Gratuitous Space Battles is an innovative strategy game that plays like a ’massively-singleplayer’ hybrid of RTS and tower defense. The player takes on the role of supreme admiral of embarrassingly large fleets of spaceships, which are all individually designed by the player, and is in charge of placing them in formations and issuing orders for them to fight against AI-controlled enemy fleets. Unlike a conventional RTS, the battle itself is non-interactive, as individual AI ship commanders carry out the general rules of engagement set by the player. This makes GSB a true strategic game, where the player is effectively winning or losing the battle before it starts by cunning ship design and clever orders, rather than twitch based reflexes mid battle. The battles themselves are suitably gratuitous, with a heavy emphasis on things exploding and going zap.