

There are neutral planets that you can occupy, and they follow the same mechanics as your enemy’s. You can send forces to your enemy’s planet to conquer them. The bigger the planet, the faster it spawns. The number of ships continually increases. The number inside each planet indicates how many ships are stationed there. The planets you’ve conquered are depicted with your color. Every planet houses a number of ships drawn as triangles. It’s really difficult to pin down how the game is played without confusing you, so here’s my best shot. Likewise, Galcon Labs also features great controls, despite the nature of the game requiring a mouse or at least a touchscreen to make things truly comfortable. In contrast, Jane’s Hotel, which Beatshapers also ported, had a great control scheme. Supermarket Mania struggled with the transition. Click-based casual games, like Jane’s Hotel and Supermarket Mania, are unimaginable for some to play without a mouse.

Call me a sadist, but the innately clunky controls make Galcon Labs a unique game to play even if I’ve played it several times before. Nevertheless, there’s something unique to the PSP: the lack of a mouse. Galcon Labs is not the prettiest among its kind. So how does Galcon Labs play? Well, at the very core, it’s like a highly compact, oversimplified Risk in real time. There are browser games that are exactly like Galcon Labs in gameplay and premise: interplanetary, galactic conquests! The same formula has also been used with high fantasy and Middle Age settings. Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten the names of those games. If you’ve played a lot of Flash-based browser games, you’ve definitely stumbled upon a game like Galcon Labs.
