Gratuitous Space Battles Review
Allow me to start this review by saying Go Buy This Right Now. Or at least grab the demo.
The gist is you design ships from components and then unleash them in various challenge scenarios. That’s it. Actual combat is automated, with only your designs and the general orders you give your ships before deploying as input.
The developer, who has a great blog, seems to actually like games, which is something you start to wonder about in larger developers. For instance, thinking like this has lead to a fun game, whereas whatever passes for thought at Rockstar made GTA IV into an irritating cell phone and relationship simulation.
Anyway. Try it, because also unlike major studios there’s a demo.