Slipways takes the space grand strategy genre and condenses the best parts of it down by throwing away all the micromanagement and the steep learning curve. The result is a game in which you can finish a run quickly, but still have a deep experience full of important decisions.

Colonize planets, carefully pick industries and hook everything up so that one planet's production serves another planet's needs. Line everything up just right and watch your planets evolve and grow - giving you even more options for profitable trade. Make long-term plans and bask in your glory when they come to fruition and that one last connection makes six planets upgrade at the same time.

There is no military aspect to pull your focus away from the economy and the game is more relaxed than your typical space strategy. It's all about exploring virgin space, shaping it to your whim and developing it to its full potential. No need for war with so much empty universe to claim.

Forget about tedious micromanagement and spending time waiting for ships to build. In Slipways, every action you take has immediate consequences, and every choice you make is of paramount importance. Your planets govern themselves while you focus on making the right decisions to get them what they need. You'll waste none of your precious time on busywork - a single run takes 40-60 minutes and they are all filled with the good stuff.

There are no boring technologies in Slipways. Instead of making a building 20% more efficient, technologies you invent will let you move planets at will, harness stars for energy and create food out of vacuum. The selection varies each run, so you'll have to plan carefully and adapt to the situation at hand - every path through the tech tree results in a unique experience that profoundly changes how you look at the game's planets and resources.

When a single run takes no more than an hour, what you need is replayability. Almost everything in Slipways is procedurally generated and each sector of the galaxy offers wildly different challenges, from supernovae threatening your planets to space rips you have to bridge. To overcome these challenges, you'll enlist the help of various races populating the empire, each with their own philosophical outlook, varied abilities and a dedicated slice of the technology tree. There are 80+ technologies to choose from and you'll only be using about 10 of them each run, so no two games are ever exactly alike.

Slipways

Sampling the Menu Achievement

Sampling the Menu

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AndyHat