Recent reviews by Chimpmaster

Thumbs up for me!
Although there is still a need to fix things.

At first, let me say, why I raise my thumbs up to the air for this game:

• Because the developer team is seriously interested in, what we - the community - feels with the game!
  
• Because the idea, playing "zombie apocalypse" in our own flats and houses and neighbourhood, where we daily living in, is really ... astonishing! When I am out of my door, I imagine everytime, where my walls stand and how my neighbourhood looks like then. I love it ♥.
  
• Food production and building is now faster/more effective.

And because it is an Early Access Game, there're still might be things to be fixed and/or to be added (14.04.2024):

1. Time ticks by too fast. 1 day = 1 month. And hours ticks by too fast as well.
   
2. Playing in easy mode, hordes are still to quick too large to deal with them.
   
3. Meshes for churches with belltowers are still missing and needed. I did not find a way to add them via the Map Editor.
   
4. Unique city buildings and/or attraction sights are still missing. And I did not find a way, to add meshes into the Map Editor. For example: Castles/City Castles, City Police Departments, and any building, what a city is considering as their attraction sights.
   
5. Missing topographic heights and underpasses.
   
6. Better UI tracking of food consumption, etc.
   
7. Better resistance of buildings. Infected beings tear down palisades or wooden towers in seconds with their own hands, even when they are 10 to 20 peoples (so, not so much beings; i have to count them in those situations seriously and give feedback then). But I find, this is a tad/a touch too unrealistic.
   
8. Maybe power production plants as buildings. Actually power just seem to be come out of nowhere?

So, I will walk the game's journey of development and play it and show it to my friends.

I fell in love with the game. In my eyes, a man and his friends are developing something really big here!

Solargene tells the story of mankind's colonization of the solar system. By means of space stations and planetary colonies to build. Solargene is characterized by attention to detail. There are different pieces of furniture for the various types of rooms in which you have to satisfy the colonists with their needs, such as living spaces, various workplaces, supply spaces, etc. (I don't want to anticipate too much).

However, in order to be able to turn your interplanetary projects into reality, you need money. And you don't get any of that when you start the game. For this you have to accept time-bound mission orders from different states with which you have different reputations. Completing/implementing missions not only brings the required money (as an advance) but also a better reputation. However, if you don't make it, you lose your reputation with the respective client. A good reputation, in turn, gives you advantages.

The atmosphere of the game is excellent, if only because of the well-chosen music. But zooming in on the colonies on the planets or space stations in an orbit is really great fun!

Personally, I like the many resources to consider. They are needed for the construction, but also for the fulfilment of missions/assignments and for the upkeep/maintenance of the colonies/space stations. An implicit distinction must be made between basic resources and processed resources. You can buy these in spaceports, which you have to do at first. Later you can also mining/producing them yourself, initially scanty/sparse, later more productive through research.

The research tree is divided into three disciplines. The individual research fields are plentiful in number, which I also like very much. The research fields are also divided into research levels. If the first level of the three disciplines is still researched quickly, it becomes more and more difficult to unlock a research field over time.

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The game is currently still in development with "Early Access". And so there are some inconsistencies:
* Free Camera is difficult. Especially with space stations, the camera can roll back and forth as if not knowing how to line up with the station. Time and time again with the free camera I lose sight of my colony or my space station and/or have trouble keeping it in the center of the frame with the correct orientation. In addition, when looking for the right place for the colony, you have to crawl across the map at a snail's pace (arrow keys). Alternatively, you can use the right mouse button, but that also feels unsatisfactory. Overall, the camera feels unbalanced and immature. I hope that maybe one day there will be an improvement.

* Missing interactive tutorial: I found the lack of an interactive video tutorial, which could be used to internalize the game mechanics, to be less explosive than the camera controls. The current tutorial is a pure text tutorial, which is divided into sections. Reads something like an in-game how-to encyclopedia.

* Heavy load on graphics cards: What game development always needs is the aspect of hardware optimization. The game doesn't seem to be developed at this point. Since I have basic knowledge of meshes, polygons and LOD's (I'm not a professional 3D artist myself), I assume that there are some 3D objects, or even the terrain on the planets, that graphics cards are heavily loaded. Here, too, I wished for a revision and hardware optimization.

* Missing, clear red thread: Probably the most unimportant (at least for me personally) is a still missing, clear red thread of the entire game. Kind of a premise that takes me from a beginning to an end. Solargene has an implicit thread, a goal: Leaving the solar system. The flight in an interstellar spaceship, off to other stars. This can be read from the latest research fields that point to exactly this. As I said, I wish this was more explicit. But it's real luxury whining :-D


All in all, however, a great developer project that has enchanted my heart! What content is already there in the game and where it can still go has fascinated me <3

Very well designed prologue!

Why very well designed? Because i played it several times in a row. Was very sad, that the prologue ended.
That's a "good sign" for me. Wanna more!!

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Ein äußerst gelungener Prolog!

Warum äußerst gelungen? Weil ich ihn gleich zwei Mal hintereinander durchgespielt habe. Traurig darüber war, als der Prolog zu Ende war.
Das ist ein gutes Zeichen. Ich will mehr!!

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