This game is like pulling teeth. I was stoked for a different setting for a farming sim and totally open to the new ideas that it presents - excited, even! As you can see from my playtime, I gave it more than a fair shot. The very beginning of the game is fine but as you continue to play, the issues multiply until it's just an absolute drag.

The main problems here are a lack of momentum and a lack of reward. Almost everything you unlock feels like a punishment rather than a relief. The shining example of this is the kitchen. I worked my tochus off to get a kitchen thinking it would finally help me make good energy foods for the field, money for all the ridiculously expensive upgrades and nice presents for everyone. I saved up almost all of my crops for cooking. I knew that edamame was a universally liked gift so I had my soybeans in STACKS and ready to go. Then, I FINALLY get a gd kitchen and guess what? Every recipe that comes with it requires a processed food. Edamame requires soybeans and spices, for some reason, and spices can only be made with a machine you don't have the blueprints for yet.

You can build a juicer, though, and I had purchased the tomato soup recipe which requires soy milk for some ungodly reason so I build a juicer. And guess what? It takes TWO DAYS to make ONE product with the juicer. There are no recipes you can just make. And then - guess what? Once you finally can make a recipe (like, say, waiting two gd days for one singular soy milk so you can make one measly serving of tomato soup) and you do the math you realize that the recipes don't actually increase the energy output of the individual ingredients by very much. They don't increase the value of the ingredients much either. You're much better off just eating individual ingredients in stacks or selling them and buying premade food/beverages.

And this is the game in a nutshell. You unlock a machine, that machine sucks so you have to wait forever to unlock the same machine but slightly better. You have to fly to different locations to get different materials to make machines but each planet is three days away, so you frequently have times where you can't gather resources. You work and work to unlock stuff only to realize it needs other stuff to work. Farming takes FOREVER, it seems like all crops grow so slowly. You have to build individual machines to hold each individual crop, and then power generators to power them, so you can't do mass farming to make money. You walk so slow it makes me want to scream. You can upgrade walking on the ship, but it costs a ton of money, and you have a million things you need to upgrade to do anything.

It's just all a struggle, a slog, and it makes you aware of how repetitive everything is, especially as you have to fly back to planets you've already visited and wait to get there. Imagine playing Stardew Valley and having to wait three days every time you realize you need to pop by the top floors for some copper or every time you unlock a new section of the mines.

I can appreciate that there was some imagination and creativity put to this. The ideas were well thought out to be in-line with the space theme, they just were not well executed. It doesn't give you that sense of challenge and hard work paired with a sudden satisfying increase of production. It never feels rewarding. I wish I had returned it when I could but glad to at least played it long enough to know for sure it's not for me. I wish I had listened to the reviews but the issues don't really become overwhelming until you get a few hours into the game. I know a lot of people enjoy this game, I just genuinely don't know how.

A craft/life sim hybrid with farm sim mechanics in addition to the life/craft bits.
Very different from most sims like it, highly original.
Set in Space, with Aliens, and Humans, and sort of almost Star Trek themed but a lot more cozy and suited well for younger audiences.
Not anything at all like Stardew Valley, VERY different.
Would highly reccommend for people who want a new and original life sim.

Cute little farm/life sim with a unique space theme. The maps are nice and compact, the characters are cute and interesting, and there is lots to do. The story is a bit short - I finished the main story well before I had unlocked most things. Since I play games mainly for story, the grind got a bit repetitive after it was over just so I could farm NPC rep and achievements. There are some balance issues IMO - earning gold is too hard, crafting material costs are too high, and upgrades are hecken expensive. I think there are mods that help balance this, but I played through without them. You don't unlock the boutique for clothes and such until very late in the story, and then you don't have the cash to buy anything, so if that's your thing, be prepared to grind. Good little game, though.