Star Havoc

The year is 2499, and a mixed bag of space-travelling species struggle for ascendancy amongst the stars. Battle is waged in a top-down 2D environment with 360-degree movement and a zooming camera. You can play as any faction, and control 23 vessels of wildly different types (from small scouts to huge behemoths, and even stationary "islands" and living organisms) - mastering the unique characteristics and weapons of each ship will be the key to victory.

The single-player mode pits the player against a variety of missions, where scripted events determine the course of battle, and the player's single ship will often face multiple enemies simultaneously. The two-player mode is very similar to the "melee" combat from the Star Control games: two ships duel each other one-on-one, in a single round or in fleet battle, and either side can be human- or computer-controlled.

Star Havoc was released as shareware, and later made available for free. The game is meant to be moddable: every aspect can be customized by tinkering with the game files, and only a text editor and graphics software are needed to create entirely new ships, scenarios and game modes.