Freeverse's Warpgate to launch into App Store space
Expect exploration, combat and trading
Everyone loves space games but it seems that space-based games are difficult to make.
Partly it's because space tends to be large, dark and featureless, and partly because all space games get compared to a couple of seminal experiences - Elite if you're from the UK or Escape Velocity for those with a US background.
Freeverse's Warpgate certainly seems to be up for the competition though.
It's a space-based game which combines exploration, combat and trading, and scale. Six warring factions, spread over a galaxy of more than 75 planets and space stations in 32 star systems are promised.
Unlike Elite's first-person view, it takes a third-person perspective on what appears to be a constrained environment, in that your spaceship travels along a flat 2D grid within the wider 3D world. It's a design decision that makes sense in terms of ensuring the touchscreen controls are much more straightforward compared to full 3D.
You can see how it works in this early demo video.
Warpgate's economic system is also something we're particularly interested in as done correctly, it can be a game within game.
In that sense, we're a bit disappointed that Warpgate is a single player game. Enabling online play, if only for features such as the space economy, would have been cool. Maybe it can be added to an update or sequel?
At least the game will support the Plus+ social network so you can upload your scores to various online leaderboards, as well as issue challenges to friends.
Warpgate is due to be released soon. There's no news of pricing yet but we'd expect it to be around $5.