The first this you will notice about Strange Adventures in Infinite Space (hereby shortened to SAIS) is that the graphics are very low resolution. The game came out in 2001, yet it looks like it's from the Master of Orion era. However, while it may be pixelated and drop your computer to a lower color depth, the art is very well-realized. If lower resolutions don't bother you, you'll be fine. The sound is also pretty good. Not fantastic, but not bad, it sits right in the middle on the quality scale.

The story of SAIS is rather simple. You are an unemployed space pilot who has been approached by a notorious gangster in the Glory system to go out and explore the nearby region of space. You have ten years to go out and explore as much as possible and bring stuff back. If you go beyond those 10 years, you must pay back interest to the mobster, so in order to get the best score, you really have to utilize your time properly.

Exploration boils down to exploring a star system by traveling to it. Whenever you enter an unexplored star system, one of several things can happen. You will find a new artifact, device, or piece of equipment, encounter an alien race, or be subject to one of various events. All of these are set at the start of the game, and certain items (such as ship-detecting sensors) can show you more about a star before reaching it. Traveling from system to system takes time (depending on your star drive), and you really don't have any good equipment at the start, so you have to manage your time very well in order to get anywhere. Keep in mind that a nebula will make you travel extremely slowly unless you have a method of warping or a drive that maintains speed through nebulae.

Alien races make up approximately half of your encounters in SAIS. Some notable ones include the Urluquai, a race of malevolent aquatic floaters that speak as though they love you, the Tan Ru, a race of sentient machines that are completely oblivious of organic life, and the Klakar, a race of peaceful Avian traders which always spawn in one of the star systems closest to your home.Each race will react to you differently, and one race, the Yellow Kawangi, barely show up at all and generally constitute a game-ending threat (they destroy star systems). Diplomacy is as simple as meeting the race itself and letting events take their course. The Klakar are the mos timportant, as they always spawn close by and trade with you. Since trade is on a strict one-to-one scale, you can trade out ship components for better ones and junk components for valuable commodities and life-forms.

Any item is broken into a few categories. First you have equipment, which can be either a weapon, a subspace drive, an interstellar drive, a shield, and an accessory. These are what you trade away to some alien races to gain new allies. Next are the lifeforms and baubles, which give you bonuses to your score when you bring them home. Finally there are the artifacts, which are incredibly useful items that do things such as destroy the largest enemy ship once per encounter (perfect for the Yellow Kawanga), create any item in the game, or greet every race in the sector peacefully (except the Kawanga and the Tan Ru). In the long run, two things make or break you: the artifacts you have and your interstellar drive.

Events are another major part of exploration, and can range from the benevolent to the downright murderous. For example, a thief might sneak onto your ship and steal something. If that something is an artifact like the Mantle of Babulon or the Timeless Bauble, you just lost one of the essential items to have in the game, and it can be frustrating. On the other hand, some events give you new wingmen, a new method of travel, or even the ability to calm down one of the races into talking to you as well as boosting your score with an item..

Whenever you encounter a hostile alien race in SAIS, you will enter into combat. Combat is extremely simple, and boils to to selecting where your ships move to. Ships will automatically fire on each other, and the better a ship's weapons, shields, thrusters, and onboard systems, the more likely it is to survive the encounter. Most of the time you will end up fleeing from hostile aliens thanks to being heavily underpowered and outmanned, so don't think that retreat is a cowards way out. It does rob you of planetary riches, though, and you may want to revisit fleets before finishing, if you have the firepower to do so.

Strange Adventures in Infinite Space is just that: strange. It manages to mix exploration, inventory management, arcade-like scoring, and time management all into a package that you can play several games through over the course of a coffee break. It's absolutely fantastic and addictive, as you'll start thinking about what you could have done to do better in one game or another. It only helps its case by being extremely mod-friendly, which extends the life of the game greatly. For any that are looking for a replayable and fun arcade game that you can blow off some steam with in very little time, look no further. Strange Adventures in Infinite Space is available through the developer's website.

For another look at freeware games, take a peek at Joystiq's Free Game Club weekly feature!