I 100%'d Space Crew in about 20 hours, and it's clear to me that a lot of love and effort has been put into it.

The problem, IMO, is that Runner Duck hadn't put enough thought and play-testing into the early game. Although it's a crew management game in the vein of FTL: Faster Than Light, the rhythm of gameplay in Space Crew feels more akin to a Tower Defense title like Kingdom Rush. Moment-to-moment decisions primarily revolve around when to use skills that have cooldown timers, and that means that in the early game - when you've unlocked barely any skills, weapons or upgrades - gameplay mainly consists of raging at your crewmembers for being terrible shots.

Once I was a few hours in, and had unlocked more skills - and perhaps more importantly, the railgun - the gameplay clicked into place and everything felt right. I certainly appreciate the latest patch giving the crewmembers better aim, but I suspect Easy difficulty usage among players will largely taper off several hours in. Oh, and concerning the penalty for ship-wiping being too harsh: 1. You only lose a few missions' worth of upgrades, and 2. You always have the option of exiting to the Main Menu and reloading your save, effectively "save-scumming" if things are going south.

All right, so that's a lot of text about the difficulty. How's the rest of the game? Pretty darn good for a $20 title, I'd say. Let's go back to the Tower Defense comparison for a moment. Like TD games, there's a seemingly endless number of baddies to serve as cannon fodder for your cannons, but once you're set in your optimized strategy and loadout, things can start to feel "samey" rather quickly. In terms of content across missions, things move at a brisk pace; beautiful new vistas and clever game concepts are introduced regularly. The problem is that within each mission, you're required to slog through 4-8 sectors of wave-based combat. By the end of the game, I was so sick of the combat that I'd browse my phone while keeping an eye on my cooldown timers, and that's a real shame. To be clear, though, this is a common problem in most games for me; the game stretches on for so long that the core loop starts to feel like filler. My recommendation would be to cut unlock requirements by 20% across the board, and to significantly reduce the number of combat encounters per mission, especially when returning to base.

Overall, I'd say Space Crew is a worthy spiritual successor to Bomber Crew. Like Bomber Crew, it feels too long. Like Bomber Crew, I shamelessly save-scummed my way through the harder bits. But, like Bomber Crew, I enjoyed my time with it and felt like it was worth the money I spent on it.

Recommended.

[h1]Older reviews are out-of-date. Difficulty options have been added, and losing your ship doesn't mean losing everything.[/h1] I 100%'d Space Crew in about 20 hours, and it's clear to me that a lot of love and effort has been put into it. The problem, IMO, is that Runner Duck hadn't put enough thought and play-testing into the early game. Although it's a crew management game in the vein of FTL: Faster Than Light, the rhythm of gameplay in Space Crew feels more akin to a Tower Defense title like Kingdom Rush. Moment-to-moment decisions primarily revolve around when to use skills that have cooldown timers, and that means that in the early game - when you've unlocked barely any skills, weapons or upgrades - gameplay mainly consists of raging at your crewmembers for being terrible shots. Once I was a few hours in, and had unlocked more skills - and perhaps more importantly, the railgun - the gameplay clicked into place and everything felt right. I certainly appreciate the latest patch giving the crewmembers better aim, but I suspect Easy difficulty usage among players will largely taper off several hours in. Oh, and concerning the penalty for ship-wiping being too harsh: [b]1. You only lose a few missions' worth of upgrades, and 2. You always have the option of exiting to the Main Menu and reloading your save, effectively "save-scumming" if things are going south.[/b] All right, so that's a lot of text about the difficulty. How's the rest of the game? Pretty darn good for a $20 title, I'd say. Let's go back to the Tower Defense comparison for a moment. Like TD games, there's a seemingly endless number of baddies to serve as cannon fodder for your cannons, but once you're set in your optimized strategy and loadout, things can start to feel "samey" rather quickly. In terms of content [b]across missions[/b], things move at a brisk pace; beautiful new vistas and clever game concepts are introduced regularly. The problem is that [b]within each mission,[/b] you're required to slog through 4-8 sectors of wave-based combat. By the end of the game, I was so sick of the combat that I'd browse my phone while keeping an eye on my cooldown timers, and that's a real shame. To be clear, though, this is a common problem in most games for me; the game stretches on for so long that the core loop starts to feel like filler. My recommendation would be to cut unlock requirements by 20% across the board, and to significantly reduce the number of combat encounters per mission, especially when returning to base. Overall, I'd say Space Crew is a worthy spiritual successor to Bomber Crew. Like Bomber Crew, it feels too long. Like Bomber Crew, I shamelessly save-scummed my way through the harder bits. But, like Bomber Crew, I enjoyed my time with it and felt like it was worth the money I spent on it. Recommended.