Pandora: First Contact - Sci-Fi 4X Turn-Based Strategy Game

About

Pandora: First Contact is a science fiction 4X turn-based strategy game on a planetary scale.

In the future, factions have risen up from opportunities and ideologies independent of governments. Private corporations and religious movements have started wars over greed, ideology and power. Many have died and many lands lay in ruin. Planet Earth has been exhausted and colonial attempts on other planetary bodies have been in vain.

Finally, after decades of exploration, an interstellar probe has brought promise of a new world many light-years away. The most powerful factions have gathered their best men and women to send on a long journey to Pandora.

Far from desolate, the earth-like planet has been found to host a plethora of indigenous life forms. While the gigantic monstrosities inland and at the oceans seem relatively calm, human-sized bugs and fungus are threatening to stop mankind's expansion.

As the various factions strive to take control, each will research and develop numerous new technologies, discovering new weapons and industry, whilst opening trade agreements and forging alliances with other factions to gain a foothold. As they spread, they will discover ancient ruins from alien civilizations that will grant them advantages over their rivals.

Media

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Features

  • Explore a new world harboring a variety of eco-regions, from the frozen ice lands of the north, to vast deserts and lush tropical forests in the south.
  • Survive encounters with the planet's dangerous wild life. Deadly swarms walk the lands and agile predators fly in the skies. There is even talk of a giant creature in the oceans.
  • Live in harmony with nature or use it to further your cause. The indigenous life will react to your actions and treat you accordingly.
  • Discover ruins and artifacts, the relics of an ancient alien civilization long forgotten that can give you an edge against the planet life and other rivaling factions.
  • Found new cities to expand the borders of your empire. Manage cities by adjusting the tax rate, choosing production and assigning colonists to jobs.
  • Operate a fully globalized and pooled resource and growth system. Specialize one city to harvest minerals while churning out units in another.
  • Adapt your empire to pressing demand. Your colonists will migrate between cities based on factors such as pollution and living space.
  • Shape the landscape with terraforming, construct farms, mines, forts, and other improvements to increase the productivity of your colonies or to fortify positions.
  • Progress through a vast randomized research tree spanning dozens of technologies providing operations, buildings, units, weapons, and more.
  • Negotiate trade and research pacts with other factions for mutual benefits. Forge alliances to stand united against common foes.
  • Design your own units by choosing from a range of different classes, armors, weapons, and devices to maximize the strength of your forces.
  • Command vast armies across the battlefield against enemy factions, making use of the variety of terrain types to gain an advantage.
  • Unleash hell on your opponents with powerful military operations, ranging from drop pods behind enemy lines to black hole generators eradicating entire landscapes.
  • Prove yourself in multiplayer with friends or strangers and discover entirely new strategies.
  • Customize your experience through easily moddable XML data and well-known image and audio formats.

Wallpapers

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Details

Genre: Strategy
Developer:
Publisher: Slitherine
Platforms: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
Release Date: November 14, 2013
Languages: English, German, Italian, Dutch, French
Players: 1-6

Requirements

Minimum:
Operating System: Windows XP SP2 / Vista, Mac OS X 10.7, or Linux
Processor: Intel Core 2 or equivalent
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Hard Disk: 1 GB space free
Graphics: OpenGL 2.0 compatible with 256 VRAM (NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series / ATI Radeon 9500 series)
Display: 1024x720
Peripherals: Keyboard and mouse

Recommended:
Operating System: Windows 7, Mac OS X 10.8, or Linux
Processor: Intel Core i3 or equivalent
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Hard Disk: 2 GB space free
Graphics: OpenGL 2.0 compatible with 512 VRAM (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 series / ATI Radeon HD 4870 series)
Display: 1920x1080
Peripherals: Keyboard and mouse

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In the Press: Reviews and Impressions

"Pandora: First Contact was a very nice surprise. When I first tried it, roughly one year ago, I had hopes that it could become an enjoyable 4X title, but not to the extent that I found it to be now, at release. In other words, this is a much better game than I first expected and surely one of the games I enjoyed most playing in recent years."
– www.spacesector.com
"At the end of the day – be it Solar, or Pandoran – Proxy Studios have punched markedly above their weight with this game. Pandora: First Contact might have a few microscopic deficits with its written elements, but if you’re in the market to crash-land in the new-New World and tame all manner of exotic elements, then a fellow probably won’t be serviced better than via this very game."
– www.d22-zone.co.uk
"It feels quite different from Alpha Centauri in a lot of good ways. There are a lot of really really good ideas in Pandora. And this is a game I didn't think I would like as much as I do. This is a game full of streamlining, full of simplicity, full of clarity, ... and then it beats you in the ass. I tend to be very protective of Alpha Centauri. But I was actually really impressed by a lot of the decisions they made."
– Three Moves Ahead
"I've been praising the interface time and time again, but I think there's a very good reason to praise the interface because this is all really nicely put together and it shows pretty much everything at a glance."
– TotalBiscuit, The Cynical Brit
"Keep patching it, keep giving me expansions, I could play this game for a long time. If they keep feeding this game, this could potentially be a masterpiece, in the long term. Certainly very polished and clean. I am very impressed with this indie effort."
– quill18
"All in all, I would recommend Pandora First Contact to anyone who enjoys the turn based strategy 4x genre. It is challenging and will burn away the hours as you involve yourself in the world of Pandora."
– www.addictinggamereviews.com
"Whether it's the Mass Effect like soundtrack, the rolling of tanks across Xenomorph hives, or the rich quotes from famous leaders and philosophers that provide the flavour texts for events, Pandora: First Contact shines with particular distinction and should not be underestimated as a strategy game worth playing over and over again."
– www.wargamer.com
"Pandora: First Contact is the strategy surprise of the year. A solid atmospheric and well-thought-out product. Proxy Studios has delivered a game that does not need to hide behind genre giants."
– www.7idgaming.de
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