Multi-headed Cow
Guest
Welcome to THE BUMFACE. Welcome to Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space. A game where you play a brave starship captain going on wild adventures exploring the galaxy. You have a finite amount of time (Which is spent traveling through space, repairing your ship(s), equipping items, etc) in which to rack up as much score as possible and return to your homeworld. The game is broken up in to two modes, the galaxy map which is essentially turn based and the only one taking turns is you, and the combat screen which is realtime with pause with vaguely RTS controls.
The game is somewhat roguelike-like in that the galaxy is randomly generated and you're fairly likely to die. Enough talking though, let's get this show on the road.
MHC, captain of the Codexia, is created! Ship options are science vessel, pirate corvette, and terran frigate. I go with terran frigate because what the hell. Game options are left at the default medium map size (With time limit of 20 years), normal nebula mass, and normal enemy strength.
These are the voyages of the starship Codexia, its 20 year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no troll has gone before!
Here's our starting system, and here's a glimpse at the galaxy. There's no way to zoom the map out even more, but there's roughly another full screen above this, and just a hair more to the left and right. The swirly purple thing to the left (Named Spiro) is a black hole which can be Bad News if you're navigating near one. Fortunately it's off by itself on this map and shouldn't get in the way. The black cloud to the upper right is a nebula which DRAMATICALLY slows down your ship unless you get particular warp drives. With the Codexia's current crappy engines, it'll take 125 days to reach Verdi from Glory. And as an example, it would take 388 days to reach Vizier from Glory, and 2736 days to reach Theta from Glory due to the nebula.
Codexia sets off for the lowest hanging fruit of Verdi!
Majestic~
Unfortunately we get nothing from the space whales. I have no idea if the good luck is an actual buff in the game or not, but we set off for Nergal.
Ships detected!
Goddamn bumfaces. We spend precious time retreating to Verdi. With no upgrades the Codexia is an absolute pig with little in the way of firepower, and certainly not capable of taking on multiple enemy ships. Time to try our luck on Simac.
Freebooter! I would normally hire the mercenary, but since the Codexia hasn't found any extra items or cargo, I would have to sell ship components. And I'll be damned if I'll make the Codexia even weaker! I leave the mercenaries, maybe we can return later. To Paragon!
I take this opportunity to rename the world discovered, and loot a new weapon! The coins above the item give you a vague idea of an item's value, which is useful for trading and having an idea of what items are better than others. I replace one of the two coin valued railguns on the Codexia with this beam weapon and head for Ire.
Sensor pick up 10 alien ships, and they're not terribly friendly. We retreat back to Paragon, then set a course for Hellion.
Another three coin beam weapon replaces our other railgun. Is this good? Damned if I know, but they're longer range than the railguns so they've got that going for them. Set course for Magog!
Eh. Certainly worth taking with us for trading fodder, but doesn't look like it's worth replacing a beam or our missile rack. To Alabaster!
Sensors pick up two separate groups of 5 ships each. This doesn't look good.
Our first entirely hostile aliens, and it's a big fuck-you group. 7 corvettes, a carrier, and 2 fighters. This is the combat screen, though it's so zoomed out to show everything you don't get as much detail. Since there's absolutely no way I could win this fight with the Codexia in this state I attempt to retreat. Successfully! Sometimes the exit for combat maps isn't near by but we were apparently right on top of it that time and leave almost immedaitely.
Back at Magog, we avoid Alabaster and make our way to Celeste.
Scuttlebug! Time to head to Indigo!
Brain in a jar! To Haze!
Sensors pick up one ship, and it's not friendly. We're dumped in to combat. Once again this is a situation we have no hope of winning, as tchorak asteroid ships are ridiculously tough. We retreat back to Indigo.
At this point we've gone to the left of the map and avoided slowing down and hitting the nebula, but there are still some stars to check out in the middle. Fortunately the nebula isn't terribly crippling and has been easy to avoid this game. To Bellerophon!
Garthan mercenary? Sure. He accepts one of our old railguns as payment and joins the Codexia. The Bloodfang is just a Garthan corvette, the same class of ship we met 7 of earlier, but a bit of help is better than an extra railgun sitting in the cargo hold. We set off with our spacebros for Iblis.
No items or aliens, just terrain. To Ochre!
ESMERELDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! SCUTTLEBUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUG! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! We lose our prize. TO AMBER!
Sensors pick up 9 ships, the 9 ships being surly bumfaces. Time to fall back again and head to Vizier.
Thus far the galaxy looks to be filled with assholes I gotta say.
A five coin shield! Still wouldn't be enough to let us take on some of the large fleets we've found, but it's better than our two coin shield. Probably.
The stasis cone contains a one coin artifact, and A HYPERDRIVE! A hyperdrive is the best FTL drive you can get, it almost instantly transports you to your destination, and only requires two months to recharge. Approximately 60 days travel time between systems is impossible to beat, and it ignores nebulas. Time shouldn't be an issue for exploring the rest of the galaxy now!
A four coin impulse engine to replace our one coin. Probably won't make much difference but what the fuck.
Sensors pick up one ship, a peaceful trading klakar! We also find a timeless bauble on this planet, which we can use. The trader doesn't have any particularly useful items for us (A nebular plow would be good if we didn't have a hyperdrive) so we live dangerously and use the bauble.
Our heart's desire is a text window. I get the feeling if I knew the names of items I could wish for something good here. Since I have no idea what the fuck things are called, I wish for "MCA realdoll"
A CRYSTAL FISH IS NOT A MCA REALDOLL WHAT THE HELL KIND OF SPACE GENIE ARE YOU FUCK THIS GAME.
We leave the STUPID CRYSTAL FISH on this planet to pick up the golden cannister. Time to crack it open and see what's inside!
Hurray! Now we have a two coin valued cannister and a three coin valued golden disk!
Bleh. We replace a one coin artifact with it. Slightly more valuable.
This device just puts a border along nebulas so you can more accurately judge the border, I guess. Kinda useless but what the hell, we have plenty of equipment slots left on the ship for devices.
Alien swap meet. These can be really good since they're not based on value, it's just item for item. Unfortunately they have nothing worthwhile, and we move on.
A muktian bro! Again, his ship is pretty small and wimpy, but may as well take him with us.
Sensors pick up a group of 7 small ships, a different "Group" of 1 large ship, and a third group of 4 large ships.
The bumfaces appear to be hostile.
The mucktians approve our aiding one of their kind and invite us to return to Amber. Except Amber was blocked by bumfaces, I believe. Will we be welcome?
Combat is engaged. Two bumface frigates and two bumface corvettes against our fleet, and the friendly mucktians who are fielding a frigate and 7 fighters. I'm not amount to let our new hideous alien companions get bumfaced! RED ALERT!
Looks like the battle is going to be the two bumface frigates heading toward my group, the two corvettes heading toward the mucktian frigate, and 5 mucktian fighters joining us. Also appears the mucktian frigate has long range missiles.
Well the fighters didn't last long. The mucktian ship in our fleet is destroyed, all the mucktian fighters are gone, and the bumfaces are still holding up well.
And final tally, all escort ships destroyed, but Codexia made it out unharmed. The mucktian frigate is damaged but alive, and all bumfaces destroyed.
I'm not sure if we're still welcome at Amber since our mucktian escort was destroyed and Amber seemed controlled by the bumfaces. We jump to the nearby Ruby and then jump to Amber, just in case we have to retreat before the hyperdrive is warmed up.
Sure enough, the bumfaces at Amber are still hostile. Damn.
Welp. We've looked at every system on the map. It's time to return home.
A shame our alien bros bit the dust, the extra ships would've added to our score. Probably for diplomacy, too. Still, a mission where you get home alive has to be a good one.
So ends the voyage of the Codexia. Unfortunately there isn't all THAT much more variety to the game, the gameplay mostly boils down to when and what you find and the shape of the map. Likely more interesting to play than to read, but hopefully this gives you a decent idea of what the game's like and hopefully you got a kick out of this brief adventure.
