Amplitude Studios is one of the indie studios has definitely embraced the idea of ongoing development and fan feedback. Their Games2Gether system, early access launches, polls and ongoing, free addons make their games one to watch as a model going forward.
That however is a bit beside the point as their first 4x, Endless Space, has been announced to get its 7th free addon next week – Chronicles of the Lost. Chronicles will update both Disharmony (the expansion pack) and the vanilla version. With Disharmony they are improving some of the flaws that were in the expansion pack (which received mixed reviews), and also bug fixes for both it and the vanilla game.
For now, Amplitude is keeping most of the details back, promising to release them over the week but they did announce the first addition to it – New Events. Beyond just the general promise of all sorts of new events added in (such as exploration events), there is a new type of Event. Colonisation Events are the new addition and they seem like something obvious to have. When you colonise a new planet, these events can be triggered causing different things to happen.
In one example they showed, it gave 60 research because you found odd ruins that you realize you aren’t quite sure what they are. Exploring the universe, you realize you know less then you thought you did and there are more and more questions to ask. Another example is similar though it presents a choice when you find ruins on a different planet – the evil choice lets you scrap them for 2 industry over 10 turns – a quick chance to get the planet up and running, the neutral lets you recycle them giving you a permanent boost of 1 industry there, and the good option has you study them for -1 industry for 10 turns, but also +3 science on the planet for 20 turns.
Essentially these events give another trigger for things to happen and give the game a chance to feel like you’re exploring these planets when you are settling them.
Endless Space was originally released in 2011 and you can buy a copy of it from TechRaptor’s GameFan Store which currently has it on sale.
