Turning The Spigot - Year 2: Week 41 - Galcon Fusion

It's Geometry Wars meets RTS as triangles of various colours try to take over the galaxy in this week's edition of Turning The Spigot.

Galcon Fusion



Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch
Year: 2010
Rating: Rhomboisterous!
# of Players: 1-4 (depending on system)

Galcon Fusion is an addictive, fast and maddening strategy game available on almost every platform. It takes elements of the real-time strategy genre and strips away almost all of the superfluous trappings to give you a game that can see the balance of power shift all over the place during the course of a single game.

Galcon Fusion takes place in a randomly generated galaxy filled with planets of various sizes. Your goal is to take over the galaxy. It sounds simple but you're usually faced with multiple opponents, AI or human, who want to do the same thing. Each planet has a certain population on it represented by a number. If a planet is controlled by a player, that number will gradually increase whereas neutral planets are stuck with whatever their initial population is.

Taking place in real time, your struggle to spread your dominion over the galaxy begins. By highlighting one or more of your planets and sending a percentage of that population out into space and crashing into neighbouring planets, thereby depleting their population until it reaches zero, at which point the planet becomes yours. You can adjust the percentage of ships that each planet will launch on the fly and knowing when to be aggressive and when to play it safe can mean the difference between victory and defeat.

Matches tend to evolve into a tug of war between factions. As the playing field is whittled down and two major players emerge, it is fascinating to see the ebb and flow of battle as one side commits itself too strongly to offense, only to find the enemy taking out planets along its flank. Because your ships need to travel from planet to planet, getting that foothold in enemy territory and building it up is a key strategy on the way to victory.

Galcon Fusion has the standard 'defeat everyone' mode mentioned above and then several other modes that incorporate the same basic premise but with a twist. Some have you racing against the clock while others hide the enemy's ships or have the planets moving around, which can have a profound effect on strategy.

Galcon on the iPhone/iPod Touch is a stripped down version of Fusion without as many fancy visuals but otherwise the same suite of multiplayer and single player modes as Fusion.


Galcon Fusion is available on Steam for $10 and on the iPad for $1.99. Galcon will run you about $2.99 for your iPhone/iPod Touch needs.