STAR TREK: TREXELS

WHERE NO APP-GAME HAS GONE BEFORE

As you know I am not too much a fan of mobile games. Simply because at home I prefer to play on my PC or a console and on the road I usually tend to listen to music instead of playing something... BUT since this game is free and I am one hell of a Trekkie, I gave it a shot and I was very positively surprised!


Trexels - avaible here - is primarily a building simulation and surely not the only of its kind on mobile platforms. You get the Enterprise (which one depends on either how long you play or if you are willing to invest some real cash) full of empty rooms and your job as admiral is to constantly improve the ship by building new and emtpy rooms into Secondary Fusion Reactors, Crew Quarters, Long Range Sensors, Torpedo Bays and so on. While some rooms improve your crew's or ship's abilities, others serve the purpose of gathering the three main types of resources (Command, Research and Energy), which are necessary for building, missions and to train your crew. The game features the OS and TNG Enterprise, their crews as well as a lot of other known characters. The TNG-package and the characters from the franchise can be purchased for in-game resources or real currency.

Aside from the constant expansion of your starship - which admittedly could be a bit cheaper and therefore faster - you have to explore the universe and complete missions. The bigger part of the missions falls on your reserve crew and you only have to decide who to send, according to the crewman's abilities. Still, a good third of the missions you have to (really) play with your main crew. Those - mostly - away missions are a ton of fun and although a bit repetitive regarding mechanics made with a lot of references to Star Trek. With cute behavior, funny dialogues, familiar music and sounds as well as authentic design of the pixelated characters, the heart of every fan is guaranteed to melt!

This advanced form of a tamagochi game is the perfect filler and constantly brings a smile to my face. I think all in all I have easily put around 10 hours into that game, which is great given the facts that I enjoyed every minute of it and that it is for free! A lot of people complain that this game is a waste of time. - Of course it's a waste of time! And that can be said about every game - since it is the nature of playing to "waste" - or rather - to "enjoy" time outside of conventional paradigms like work or time itself. I only agree in the point that the game is really stretched a bit too long. Seriously, it's pissing me off putting 100+ hours into a game like Assassins Creed Black Flag and likewise it slightly pisses me off putting 10+ hours in a simple game on my phone! The resource costs of everything in this game reaches dimensions that are hard to come by after a short time. - Well, you could always buy stuff with real money ;) but seriously... no thank you. I enjoyed the time I played the game so far, but I think after completing the second galactic map (out of five), I think I will most certainly stop playing because everything takes too long and costs too much - even with the available production upgrades.

It's a shame this game - although somehow expected - shows you the real face of free2play or rather pay2win after all. I would have actually liked to finish Star Trek Trexels because the game itself is really good and a lot of fun, but unfortunately I neither have the time nor the intention of spending real money just to do so. My way to repay the developers (YesGnome) is to watch them and back other projects of them or donate directly, whatever... I don't need the game forcing me and if I pay for it in any form, the money should reach the developers first and not the publishing mechanisms.

Play more! Beam more!