This is probably the coolest game you can download on XBL Arcade. It’s a management sim / tycoon game lite for the console only with compelling addictive gameplay, several story modes to keep you going (each with their own unique mechanics) and no spreadsheets for you to stare at. The main gist of the game is that you manage an space outpost that you expand by building additional features i.e. chem labs, burger joints, power generators etc. Simplified Sim City in a nut shell.
Outpost Kaloki X is one of those games like Civilisation where you’ll jump on just to “play for a bit”, even for a 10-15 minute scenario, screw it up, do “one more turn” and before you know it hours have gone by. A lot of sim games in the past will set you up with arbitary challenges such as “reach coal age by 1935″ or “build 10 crystal meth labs and then crush them all with police bulldozers”. They are usually detached from the main game and there’s never any compelling reason to actually do them unless you are supremely confident in your micromanagement ability or are just bored. It’s also the reason why those games are often only fun in sandbox mode with all the money cheats on. Not so with Outpost Kaloki, each scenario is tied into the story giving you a compelling reason to keep going i.e. “we need this outpost to be a money printing machine” while in the next scenario it’s “okay we spent your money, now we need you to build an outpost that can entertain the troops we just bought”. Each scenario has you working with a different type of base with a different end of the tech tree or focus. It avoids the most common mistake of a lot of management sim games and even RTS in that you are almost never repeating exactly what you did in previous scenarios and keeps you wanting to see what you’ll get next. Player progression is paced perfectly here.
Ninjabee have also created, in my opinion the finest example of how you do downloadable content. There are a bunch of free scenarios that extend your play after you’ve beaten the story modes or if you just feel like playing a stand alone challenge but there are also additional downloadable story mode campaigns and standalone missions that come at a measly premium price (200 or 100 premium pts) that offer whole new art and mechanics that you haven’t seen before (currently there is a love story, as well as one invoving the gods). If they wish they can literally extend the game “episodically” and continue to make money with microtransactions with content that won’t feel like you’re being nickle and dimed for things that should have came free, but literally “more game” to play. It’s definitely cheaper than developing a new game from scratch at least.
Oh before I forget, it’s also the finest example I’ve seen of how to do a trial on XBLArcade. It’s starting to become a trend for games that let you play further into the game but just disabling the save function to encourage you to buy it if you like it. Outpost Kaloki is naturally addictive and has enough depth (even for a sim-lite) game that a “quick play” turned into over an hour by the time I was at mission 4 of the adventure story, and I knew I was hooked and had to pony up. It’s a trend I like and encourages developers to create games they think will stand up to long term play and gameplay that they are confident in but it also has it’s drawbacks. The drawback for this type of trial is that if your game is naturally shallow then you will expose it for what it is in the demo, and a gamer will get too much out of the demo and it won’t be sufficient enough for them to buy. There are games that fail at this miserably. You’d have to weigh the risk and your knowledge of your own game and assess whether you have enough gameplay or additional elements that will convert someone trialing your game to a purchase.
Currently Outpost Kaloki X is a steal at roughly $10 (800 pts), there is just as much single player gameplay for your money as many full priced titles, and when you’re done there’s downloadable content to spend your leftover points on. At $10 it’s also half the price of the PC version that doesn’t have the option for additional content (including the combat mechanics you get in “war story”), it’s a steal by comparison. Stop reading this and go check this out NOW.
To learn more – http://www.ninjabee.com/okx.html
