If I were a military commander of any description, I get the feeling I wouldn’t exactly be stellar at my job. That lackluster pun is the best I’ve got to introduce Blindflug Studios’ Stellar Commanders. In Stellar Commanders, three major factions are battling each other in a resource war for control over sources of iridium, a rare earth metal. Each faction has space-faring technology, which enables them to travel to distant planets to harvest as much iridium as each extraterrestrial planet may contain. It seems each of the three factions has the same information about where iridium can be found.

This ensures that you’ll have to fight over each planet, no matter which of the three factions you choose to play as. Your goal in each war that takes place within Stellar Commanders is to destroy all territory claimed by your enemy before they destroy your territory. To do this, you’ll need to build certain types of units within the territory you control. You’ll need iridium to build units, however. Your iridium stockpile builds over time (up to a maximum of 10), so it’s just a matter of waiting until you have enough to build the specific units you want during the battle.

You can build support units in your territory to speed up the process of harvesting iridium. Then you’ve got an array of more standard units, such as rockets you fire to destroy enemy territory, defense systems to destroy incoming enemy rockets before they hit their target, and light and heavy ground units that can conquer additional territory for you. Heavy ground units can also conquer territory that your enemies control, provided any enemy territory is within these units’ movement range. Further, you can use iridium to order orbital strikes that destroy incoming enemy ground units.

Each battle starts with a short “preparation phase,” where you’re given time to freely build a starting assortment of whichever units you think you’ll need. Neither of the two players in a battle can attack or conquer new territory during the preparation phase. Considering each unit takes a different amount of time to build once you’ve ordered its construction, the preparation phase can really come in handy. After this, the battle begins. You can now freely start sending any rockets you’ve built toward your enemy’s lands while you wait for your iridium stockpile to grow.

That’s the gist of Stellar Commanders’ core gameplay loop. Stellar Commanders features a single-player story mode, online multiplayer with matchmaking functionality, and the ability to engage AI players in battle. I’m honestly not impressed with Stellar Commanders since its core gameplay loop feels rather basic. The fact that Stellar Commanders is available on iOS makes sense to me, since you could probably conclude a battle or two whenever you’ve got a few minutes of downtime. That being said, I don’t see a reason for Stellar Commanders to also have a PC version. Stellar Commanders doesn’t quite offer enough gameplay variety to justify a Steam release.

Stellar Commanders also contains a fair few mistakes in its spelling and grammar. I know I’m notorious for zeroing in on this seemingly minor issue whenever I see it, but I do so in the hopes that more game developers will realize it’s worth putting in the time and effort to proofread their games’ writing. To summarize, I cannot recommend Stellar Commanders because its gameplay tends to become repetitive pretty quickly. As I said, Stellar Commanders makes much more sense to me as an iOS game. I’d have been much less disappointed with Stellar Commanders if it hadn’t also tried and failed to make a name for itself on Steam.

A PC review key for Stellar Commanders was provided by Blindflug Studios for this review.

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Stellar Commanders

$8.99

4

Score

4.0/10

Pros

• Interesting story concept.

Cons

• Core gameplay loop quickly becomes repetitive.
• Spelling and grammar mistakes indicate a lack of attention to detail.