It is no secret that I am a fan of strategy games, particularly 4X games with deep mechanics. GalaCollider appears to be one such game, but it also has the added bonus of being a competitive multiplayer experience that uses a card collecting mechanic to build decks. Does this sound like a strange, and maybe even impossible combination to you? Maybe it does, and it did to me too, so I sat down with Trevor and Nina from NeoCrux who were kind enough to give me a demo and overview of the game.
GalaCollider pits two separate players against each other, or one player against the computer. Each player starts the game with one base planet, and has the objective to expand to other planets to try to take over the entire sector. Of course, other players will attempt to do the same, and here is where the conflict fueling the game comes in. GalaCollier is turn based, but both turns occur simultaneously, so that players don’t know what the other is doing until the turn is finished. Depending on which cards you have, you can make different decisions. You can build units to expand, or perhaps improvement for planets you have already taken over. Your resources reset every turn and you don’t get to keep any surplus from the turn before, so there is an incentive to keep build and develop as much as possible in the turn.
Expanding to new worlds will increase the resources your receive, which will in turn allow you to build better and more powerful units. After a few turns, both players will come in contact with each other, and this is where the combat phases come in. Once both player simultaneously move to a planet, or if a player moves to a territory occupied by another player, a combat phase will be triggered, where neither player can make other moves, and they can play any combat cards they have on hand. In many card games the outcome of this comes down to how lucky you are in the draw of your cards. GalaCollider can occasionally elicit that feeling, but there is also a strategy component that goes beyond the usual card game flaws.
GalaCollider also has a surprisingly deep lore. It tells a story set four Billion years in the future, when the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies (which have been moving towards each other for eons) finally collide. This brings two intelligent seafaring factions into conflict: The Coalition, the Sapiens children of Earth who left the Sol system ages ago, and the Sylith, who worship their galaxy as a deity and are concerned about the destructive Sapiens.
GalaCollider is set to be a Free to Play game. The starter decks will be free. More advanced cards will be available to purchase through either play, or by purchasing them with real world money. This is not unique, however, NeoCrux has stated that players will get to see what is inside each card pack before they commit to making a purchase. Spending money on card packs only to find that they were filled with useless cards is one of my main complaints about card games, and NeoCrux seems to have a way to avoid that annoyance.
The game is still under development, and unfortunately this article will not be out in time to help the team with their Kickstarter. However, playing the game I was immediately hooked by the unique fusion between strategy and card collecting. This was only enhanced by the simultaneous turn based system that really makes me want to see what a completed GallaCollider would look like. The team behind it is not giving up, so if you think GalaCollider sounds like something you’d like, you can check it out here and lend your support!
