Dear players,

Yesterday Gaming Insight published a fine review about OGame (in german only) - gaming-insight.de/news/20-allgemein/2801-Browsergames-OGame. Probably we offer an english translation soon.

Regards, your Ogame.origin team.

Browsergames: Ogame

Ogame is probably known to most of you, as this browsergame already exists for over 10 years. Even today, people are attracted to it. Actually the gameplay is very simple. You improve your home planet, expand your empire and construct battle ships to send into battle, primarily against other players. Therefore, people who avoid contact with other players to protect themselves, will easily go into oblivion and serve as resource slaves for other players. Working together with others is an essential ingredient of Ogame. Lone Wolfs won’t necessarily have that much fun.

The game is played in real time. At the beginning, buildings only take a couple of minutes to finish. Later in the game, this can increase to hours and even days. Especially the research is very time expensive. It often takes one or two days to gather all the resources for one stage.


First Impression

I already used to play Ogame nine years and three years ago, therefore my impression of the game hasn’t changed a lot since then. I could cope easily and didn’t need to search long for anything. The tutorial shows you all the possibilities and its rewards aren’t irrelevant. It only needed a small number of clicks for me to find my way back in the game and I think that any newcomers will have an easy time as well.


Motivation

Ogame motivates you uncommonly, especially if you are as ambitious as me, who always wants to be better than my neighbor. I had to pace myself multiple times to not set my alarm clock in the middle of the night, because a building would finish at that time or I would have enough resources to build something new. People who want to succeed in a newer universe might have to do this, as everyone else does it as well. Attacking others at night is a very popular method so that the enemy can’t prepare himself as well. Currently, I again play the game more than I actually want to, but I just can’t stop since the next building wants to be upgraded soon.


Features

There are not only features in the game itself, but also out of it. Above all, it’s the Facebook page, which keeps you on track and informs you about fresh released patches, or newly opened universes. In addition, there is a forum to chat with other players and a very helpful tutorial site to facilitate the game entry or inform interested people about the game. Variety is provided through special universes with different rules. My personal favorites are those, where time runs faster.


Ingame Shop

This is the catch. The advantages, which those items give you, are massive over non-paying customers. The currency is called “Dark Matter” and offers you special bonuses for your colonies. For example, you can increase your resource production by 30% or decrease the construction time of your buildings massively. This leads to the situation, where non-paying players fall behind quickly, especially at the important start phase of a universe. Advantages are usually time-limited and last for a week. If you want to give it all, you can easily lose ten euros a week to purchase the best of everything. There is also a way to earn dark matter via expeditions. The chance and harvest of it is very low though and at the start phase practically useless.


Graphic

The graphics are really nothing to sneeze at. The images are lovingly hand drawn and provide a feeling of future and creditability. Altogether, the game is held in the formative colors of black and blue which perfectly reflect the atmosphere of outer space and infinity. There are certain color accents for important things. The classical warning color red is used for fights, while green is taken for feasible actions and positive effects.


Clarity

Once you login, you have all important information displayed at a glance. The menus are arranged logically and provide you exactly what you want after just one click. You can’t really miss anything and always have a feeling of full control over everything happening. I personally only asked myself where I could find the tutorial again after I closed it. After 5 minutes of looking around, I simply clicked on the most obvious icon, the question mark. Another disturbing factor for me was the tech tree. If there is something you can not build yet, there is the tech tree button, which shows you exactly what you are still missing. The view is clear, but it disturbed me that it always opened in a new window. The rest of the game goes very intuitive, which is why newcomers will easily cope with it. Note: The current menu is no comparison to the old version of the game, for which you practically needed a diploma.


Control

Navigation is very simple since you only need a mouse. Buildings and ships are constructed just as easy as new technologies are researched. Battles are fought automatically. You receive a clear protocol at the end which gives you all the important information. This requirement is essential for a beginner-friendly game with the potential to fascinate you over a long time.


Sound

Making a good game doesn’t necessarily require good sounds. Following this idea, Ogame doesn’t have any music or sounds at all which could hinder the game flow. OGame can therefore run alongside other games or applications without disturbing. Playing in public is also easier since you don’t attract any attention. Of course this has the disadvantage that you always have to check the display, since you don’t get any feedback when you are attacked or something has finished building.


Conclusion

Although I have only been playing OGame for a week now, I am fully amazed by it. During the next few weeks, I am probably going to keep trying things out and experimenting. Whenever it hits me and I am destroyed by a stronger enemy, I will start in a newly released universe, with more knowledge. The simplicity of the game really attracts me. I am not annoyed by animations and can leave the game at the side for a longer time, if I want to. I can really recommend everyone to have at least a look at it. It’s worth it!

Before I forget: Of course the screenshots in this article are made in a different universe, in case one of you wants to visit me to say “Hello”


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Thanks a lot to Flippy for the great translation work