14 DAY TRIAL // 
Rymdkapsel is a game where players assume command of a space station and then proceed to explore the vastness of space, uncovering ancient artifacts and ultimately being gunned down by unforgiving aliens.
That's at least what indie developer Grapefrukt Games, which is just a fancier way of saying Martin Jonasson, wants us to think about while playing Rymdkapsel, a relaxed strategy game that delivers quite the unique experience.
The truth is that the game's simple mechanics and minimalistic visuals could be applied to any one of several fantasy or sci-fi concepts, and you could even pretend to be a noodle warehouse manager that is constantly plagued by incessant cyborg flies bent on getting their tiny claws on the delicious noodles, one way or another.
Gameplay
You start off with a limited supply of the game's three resources materials, energy and food, then proceed to build corridors, resource production structures, then additional living quarters and ultimately weapon systems to defend against the incoming alien threat.
The concept most characteristic to Rymdkapsel is that every building is a Tetris brick, and you have to carefully arrange the layout of your base in order to minimize travel time between buildings and make the most out of the limited space. As you can cancel buildings without any penalty, finding the right shape is not too hard.
Additional workers can be obtained by building housing, each such structure offering living accommodations for two more crewmen. But crewmen cost yellow pyramids, I mean food, which can only be made in the kitchen by processing sludge, the green frustum.
In order to build a sludge farm and a kitchen, you need teal energy cubes that are automatically generated by the reactor and pink material squares that can only be extracted from certain areas and are a finite resource.
Workers can be shifted to various jobs, from construction to food management, research and defense, and will go about their business autonomously, not always making the best decisions, but doing the best some little block men can.
While trying to find a balance between a couple of production buildings and where to place the many living quarters you are going to need, you should also attempt to distribute a number of blue weapons bays that will offer protection against the red flying long-tailed rhombuses of doom, your main antagonists during your journey through the stars.
Of course, none of this would be possible without having corridors to link the various facilities, and that is where the brown hallways come in. The brown hallways not only allow communication inside the base, they also span across the stars to ancient alien monoliths, that once investigated grant various small bonuses such as faster worker movement or increased weapon range.
And that's pretty much the whole game. You assign a new construction site, wait for the laborers to carry the colorful resources required, scuttle to man the weapon stations in order to repel the ever-increasing number of enemies once the timer is up, rinse and repeat until you get overwhelmed and die miserably.
There is no exploration, no mission, only one map that you can get better at, and maybe hope to get through a larger number of enemy waves until the inevitable defeat.
It's hard to draw a parallel between Rymdkapsel and other traditional strategy games, because it just seems too outlandish to bare any measure. Normally, a modern space strategy game for the PC would have to at least come close to something like Master of Orion II in order to rouse any amount of interest and get a passing mark.
But the small indie gem is not really a strategy game, it's simply a game made for relaxing, clearly designed for mobile devices. You have so little control over what's going on and so little statistics to pay attention to that you can play it in a single screen, with no additional overlays.
Visuals and sound
I can't exactly explain how or why, but the minimalistic and colorful visuals have a weird hypnotic effect that lures you in and makes you want to feast on the small and brightly-colored geometric shapes until your eyes dry out.
The graphics are so simple, and yet stunning, that I'm baffled. It seems like the perfect manner to present the gameplay experience, and any additional details would simply get in the way and detract from the overall feeling.
The sounds are also very simplistic, as the minimal gameplay elements don't allow for much there, and the musical score is very suited to the general atmosphere of Rymdkapsel, making the experience feel more like a journey than a struggle.
Conclusion
The haunting sci-fi vibe and the simple shapes and lively colors all point out to an undeniable conclusion, Rymdkapsel is a game made for when you're in the mood to relax, not feel challenged.
Rymdkapsel is a very strange experience and it seems slightly out of place on the PC, being more of a hippie "let's all enjoy the experience" type of affair, instead of offering the usual imperialist conquest and exploitation action seen in space-themed games.
It's even hard to criticize it, because it has so little gameplay, and it goes so well with the overall minimalist theme, that adding to its complexity would feel out of place. It's something that you'll get bored with easily, but that will constantly beckon you to give it one more try.
