fOR AN ALPHA THE CURRENT BUILD OF hORIZON FEELS QUITE STABLE, THE available GAME DYNAMICS SOLID, THE GENERAL CONCEPT INTERESTING. iT IS A BY-THE-BOOK GALACTIC CONQUEST GAME, STREAMLINED, SIMPLE. iT IS ENJOYABLE AND ENTERTAINING BUT LACKS ANY WOWING FACTOR. i EVEN DARE SAY THAT A FEW OF ITS IDEAS FALL ON THE DULL SIDE OF THINGS, LIKE COMBAT, ALTHOUGH THIS might get FIXEd WITH A LITTLE BALANCING, IT IS, AFTER ALL, A wORK IN pROGRESS.

The first thing to notice with the current Alpha is that it goes smoothly. My only complain would be that for a game that isn't visuals intensive it sure makes the GPU sweat, I imagine this is due to a not-yet optimized graphics engine or something that needs to be looked at. Other than that I have had no other glitch during my testing.

Starting with the tutorials is the default behaviour but there is no penalty to figuring out things on our own, that is why there is a Steam achievement for each option. I went with the former one, following the instructions which are precise and obtaining the desired results. The interface is minimalistic and the available options never go beyond what is necessary to achieve one thing or the other, other word for this is "accesible".

We can see the whole Galaxy in the main view, from there we can zoom in or out, we can then pick surveyed starts to see a list of the planets that circle it. If a planet has been colonized we can zoom further into it to manage it. In planet view there are a few things to do and see, including the build queues for the ships.

Planet management allows us to see and handle everything at a glance. There are no hidden extras, nothing to really choose from, just decide what we want done. There are six tabs to keep an eye on: Trade, Government, Entertainment, Farming, Industry and Research. All we really do here is upgrade whatever installations a Colony has into the next best thing which should provide enough benefits to make it worth the investment, and that´s it.

There is also a Statistics panel for the planet we have selected telling us it´s Class, amount of resources, population, workforce, morale, treasury, net income, maintenance and, a nice touch, pollution level and a pollution control option we can change. The latter manages three cases which in turn affect how expensive is the planet to upkeep: we can maintain the current level of pollution, we can clean it or we can neglect it. It is a useful way to make extra income quickly in planets that are new, then later turn the tides to increase morale --I guess.

In a planet's orbit we can have a Shipyard and a Starbase. The first helping accelerate ship production the other being needed to replenish a Colonizer ship's "cargo". We can also define the type of defenses the planet has by selecting to create Barracks and/or a Missile Defence array. At this point I dare say that there are more things coming in here but weren´t in the Alpha, yet.

Horizon handles four types of ships defined by the size of their frame: Scout, Frigate, Cruiser and Mothership. For each we have a queue. Each can have a diferent design active but only one. Designing the ships takes into account three things: weaponry, core components and special systems. All sizes present around the same number of slots, we have to focus on the value of the "space" they have available and how much is required by a component to limit what we put on them.

How weapons are placed should take into consideration that, depending the ship type, some of them will actually be on the rear or at the sides, which is of some significance during combat. Core Systems include power generator and thrusters, communications, armor, scanners life support, defense ECM systems, targetting and the like. Special Systems is where we can give a ship a specific role: colonizer, assault, carrier, troop launcher and so on. At least in the Alpha there is no restriction to building larger ships as long as we wait the required number of turns and consider the associated maintenance cost.

Going back to the main view again, at the top we see the current year, the treasury, game options, statistics, events from the last turn, a journal (with the missions and quests that pop up from time to time), list of colonies and list of fleets. At the bottom we have Races, Techs and Turn. In Races we have access to diplomatic options with those civilizations that we have crossed paths with and with whom we can establish a proper comm link.

Techs opens up the technology tree we have available, the way Horizon handles it is very unlike any other out there. First, there are six main branches (Propulsion, Armor, Electronics, Biotech, Construction, Weapons) each with subdivisions of their own. From the beginning all of them are being researched. Second, all we have control over is how much focus does our research team put into a specific branch and how much into an specific option within. This obviously accelerates the process for the highest selected but slows down the rest. Which is an interesting idea to keep things going while at the same time offer some choice at what gets done quickly first.

Combat is activated automatically when we are attacked or we can force it selecting to Engage a solar system where someone else's ships are lurking. There are 20 moves to each Combat turn (if things don´t get sorted out then the battle goes for many more global Turns). Ships have move and attack gauges which limit them. Other than that it is basically a battle of statistics and the use of wildcards in the form of special commands, such as Wait; it is possible to let the AI handle everything. For what I have seen ship weapons can get damaged and some need for the ship to turn or move to actually be able to lock on an enemy.

Every few turns the game flow gets cut by the News Network which in short highlight the main events that have happened. New technologies, new technology levels that have been achieved, discovery of new civilizations, new treaties made, and so on. The idea is ok, but I do hope that an on/off option gets included at release because it can get slightly annoying quickly.

Overall Horizon is entertaining, I can´t call it a hardcore game within its particular genre, I would actually consider it aims to the larger crowd, those who want to enjoy a good galactic conquest game without having to focus on, or micromanage, a thousand things at a time. It comes with missions and quests so there is always something else to do than just colonize more planets, survey more systems and create a bigger and more powerful Armada.