EPTHell yeah. Going to show it to my Pa when I see him tonight
ZeroSpace at Steam NextFest - Last free demo - Page 2
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CicadaSC
United States2037 Posts
Hell yeah. Going to show it to my Pa when I see him tonight | ||
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seraki
47 Posts
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Hider
Denmark9448 Posts
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Hider
Denmark9448 Posts
Graphics look impressive, constant fighting which seem interesting. Unit movement speed seems fast which is good and skillshot heavy which is good and generally lots of action and it rewards micro. When I compare to stormgate - that game had way too many slow moving melee units. Too much healing. Too slow pace with too little to do doing larger skirmishes. Battle Aces full of a-move units. Zerospace looks like it actually rewards skill during battles which is essential. You can't have a competitive RTS with proper micro being very taxing on APM and mouse accuracy. That said, I fear that players will get eventually get tired of constant headclashing. A proper competitive RTS needs: * Harass * Setup/planning before a skirmish/battle. * Bases being partially defended while you secure an objective elsewhere. It can't just be pure army vs army clashing all game long. Increasing unit production somewhat and adding strong positional units/static defenses would enable that Something about the battles doesn't feel "right". Constant engagements without big enough moments. I wouldn't mind abilities being even higher DPS and unit production increased. The combination of high unit production, strong defenders advantage and overpowered abilities is the easiest way to accomplish big exciting moments without the gameplay feeling too punishing. | ||
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Sent.
Poland9333 Posts
Zerospace has a lot of things that should enable harass and positional play if they're carefully developed. I mean stuff like dedicated harassment units, slow artillery units, zoning spells, jet packs, air transports, spell casters, environment manipulation tools. If you support that with good map making and some balance patches, this could grow into a decent competitive RTS. I'm not sure if trying to increase the DPS or APM requirements is the right way to go though. That's SC2's kingdom and I'd prefer if Zerospace tried to find its niche elsewhere. | ||
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Captain Peabody
United States3139 Posts
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Harris1st
Germany7439 Posts
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Hider
Denmark9448 Posts
On June 24 2026 05:39 Sent. wrote: Yeah, the fast mobile army vs fast mobile army gameplay can get boring quickly, but at least it doesn't feel like the game is doomed from the start because of bad design choices. Zerospace has a lot of things that should enable harass and positional play if they're carefully developed. I mean stuff like dedicated harassment units, slow artillery units, zoning spells, jet packs, air transports, spell casters, environment manipulation tools. If you support that with good map making and some balance patches, this could grow into a decent competitive RTS. I'm not sure if trying to increase the DPS or APM requirements is the right way to go though. That's SC2's kingdom and I'd prefer if Zerospace tried to find its niche elsewhere. I think everyone tends to fall into the trap of thinking they can find a nice compromise by not making the gameplay too APM-heavy in order to attract more casuals. But it doens't work because it's the skillcap of RTS games It's like saying dribbling is too overpowered in basketball and too difficult for people who aren't good ballhandlers. If you change the rules to preventing dribbling you make the game a lot less interesting. The only choise an RTS have is what type of clicks shoudl have happen. I think some clicks are fun and less so. IMO most clicks should be related to army movement and I think Zerospace does get that right. Hence also why it doesn't feel completely doomed atm. It feels like a couple of big patches away from something that could be pretty damn good. (although still very sceptical). Game devs needs to stop trying to appeal to old boomer RTS players who complain about not having time to play and wants something easy. That market is limited in scope. Instead, figure out how to make a next-gen RTS that innovates and can attract a newer audience. The whole notion that younger players don't want RTS games is false imo. What is proven they don't want is the old classical formula. You make something with truly awesome micro and battles and opportunities to express skill and it will attract an audience who never played an RTS game before. | ||
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Archeon
3274 Posts
Short feedback: I'm positively surprised. + The campaign gripped me a lot more than the early missions from Stormgate f.e.. I'm kinda curious where the story goes. + The features are promising. I liked what I could see from the upgrade paths and the right decision wasn't immediately obvious most of the time + I thought the introduction of the units was nice and the characters and their dynamics are interesting. VA was decent imo. + I largely liked the level and quest design. The missions so far feel well thought out and the decisions and side quests aren't always easy. What I didn't like: - I feel like my army doesn't synergize in terms of micro. I like the idea to have a rooting unit in the hellbat for my blinkstalkers, but until I unlock the upgrade path where they add damage for blinking the hellbats tank at the front and the blinkstalkers just sit behind and shoot. So I kinda stop blinking unless the hellbats die and it becomes an a-move blob. Tbh both hellbats and mercs? feel like units that have specific purposes and are a bit bland as of yet in terms of micro potential, but maybe that changes through upgrades. - The shoulder pads on the male characters are a bit comical. Especially compared to the skin tight definitely not ghost armor of the rich girl. I don't mind that the look is obviously inspired (and the pads are prolly there for top down readability), but the discrepancy is already kinda crazy in Sc2 where ghosts are super special spies while space marines are front line fighters in heavy armor. In zerospace my very rough understanding was that the comm and the rich girl went through the same academy, but the armors of the two were crazy far apart in terms of design. - The meeting before mission 3 has both side characters arguing back and forth whether we should help or not and the game just doesn't let me decide. That felt weird because I get a lot of dialogue options, but not when I get a 30 seconds prelude broadcasting an upcoming decision. Minor stuff: - Maybe I'm dumb and blind and missed it, but the game could tell me stuff like that barracks heal units. - F3 is not a good default button for anything - I was desperately looking for a repair building option. Not sure if it exists, but if I couldn't find it. - The building UI felt a little clunky to me, especially with recruitment options not being next to each others. - I legit am surprised I just get a summary in the bottom of the number of units. Most RTS list them and shows me their individual health, Zerospace not so much, which I assume is intentional to foster micro that is more in the center of the screen, but it feels weird cause I'm so used to having it. Bugs: - Health bars in my games only showed once I clicked "always on". Every other option just hid them, even if my guys were wounded. Overall I enjoyed the demo and will keep a closer eye on this than I would have if I didn't play it. | ||
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Sent.
Poland9333 Posts
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CicadaSC
United States2037 Posts
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Tal
United Kingdom1018 Posts
I know it's early access, but I was kind of hoping for more. | ||
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Sent.
Poland9333 Posts
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/starlancestudios/zerospace/posts/4727025 Ranked matchmaking will close tomorrow, with Campaign, Galactic War, and Custom Games staying open until we get closer to our July 20 Early Access release. For those interested in the stats, we had over 40,000 unique players download and try the demo, and you can see the distribution of games played below: ![[image loading]](https://i.kickstarter.com/assets/054/211/799/7162a2adefbee673d83fd9a8cf21e720_original.png?fit=scale-down&origin=ugc&q=100&v=1782244341&width=700&sig=eQklF4Qg3QyndfIT1qf0Gqf5%2BReoO%2B%2B85iTxb151Gxc%3D) I'd like to joke and say that I really hate normies but it's not a joke. The reality is that probably ~90% of people who played the demo did not even try to play 1v1s. Most of my games were 1v1s against AI and it totally makes sense to me why people weren't too eager to spam ranked 1v1s last week. It takes quite a bit of effort to learn the basics of the game to the point you can comfortably attempt to duel other players. I (almost) get why people like to play coop RTS games regularly. I also get why a lot of people spent an hour or two in the campaign and forgot about the demo after that. Yet, it still saddens me that an amazing pvp project gets very limited attention from the "hardcore" 1v1 players. To me, Stormgate was made for a playerbase that never existed. Battle Aces was something SC2 pros could play when waiting for their next match in the monday weekly. Other projects made no real effort to be the next competitive RTS. Zerospace remains the last hope but for some reason nobody cares and it feels bad to know the 1v1 game will likely never take off unless the campaign is a massive success. | ||
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KobraKay
Portugal4396 Posts
On June 28 2026 06:49 Sent. wrote: I would like to discuss this very interesting kickstarter update post. Not sure if this thread or the main thread is better, but this one seems more on topic. I'd like to joke and say that I really hate normies but it's not a joke. The reality is that probably ~90% of people who played the demo did not even try to play 1v1s. Most of my games were 1v1s against AI and it totally makes sense to me why people weren't too eager to spam ranked 1v1s last week. It takes quite a bit of effort to learn the basics of the game to the point you can comfortably attempt to duel other players. I (almost) get why people like to play coop RTS games regularly. I also get why a lot of people spent an hour or two in the campaign and forgot about the demo after that. Yet, it still saddens me that an amazing pvp project gets very limited attention from the "hardcore" 1v1 players. To me, Stormgate was made for a playerbase that never existed. Battle Aces was something SC2 pros could play when waiting for their next match in the monday weekly. Other projects made no real effort to be the next competitive RTS. Zerospace remains the last hope but for some reason nobody cares and it feels bad to know the 1v1 game will likely never take off unless the campaign is a massive success. one thing that i asked myself several times is..."are there really 1v1 hardcore players left?" I mean in relevant numbers? i think you have bw players, you have sc2 players...aoe2 players and then random amounts of people that i would not call hardcore at all that play 1v1 here and there in a few games they like or even on the new fotm game and then move along. Nevertheless, if what you said last happens, then that is good, games should be made to have fun and with that you get more people...you dont grow a competitive scene out of a bad game. PvP'ers will arise from the regular people that like the game and feel the desire/need/urge to test themselves against other people in the game. Otherwise you might end up like a lot of games these days, built for an audience that doesn't exist, just like you mentioned in the beginning of your post. | ||
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Yurie
12180 Posts
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Hider
Denmark9448 Posts
To me, Stormgate was made for a playerbase that never existed. Battle Aces was something SC2 pros could play when waiting for their next match in the monday weekly. Other projects made no real effort to be the next competitive RTS. Zerospace remains the last hope but for some reason nobody cares and it feels bad to know the 1v1 game will likely never take off unless the campaign is a massive success. My understanding is that campaign is very expensive to make and generally not cost-effective. The whole notion of creating a campaign to eventually lure people into playing 1v1 - it's just not viable IMO. Too many different things to nail at once. As a startup you focus on one thing and nailing that one thing. Battle Aces did the right thing in the sense that they had a clear vision and tried to go all in on that. The problem IMO was that David Kim had a misperception that a wider audience would be like a game with boring a-move units. I think the only way we can revive RTS and create a proper next-gen RTS game is if devs have a clear vision, go all-in on it and keep iterating while continuously getting feedback - NOT FROM old RTS gamers - but from the desired wider target group. The game needs to be and look awesome with opportunities for big moments. If not you can't attract those players. Some degree of learning barrier is okay as long as it's clear what benefit a player will get after spending time learning it. There has to be something about the game that is so awesome so everyone not familar with the genre can watch a highlights-video, be amazed and inspired. | ||
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ScoutWBF
Germany641 Posts
I usually played 1v1 in every RTS but when playing ZeroSpace I still don't have a good feeling for Macro and hero and unit abilities. Overall the game is very hard to read visually, with building spaces difficult to see if I can build there or not and how many units I actually have. So I only played Campaign and Galactic War to get a better understanding. | ||
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Fleetfeet
Canada2846 Posts
General idea being - @Hider I think you need a campaign to piggyback 1v1 off of, in the same way that basketball tournaments need pickup games and schoolyard / driveway play. People need to experience the casual-competitive fun and learn the rules somewhere. | ||
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Harris1st
Germany7439 Posts
Races combined with Mercs, units, upgrades. This is a lot. And getting stomped by something that you don't understand is no fun at all. | ||
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BaiZhuZhu
19 Posts
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