Two Fedoras

Prepare to cast off the mooring lines and embark on the last epic space adventure of your life in Blendo Games’ turn-based space strategy game, Flotilla. Flotilla has been available on the PC platform for a few weeks now, but recently made the jump to the XBox LIVE Indie Games marketplace.

Story

Adventure mode is used to deliver the story of a captain who has been given just a handful of months left to live. Rather than sit around waiting for death, the captain decides to set off on a final space adventure. There are only two parts of this tale written in stone, the way it begins and the way it ends, but everything in between is written by you and your actions.

Flotilla attempts to be non-linear in the sense that you begin at a system designated “Tutorial” and then presented with a veriety of systems to explore in any particular order. Each system will contain a particular plot point that makes up your story. An example may be coming across a system in which a battle between white-collar criminal pigs and chicken pirates is taking place.

While some of these events will simply force a situation upon you, others will present you with a choice. Each of these choices must be weighed from the perspective of a person who has a fixed date with destiny, which acts as an interesting external force on ones moral compass.  In cases where doing the “right thing” may take a good deal of your remaining days and vastly limit the amount of space you may explore.

Unfortunately, there are a few disappointing aspects to the story telling of Flotilla. Namely the seemingly limited verity of events. I ran through several adventures and it seemed like in everyone there were a few repeats.

With regards to the duration of the story mode, I am torn on whether it’s brilliant or annoying. In one hand at a superficial level it is annoying that it is so short. You really do just get into whats going on when suddenly the clock starts ticking out your last seconds. But that is also what makes it brilliant, as if it is really driving home the futility of it all and force you do a momentary regret check. “Maybe I should have had the pirate wings instead of the half-rack of Madoff.”

Gameplay

As previously noted, Flotilla is a tactical space combat game. It features a unique turn-based style of play that allows all combatants to take their turns simultaneously. This creates a situation where a player must strategically plan his movements around the concurrent movements of his opponent.

When the game’s adventure mode begins, you are given two destroyer class ships. There are numerous classes of ship, and each of them has their own strengths and weaknesses.  All ships are weak to damage taken in the bottom and rear of the vessel but differ in offensive strengths. For instance our destroyers have considerable range but poor projectile velocity and a slow rate of fire. Meanwhile, a beam frigate has a very short range but will blow you out of the water if it gets in range.

During the orders portion of the combat cycle, you’ll be able to give each of your ships specific instructions. The process is as follows: select a vessel, designate a combat mode, instruct it where to move and how to orient itself, and lastly select a target. This will be done for each ship and then combat will resume.

The combat of Flotilla is fairly complex. The majority of its challenge is rooted in learning the strengths and weaknesses of the various ship types and the behavior of the computers AI. Once these aspects of the game are understood the fun begins and you’ll quickly start delivering complicated maneuvering instructions to your ships to gain tactical advantages against your foes.

Controls are a challenge in Flotilla. They do, however, work much better than I had originally expected them to. The main difficulty presented in the control scheme is due to the directionless nature of space. It’s really better to imagine your controls are maneuvering a craft with its own propulsion systems. So basically, up is always up from the prospective of the ship, regardless of which way you are facing. That said, the game does benefit from it being turn based and slow paced, I don’t think the controls would tranlsate all that well to anything faster.

Ultimately, I really enjoyed the gameplay of Flotilla. It works exceptionally well considering the complex nature of combat in three-dimensional space.  While I was half annoyed with the short duration of the adventure mode, the skirmish mode more than makes up for any negative impacti t may have had on replay value. The skirmish mode will basically allow you to set up battles instantly with tons of ships and even bring a friend along to co-op with.

Audio/Visual

Flotilla is just a real treat to watch. Planetary backdrops accent the 3D space environments that are themselves, filled with 3D debris and asteroids that can provide cover in combat. The ships all look like they were modeled after classic science fiction vessels with very angular contours and colored with a striking similarity to those of Tron.

The free roaming camera allows for full exploration of the environments, with the ability to get right in close on the combat or far enough away to take in the whole scene. When a battle is decided, you’ll be given the option to rewind the conflict and watch it back in real time, all the while free to explore it from infinite angles.

All the sound in Flotilla is pretty well done. The main music of the game fits perfectly with the environment and pace of space combat. Rather paradoxical is the inclusion of ship sound effects, that is to say the sound of weapons fire and explosions, since there is no sound in space. But I suspect this concession was consciously made to add a little pizzazz to the experience. Additionally, if the simple elegance of Flotilla’s piano music just doesn’t cut the mustard for you, you can always pump in your own custom music.

Summary

Flotilla is a good game, and a great diversion from the usual platformers and shmups usually offered on the XBL platform. I would recommend it to anyone who is in the mood for a change of pace or is a fan of science fiction style space battles. The game sits squarely in the heavy weight 400 Microsoft Point class but is easy enough to justify with its elegant combat system and lovely graphical presentation.