Last Updated on July 11, 2023
The Captain is an indie game developed by Sysiac Games and Tomorrow Corporation. Take a setting, where warp technology exists and a journey to distant stars becomes possible. The Captain is a point-and-click adventure, in which you could explore a planet to solve numerous puzzle problems. Then, in space, you could engage in fierce turn-based battles against pirate ships. In your journey, you may obtain a variety of rewards from planet exploration and pirate battles, which could be used to upgrade your ship’s specifications.
This review is NOT sponsored by either “Sysiac Games” or “Tomorrow Corporation”.
Summary
Price: approximately $9 (in 2022)
Genre: Sci-fi, Point-and-click adventure, Turn-based strategy
Platform: PC Game.
Total File Size: ~1.3 GB
Download from Steam, Rating: 9/10.
Download from Epic Game, Rating: 4.4/5.
Developer site: sysiac.com (19.99 USD).
Pros:
+ Straightforward main mission
+ Numerous challenging side stories
+ Your decisions define your character
Cons:
– Tight schedule, limited resources
– Irrational battle
What’s good
Straightforward main mission
This is a story, where a distant organization, known as “The Union” declares war. They sent their entire fleet, together with a new weapon, the “Sunblaster”, which could destroy Earth within seconds. On Earth, a plan has been devised, as illustrated in Fig. 1. It is to send a powerful “fuel cell” from the secret deep space station “Epsilon” back to Earth, using wormhole technology. It will be used to charge the Earth’s weapon, to blow up the entire Union’s fleet.
You, acting as Captain Thomas T. Welmu, an Earth Spacefleet scientist, participate in monitoring the wormhole gate on Earth’s side. But something unexpected happened, and the “fuel cells” transport mission failed. At the same time, this accident leaves you stranded in a distant place. If you see Fig. 2, you are stranded at point B.
In this game, your main mission is to collect the lost fuel cells near point B, and transport them back to Earth [Fig. 2 point A]. With your current ship’s specification, you could reach Earth in approximately 16 in-game months. At the beginning of the game, the Union’s “Sunblaster” ship is in point C. It will reach Earth in approximately 24 in-game months.
Challenging side stories
While the main mission is simple, the best part about this game is the wide variety of side stories. You can stop by and land on every planet on your journey to earth. Basically, it’s a puzzle game that takes you through a wide selection of possible actions, or into many dilemmas. Your decision will determine your morality and outcome.
When your scanner finds a distress signal on a planet, you may visit to help them. However, there are many unexpected possibilities. You can succeed or fail to help them, or even be betrayed and locked up in the middle of nowhere.
On a pre-space civilization planet, your arrival will force you to deal with a shady governor. You can decide whether to be bribed and leave the planet, or explore to find a solution to stop the governor.
At the end of exploring each planet, you may get different rewards. You may obtain money, dismantlable items, a ship’s addon, or even a new crew.
Decide what you want to be
Your main mission is just to bring at least one fuel cell back to Earth. It means that you can even finish the game with just that, and end the game within an hour or less.
The main mission only gives you two possible outcomes, success or failure in delivering the fuel cell on time. Whereas, the side story determines your path, whether you become a good guy or an evil guy.
In addition, you can choose to engage in fierce battles to destroy all enemy ships, or choose to avoid any battles until you reach Earth.
Things to improve
Tight schedule, limited resource options
From the beginning, you only have very limited time, in less than 2 in-game years (731 in-game days) to reach Earth. This means that, in order to succeed in the main mission, you have no spare time to return to the previous sector or trading station. Looking at Fig 2 above, your only choices are to move forward directly to Earth, or zig-zag while dealing with planets/battles along the way.
Commonly, in other games, we may have the freedom to “grind” for resources, in order to upgrade our armaments or skills. However, in “The Captain” game, it is difficult to obtain resources, in order to upgrade your armaments. In every battle, you can only choose 1 reward when salvaging enemy ships. In addition, there is a limited number of enemy ships in the whole story.
Therefore, with very limited time and resources, it leads you to think hard in choosing every decision to proceed with the story.
Irrational battle
Subjectively, I think the battle system in this game is weird. Captain Welmu is a scientist and uses a rather small ship. At the beginning of the story, it makes sense to have a battle with almost the same size ships, as in Fig. 3.
However, as the story progresses, the battle is getting irrational. While you can upgrade your ships, you are still using the very same ship until the end of the game. Meanwhile, your enemy ships are getting bigger and stronger. You could face Scouts, Corvettes, Cruisers, or even a Pirate King.
In the real world, the upgrades will be limited to the ship size. Thus, In my opinion, this game may get better if we can buy a bigger ship and obtain better upgrades. Or, to match with the “transport” story, we could hire mercenaries with bigger ships to help us in the battle.
