There are loads of games vying for your attention on the App Store, especially in the midcore strategy genre. Infinite Galaxy does enough to stand out from the crowd though, mixing concepts from the likes of Clash of Clans with some deep space intrigue to keep you playing for hours on end.
You’re playing a space captain who finds themselves in charge of a budding galactic empire. After nabbing a slightly broken flagship and piloting it to a nearby empty starbase, you start to spread out into the cosmos, exploring new worlds, gathering resources and blasting pesky pirates out of the sky.
For the first couple of hours the game leads you by the hand, showing you what you need to tap, what you need to do and giving you an overview of all of the game’s systems. There are quite a lot of menus to look through, different kinds of resources to collect and a whole lot more going on here.
The UI works really well, whether you’re managing the comings and goings in your spaceport or leading your fleet into battle. Those battles last a few minutes, and while they might look fierce and complex, with loads of ships flying around blasting each other to smithereens, the things you’ve got control over are pretty limited.
You can tell your flagship where to go, moving it closer or farther from the meat of the conflict, and you can launch its powerful special moves. These are on cooldown timers and can really change the flow of a scrap if you fire them out at the right time. It’s not the most in-depth battle system, but it offers a good deal more interactivity than some other games in the same genre.
The graphics here are particularly good, capturing not just the laser blasts and massive explosions in the fights, but doing a great job of keeping you eyes interested even when you’re just scrolling through menus or sending your fleet out into the depths of the abyss.
This isn’t just a single player experience either – teaming up with other players to form mighty alliances is an important part of the game. You can share resources and band together to take down threats. Space is enormous, so the more people who’ve got your back, the better you’re going to do.
Everything is driven along by a pretty interesting story. You’ll discover the history of your corner of the universe and meet some interesting characters too. The writing isn’t quite on a par with everything else in the game, but it’s never bad enough that you’re going to get annoyed.
It might not be the most original game in the world, and the hands-off nature of the combat won’t be to everyone’s taste, but Infinite Galaxy has a solid and engaging core that, if it gets its claws into you, is going to leave you begging for more. Check it out by clicking here.