Gratuitous Space Battles Beta Opens to Pre-orders

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One-man outfit Positech has opened pre-orders for Gratuitous Space Battles (PC), offering immediate beta access to those that pay $19.99 for the strategy game.

"We are effectively selling the game early for people who want to play it while it is still in beta," sole developer Cliff 'cliffski' Harris noted on the official site. In a blog post, Harris said he "will probably overhaul a few sections of it before it's actually given a proper release" and will use the beta to balance the "massively singleplayer" game.

The developer also cautioned that it's "literally a bedroom coder effort," explaining:

This is an indie game, it's literally a bedroom coder effort, so be gentle on the shouting when you discover something that crashes or won't work. It's purely because it's something that never happened at my end, I will endeavour 100% to fix it as quickly as I can if you have any problems. If you are not happy to try out a beta copy of the game, or genuinely think your PC isn't up to it, then please don't get it yet, wait for a demo and the full games release.

"This is not a tactical game, it is a strategic one," the official site reads. "These gratuitous space battles are not won by plucky heroes...but by the geeky starship builders who know exactly what ratio of plasma-cannons to engines each ship in the fleet will need."

For a glimpse of the promised gratuitous space battles, check out the below trailer. Should you want more gameplay details, a .PDF of the manual can also be had.

Thanks to Damodred for the heads up.

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    August 31, 2009 7:08 PM

    why are the screenshots for a PC game the size more appropriate for a DS title? pretty lame

    • reply
      August 31, 2009 7:19 PM

      There's a video on youtube, not much else up at the moment even on the dev's site. Not sure what you are pandering for, maybe you could e-mail him and he will send you some regular sized ones.

    • reply
      September 1, 2009 1:47 AM

      That is pretty lame, actually. Maybe he's doing the opposite of advertising? It's strategic :-)

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