Flotilla – An XBOX Indie Game Review and Dev Interview

Developer: Brendon Chung / Blendo Games
Genre: Strategy & Simulation
Countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States
Languages: English
Price: 400 Microsoft Points

Developer Summary

Lead your orbital battleships to victory in Flotilla! Discover new planets, battle bounty hunters, and explore the tactical richness of 3D fleet maneuvers.

Flotilla – Synopsis

You are an intrepid space traveler with seven months to live. Time to settle some score in the galaxy before the clock runs out.

Developed by Brendon Chung working under the title Blendo Games, Flotilla is a turn-based science fiction strategy game. Chung’s previous work includes the dapper and surprising, free-to-download Gravity Bone (direct download link) built on a customized Quake 2 engine and an indie darling.

Flotilla Gameplay

After a little time with the game, you will find, as the developer demonstrates in the attached video, that the key strategy in Flotilla is about getting behind and below the enemy. One might assume that most turns should involve diving as low as possible in order to, ironically, get the upper hand, but in Flotilla there is no fixed up or down, and enemy ships may roll over and change the meaning of “attacking from below”. Suddenly the seemingly simple three options to move and fire, remain somewhat stationary and concentrate fire or forego weaponry in favor of significantly increased ship displacement, emphasizes the fact that this is a turn based STRATEGY game.

Another seemingly innocuous but ultimately critical option is the ability to use “hard” objects on the battlefield as a defense mechanism. Such barriers include space debris, or asteroids or remnants of old spaceships that are scattered arbitrarily around the play field. These are particularly effective against otherwise devastating albeit short-ranged beam canons.

Once your battalion includes ships that can fire missiles used in concert with this hide and seek strategy, victory quickly becomes more likely. Some might argue that discovering these basic characteristics to success means that Flotilla quickly becomes disappointingly simple, but this reviewer feels that the style of the game, meaning the balletic pacing and contemplative music, help it transcend the basic impulse to pwn the opposition.

Which may in fact be the salvo for Flotilla at this stage of its development, as the AI opponents tend to become predictable too soon, more likely to go for the attack over more creative defensive maneuvers. A human opponent would be more likely to out-think you, especially if they know you well enough, and this is why a remote multi-player version of the game would add huge dimension to the possibilities that Flotilla promises, making it more of an ambient, celestial rendition of the board game Stratego (and that would be awesome).

That said, Flotilla is not so easy that there won’t be some legitimately tough conflicts; larger battles, especially those where the enemy outnumbers your fleet by a high margin require some real planning, though really you are just managing the aforementioned maneuvers on a larger scale.

One of the bewildering design options was to create “adventures” that are meant to played as short sessions, as opposed to campaigns that can be built upon, so that there is no option to save progress. The fact that the player can procure upgrades and modify the roster of ships in the fleet, or I guess flotilla suggests that there would be room for this kind of development, and in my opinion, make for a richer game.

The fact that new play session means starting over from scratch took away the value of all the legitimately entertaining enemy types (fleets of pirate Penguins, slave-trading Panda Bears, bounty hunting rhinos or angry chickens whose family reunion you have disrupted); I would love to see some sort of development in building reps with certain factions or races.

Again, not a huge thing, but something that would embolden the brand and add another layer of complexity to the Flotilla universe. I am not sure if the fact that maps are randomized creates a barrier to this kind of linear narrative development, but I can think of a few ways that such things as alliances or bonuses could be implemented merely to add some extra color and variety to each encounter without breaking the underlying framework. Sure, presumably the existing yes or no choices you make in taking on a particular fleet have minor effects on the adventure as it unfolds, but that only underlines the fact that they could be developed further, with greater implications.

That said, the little narrative bursts that do pop up before every encounter are legitimately funny and afford some welcome personality to the proceedings.

A Quick Interview with Developer Brendon Chung

We decided to ask developer Brendon Chung directly about future developments for the game and what inspired its creation:

XBLIGR: Have you thought of implementing a remote multi-player mode?
I’m presently working with someone on adding remote multiplayer.

XBLIGR: How long did it take you from inception to launch?
The entire project took about six months.

XBLIGR: What were some of your primary influences putting this title together?
Star Control II, Cowboy Bebop, and submarine movies.

XBLIGR: What do you think of Solar, Osmos, Gratuitous Space Battles?
Osmos is one of the most relaxing games I’ve ever played. GSB is a very
interesting twist on the space combat genre, it’s a real breath of fresh
air.  I haven’t tried Solar yet.

XBLIGR: We bring up Solar, one of our best of 2009, because, like Osmos it has a meditative quality to it, something that your title also evokes.

Does the Flotilla Deliver the Goods?

Flotilla is a very pretty, hypnotic and well-designed turn based strategy game set in its now distinctive orange-colored cosmic setting. Taken as a sort of interactive screensaver, or break from stressful real-life concerns, it delivers in spades. But it is a tease; the addition of save points, purchasable upgrades, deeper storylines or missions in a true campaign mode and remote multiplayer gaming would push this title into the domain of true excellence. It should be noted however, that this is a small one-man development team and that multi-player mode for a game of this complexity for the XBOX Live Indie platform is a Herculean task and that because maps, encounters and locations are randomly generated, a deeper storyline may not ultimately make sense. Save points would be nice though!

Simply for the fact that it brings a little of Kubrick’s 2001 into the Xbox Indie Gaming marketplace, Flotilla the game and its talented, creative developer both deserve your meager four dollar investment and attention.

See also: Solar, Osmos, Gratuitous Space Battles, Sins of A Solar Empire, Weird Worlds, Freelancer

Flotilla is also available on Steam

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