Galcon

Ok, I'm pretty new to the iPhone/Mac scene, so this kind of game has been almost niche for me, but now that I found it out and tried it a bit, I know that I should pay more attention to every bit of the videogames scene.

Why, would you ask?

Because Galcon is freshly fun and quite addictive!

You have a simple galaxy layout (random-generated) with planets of different sizes. Each planet you control automatically produces ships that you send to other planets to conquer them. The production rate is proportional to the planet size and the number written on the planet shows how many ships are there.

The gameplay is simple: you start with 100 ships on one planet and you have to eradicate your enemy (that usually starts at the opposite corner of the map with the same number of ships). You send your ships to other planets by selecting one of your planets and then selecting the destination. Grey planets are neutral, but still have a number on them; that's the number of ships you have to defeat to control the planet. By default, you send half the ship present on the "source" planet, but you can change that percentage by touching the number in the corner of the display.

Believe me: it's easier done than said.

You have to carefully plan which planet to conquer in your expansion towards enemy territory, because smaller planets usually have minor defenses, but then they are slower to build up ships. You can also select different controlled planets and send fleets from those planets at the same time, for example to overcome the ships on a highly defended planet.

Meanwhile, the enemy won't sit down, watching you play; the CPU will send fleets to your planets, destroying your ships and crippling your expansion, so you'll best try to limit the expansion of the enemy and, lastly, strike a blow to his last planet. When the last enemy planet is conquered, you win the map.

You are then given the choice of replaying the same map, generate another one or go back to the main menu.

There are 10 different difficulty levels to choose from (from Cabin Boy to Grand Admiral) and as you go up in difficulty, the CPU gets smarter, more aggressive and you can no longer see how many ships are on planets you don't control, so there's more uncertainty added to deal with your strategy.

There are also different kind of games. In Stealth mode, you can't see what the enemy is doing, so you can't concentrate on attacking specific planets, but you have to spread throughout the galaxy to increase your chances to defeat the enemy. In Vacuum mode, you start with two planets containing 100 ships each and you have a time limit to conquer all the planets; in Beast mode, you start as in Vacuum but have to face a rapid spreading "beast" which starts controlling several small planets. The last mode is called 3-Way and pits you against 2 CPUs instead of only one (which is the Classical mode).

The graphics are, well, it's a 2D game. The graphics are crisp, the arrows (i.e. your ships) are well rendered, the galaxy background are quite varied and the planets are, well, round .. you know ... ahem. The menu is very accessible, with the icons for difficulty selection and the game modes.

The sound is non existing (I mean there's no sound AT ALL!). Look at the bright side: you don't have to plug in your headset to play the game without disturbing surrounding people with crazy sci-fi noises =) Apparently they had some difficulties in adding sound to the iPhone version, so they just left it out, since you can listen to your own preferred music directly from the iPhone while you play.

The game is accelerometer-sensitive too, meaning that you can play in landscape mode or in portrait mode and the planets and numbers will be oriented accordingly.

The game is quite fun and has its moments when you beat the CPU one split second before he can overcome the defenses on one you your planets; the strategy involved is quite simple at the lowest difficulties, but you have to be careful as you ramp up the CPU, because if you split your forces on slow-producing planets, the enemy can easily conquer your less defended planets and you'll have a hard time in reconstructing your empire while the enemy thrives on.

The game has also its problems. First, there are no high-scores tables. Period. Add the fact that there's no story at all, just countless random maps and no ranking system and you probably wonder why the hell you are still playing. Your time to completion is shown each time you complete a map, be it in Classic, Vacuum or any other mode, but the game only keeps track of the best score ever on that game mode, and you can't write your name for bragging rights.

There's no online mode too, or local wi-fi or any other way to play against a human being. It's just you and the iPhone processor.

The game has its limits and the price tag of € 7,99 ($ 9,99) may be a bit high for casual gamers, but it's a nice game and it seems that the creator is looking into adding multiplayer to the iPhone version (even though not quite soon), so I'd suggest you check the shareware version (PC or Mac) first and then decide if it would be a nice addition to you iPhone library.