Gratuitous Space Battles

Design, build and destroy with new indie title

Cliff ‘Cliffski’ Harris is a throwback to the golden age of UK games development.  A one-man game creating machine, Cliffski not only runs indie developers Positech Games but also codes everything they release, deals with tech support over the phone, and writes a great blog.

His upcoming PC/Mac effort, Gratuitous Space Battles, is a homage to the massed fleet actions of Star Wars, Trek, and Battlestar Galactica.

According to Positech’s website, Gratuitous Space Battles “aims to bring the over-the-top explodiness back into space games. The game is for everyone who has watched big space armadas battle it out on TV and thought to themselves ‘I could have done a much better job as admiral’.”

The icing on the cake is that GSB includes a comprehensive spaceship design tool allowing you to finally live out those repressed Geordi La Forge fantasies.

“This is not a game of real-time arcade twitch reflexes. GSB is about what ships you design, and what you tell them to do. Your individual ship commanders have total autonomy during the chaotic battle that unfolds. This is not a tactical game, it is a strategic one. These gratuitous space battles are not won by plucky heroes with perfect teeth, but by the geeky starship builders who know exactly what ratio of plasma-cannons to engines each ship in the fleet will need.”

If you needed any more incentive, we heartily encourage you to take a look at this new gameplay trailer: