Review:
Flotilla: Space Combat Made Simple

I was recently given a copy of the game Flotilla by Blendo Games to review. I've always loved playing simulated combat in three dimensions in games like Privateer 2, Freespace, and EVE Online, so I figured this game would be right down my alley.  

The meat of the game is turn based, three dimensional space combat. Every turn, you set your moves for each of your ships during for next 30 seconds of combat. For every ship, you can choose:

- Attack and Move, Flank Move, or Focus Fire
- Horizontal Movement
- Vertical Movement
- Direction the Ship Faces
- Target Priority

Throughout the fight, ships jockey for position trying to get behind one another, in order to score hits on the rear or bottom of enemy ships. Beam ships have a limited range, but enemies within range tend to go down extremely fast.  Other ships use torpedoes, which have an extreme range, but move slow enough that ships at distance can normally move out of the way. Ships range from your basic missile destroyer to a full-out battleships, with many options in between.

The controls are very easy to understand, but combat is difficult to master. At first, you will die a lot, especially in "Adventure" mode. I was actually getting quite annoyed until I got used to movement and positioning. Three dimensional combat can be a little intimidating, but they make movement as straight forward as possible. You're even given the ability to manually control your ship, setting your yaw (horizontal direction), pitch (vertical direction), and roll (control the ships orientation in space).

While you can just get started with combat in the Skirmish mode, you also have the option of playing the "Adventure" mode, where you get a chance to explore different worlds, making decisions along the way. You're told you have seven months to live, and so you fly around living life to the fullest, until you die. The storylines are intertwined, so if you do something on one planet, it could have an effect on something that happens on a later planet. Most of the original and ridiculous events (in a good way), yield you new ships, equipment for your ships, or put you in combat.