This week Jack and Al sit down with Matt, Creative Director at Saigon Dragon Studios, to talk about Space Tales — an early access RTS inspired by StarCraft, built by a Vietnamese studio with 11 years of outsourcing experience and a whole lot of passion for the genre.

They get into the game's retro-cartoonish art style versus its surprisingly dark Lovecraftian themes, the failed Kickstarter that became a learning curve, the decision to ditch publisher pitching and go it alone, and why the team hired a professional screenwriter to save their first mission from being five minutes of dialogue nobody was reading.

Space Tales is available now in Early Access on Steam, with a full 1.0 release targeting end of July 2026.

🔗 Space Tales on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2457960/Space_Tales/

🔗 Saigon Dragon Studios Discord: https://discord.gg/4be9rucj22

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Critical Moves examines strategy games through weekly Friday episodes and Monday news updates. Six hosts across multiple continents analyze recent releases, forgotten classics, and industry developments without the typical podcast theatrics. We cover real-time strategy, 4X civilization builders, turn-based tactics, and hybrid games that blur genre boundaries.