http://www.desura.com/games/galactic-arms-race

I was looking at this because it looks like a decent multiplayer space romp. However, someone in the comments made a point that worries me.

It's a game, that you have to buy on Desura, that supposedly needs Steam to run, but is also on Greenlight!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=120872919

Has anyone bought/seen this? Any idea what's going on with that?

I don't trust it at all. I saw it when it released but my interest passed when I saw it required Steam.

There are a few games on Desura that require Steam, but the fact that this one is on Greenlight now makes me incredibly suspicious.

A bit of new info: http://www.desura.com/games/galactic-arms-race#comments

I'm so confused. Why do they need "an automated way to distribute keys"? If they were ON STEAM wouldn't they just be able to distribute a demo THROUGH STEAM?

I know, it's very confusing and a bit evasive.

And the question of why it's on Greenlight is still there. If it's on Steam then it's on Steam.

Whats the point of this game being on Desura when it requires Steam (i suppose because its multi they have to take advantage of steams system for that unless they wanna make their own....) ?

So we would be buying a game, which needs Steam, however it isnt greenlit on steam yet.... sooo.....

And why are they on Greenlight for "ad space"? That's...umm...they paid $100 for people to vote to buy a game on Steam through a service that's barely used anymore...except your game already runs on Steam but can't be bought on Steam. Mind. Blown.

For what it's worth...it IS on the Bronasium. Meaning it IS there, somewhere, in the Steam records. Last updated in December of 2011.

http://cdr.thebronasium.com/app/60900

EDIT: And another one, if I got the app number right:

http://cdr.thebronasium.com/app/7994

And no Steam page exists for that app ID.

But now this begs the question. If it IS on Steam, and we have proof it is, why the hell isn't it being sold through Steam? And if it's just being released NOW why was the last update in December of 2011? And what's more, it was last updated in December of 2011 TO VERSION 1.2!

The hell is going on? I like the look of the game, especially the procedurally generated guns based on user preference and all. But I don't want to buy from a dev that's confusing the hell out of me about why it's being sold in such a dodgy manner.

weird

Hey, I work on Galactic Arms Race. The game is fully integrated into Steam with achievements, and cloud storage, however it just doesn't have public ad space. Why? Long story, but basically due to a 2-year legal issue with the university where it was created. Just letting you know it isn't fake or some kind of scam. We will be doing a "pay what you want" model (like the humble bundles) soon.

In the mean time, PM me here and you can request as many Steam Product Keys for the game as you wish (for friends, family, WoW guild, whoever). Then try out the game and vote us up if you like it.

I've never seen that site, but they may be using the old Steamworks Publishing service to collect their data? Valve rolled out a new and way more developer-friendly publishing system called SteamPipe. Basically a developer can login, upload and new version, and set it live within a few minutes. Under the old service you had to contact a Valve rep and they had to manually update your game to the new version. GAR was migrated over to the new SteamPipe service around that time last year I think.

Disciples 3 Rebirth is a game sold on GamersGate (actually I think its the only place selling it) which is a fully integrated Steam game which isn't sold on Steam itself. It is odd, but this does happen and I assume it has to do with background factors that we customers are generally not aware of (in the case of Disciples 3 the company going bust probably curtailed further negotiations to sell it - however the Russian version which was out for far longer, was also not sold on the Russian Steam - even though it too is a steamworks game)

I can't find Rebirth on GG. Only the gold edition, which is also a package on Steam.

Gotcha.

So I got a few keys for Galactic Arms Race due to the generosity of Fippy_Darkpaw and I've tried the game out for a bit in single-player.

The best way I can describe it is an open world shmup. I don't know if the world is procedurally generated but I have reason enough to believe it isn't.

It doesn't have a whole lot of features that particularly make it stand out, but the generative guns make it worth trying. There was one gun in particular that sort of stunned me. It shot short range shots, barely enough to hit enemies at a good distance, and when it hit its max range, it left what was essentially a mine, waiting for some poor sap to run into it. It could work almost identically to a shotgun at short range, but it could also work as a mine launcher. Now that's cool.

It's a bit tough to start, though, given that enemy spawns are random and you start off being significantly slower than both the average shot from an enemy and, oftentimes, than the enemy themselves.

I didn't find a whole lot of depth, given that almost every sector seems to be identical, they're pretty small and, so far, the sectors even share enemies. I'm hoping that changes later (I'm only in the second sector).

So yeah, open-world shmup, dungeon crawler lite (one could easily think of each sector as a level in a dungeon). Not any sort of trading game by any stretch of imagination.

I got in on the giveaway so I decided to give this game a try. It's not a bad game, but it seems to lack in variety of missions. Go kill 10 aliens, next go kill 10 pirates, next go kill a space blob, go to the next area and repeat. My last mission was to use the warhead launcher 5 times, which I got at level 47, but you need to be 50 to purchase. No biggie, levels go by fairly quickly, so I got to 50 and purchased it. However, when I tried to use it, it says I have not purchased one, but immediately after I tried to buy it again, and it says I already owned one. I think I'm stuck until this bug is worked out. (EDIT: This bug was fixed a few hours later)

What this game does have variety in is the types of weapons, but it's not very clear about how modifying your weapon is going to end up changing it until you've already changed it. It's more give it a try and hope for the best. It's also not very clear about which weapons do the most damage. Is a weapon that only shoots one shot at a time going to have it's damage concentrated or should I go for the guns that have the widest spread?

The mechanic about changing your guns angle seems like it might have been a good idea, but it ends up just being annoying when you modify it and have to change your gun back so it shoots where my mouse is at. It also annoying trying to modify a weapon in the middle of combat because you're pretty much a sitting duck for a couple of seconds. It's a pain when these problems come together where I take a few hits to modify my gun, but then it ends up switching the angle of my gun.

I think it would be better if you could just grab the item and have it in your inventory so that you can later go back to base and see whether you can preview the changes and see if you want to use it. It would also be great if there were a safety area where you could be next to your base and not have to worry about getting shot at. There would have to be rules to prevent it from being abused for PVP purposes, but you shouldn't have to take breaks when trying to do stuff at the base to have to defend yourself.