Oh wow. I just wanted to say thanks to you and any other people here from Ambrosia, EV was easily the best game of my childhood. Saving up for a Kestrel took me... a lot of cargo runs. But I loved every minute.
It's telling that of all the objectively better, more expensive, more complex space games I've played since my middle school years... Escape Velocity still ranks #1 in terms of sheer joy.
It feels a lot like Populous: more fun than the sum of its parts, and only explicable as tapping some Miyamotoesque yearning in the zeitgeist.
Yeah, definitely. I think a lot of that for me was that the universe felt very alive - ships coming and going from planets, comms, recurring characters. I haven't found anything quite like it since, though Starsector comes close in some ways (and is extremely good in its own way, you should check it out if you haven't).
It feels a lot like Populous: more fun than the sum of its parts, and only explicable as tapping some Miyamotoesque yearning in the zeitgeist.