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What is it?

Space Station 13 is a two-dimensional, multiplayer, role-playing game developed on a game engine called Byond.

The game supports fully destructible environments as well as simulating realistic atmospherics within the limits of a two-dimensional game.

The game's location takes place on a fully destructible space station which is in orbit of a nearby gas giant.

The main goal of the station varies with each round but for the players, they must do their jobs accordingly and survive against the randomly chosen antagonists, stretching from Traitors, Nuclear Operatives, Wizards, Eldritch Gods, Malfunctioning AI and so on.

The best part about is that you, the player, with your fancy job title, have absolutely no idea who the antagonists are -- if any even exist.

The Game-play

Introduction Mechanics

You are not alone on this station, most servers can support more than 100 players at the same time, making it pretty chaotic at times.

When the round begins you spawn with a job assigned to you. Now, it is up to you to "do your job", doing all sorts of tasks that will help the rest of the crew and the station.

Job titles can vary from something simple as Janitor to the leader of the entire station, the Captain. Of course, every job has a significant impact on the station. Let's take an example with The Janitor. 

The Janitor's job is to clean the station and make sure there are no organs, blood, and body parts laying about randomly when you're traveling around the station. If the station is a mess, then the crew will behave like that too, thus making the round be a total chaos.

Each job has an endless replay value and there are many different things you can do with just one job. The game has an incredibly large number of systems, subsystems, and mechanics that allow the player to do almost anything their imagination allows them to.

While you might be spawning with a job title, someone else can spawn as something much more special, each game-mode in Space Station 13 has some sort of antagonist role whose job is to cause you, the crew and the station as a whole, problems. The antagonists usually have objectives which range from stealing a specific item to the assassination of a crew member or even the complete overthrowing of the station and each antagonist can accomplish those tasks in countless ways.

Steep Learning Curve

Now that we accomplished a base-line we can talk about some of the cons of Space Station 13's game-play. Even though you can make viruses, drugs, and even build an entire station from scratch, this doesn't touch on the steep learning curve of the game.

There is no in-game tutorial on how to do things, if you wanna be an Engineer, you're in for one hell of a journey since you're gonna have to play with the Wikipedia open at all times. The same goes for any other job. Wanna build a robot? Wikipedia open. Wanna cook some Omelette du Fromage? Wikipedia open.

Of course, in time you will remember all of this but it'll take a very long while, even veteran players play with the Wikipedia open and learn new things almost every day.

Different Servers & Game Modes

There are many different servers catering to different types of players. If you like to role-play, there are servers for that, if you want to have role-played but on a smaller scale and just have fun with your fellow crew members, then there are servers for that.

If you want to be a soldier fighting against aliens as a soldier in a military corporation, or even become the alien and strike back, then we even have that.

Drawbacks of Game-Play

Although the depth of the game is immense, there are some drawbacks.

This game is clunky, typically slow-paced, and at times the server can slow down to a crawl, this will make some rounds not fun to continue playing. This is not because of the servers but because of Byond, an engine that is decades old.

Clicking on this game is very dangerous, a wrong click could burn your fellow security officer because you accidentally shot your laser at him. A good test of your skill in this game is if you can light a cigarette without igniting your hair on fire -- or even someone else.

The Graphics

You might be wondering if this game is as great and fancy as the game-play describes, why does almost no one know about this game? And one reason for that might be the graphics of this game.

As you can see, a huge chunk of the screen is actually a big white chat box, not only that but the art-style itself, even though I don't consider it bad, it might put off a lot of people.

The FPS in this game are not capped, but it's usually around 20 on most servers, not because it can't support more, but because more than 60 will make the game look weird and glitched.

The art-style also differs from server to server, some will be better, and some will be worse, it depends on which server you're on.

Final Conclusion

This game is not for everyone, if graphics and smoothness of game-play is a big factor to you, then this game isn't for you. But if you can overcome that and give it a try, Space Station 13 can offer you thousands of hours of game-time and stimulate your imagination to do anything that is possible. It is also a very good social game if you want to make friends and role-play.

It is a game that can cater to a lot of people if they can overcome the graphics and clunkiness of the game.

Last Words

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