Space Run Review

One of the things that Futurama has taught us is that in the future space captains are more likely to be hauling cargo than to be seeking out new life and new civilizations. Space Run has learned this lesson and it casts you in the role of Buck Mann, an interstellar delivery man - albeit one who's more of a cross between Han Solo and Matthew McConaughey than the video game heir to Fry. Buck's job is to get his clients' cargo from Point A to Point B without losing it (and his ship) to space pirates, asteroids, and other space hazards, and to do it as quickly as possible. The game is not all business, though, and features story and dialogue filled with a decided sense of humor, and one that's better written and acted than most of the stories that you'll find in indie games.

Space Run's gameplay is obviously inspired by tower defense games, but labeling it as such and calling it a day would sell its unique take on the concept short. Your ship consists of a collection of connected hexagons each of which can host a single ship component, be it an engine, missile launcher, cargo bay, or what have you. The layout of these hexagons differs for each mission, as do the ship components and cargo available to you before launch, so each run is unique before you even launch into space. Different cargos also require different considerations. Cargo may be volatile and will need to be well-protected to prevent it from exploding on you, or you may be transporting rich tourists who will demand an unobstructed view of space as well as generators to power the systems that will keep them comfortable and alive.

Once you begin your cargo run your ship will be on autopilot and will make a beeline to your destination. Your job isn't to steer the ship, but to keep it in one piece and protect its cargo. Lose your cargo and you lose your pay, lose your bridge and you lose your ship, and lose one of your ship's hexes and you lose a spot for mounting a component. Everything else can be built, repaired, and rebuilt on the journey.

When a threat is approaching, you'll receive a notification indicating what's on its way and where it's coming from to give you a little time to prepare. You can add new weapons and systems like shields, paying for them with the hexnuts you've accumulated or scooped up from defeating previous attackers or destroying asteroids. Since different enemies have different strengths and weaknesses you'll often find yourself replacing some of your current components with different ones, and if you don't, then you'll have trouble surviving the more challenging runs.

While you can't maneuver your ship, you can scroll the screen around it to get a look at what's coming after you. Panning the camera is useful but limited since you can only look around as far as you can go without scrolling your ship off of the screen. Zooming is not supported, even though it seems to me that it would be a far more useful feature than the camera pan.

In the delivery game, getting there fast is just as important as getting there alive and that's where the engines come in. A progress indicator near the bottom of the screen not only shows you how far along your run you are, but also how far ahead of your deadline for delivery you are running. If the red bar chasing your ship on the progress indicator catches up to you, then you'll miss your delivery deadline. You begin each scenario with a single engine that will keep you just on the good side of that line, but to avert disaster (and perhaps earn a bonus for fast delivery) you're going to have to spend some of your hexnuts on more engines and make sure that you don't lose the ones that you have.

If you complete a delivery, you will be rated on your performance. Cargo delivered successfully and well ahead of schedule leads to a five-star rating and more credits for your bank account. If you fell a little short of perfection, then you can replay the level at any time to try for the full five stars. Some missions will be rather challenging until you unlock additional components and upgrade your current ones, so you may find yourself replaying previous missions to grind some extra credits to spend on those upgrades. And it's also useful to increase your arsenal before taking on one of the game's boss fight missions.

Overall, Space Run is an enjoyable twist on the tower defense genre. The downside of tower defense games is that you can often find yourself a disengaged viewer, watching your towers do their work and hoping for the best. That's not the case with Space Run. It has the strategy elements of a tower defense game, but it keeps you constantly active in defending and adapting your ship. And to me, that's a winning combination.

Final Rating: 82%. Space Run makes cargo delivery fun.