Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of War Balloon Games, a tiny indie game developer with a love of all things Star Trek. Their continuing mission: to develop and Android game that combines the classic spacegoing stories of TV’s greatest scifi series with 16-bit RPG gameplay. To boldly go where, um, many, many people have gone before, actually. But in an awesome way.

Star Command is an upcoming game for Android and iOS with a lot of buzz behind it, thanks to an incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign. The basic idea is to combine the turn-based mobile RPG framework with a universe that should be very familiar to fans of Gene Roddenberry’s magnum opus. It’s not just a pretty face, either: players will have to assemble away teams, repair and customize their starship (USS DROID DOES, NCC-2009) and recruit new crew members to keep the story going. Ground and space-based combat will play out differently, and your success or failure will depend upon your own skills and the team and tech you’ve assembled.

There’s also a considerable amount of wry humor. Check out the video below for some GladOS-style fun, and forgive their poor choice of demo hardware:

All this is wrapped up in a framework and graphical style that mimics Kairsoft’s Game Dev Story, a tried and tested formula for open-ended gaming on the small screen. The developers are creating huge world, which is why they’re months late on a release. But if the small glimpse available on their website is any indication, it’ll be well worth the wait. When launched the game will be a paid app, but War Balloon Games is promising free DLC for the life of the title. We can’t wait to try this one out – just remember not to give your crew members red shirts unless you’re okay with employing smoking piles of ash.