That's my 20 hours in, and for a game that doesn't say much there's a lot to unpack.
There was almost something special here but as it stands right now, the gameplay is flawed and performance at later stages of a playthrough decreases horribly.

The game looks nice, it's a unique style and I get a sort of fever dream aesthetic from it, although in spite of its nice visuals there's very little effort in creating atmosphere otherwise. It's a nice idea to try and make a colony out of nothing, make use of what nature gives you and try and cultivate that, however here are the bad things that stuck out for me:

- As long as you have one steady food source and water, there isn't really any other factor to consider purely when it comes to survival.
- Trying to upgrade your colony through wellbeing, culture, etc. by spamming benches, flags and crystals when at the end of the day you're not even sure if it made a difference to the culture meter, for example, seems so out of place, particularly when the supposed threat of annihilation is looming next dry season. As in, why must I scramble to try and get my culture from a 9 to a 10, but not care about the next drought at all?
- Trying to get info on what's happening terrain and resource-wise gets pretty convoluted. If I'm checking my picker station to see what they're doing why is there no info about the resources I'm getting from seeding xyz plant, for example. Do I really need to go looking around the encyclopaedia for this info? If I want to check the terrain do I need to memorise all the effects and parameters? I get that there are heat maps to help but at some point you have to throw the player a bone and let him see things at a glance.
- 90% of quests for scenarios are either meeting camps via expeditions for arbitrary tasks or increasing culture/wellbeing/knowledge meters.
- Many many resources seem to get spent as a way of sustaining an area in which culture/wellbeing/etc. via certain buildings, instead of being spent on actual gameplay or construction or whatever other reason that would make more sense. No, just turned into invisible nothingness to increase meters.

If I could give it a neutral vote I would.

Pros:
+art style
+functional
+things to unlock
+tracking of individual units.
+plant focus!

Cons:
-the UX around information design is not good: plant information is hard to use flexibly, it's not intuitive to find buildings, the research menu feels like a giant blob of confusion, and the resource menus take some time to interpret.
-the mood is dour without captivation or intrigue. things just sort of happen. it's not bad to watch youtube while playing but then that takes away some immersion.
-the systems are present but they are too straightforward, lacking more sophisticated dynamic interaction compared to other games.

Overall, I think this game could be interesting if you haven't played many strategy games or city-builders and have a bit of patience. To veterans or people easily frustrated, they might find it a bit middling or boring as it does not do enough to deviate from the formula, once you look past the art and overall theming.

I currently would not recommend this to friends, but I am open to changing my mind since I like the vibes and some of the design intent such as the plant focus.

Artstyle is beautiful, plants and their behaviour are interesting, but the game play is just boring.
It lacks the engaging dynamic and storyline from Frostpunk or Ixion.