Do you find yourself with the unbearable urge to be the most substantial race in the universe but can’t find the time for complete domination? Well think again, Space War Commander will have you owning all you dreamed of and more within minutes!

On first impression I didn’t think that this game would appeal much to me but upon doing the tutorial and getting stuck in the gameplay I realised that this has a lot more to offer than I originally thought. The main reason I didn’t think it had much to offer was the fact that it looks very simple with its basic grid layout and everything you need to get your campaign going all on one screen. My mother always told me never judge a book by its cover and after all these years I still don’t listen to her, even though she is right most of the time.

The simplicity of the game layout offers the gameplay to be rather challenging starting off with your star port and planet and only one resource on it, which also offers a use and a need. Maybe it needs oil but offers another kind of ore; this automatically opens up opportunities for trade if this is the way in which you want to run your people. You will however need trade to get your race’s finances growing. More finances means the opportunity of building or more ships. More ships mean you can invade other planets for their resources or eliminate other star ports to get rid of the threat all together and in the long run makes your efforts easier. No doubt while you’re out scavenging for resources or beating the hell out of the enemy they have also picked out your weak points and will be gnawing away at them like a puppy and a table leg so you really have to keep your wits about you.

The graphics on the game will either remind you of some other independent titles like Mayhem Intergalactic or take you even further back to the good old days of quick, short space strategy games for the Commodore-64 or Amiga. They’re not overly simplistic but instead adhere to a specific school of thought that Dreamspike seems to have been paying homage to.

The game is split into rounds which are 10 minutes long and with the fact that there is so much going on and so much to do does add a certain amount of difficulty to the game, sometimes too much difficulty depending on which route you take. Nonetheless when you find a way that works for you stick with it and you can see the amount of thought that has gone into making this a very splendid game indeed.

Stay tuned to GDN as Dreamspike fires up a Developer Diary over in the Developer’s Corner soon.