so i played the beta or demo or whatever it was and they had a mechanic where by exploration was risky and challenging because you would run out of "energy" while exploring, this was over tuned in the beta and made the game very punishing/un-fun. they have decided to remove the "energy for exploration" mechanic entirely. which aside from removing an aspect of what made the process tense and risk/reward it has also left the game feeling hollow as a significant part of the character abilities and items are based around making the process of exploration more efficient which felt rewarding when it mattered but just pointless now that they don't?

the strange thing is that lets say they changed the mechanic to something as simple as running out of energy results in your ship collecting you automatically (i.e you can no longer explore, this could mean you fail the main objective of said exploration) then it would by all accounts make the game design around this process of rewarding players with better exploration character buffs/items still valid.

if i had to guess i would say they backed out of their original vision for the game in wake of many complaints about a system that needed work rather than removing. which is a shame.

Trouble is the game-play loop of exploring and levelling up crew really dose feel gutted without that distinct need for a challenge to overcome. right now exploration is really more of a click and point adventure rather than the tense decision making process it used to be.

then again if i had publishers/players protesting about a core mechanic then i too would feel very tempted to just remove it for the initial sales. hopefully they will add this component back in as an "option" sort of the difference between story mode and normal for those of us that like are rouge-likes punishing.

Game doesn't have save on quit feature. You quit the game - you lose ALL your grindy repetitive progress.

To save the game you have to find a rare spawn, which you find roughly every 30 minutes - 1 hour.

So yeah. Something happens, you get a phonecall, or you gotta close the computer - tough luck bud, lose hours of gameplay.

More points -

Game is bugged. Questlines dont progress 100% of the time, forcing complete game restart. Like, start new game kind of restart. Game has visual glitches which require you to quit to title to fix - but hey, if you didint save your game, you lose all your progress!

Morale is bugged. Small point, but if your morale drops low, your crew leave you. There is a point in the game where you have to sacrifice your crewman, giving you a permanent -2 malus per turn. No matter what you do, that -2 will continue to tick. Even if you have +5 or +10 bonus per turn - dont matter. Its bugged, goes staight to zero, you lose all your crew.

game is repetitive as hell. Fly, click, collect resourse. Repeat. Build ship modules that let you fly, click, collect further, faster, harder. Thats literally the entire game, the entire 99% of gameplay is exactly that. Every once in a while you get to send your crew on expeditions (hey, if you didnt get morale bug and still have a crew, that is). Expedition is running across the map and clicking a button. More interesting, but after 2-3 hours of game, all expedition events and permutations you have seen, all 6-7 map types you have seen, and it becomes another grind.

Would I reccomend this? Lol no. And not because of money. But because this is your life, and those hours you spend mindlessly flying from planet to planet, you will never get back. Go spend time with your girlfriend. Go watch a movie. Work out. Stare at paint drying on the wall. ANYTHING is more fun then...this.

short version: original OT's resource grinding is a bad centerpiece for a longer roguelike space exploration/adventure game. long version: it pains me to not be able to recommend this. I love the original game (65 hrs on it & more to come) & waited patiently for this, but I don't think what they did here works. what makes me play the original is that's it's short, unforgiving, mysterious, and to the point (get home) and I love the art style & music. this game is easier, has expanded gameplay mechanics which are.. ok, neither good or bad, but make things take longer. since the game takes longer, it's more frustrating when bad luck wipes you out (although there are save points now in white dwarf systems). things I like: the music's great, being able to finally take hydrogen out of the scoop & put it directly into the engine is great, and the greenhouse mechanics are kind of cool. things I don't like: dropping the original's comic book style, the morale system is an unnecessary chore because the characters are void of personality, the character writing is really bad (apparently this game's dialog was written by a professional screenwriter, but you wouldn't know it), the character models are fugly, the planet models don't look near as cool or varied as they did in OT, planetary exploration is repetitive, the labyrinthine star path you have to follow feels arbitrary, the story is generic space opera stuff... but the core of this is still a resource grinding game so there's little narrative depth (not w/these characters, anyway) or a conflict (since combat isn't a feature). the original game is about getting home & grinding resources because you HAVE to, this game is about saving humanity (or something) & exploring, but with no straightforward objective & expecting you to enjoy grinding resources & taking care of your unlikable crew for the fun of it. I don't know who this is going to appeal to. I think the hardcore fans of Out There are going to be disappointed at the generic new look & all the shoehorned-in time wasting mechanics. And I think anyone new to it looking for a space roguelike are going to find it strangely lacking in depth for an asking price of >20$. Pick it up on sale, I guess. that's all I've got.

You complete the story line in about 4 hours. Then, you are left with the choice to either continue to do the same repetitive stuff you did for those 4 hours from a save to maybe see a different outcome (depending on when your save was), or restart to complete the story line in a different way doing the same repetitive stuff for another 4 hours. The game is just so narrow in scope and depth.

Man, it's been noisy on our spaceship as of late. You hear that? That’s the sound of wasted potential, bouncing nervously wall to wall, echoing across the barren room, a sign that reads “gameplay” above its door. In the room across it – the one where the sign says “narrative” – you’ll find its occupant, the know-how necessary to translate all those great ideas the developers have had into a solidified narrative, completely checked out; its absence seemingly overlooked during development. They both came down to the same conclusion: that bigger isn’t always better, especially when the biggest chunks are missing.

Out There: Oceans of Time is the sequel to Out There, a 2015 space-exploration, resource-management roguelike which I haven’t had the pleasure of playing. Taking a quick gander at its store page, however, reveals a game that seems to be beloved by many. So why does this new game, one that’s supposedly taking everything from the old one and turning it up to eleven, have a much more mixed reception? Now, I don’t have the necessary experience to compare the two, but with how barebones and bloated of a game Oceans of Time is, it seems that too much time has been spent inflating and less so innovating as much as necessary to support this different, seemingly more narrative-driven approach.

And that breaks my heart a little; I’m a narrative-loving kind of guy, but I think I’ll pass on going down this particular wormhole. It all creates this sinking feeling in my gut that slowly expands as the playtime counter on Steam goes up. Eventually, the intrigue wears off, and the understanding for what the developers were going for, but failed to do, evaporates. I become uncanny, and all that’s left are feelings of disappointment. Alas, for where I was promised considerable depth, I only found a puddle’s worth.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2841327550

The story begins with our two main characters, Captain Nyx and Officer Sergei, escorting a dangerous wolf-like creature known as The Archon to a space prison of sorts. It doesn’t take long for things to go awry, The Archon to escape, and our two characters to end up in a century-long cryostasis slumber as their escape pods limp away to the nearest habitable planet. While the setup seems as cliché as can be, there are glimpses that what’s underneath could be more inventive. Unfortunately, it doesn’t get much better. It’s all ideas and barely any refinement. Throwing things at the wall, seeing what sticks, then just leaving it there, hanging. What the universe that these characters inhabit is like, what The Archon’s grand plans are, and how have the past one hundred years affected it all are things merely mentioned in passing, or not at all. There’s no cohesive world to explore, no compelling mystery to uncover, no expansive lore to get lost in. It’s exposition dump after exposition dump, with some meagre attempts at characterisation thrown in. Some branching moments in the story try their best at tempting a replay out, in the hopes of there being a sudden realization that makes everything worthwhile, but the ordeal as a whole is so unrefined that I’m hard pressed for motivation to go looking for what I’ve missed.

The gameplay is divided into two sections: interstellar travel and expeditions. You’ll be spending most of your time aboard your ship, flying from star system to star system, the goal being reaching the next objective. Along the way, you’ll be tending to its parts and crew by managing four bars: fuel, oxygen, hull, and morale. Should any one of these fall to zero, it’ll mean a game over in the vast majority of cases, at which point you’ll be sent back to your last manual save. Manual saves can only be performed at specific space stations, but these aren’t as rare as you might think, and should you quit out, you’ll be able to resume from the very spot you did so at, provided you haven’t died. Still, permanently losing progress in a narrative-inclined roguelite is a pet peeve of mine, so keeping these bars filled is non-negotiable.

To stave off death, you’ll be visiting planets. As each planet is of a specific type, so are the resources you need spread out among them. For example, Hydrogen and Helium – both used for refuelling – can only be found by sending a probe to a gas giant, while you’ll have to land on a rocky planet and drill out Iron to repair your hull. Everything your ship does corresponds to a module or technology aboard, and they’ll wear off the more you use them, eventually needing to be repaired. Add in the fact that each ship – as you have the option of swapping between ‘em should you find one abandoned, adrift in space – has different stats that govern how efficient it’ll be when it comes to depleting these bars and you’ve got a decent foundation to add more gameplay elements onto.

But, there aren’t any. What you do an hour in is the same thing you do after ten, albeit more efficiently. I don’t know where this “steep learning curve” other reviews are talking about comes from, as I’ve only died twice – both times to running out of fuel – near the beginning of the game. After that, for the next eight hours or so, I’ve never come close to it. It’s an easy system to learn from and figure out. Once you do, the game has no curveballs to throw your way to shake things up. Sure, a text-based event will sometimes pop up, urging you to decide on how to resolve it. However, most decisions will inform you in advance of their outcomes, so you can just steer clear of what isn’t in your favour. A decent number of events also have the option to be ignored, so it’s almost a non-feature at that point.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2841332901

Planetary expeditions are similar in that regard. You can find them after scanning certain planets for anomalies, then landing and deploying your team to complete a specific objective and maybe pick up some resources along the way. They’re explored by moving across a hexagonal grid while avoiding tiles with hazards on them. These hazards can inflict a negative effect on one of your crew members, which can eventually lead to death. However, there’s almost always an alternate route to find as long as you’re the least bit patient, and even then, the chance of getting inflicted is only 25%, with possibilities to lower it further, making the tiles rarely a considerable threat. Nyx, Sergei, and any other crew members you recruit later in the game (though none other than the first two are actual characters) differ by abilities and classes, though these are negligible mostly. They’ll sometimes provide a nice benefit, but never will they pull an expedition from certain doom.

They’ll be most important during text-based encounters, similar to those in space, that occur on certain tiles. Each class has a limited number of action points, consumed when picking an option exclusive to that class during the encounters. Theoretically, you could find yourself in a bad spot, with no points to pick the winning option, but as each event informs you which class you’ll need to get the best outcome before you even find it, let alone step on its tile, you’re free to ignore any that might pose a risk to your party; a realization that turns expeditions into an assembly line of clicking around for as many resources as you can find.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2841340069


I’ve explored the stars and found… very little of note. Oceans of Time might be the next great space RPG, but only with substantial additions and reiterations to its gameplay and narrative. As it is? A bit intriguing, but hardly recommendable.

A curator helmed by veterans of the review scene, Summit regularly provides you with professional quality reviews for all sorts of games.

What an unbearably frustrating game Out there: Oceans of time truly is. Don't get me wrong, it's not the game per se, what is an issue is the ludicrous save game function. I can't imagine that it would have been too much of an effort to ask the devs to be able to create multiple save points, but not so with Out there: Oceans of time.

Firstly, whoever came up with the idea of creating in-game save points at certain locations like white dwarf stars for example needs to seriously give their heads and wobble because the save game function in Out there: Oceans of time is flawed beyond credibility.

Game number 1) game started up fine and as it was the first play, I decided to take the path of the tutorial. This in itself was not too bad a thing briefly went about explaining the game mechanics.

Game number 2) was going to be my first proper try. I gleaned information off the Internet to help steer me in the direction of the playable game and everything was going fine, right up until hour 15 when I found myself restarting the game after a break, only to find that the game save had become corrupted and the first 15 hours went down the drain so to speak. I was not to be daunted by this error situation; thinking that the problem was one of those "bad luck moments" however, I was about to be proven savagely wrong.

Game number 3) by this time I'd grown accustomed to the mechanics of the game and felt comfortable with all the keys and settings et cetera, so I set about my third attempt at a viable game but sadly, this too was doomed to failure, only this time I manage to clock up 21 hours of actual and actual playtime I once again visited the ludicrous in-game save point and save the game. I went out for a couple of hours to see a friend, when I got back I booted the game up only to be presented with an exclamation mark inside a red triangle informing me of an incompatible save. So 21 hours of my life wasted because someone in the devs can't be bothered to make the save game work. Had I known about this game's issues, I simply wouldn't have bought it as it is now. Needless to say, I am not going to be playing this game again and my advice to you is simple: do NOT waste your money on a game that lets you down so easily.

I wish this had happened to me within the refund period on steam because if it did, I would be £20 better off. Needless to say, I feel let down and disappointed and in light of that comment.

If the Devs read this, firstly, shame on you for releasing a "Pig in a poke" and I challenge to correct my errors, lest it be the last you'll ever see of me.

FIX IT.... I DARE YOU.

Yours extremely disappointed

Wulfrune

I don't want to give that game a negative review but... I got to say, the biggest new feature, the away missions and the related new moral resource kills it for me. That despite I really liked the predecessor and had this one on my wish list for a long time, me. These forced away missions turn a relaxing casual game into a pointless grind fest.

The game got quite an update regarding the visuals and story animations. Also there are multiple languages included right from start, although the game contains a lot of text! I also found no bugs yet except for quite huge frame drop when you do away missions and don't use a good graphics card.

The problem are the away missions themselves. You now have new resource called "morale", that goes down whenever you jump between star systems. You can only increase it by completing away missions and visit villages while doing so. That means, you are more or less forced to do these missions. On the other hand you can't do them whenever you like because there is a cooldown of two jumps per crew member. So you not only have to do them but also in a certain interval!

Before you can start such a missions, you have to compelete a mini game that gets quickly annoying. The missions then turned out to be very time consuming for usually little rewards. In the first "Out There" game, you landed on a planed, talked to some aliens and maybe drilled for resources. Quick and simple. Now you walk arround like 20-30 minutes on a single planet, mostly because you can only move like 4-5 tiles per turn, no auto-walk possible to already explored areas. You also have to do some micro management and evade dangerous tiles by walking longer ways arround. That has probably to do with the system they had in place during development, where you could only stay on a planet for a certain time so you had to choose whether to take the risk or not.

Either way, I can't get into these missions, they just take too long for too little reward and also get boring quickly. There should be a an option to auto-resolve these, like it is with any other event in the game. Probably to somewhat offset the annoyance that away missions are, you can now save manually in some star systems. I actually had no problem to lose in the old game without being able to load some save. But there are run took also only like 2-4 hours, if it went really good, so if you bascially complete the game, in average it was more like 30 minutes to an hour if you screw up. Here most of my playtime are away missions with very little overall progress.

Oh my god what did they do?
I was waiting for this game for so long. How can you release it in such a state?
I love OT. I played the first one more than I should have. Refreshed the Steam page the 26th several times so I can buy and play the second one asap.
Launched the game, graphical bugs. Quit. Relaunch, ships cargo is invisible. Quit. Relaunch the 3d models head is in his chest. Ignore, continue to play. It's still fun. Half an hour later cargo disappears again.
If I hadn't love the mechanics of the game so much I would have returned it asap.
2 developers and 3 publishers and you still release a game so buggy? Did you only work on the extra content you are trying to sell? Deluxe skins and wallpapers. Really?
You have added the "on planet" missions but they are as boring as it gets. You seriously need a better game designer and try to think less money more product.
Why having 3d models if they are just going to stay put without moving. No one would have cared if you had nicely drawn still images instead. Devs and designers made the worst choices they could make for this game.
I hope the devs wake up from their dream and start to support this game with bug fixes and new content updates. Like maybe a more sandbox way of playing the game?
For me they had one of the most promising IPs in indie gaming now all they have a "mostly negative" game. Congratulations devs tap yourself on the shoulder, count the euros you earned through selling deluxe skins and start working on fixing this game you charge 18 euros for!

I'm completely fine with the monotonous gameplay because it evokes the same feeling I would expect when travelling through space. It's fine to not have too much action at once, and I think this game is an upgrade over the original where objectives are much more clear and the paths to them are more defined. What does not pass the bar for me is the amount of gamebreaking bugs there are in a game like this. Objectives in this game are broken to the point where you will lose a significant portion of your save data, and literally be unable to progress in the game. There are no backup saves, or ways to revert saves to help fix these issues when they arise, and the devs are terrible at responding to bugs and feedback. Their discord does not work to submit bug reports and the discussion thread is rarely looked at. I would not recommend this game on the basis of how unplayable it actually is, not because of the gameplay.

If this was under 10 dollars, I would recommend it as a decent time waster. Right now though I can't recommend it. I liked the visuals and sounds. The concept looks interesting: Explore a universe, explore planets, harvest materials to survive and build things, find new ships and new party members.

Sadly, the exploration is pretty much pointless since there is nothing unique to discover. Harvesting materials is either busywork so you can keep travelling or to build modules that only make travelling more efficient, which is moot since there is hardly any point to exploring. Exploring planets with your party is also repetitive since there is nothing really unique to discover. No cool items to find nor lore or secrets. You can discover new ships, which sounds great, but their only difference is the looks and how much space they have. The point to having more space is just to make things less tedious which feels unrewarding.

The game play loop is basically repetitive maintenance to get materials and fuel so you can get to the next place so you can get materials and fuel etc.

So, how is the story then? The premise is interesting, but the execution is extremely shallow. The characters act and talk like they are 12 years old and although the story introduces some cool concepts the way it unfolds feels immature and like I said: Shallow. There are multiple endings it seems, but the one I got felt very unrewarding without any choice in how it turns out (The judge ending) and I did not feel like doing the busywork to get the other ending(s)

Final verdict: If you can get this game for a big discount and want something mindless to just keep clicking through then it's decent. For it's full price or until they release an expansion which greatly expands the game play I would say to skip this.

Alternatives for this game would be games like Diluvion, Rebel Galaxy or Between the Stars.