Auralux: Constellations Review
by Omar (@siegarettes)
- Auralux: Constellations
- Developer- War Drum Studios/ E McNeil
- Publisher- War Drum Studios
- PC (Steam), also coming to Android and iOS
Within an hour of Auralux: Constellations I had already gotten into petty fights with the AI. They’d made a habit of taken the small planets that I’d decided were strategically relevant, and I continued to trade ownership of the planet, too stubborn to let it go. From there it got messier. I desperately fought off attacks from multiple sides, set up feints for territory, and let others fight only so I could swoop in for victory. Or at least, that’s the story that I wrote for it in my head.
That’s because there isn’t much of a narrative in Auralux: Constellations. In fact, Constellations is a sparse game by design. Aside from some small cosmic flair, Constellations is represented almost entirely by a minimalistic set of planets and particle effects. It’s a reflection of the pared down game design on display here. Constellations follows up the original Auralux (at one time known by the search engine unfriendly name of Aurora) with the same approach to deconstructing the strategy genre. There’s only two things to worry about: the geography of the map, and time.
That’s because Auralux (the original and this sequel) has only a single unit, which automatically builds up over time. This removes concerns of build queues and materials from consideration entirely. Your units are the single resource of the game, and to make sure you don’t waste them you’ll have to come in with well thought out timing.
This can turn matches into a nervous affair. The game goes to some trouble to present itself otherwise (there’s a chill electronic soundtrack that’s accompanied by melodic sound effects when opposing forces clash) but that veneer is destroyed when a match comes into full swing. At this point you’ll likely be switching between the tranquil default match speed into a faster one in order to cut the downtime. This is where Constellations does best at evoking the push and pull of larger strategy games without requiring the intense learning curve of them.
That’s not to say that Constellations is a small game. The titular constellations, clusters of levels in the shape of real life constellations of stars, each contain a generous set of levels and introduce a new mechanic. I’ll admit I got a bit eager and started jumping to new constellations prematurely just to see more of them. These are the primary additions to the original Auralux’s minimalist strategy, which break up what eventually became the single strategy to the game. In terms of meaningful additions, they vary in quality. The best additions I found where the ones that made you think more about the timing of your attacks. Additions like orbits, which have the planets you battle on moving on fixed paths through the stage, and gamma rays, which periodically fire beams that annihilate planets and force you to capture them again. These create a change in which positions become valuable to take and have you focus on new approaches, rather than taking everything available.
Others, like walls and mines, feel less successful. While they do force you to play in new ways, and even at times are used in interesting ways with other mechanics, they feel like artificial limits. They fall in line with more traditional strategy game concepts, which is exactly what makes them feel flat. Fog of war works because it limits information on your opponents, forces you to keep forward outposts to keep informed, and turns information itself into a resource. Constellations, by virtue of being pared down, has less information that you’re likely to need for a successful approach. Likewise, the geography of traditional battlefields was already evoked in the formations of the planets, which made kept it in your best interests to follow a particular path there. Walls limit those approaches further, which results in a less interesting game.
This gets to the core split in philosophy for Constellations. Part of it wants to appeal to the more casual strategy fan, stripping down anything not needed to enjoy the core of the genre. The other wants to build a deeper game, one with more traditional mechanics that can maybe get the attention of more traditional strategy game fans. Constellations is at its best when it opts for the first approach, evoking the structures of the larger genre while avoiding direct replication of it. Those are the moments that let you fill in the blanks with details, seeing the rise and fall of an empire–all within the span of 15 minutes.