StarCrawlers - Early Evaluation

----GAMEPLAY---
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Combat is turn based, your team of crawlers against the enemies. Enemies are shown on screen as sprites, and your team is represented only by the health bars at the bottom of the screen and on top via the initiative tracker. Initiative is determined using a system called Time Units. Each action costs a certain amount of time units, and this dictates where your action places you during a fight. When a character or enemy reaches 0 Time Units they can take an action. For example, if your basic attack is 150 time units, then when you use it you drop to place 150 on the chart. If an enemy currently has 100 Time Units, you go after they do, but if your action only cost 55 time units then you would go again BEFORE the enemy could act. Its fairly easy to figure out once you get the hang of it. My hacker is fast enough with light armor, for example, that I frequently get two or three turns before an enemy gets to go with her, or anyone else on my team for that matter. You need to pay attention to your weapons and armor and what effect they have on your Time Units in battle, as heavier armor can inflict a penalty to your speed, basically making every action cost more, while light armor can do the opposite. Heavier weapons do more damage, but also cost more in Time. It's a balancing act. Also your special attacks cost Time Units as well.

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----AUDIO---

The sound work in this game is serviceable. The music is frequently overshadowed in combat by the sound effects, which are again solid but nothing noteworthy. There is no voice work or voice acting at this time, so no comment really there. Truthfully, I barely notice the sound most of the time unless I am in the main station. The music that plays there is dreary, and monotone, and I suppose it's meant to be that way, to give you a feeling of being out on a lone space station in the middle of space. Combat music though does have a more frantic feel, but again can frequently get overshadowed by the booms and zaps of your special attacks and guns.

During exploration, when you can hear the music in the dungeons, its really quite nice.

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