Endless Sky: Escape Velocity revisited

[$iljanus]

One of my fondest gaming memories is playing a simple little 2D game that I'm sure many of you may have played called Escape Velocity. It came out on the Mac and I spent many a night playing it after hours in the lab since I didn't have a Mac at home, setting up trade routes, fighting pirates, buying upgrades to my ship and better ships. I remember when I was able to afford a Kestrel. I had even bought the EV Nova version for my PC when it came out. Best thing were some of the mods available for it, like the Star Wars or Star Trek mod. Now here's a revamped version of it called Endless Sky which supposedly made some improvements but is still in that familiar 2D and when I saw some screenshots I was overwhelmed with nostalgia. It also happens to be going for the bargain price of free on Steam as well as the developer page. The advantage of Steam will probably be their workshop with mod availability.

Here's a link to the developer page and I'm sure you can find all sorts of comments/impressions about it on Steam:

Endless Sky

[ColdSteel]

I love these kinds of games and tried it out about a month ago. Maybe I just need to play it some more but I didn't like it nearly as much as Transcendence, which is a very similar type of game (also free).

[$iljanus]

Never heard of Transcendence but I do like the price.

[ColdSteel]

Never heard of Transcendence but I do like the price.

It's on Steam as well. http://store.steampowered.com/app/364510/
The base version is a complete game and is free. You can also download it directly from the developer's site. He is charging for the expansion on Steam but it's not needed. The game is very fun.

[El Guapo]

If the sky is endless, how is it possible to achieve escape velocity?

[wonderpug]

If the sky is endless, how is it possible to achieve escape velocity?

Take a sip of ambrosia, put it into overdrive, and go nova?

[astyanax]

I've put in a lot of hours into Endless Sky, and for fans of Escape Velocity, it's really like an old pair of shoes. Currently, only one storyline is complete ("Free Worlds"), but the universe might be a little TOO similar to EV for my taste... not that that would stop me from sinking hours and hours into it. :p

Another game is NAEV, which has been greenlit by Steam. Be warned that the installer download is 5Mb, but the installer will download another 300Mb.

It has a steeper learning curve, but given a chance, it really feels a lot like Privateer. I honestly didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I am based on my first impression (quite a few things seem to be overly complicated, but those things become largely second nature after a little while). At the moment, the NAEV universe feels a bit more immersive than Endless Sky, though both have some rough edges considering their incomplete statuses.

[Fitzy]

I used to love escape velocity. I think Endless Sky has potential to match or surpass it. However, the lack of story right now is limiting.

What's there is good. I just seem to recall EV having a lot more side missions.

Once they get all the story missions and add some other things to do, this will be great game. Also looking forward to what the community comes up with.

[Daehawk]

ARISE!!

Im not sure when I got this but wow is it bringing back memories of those older games and more. Steam has it FREE. Can you believe that??! FREE!! I can heartedly say get this one guys.

Here is a very nice info page about the game.

https://endless-sky.github.io/







I just saw astyanax's post on Naev. That looks fun too and will have to try it.