know, isn’t my game taste just so expansive?). I do not play a great deal of strategy games anymore, nor am I very good at them these days either, but the overall simplicity of gameplay but complexity of Starport Delta would undoubtedly be attractive to a multitude of strategy-game players and non-strategy players alike. I’m very impressed with the overall graphic design, sound design, plot, and gameplay, considering as it is all so well-developed and advanced for such a new game. So I am looking forward to how well it will bid in the gaming community.

Check Out the Starport Delta Gameplay Trailer:

Starport Delta is coming to PC via Steam on March 27, 2020. You can wishlist the game right now.