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Space Corp on Steam — Bought and Returned

(See my posts tagged Space Corp)

I “like-dont-love” Space Corp but was happy to buy the game on steam. BUT … after forty minutes I deleted it and requested a refund (quickly granted) due to usability features. I’d mentioned some problems with Mr. President’s actions being hard to decipher but I’d assumed that it was my unfamiliarity with the game. But I’ve played Space Corp dozens of times.

  • First — a non-UI annoyance that Ventures wasn’t included. Perhaps if I had known that it was coming out later (and an additional cost) I would have been fine, but it was disappointing to buy this and then get a note saying “Oh, it’s soon! Please preorder.”
  • There is no solitaire mode, which I like. Getting AIs right is tricky. I like the solitaire version. I spent a few minutes trying to find it, but if its there I missed it.
  • The information you need is harder to find in the app than in the board game! The computer game is a close copy of the board game, just a screenshot of the board1 with the cards on the side …
    • They removed the calculated transit cost charts from the board2. Yes, it auto calculates and shows you, but I don’t want to play some cards, get a list of places I can go, undo and add some cards. Just leave the charts!
    • I can’t see at a glance where people are on the genetics/revelation track. (Again, maybe I missed it, but I think you have to open the relevant side board to find out).
    • In the Apps defense, the contracts actually tell you how close people are (nice); but via “small numbers matching player color/order.”
  • But my main issue is usability
    • The main board (map) keeps recentering based on where ships move, then you have to scroll it back to where I want it. I did see a setting to “Follow ships” and checked it off, but then I couldn’t tell where the AI had moved despite the slow speeds.
    • The map sizing is odd, you can zoom in and out and move (fine) but there’s never really a great setting. SpaceCorp isn’t a particularly information dense game, but the information isn’t clearly presented on the screen all at once.

The last point was my final straw. I shut it down, deleted it, and asked for a refund. (I have other nits, but they are minor). A few hours later Steam granted my refund.

In my experience, Steam usually grants a refund if you buy a game and ask before you’ve played an hour — which means that you should not skip Space Corp just because I found it annoying. Give it a whirl and see if the UI issues bug you. I don’t play many games on BGA because I don’t — in general — like board games on computers, so I suspect that if you play games on BGA (and like SpaceCorp) you’ll try this and say “What’s the problem?”

I’ve said that switching mediums is a red flag, but I’d assumed that was mainly for trying to make a computer game into a board game, not vice versa. Now that I’ve seen a few games I think that there may be more issues with how information is displayed. There is also an issue in computer games (with AI opponents) of information overload because the AIs naturally play faster. I’d be annoyed if a computer game of space corp with 2-3 AIs took anywhere near as long as a real game, but in a real game I have time to see and absorb what’s going on. The UI should offer that option (and — to be fair — there is a log I could read that probably has a play-by-play, but I don’t want to read it, I want to see it).

Another reason that I am suddenly more wary of computer implementations of board games (at least on steam) is that they often give a whiff of “I love board games, but I’m so budget constrained compared to a ‘real’ video game that I’m going do the bare minimum.” For Mr. President (etc), I get it. Just implementing the rules is a major Pain in the Ass … at least there’s no AI in Mr. President.

So … this might just be an “old man yells at clouds” moment, but at least I recognize the possibility. Decide for yourself.

  1. I originally wrote “literally just a screenshot” but actually some of the background stars twinkle and/or there are comets moving, so the developer did make an effort to prettify the board, which I appreciate; but it is a nice bit of chrome at the cost of usability. ↩︎
  2. I don’t know if they also removed some of the charts from Era III, didn’t get that far. ↩︎
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