So, I checked the game out yesterday. The game is one of those semi-roguelike basebuilders, not that different from Prison Architect or Banished. However, compared to those titles, the game is quite shallow. You generally deal with money, power and oxygen. Money comes from residents and visitors, power comes from solar panels and is used by components on your ship, and oxygen is generated by some of these components and flows through your ship depending on the status of your doors.

And for just that, the game is quite easy. Getting a net profit is not that hard, and getting power consists mainly of building lots of solar panels. Oxygen is easily managed with air locks.

The only real problem comes from random events (of which there are not that many it seems, I got some of them multiple times in my playthrough) and meteors. You eventually research equipment to deal with that. Until then you have a cycle of buildup -> damage -> people die -> buildup.

To make things interesting there is research, but there are only 7 or so subjects which do not offer more in-depth mechanics. The game suffers from the same problem I had with Banished. After a while the real challenge is out of it and you can just expand until everything eventually crumbles apart. On my second try, at took me 1,5 hours to build every facility there is, net 2k each day and I did not have to care about asteroids or supernova's. Getting the last achievement would only consist of me walking between my pc and the couch to check for random events and otherwise let the game run at max speed.

Add to that the fact that the user interface is functional but a bit weird, and that the game lacks explanation. Yes, I think pointing out after the tutorial that "the hand-holding comes to an end here" is very clever, but I could not find a way to use the stairs to actually build a second floor. The game just "lacks", it lacks content, it lacks challenge, it feels like an early access game with way too less stuff to do.

Is it worth the money? Well I got 3,5 hours of minimal fun and I feel like I've done everything there is to do. Since the game cost me 5 euros, it was not a complete waste. But I don't think the game is good by any means, maybe a 5/10 for effort and only considering the low price.

You want something like this? Get Prison Architect. Maybe Banished. Or Dugeon Keeper. Or Evil Genius. Just not this game.

Mixed. This game is a fairly shallow, easy time-waster. A little quirky, a little buggy, a little funny. Once you figure out what you are doing, there is not much of a challenge nor many goals.

I really want to like it, but after hitting the same issue repeatedly (workers getting stuck), experiencing the poor performance of an even moderately sized station, and the lack of standard features in a management game, it becomes really tough to recommend.

Maybe Space Station Beta will be more playable.

As much as I like passion projects from indie developers; this game is far from being done. The AI does not work well (robots will just stop doing their assigned jobs), building structures lacks sanity checks (you can have solar panels overlap each other on the same level), zoning causes problems when walls are removed* and asteroids destroying the floor makes rezoning necessary.

There are nice ideas in this game, but at this point it lacks a ton of bugfixing, polish and ui redesign to make it more intuitive. Glad the developer is still working on it - but, at this point, I can only advise you against getting Space Station Alpha.

* and why, WHY am I not allowed to have oxygen generators outside of living quarters? I had passengers dying on arrival just because the only oxygenated room was the living quarter which they couldn't reach in time... Wouldn't have been so bad if the robots at least bothered opening the door from time to time - but no... tasks piled up and they must have felt too overwhelmed to even get started. (I could go on...)

Maybe, some day, it will turn out to be a nice space-sim.

But there are issues to resolve.

Performance is bad if you bluild a big station.
Camera is moving all over space, very fast, even more illogical: out of control: (need a "Home"buttton)
pathfinding

Screeninfo (no info pop-up rollover): Who is Who.
Harsh gameplay:
Equipment can not be moved.

Looks like a game right from the seventies.
Please move up to the present day.

If this was an early access game, then yes, I'd say go for it... but it isn't. This game seems unfinished. It's fun, cheap, but it leaves you expecting something more. The research "tree", for instance, is very small and quickly completed (no teirs, just a few boxes to click on the screen). The settings menu lacks any controls for sound volume. Instead, it lists a series of screen resolutions which happened to be missing my 1920x1050 screen size. The game also lacks any real documentaiton on how to play after you get your first resident. There are also parts that have no purpose, mainly the stairwell.


It could be a fun game, but it needs a little work. It feels very much like an early access game, but it isn't being sold as such.

Sadly, it seems to have been abandoned, in a functional-ish, but incomplete state. It's a damn good start of a game, but a start is all it will ever be at this point.

It reminds me a bit of simcity etc, but in space with the threat of an asteroid hitting the deck of a ship.
The fact that this game looks very simple but playability is good especially in its early stages, shows me bilge much to expect in the future.

It requires some patience and learning, but no two games will ever be alike, for creative strategists as well as science fiction fans.
When it is on discount you can try it

it's a pretty nice idea, but that's about it. as others have already said, as early access game, i would say go for it. it does show some potential, has a nice concept and could become a pretty good game. however, it is not an early access game. it is considered to be completely finished, yet there are still a lot of bugs, some of which are absolutely gamebreaking. this can lead to a lot of completely unneccessary frustration and since the game is already considered to be finished and working as intended, there will never be any fixes to those bugs. with this in mind, i really cannot recommend this game.

Mkay... So after playing for a while, and unlocking some achievements...

I'm gonna have to say, that at the current state of the game, I wish I hadn't spent the game. This is basically a VERY basic "Apartment Management Sim", and it really shows. It has potential, but the limited number of features, lack of ability to decorate the station in any manner, lack of ability to attract specific aliens, limited number of alien races, and just in general, how bland and dark and gritty everything looks...

It's a very plain, very basic game. It feel unfinished and unrefined... Too unrefined for them to have pulled it out of "Early Access". I'm very disappointed at this time and REALLY wish I hadn't spent the $5.00 on it now.

A few pathing issues, graphics not the best etc as said in the last review. but it does say that it will be updated.
As long as the devs dont do what i read happened on Space Base DF-9 then its going to improve.
This cost £4 and my house mate has had more than 4 hours playing it so money well spent. really looking forward to what this can become and finding out what the "mysterious z plane" will be when the stairs are used. =D
keep up the good work.