Mobile Gaming Changed My Life - Part 1

When I was younger, I had always been drawn to the first-person shooters and puzzle games. But as I started to grow up, I began spending less time on video games and more time working on my career.

I believed what about 59% of American's are lead to believe....gaming is a waste of time.

But with the tense political climate and some big life changes, a tickle in my brain began to daydream about the fun times I had when I would play video games. I recalled them being engaging stress relievers. So I ventured to the sea of gaming applications on my phone. I had played a few notable mobile games such as: Clash Royale, Pokémon Go (and I will shamelessly admit) Candy Crush.

But I never knew about the incredible space conquest genre that existed and the rich community that compliments it. And you better believe I never saw myself as the type of person who would fall in love with a video game (let alone a cell phone game) until I discovered Nova Empire, a mobile MMO/RTS (massively multiplayer online/real-time strategy).

If you told me a 2 years ago that I would be faithfully logging in every day, joining a multitude of discords, downloading WeChat, downloading WhatsApp, learn to type in Russian, wake up at 3 am to participate in big 24 hour events and build an international team of people from many walks of life – I would have laughed (and laughed...and laughed)....

My gamer tag in Nova empire is Epicfish and I was the only female leader of an alliance called TDZ (The Danger Zone) which was the home of over of 70 men and women. We were also the only international alliance in our elite server (102). We were allied with a large and powerful Russian team called GFN, lead by my battle brother and online friend, Malsi. Our team originated in server 167 where we fought many ruthless 24-hour battles. We’ve endured betrayal, scarce resources, lost members and crazy unannounced updates from the developers. Friendships were tested, and new ones were made. Our server pulled together at the last hour before an event called “server wars”. We brazenly fought but lost near the end.

For anyone who isn’t familiar with the app, Nova Empire is described on their site as being an “epic strategy game of space domination where you command a Space Station.” Many of the nova empire community would liken the game to be a simplified and faster-paced, mobile version of EVE online fused with Stellaris.

They marry crisp graphics to an engaging sandbox environment where people can build alliances, work together as a team, create unique strategies, and war other territories for total domination.

Players develop and level up their space station with different buildings such as trade posts, or shipyards. You can build an array of fleets with different modified ship designs and pair them with different skilled admirals for maximum effect. Nova Empire offers both a PVE (player vs environment) and PVP (player vs player) experience as you can attack both the pirates that fill the galaxy as well as other players.

In the game, you can join alliances that help each other develop faster. The galaxy also hosts several events where players can earn extra items, earn bonus boosts for development (such as research or station build) or gain the ability to make special gold ship designs for a limited period of time. Alliances can conquer territory by leveling up as a team. When your alliance level increases, the team gains additional outpost buildings which they can use to expand. When your server map is completely conquered, you can war enemies to gain more space. This opens the doors for a rich political environment where alliances become allies, make treaties and non- aggression pacts. There is a global chat and alliance chat in the game where you can talk directly with your team or to the entire server, (but many of the diehard fans venture to discord for ease of communication). The games translator enables real-time translations, so you can play with people from all over the world. The server also has a long-term goal for an event called galaxy wars, where your entire server must work together to defeat another galaxy chosen by the development team to war you. There are top prizes for high ranked players that reward the teams with many items. After the war, your server is selected to migrate to an “elite galaxy” where they merge multiple servers to which you begin your new journey all over again.

There is no subscription fee to play Nova empire although they do offer a lifetime and monthly pass which gives you in-game currency called GEC. You can also make in-app purchases which buy items in a marketplace to help boost your development.  

But how did all of this “change my life”?