Light of Altair has a completely throwaway science-fiction plot. Oil makes countries fight each other, new world order, you know the drill. There's no surprises or interesting twists in the story, which is bad, but in the end, does not affect the overall game too much. Plot developments that should have surprised me did nothing. The story is of the "functional, but uninteresting" sort.

The graphics and sound are functional, but not especially amazing. Buildings and ships are recognizable and brightly colored for clear identification, but do not have a high polygon count or extremely detailed texture work. honestly, you won't really notice. The music is spacey and provides a great aural backdrop, while the sounds and like the visuals: functional, not fancy. This game can also run on older systems thanks to this, so it's a great game to introduce the genre to somebody that might not have top-of-the-line electronics.

The actual gameplay of Light of Altair is where things begin to innovate and change from what you might expect. The basic concept of the game is that you are building colonies throughout solar systems. Each of these colonies have needs that must be fulfilled in order to grow. As your colonies grow, you gain access to new technologies, more resources, and more planets. Eventually, you will expand across the entire solar system and finish off the other factions, establishing yourself as the dominant force.

Colonies in Light of Altair revolve around four needs. These are food, power, happiness, and money. Food is recieved from hydroponics facilities, power from solar panels and power stations, happiness from colonial quarters, and money from trade through starports. These needs are managed simply by producing enough of the particular need. The computer automatically allocates things for you. This is most obvious once your colonies have progressed and you end up specializing colonies for greater efficiency. This works because the food surplus of one colony is automatically traded to other colonies on the same planet. Thus, you have something like two colonies dedicated to food production, one colony dedicated to the production of fuel and starships, and one colony dedicated to the production of goods for sale.

The most common goal of Light of Altair is to gain a large income or large surplus of cash. This happens through trade. Trade is automatic, and takes the overall surplus of a planet and trades it out into the great beyond. Things that are traded include ore, fuel, goods (processed ore) and food. Goods provide the most amount of cash per unit, so are the primary focus of the economic system. Goods are produced by building mines and factories: one factory handles the production of about ten mines. However, mines and fuelsynths take up the same locations (mineral deposits), forcing players to choose between cash or ship range. There's also another way to produce ore and fuel at the same time, and that's through asteroid mining. As the player progresses through the game, new buildings will unlock that fiddle with this balance, but this is the baseline of the economics system.

Beyond the simple, almost completely automated economics system is a simple, almost completely automated combat system! Combat happens between two fleets of opposing factions when they meet in orbit over a planet. The fleets then attack each other, and the one that is stronger will inevitably win. The ships are designed in the most basic of ways: by choosing weapons and auxiliary systems for a set chassis. This is no Galactic Civilizations II, but the simple design system allows players to focus on production and overall strategy rather than the minutiae of design.

Each mission in Light of Altair has a specific set of goals to achieve. These goals range from eliminating an enemy faction to establishing a colony on a new world, and there are hidden objectives as well, such as completing certain goals or the overall mission within a time limit. These objectives change slightly from normal to hard mode, and the AI also changes, but hard mode is the only possible way that you can get a 100% completion on a level.

The biggest downfall fo Light of Altair, and the one that hurts it the most, is the lack of a procedurally-generated skirmish mode. While the missions layout allowed the developers to fine-tune the experience, a randomized, generic goals mode of play would have been immensely appreciated. Something along the lines of spreading across the stars and encountering new factions extends replayability significantly, but alas, Light of Altair has nothing of the sort. There is also no way to store separate ship designs for the same chassis. However, the high level of accessibility alleviates some of these concerns, as if someone enjoyed Light of Altair, they are likely to move on to another space 4X game such as Galactic Civilizations or Sword of the Stars.

Light of Altair is unique in a way that Outpost Kaloki was unique. It took a previously complex genre of game and distilled it down to the essence, allowing new players into the fold through excellent design and simple visuals. While it lacks in replayability and the greater depth of its contemporaries, it makes up for it with the intuitive interface and gameplay mechanics. Overall, Light of Altair is a satisfying experience despite the low amount of replayability, and acts as a great stepping stone into game that are much more complex.

Download the Light of Altair demo right here on Big Download!