According to a recent press release from Large Visible Machine, the new science fiction space battle game, Doomstar, is coming to PC and Mac on September 16th. A prototype for the game was featured at the UK Games Expo in 2016.
Doomstar is an exclusive digital release from the board game designer Lew Pulsipher. He is a teacher, game designer, and author. His history has included role playing games, board games, card games, and video games. He has designed half a dozen published boardgames such as Britannia, Dragon Rage, and Sea Kings. However, he’s also dabbled a bit in the gaming industry. In the 1970’s, Pulsipher wrote for gaming publications such as Dragon magazine, White Dwarf, and The Space Gamer. Most of the articles were centered around Role Playing Games such as Dungeons and Dragons. With this in mind, it’s clear that despite Pulsipher’s background, he is no stranger to the gaming industry.
According to the press release, the company started working on Doomstar more than 30 years ago. Lew publisher says that Doomstar originally had more in common with Stratego, a board game where players capture the opponent’s flag or cause a surrender. The company says that new units and mechanics made the game “quite a different and much shorter than the original.” Below is a quote from the official website which details the features of Doomstar’s digital version:
The digital version adds customisable fleets and board designs as well as a single-player campaign where players can learn how to play the game and master the different strategies against the computer.
Large Visable Machine states that Doomstar features asynchronous online multiplayer, three different opponents in the single-player campaign, and a five-song soundtrack by space composer Simon Heath.
According to Large Viable Machine’s official website, Doomstar is currently in First Access. The game is available for early beta testing. The website also encourages users to sign up.