Sword of the Stars: The Pit

Sword of the Stars: The Pit (sometimes shortened to SotS: The Pit) is a science fiction video game developed by Kerberos Productions. It is set in the universe of the game Sword of the Stars and is self-published through funding from an Indiegogo campaign. It was released on GamersGate on February 21, 2013 and released on steam on March 8, 2013.^[1] Versions for Xbox 360, Android and iOS are planned.^[2]

The player controls a character exploring an ancient alien facility (called “The Pit”) to find a potential cure for a plague that has devastated the human population of the planet. The game’s difficulty increases as the player progresses deeper into the the alien facility.

Gameplay

Sword of the Stars: The Pit is a 2D roguelike dungeon crawler game. The game is turned-based, using rounds as time intervals to keep track of game mechanics such as movement and combat.

At the start of the game, the player chooses one of 12 possible classes. There are 3 playable classes in the original version of the game, with the 9 other classes available through purchasing game expansions. The original three classes are Scout, Engineer, and Marine. Each class is distinguished by their unique initial starting stats. For example, the Marine starts with a higher amount of the might attribute than the Engineer, which makes them more skilled in melee combat. The Engineer starts with more of the brains attribute than the Marine, making them better at skills such as detecting traps. In addition to varying starting stats, each class begins the game with a different set of equipment which includes food, weapons, and tools.

The goal of the game is to reach the last floor of the pit to find the cure to the plague. There are 30 floors in the original game and 40 floors total with the expansions.^[3] Along the way, the player needs to defeat enemies, find collectibles, and monitor their health and hunger meters. If either or both of these meters deplete, the character dies.

With each new floor, the enemies get more difficult and a higher level of skill is needed to accomplish tasks such as opening boxes and repairing devices. In order to keep up with this increasing difficulty, players must level up their characters. Every task completed in the game, such as killing enemies, gives experience points which contribute to the character’s overall level. When the character levels up, the player is given points which they can allocate the stats and skills of their choosing.

The player’s vision of the floor is limited to the character’s field of view. Enemies directly behind the character or behind walls cannot be seen by the player. There is a minimap in the corner of the screen that allows the player to see the floor they’re currently on. Each floor has fog of war, only allowing the player to see rooms that they have already explored on the minimap.

Development

Crowdfunding

Sword of the Stars: The Pit was funded through an Indiegogo campaign with an initial goal of $60,000.^[1] The campaign closed on November 14, 2012 after raising $23,941 (40% of its fundraising goal). Despite not reaching full funding, developers completed and released the game 3 months after the campaign closed.

Expansions/Downloadable Content

Five expansions have been added to the game since the initial release, upping the original 3 playable characters to 12 and adding more game content, such as weapons, floors, recipes, and enemies. The original expansion was titled Mind Games and was followed by the release of the Gold Edition, which bundled the original game with the Mindgames expansion and added more playable characters.^[3]

The Gold Edition bundle is still available on Steam, but does not include any of the downloadable content that was added to the store after.

Reception

Sword of the Stars: The Pit received mixed to positive reviews. It has a score of 68 out of 100 on Metacritic and a score of 72.00% on GameRankings.^[4][5]

Destructoid scored the game as 7.5/10. The reviewer for Destructoid was disappointed that the game didn't challenge their expectations and instead chose to stay in its comfort zone, they summed up the review by saying "While there is nothing fundamentally wrong with Sword of the Stars: The Pit, there just isn't anything that is really mind-blowing. It is a well-polished roguelike that doesn't stray far from expectations, but instead stays in a rather comfortable zone from a game design perspective."^[6]

87% of the 810 user reviews on Steam rate this game positively.^[7]

References

External links

• Sword of the Stars: The Pit - on Steam
• Sword of the Stars: The Pit Wiki
• Indiegogo fundraiser