Small Bites: 2 minutes with Rymdkapsel for iOS and Android
Real fine strategy
It might not look it, but Grapefrukt's Rymdkapsel is actually a deep and engrossing real-time strategy game, with a touch of tower defence thrown in for good measure.
It's just been stripped down, that's all.
In Rymdkapsel, you must command your little minions to build corridors. This will enable you to gain access to and research four mysterious monoliths in every corner of the map.
Along the way, you'll need to harvest resources to help pay for your fancy new corridors.
You've got blue boxes, which are automatically generated by reactors; red tiles, which come from extractors and sap energy from nearby particle fields; green slime, which grows in gardens; and yellow pyramids, which are made from slime and processed in kitchens.
You'll also need to hire more minions. You generate these in quarters by using the yellow pyramids. Oh, and another thing - every few minutes, a bunch of horrible space snakes will fly in and try to kill you. So, yep, you need to build a weapons room for defence.
Rymdkapsel is all about slowly and systematically building paths around the map. How? By plopping down Tetris-shaped blocks. But you need to keep on top of resources, and assign all your minions to different jobs to keep your little factory running smoothly.
Its got an ultra-stylised indie vibe, and looks like an infographic (or a city map), as made by some achingly hip design firm.
But Grapefrukt uses this highly economical visual palette to help explain what's going on. Everything's smartly colour-coded, so you can scan over the map and immediately know what's happening. And everything snaps neatly to a grid, like Lego bricks.
Ultimately, Grapefrukt does a fantastic job of taking the RTS genre and ruthlessly wringing it out until only the most fundamental DNA is left over. It's just units, resources, and enemies. Nothing more, nothing less.
Plus, Rymdkapsel feels fantastic on touchscreen, and isn't as fiddly on a phone as you might think.
So, if you missed this on PlayStation Mobile, or don't have a PlayStation Certified gizmo, do check this one out when it hits iOS and Android next week.
