More VR adaptation than sequel, the turn-based dance of ships has never been more glorious to play or watch. Thoroughly unique and relaxing, and outfitted with one hundred levels and a level creator. Improves on much of the original 2010 release with a VR spin, but regrettably loses adventure mode. A very different kind of VR experience.

Flotilla-ing in a most perculiar way

Flotilla is quite beloved on Steam. An utterly solid, understated turn-based strategy game with whimsical story encounters and accessible but challenging combat set to classical music. It was utterly unique. Utterly Blendo.

Flotilla 2 brings back that unique dance of ships with its one rule 'HIT THE REAR OR THE BOTTOM' to damage, in a very VR way and benefits massively from it.

For fans crying out for a non-VR Flotilla 2, I don't think you'd want this. It's very much a VR interpretation of Flotilla à la Doom VFR (and the other Bethesda VR experiences) through and through. It ditches the adventure mode with its randomised narrative encounters involving space cats, as well as upgrades, loot, fleet management, etc. This is the base combat experience via designed scenarios made VR and that's great. Whilst I'm sure there could have been a way to make a roguelike adventure mode more instantly compelling for VR, it feels fine to be rid of it. The conceit instead is that you're doing VR scenarios within the Flotilla universe. There's something so confident about spawning you in a room with 100 level cartridges, a console to boot them up in and a virtual headset to put on. That setup is something that worked well for Superhot VR and it does here too. It could have done well to follow Superhot VR's lead, though, and add some of that missing in action character into that blank white room. It's the same understated Flotilla, but I don't think a full-scale space cat would have gone amiss. Instead, a massive instruction on the wall to 'use one controller' looms large. When you can freely interchangeably use your hands (not between actions, mind), I don't know why this was so pressing.

The major gain from VR is in the controls and perspective. Where once you had to laboriously adjust vertical and lateral movement and orientation individually one by one, now you can select, drag and physically orient a ship all at once in a single movement. It's delightfully intuitive and feels like the perfect realisation of the original Flotilla's focus on 3D movement. Then, when you trigger the action, VR lets you freely shift and get the perfect look as close or as far as you want. Ships don't need to be commanded to fire or given a priority target, they'll do so passively when you get them into range. It may sound like motion control casualisation, but I think it's actually just being free of restrictive controls that didn't do the concept justice originally.

Who thought cigarettes would ever get bigger under capitalistic forces?

BIG TIPS HERE. Brendan Chung has created a wonderfully done PDF manual for the game that I found on Twitter. Why some of the information present isn't made immediately apparent in-game, I really don't know. If it's a push to bring back the physical manual conventions of long ago over tutorials in-game, it's going largely unnoticed I think. Vital things like being able to back out to level select by holding the trigger and simulating taking your virtual headset off (neat but not obvious), cancelling special orders or orders via holding the menu button, what the supply crates do when you collect them (charge your special abilities and show enemy ghosts for next turn) and the controls of the level create mode are all not made clear in-game. Additionally, for those of us who don't get VR sickness, a setting in-game to get rid of the occlusion cone when you shift around rather than having to add '-cameracone false' to the game's command-line parameters would have been preferable.

That level select room, oppressively empty as it might be, still works well. I love the physical ritual of taking a scenario cartridge from a shelf and inserting it into the console. It can be annoying when you want to be seated for actual play to then have to go out of your way to pick up a cartridge. Thankfully, by using the added 'reset position' on the grips, you can centre yourself such that you can easily reach cartridges, insert them, and put on the headset seated. It helps not to interrupt the flow so much. Perhaps my favourite detail is simply how the zero gravity will make all the levels you've completed and removed from the console float away like an explosion of success.

Scenarios open with a Bach little prelude numbers 1-3 with a hand-designed level of environmental complications in space junk, mines, space anomalies and death balls alongside your various classes of ships - which could be anything from a single ship to a flotilla (namesake!). You use your sonar, drag yourself around the space, assess what you have at your disposal and the threat, and make your move. An ability to rotate the space might have been welcome, but it's not often an issue. Scenarios usually play on iterative cadences of an environmental obstacle being between your two flotillas or combinations of ships that would be interesting - like making you play hide and seek around obstacles with the smallest Missile Boats against the largest anti-material particle cannon spewing Superheavy Platforms. It's called Flotilla, so small skirmishes is literally the name of the game. Whilst I would have loved some larger battles, the limited number of ships allows for less stop and start gameplay that would have got particularly tiresome in VR.

Forget the explosion, look at those perfectly cuboidal asteroids

The unique spin Flotilla throws on its genre is the need for all its projectile missile-based ships to hit each other in the lightly-armoured orange and grey pattern marked bottom and rear areas to score any damage at all. All hits otherwise show off the wonderful individually rendered missiles bounce helplessly off armour in a semi-comedic manner. The only exceptions to this are the Beam Battleship with its low travel and short range, Superheavy Platforms which throw out lasers unimpeded by range, but can travel only very small distances and can't freely pivot like the rest without the use of a special ability, and perhaps the most interesting, the Heavy Tug - which can ram and tractor beam ships to use environmental hazards against them. The classes have a great balance overall, but I wish there was some more creativity seen so wonderfully in the Heavy Tug. Each class has special orders in the form of various arnaments and manoeuvres with move cooldowns that can be equipped by inserting your controller into floating cartridges. It's ultra-intuitive and has great variation in everything from teleporting, locked-on missiles, a ship-disabling kinetic bomb and the aforementioned Heavy Tug's stand-outs. It also helps to balance out the large ships' raw power by saddling them with simple manoeuvring orders, in pivots and fast pivots and empowering the small with powerful offensive options so they can hold their own. Disabling ships (for one turn) is a very valid strategy, either by using the environment or even kamikaze collisions. It can be crucial to taking out the more devastating classes before they ravage your forces.

This one rule makes for a glorious dance of ships to watch, whilst Raindrop Prelude Op. 28 No.15 by Chobin lends to evoke 2001: A Space Odyssey. It could have used perhaps a bit more variation music-wise, but their renditions that are there are certainly great. It's an ultra relaxing experience of all things and sets itself massively apart from its great swathes of high octane or otherwise awe-driven VR compatriots. You lie back, relax, and take in the refreshing noiseless presentation, the bell dings of shots on-target, and the Blendo whimsy of a chorus of cheering or 'awws' upon success or failure.

100 levels is a big batch, though, and the cracks can show. Some scenarios seem less thought out than others and can be completed in seemingly seconds or by accident. Then there are the bizarre. One has ten ally and enemy ships spawned in a ball - all clipping into each other so that they're taking damage before the first turn is even underway. Level 100 has no enemies whatsoever. You drag yourself up the huge level to the one Missile Boat at the top, give it a movement order, and congrats. The level, called 'Crisis' took me off guard and in fact, is an intentionally humorous climax. How exactly do you finish off one hundred levels?

As you can see, space is a completely empty void, apart from that port side bit over there

The majority have the marks of good expansion and evolution design. For instance, when I saw how easy using a Beam Battleship against multiple Artillery Cruisers could be, I thought the scenario much too easy - 'poor design' I declared! The ship bucks the 'hit the bottom or rear' by equipping it with a laser that is demanding in range but ignores all armour. So long as you only approach front-on, then, such a scenario is a cake walk. I realised, however, that this is simply one of many primers that implicitly demonstrate the tactics that can be used by each class of ship. Therefore, when an entire flotilla is available later on, you'll put each into play in the right way.

All in all, the 100 levels rarely get beyond five minutes. They're good bite-sized chunks ideal for VR. This means you're probably looking at around five or so hours on those alone. Despite stumbles, they're indeed a good time.

What became clearer as I played is that the scenarios, more than anything, act as a primer for the level creator. Most of the provided scenarios carry a design playfulness usually relegated to other games' user levels, with junk, for example, fashioned to look like a ribcage, human skeleton, dinosaur skeleton, etc. Or they'll throw your forces inside a box and see how you deal with it. The scenario editor is comprehensive and contains all of the items in-game (I believe). When you've read the PDF manual it becomes very accessible. Once you're done, you can upload your creation to a cartridge for use yourself and hopefully for others too via Steam Workshop. It would be great if a community really got going around user levels.

As a small production, it probably just didn't warrant it, but online multiplayer is sorely missed. The AI put up a fairly formidable fight, but it can feel stacked too far in your favour at times. Unlike you, the AI doesn't have access to special orders, so you'll be flanking them, ramming them, and tractor beaming them silly whilst they can reach for little comparative recourse. I appreciate it likely didn't make much financial or resource sense, and you need only look at the servers of most VR games to see why. The price tag is so low as it stands, it's a cheeky request, for sure. Perhaps in a future title!

More VR adaptation than sequel, Blendo's turn-based dance of ships has really never been more glorious to play or watch. Thoroughly unique and relaxing, and outfitted with an overwhelming one hundred levels and a level creator, it's a good package. It's held back only by oddities in its official scenarios, a reduced scope from its predecessor and an AI that could have been offered some of your abilities or ideally usurped by a human opponent entirely. If you seek out that PDF manual and give it a fine peruse, you really can't go wrong with the price. I'm a new Flotilla fanatic.