Played 7th April
Online version played
Playtime: 1hr 45mins for one full playthrough
Link to 4×4 Galaxy on the Spring Thing 2020 ballot
4×4 Galaxy is a Twine-powered procedurally generated space explorer with RPG elements and trading. You’re dropped into a galaxy of 16 planets with randomised skills and a randomised main objective. In my run of the game, for example, my quest was to rescue a friend from slavers.
I like 4×4 Galaxy a lot, but I have to admit I was nervous about this game before playing it. Procgen games can be really good, with a lot of work and care put into the level-generating algorithms, but they can also be so much less interesting than static level design. I’ve played some absolutely miserable dungeon crawlers which were just square rooms and long squiggly corridors ad nauseum. And even when a procgen game works, can you confidently say that the programming is solid, or did you just get lucky with your version of the game? So when I say that I like 4×4 Galaxy, that comes with the caveats that I liked my version of 4×4 Galaxy, and that I had perhaps unfairly low expectations for it.
Having said all that… I really did like 4×4 Galaxy. The procgen worked for me here. I think Trzaska got the scope exactly right – 16 planets is big enough to make the game’s universe feel expansive, but small enough not to overtax the planet generation and make it feel seriously repetitive. This generation looks pretty simple from the outside (though I’ve tried game development before, and goodness knows it’s way harder than it looks), but with enough variety that it’s exciting to land on a new planet throughout the game.
It helps a lot that the core gameplay loop is a lot of fun. You get a little guy and a spaceship, and you rove the galaxy trading resources and buying items to upgrade your guy and your spaceship while you work towards your quest. 4×4 Galaxy is sort of a bite-size sci-fi RPG, and its simple loop and constant character progression scratches that same itch for me as a good Cookie Clicker-like game does. There’s good variety in what you can do, too, from trading to mine resources to exploring dungeons and fighting monsters. (Admittedly, a lot of these dungeons were just long corridors of rooms in my playthrough, but that’s fair enough for a choice-based game – I think I’d rather keep it simple than have to navigate a complex and confusing space with a long list of directions.)
In my playthrough, I found that the character generation had a huge influence on the gameplay loop. You get two skills assigned to your character out of a list of five, which influence your likelihood of success at certain tasks. For example, one of my character’s skills was piloting, which gave me an advantage in spaceship fights and a better chance of avoiding negative random events while flying between planets. On the other hand, I didn’t have the Combat skill for hand-to-hand fighting in dungeons at first, so I struggled a lot with even the easiest fights, even after upgrading my health and weapons. But I was able to pick up the Combat skill in a sidequest, and the difference in my fighting success was like night and day. So I think 4×4 Galaxy is weighted to encourage or even demand a playstyle based on your character’s skills. This is pretty good for keeping replays interesting, though I wish I’d realised this before butting my head against hand-to-hand combat for the first half of my run.
As in any game with a high degree of randomness, luck can interfere with the game in other major ways. You have a notable chance of bumping into very powerful warships as you travel between planets, and these encounters can just go against you rapidly. Even with the Piloting skill, I wasn’t able to do much about the most powerful enemies like the Drone swarms. Thankfully, you can buy items to help you land free hits or escape these fights (though if you forgot to stock up or didn’t have the money to buy any, good luck). In some quests, though, you’ll need to fight these ships to collect items, and that can be its own trial – I was stuck roving between planets for a full 15 minutes trying to get a specific type of warship to show up for my quest, for example.
One more quibble: although the layout of 4×4 Galaxy is good, I would like a more involved UI. For example, I’d like some way to track which planets have things left to explore on them and what sidequests you’re in the middle of. (There’s a journal, but it only really tells you about your main objective and describes the planets.) I’d also like finer control over selling star fragments specifically – you can sell them one at a time or in bulk, but if you have 200 fragments and you need to retain 80 of them for your quest, you end up clicking the sell one button 120 times or until you get fed up.
These aren’t really major quibbles. Outside of these, I enjoyed my afternoon spent with 4×4 Galaxy, and I’d recommend the game. I’ll likely return to this the next time I need to scratch that game progression itch.
Ribbons: I’d say Best Use of Procgen, but I don’t know if any of the other entries use procgen yet. Maybe Best Gameplay?
wisprabbit 