Today seems to be about line drawing games. Of the two we’re covering, AstroSerf is the more traditional connect point A to point B sort of game where mistakes are less easily punished. But don’t let that fool you into thinking that this is an easy game—on the contrary the various solar systems each have their own brand of difficult, whether it be orbital path, speed or number of planets.

Each of these levels have a star in the middle, a fiery hot ball that disintegrates most obstacles upon contact. And because we’re in outer space we will generally come across space debris. Do you feed this debris to the star instead of letting it land on your planets? Yes, in fact. But you won’t be drawing lines, by tapping on the screen you can emit a pulse that repels this debris away. Land it on a planet and it won’t be able to carry the maximum amount of ships, but it can be dragged off to try and obliterate again.

The micro management comes in navigating the right ships to the right planets. There are three types; small, fast ships, medium ones and larger, slower craft. You can tell by the lights on each one as it docks—once they are all green the ship is ready to leave. Whilst you draw a connection from the ship to the planet with your finger, the choice of landing site is determined by the game, and so if it lands on a side that is near the star then it’s best to move it off than risk it burning up in flames.

Speaking of which, everything that ends up in this star—debris or craft—only helps fuel the fire, and over time the thing will grow and burn hotter. This is bad news for nearby planets, but it does add an interesting dynamic to the game. As AstroSerf doesn’t punish you for a collision by ending the game, you tend to experience a universe that is ever changing and evolving. Instead of the one life system, this title employs a three strike rule; make three mistakes in quick succession and you’re out, but you have the chance to recover if you sharpen up and try harder to dock the ships without colliding them with each other. For this you can regain your strikes, and so the game continues; but of course you do lose points for collisions.

Each solar system, while each more difficult than the last is almost identical in style. It would have been nice to have got a few more different obstacles or level types—how about a level with one central planet and moons orbiting dangerously close that could mow down your craft? Or a level with a black hole instead of a central star, that got progressively bigger as you threw things into it—eventually consuming the map and the planets with it? Because the maps are so similar there’s not much incentive to play every one, especially as they are all available from the get go.

The graphics and sound are well done. There’s a nice library of various sound effects from funky landing and take off sounds to crashing sounds and chunky button sounds that fit well with your own music or the nice downtempo soundtrack that comes with the game. You can get a feel for the general atmosphere by watching the above gameplay video.

We’re pleasantly surprised with AstroSerf, and although it may only be a slight variation on a whole bunch of games, it’s a nice complement to games such as Flight Control. If you’re expecting something radically new, this is not it but it is still a fun game.

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