Space Exploration on the Blockchain with Crypto Space Commander
“Have we left Alpha quadrant yet?”
“No…”
Crypto space, the final frontier! Not really, but it is the most interesting new frontier for most of us. There are a few new space-themed games enabling crypto and blockchain technology, but one that got a decent bit of my attention was Crypto Space Commander.
The website mainly focuses on features of the game, the auctions of assets already, and the roadmap, which are all impressive on paper, but excitement should be reserved for closer to the final product. So much can and usually will change from alpha, to beta, to gold, which is when the game is ready for full release.
Initially, as I went to dive into what CSC has to offer, I was happy to see that this was not your typical browser-based flash game too many crypto games currently exist as. CSC is refreshingly a full client game.
As you get started you only are given a tiny exploration pod that can serve the basic functions of exploration to at least see how the game functions, but the different classes of ships have to be bought currently on the P2P marketplace site OpenSea.io since the auctions from the main site ended.
The auctions from the main site weren’t anything I hadn’t seen before, but I don’t know when I’ll get used to seeing things bought for so much ETH! The cheapest rare ship in the auctions old for 3.4 ETH (Above $800 at time of review), then it scaled up to 5.7, 6.6m 10.5, 17, 21, to a battlecruiser that sold for 41.5 ETH. The biggest ticket item was a full-on trading post that sold for 83.12 ETH (Around $20k at time of review). So I went to OpenSea and got a modest ship for .15 ETH (~$35) so it was time to explore.
The music sounds like an early 90’s version of futuristic elevator space music with some chill EDM. Not bad, but currently on a short replay track so you hear it a lot! Sound effects are standard and appropriate, with nothing out of the ordinary.
Bumbled around at first learning the controls. The blog helped with an introduction to the controls. Point and click to look & move, or keyboard to set general thrusters, stop, & other typical hotkeys for targeting and camera controls. Unfortunately, it seems there is no getting into the cockpit and building skills to dogfight, so this seems to be a numbers game of firepower vs shields & armor to see who wins. Although there is an option to take evasive maneuvers when you right-click a target, I never ran into anyone, friend or foe, to be able to see how the PVP goes. Whether that was coincidence or a feature that wasn’t live yet, I was lonely nonetheless.
With me basically being alone in the universe, I started to explore different map objects within the system I started at. There were two space stations, which is where you are able to add modules (weapons & tools) to your ship, with each ship having a different layout and number of blocks that you have to decide which features to outfit your ship with, from weapons, mining drills, scanners, etc.
Being Alpha, I cannot harsh on the controls not being dialed in yet, but I do have to say that not being able to invert the Y-axis is personally frustrating. That is always going to be a pet peeve of mine.
It seems there will be multiple ways to get ahead in the game with the primary way as mining asteroid fields for ore and minerals that you can sell, use for crafting (coming eventually), or trade. You can be a pirate robbing people of their harvest, or potentially robbing assets of their ships. There are entire trading space stations that people can own, so it may be entirely possible to passively collect on space commerce. I am sure there will be some crazy alliances of every facet of the game to bond together for the common goal of progression. Time will tell.
Even with a simple game style, there will hopefully be a good amount of options with the grind potential, but I will prematurely say that from what I see, fortune will favor the big spenders over the bold, and those looking to grind from the bottom with a lower initial investment may get crushed into capitulation.
The devs do keep with decent updates via their blog and roadmap plans, and there is a comforting amount of work being done with communication to the community.
In the most recent news, while writing this preliminary review, I did have to absolutely recognize the fact that CSC did score the license use with Star Trek which is pretty damn amazing!
They will be having an upcoming event that will allow people to have Star Trek ships available for acquisition during a certain time that can give them an opportunity to have a not only cosmetic but potentially special functional ship from the Star Trek universe. Still… not gonna lie that I am skeptical about the overall balancing of the game when it goes fully live with all these preliminary “opportunities”.
With the game being in the alpha stage of development, my opinion is that it is super early for games to be fully public in general and especially to take people’s money who are essentially bug testing and doing QA for them. Though I don’t know much about the team’s situation, I could understand the necessity of utilizing early asset sales to continue the development and eventual full launch of the game, it is quite atypical to hope for enough interest and financial backing to be able to finish making a game, but I will surrender that the crypto space is anything but typical.
The benefit of the doubt doesn’t go far for me as the majority of “crypto games” seem to be moneymakers first and entertainers second, but for the developing studio Lucid Sight, this does not seem to be the case.
All in all, do I see a future for this type of game? Absolutely! As there is not only a crowd who thrives on this type of grind style of game but may create a similar social and commerce Goliath as the game Eve had eventually become. Although, I will be watching the developments to see if this will be a long term play for me.
I want to find a world where I am happy and can participate in the commerce and work ecosystem without being potentially rekt at every angle because I didn’t spend a metric fuck-ton of money.
I look forward to the full release of games like this to see how they not only fully function, but how the community will run with the world they are open to. Until then, I am exploring the crypto game space, in this case, with a space game.
See you space cowboy…
