can someone explain what exactly this game is?

[Commander Raymond]

So i have been watching this game for many years, and i have to come back every now and again and ask how it is going. So from what i recall, this was presented as a god game where you just watch people develop from the stone age to the space age bassically and some aliens show up I think? and i remember there was an issue with their trailers being misleading at one point. if anyone has the time, would you be willing to explain what this game currently is ?

[WallyRC]

It's a good game, still in development but moving forward steadily. You don't just watch - like all city builders you have to balance many variables as you work through from stone age to space age. You can see from the screenshots and the comments here "what this game currently is".

[Commander Raymond]

Originally posted by WallyRC:

It's a good game, still in development but moving forward steadily. You don't just watch - like all city builders you have to balance many variables as you work through from stone age to space age. You can see from the screenshots and the comments here "what this game currently is".

yeah i understand but over the years the scope of this game has shifted over time so i like to get a feeling of what it currently is. thank you for taking the time to respond though.

[Pesky]

Your description is still accurate, except for the 'just watch' and the 'aliens show up'.

It's a town-builder/God game. If everything in it worked you could play either way: either place blueprints for buildings yourself (and your people will build them), or appoint a minister for each type of building who will handle placing blueprints for you.

You take your people from Stone Age to the the point where they terraform the moon and can live on it. There is a suggestion that the finished game will include other planets.

Depending on the difficulty settings you pick, you may end up meeting other cultures on the motherplanet, and they may be more disposed to live peacefully and trade, or to fight you, depending on your settings and how much you annoy them.

It's a good game. I've played thought it around ten times, and I wouldn't have bothered if I didn't enjoy it.

[Commander Raymond]

Originally posted by PeskyTheTroll:

Your description is still accurate, except for the 'just watch' and the 'aliens show up'.

It's a town-builder/God game. If everything in it worked you could play either way: either place blueprints for buildings yourself (and your people will build them), or appoint a minister for each type of building who will handle placing blueprints for you.

You take your people from Stone Age to the the point where they terraform the moon and can live on it. There is a suggestion that the finished game will include other planets.

Depending on the difficulty settings you pick, you may end up meeting other cultures on the motherplanet, and they may be more disposed to live peacefully and trade, or to fight you, depending on your settings and how much you annoy them.

It's a good game. I've played thought it around ten times, and I wouldn't have bothered if I didn't enjoy it.

thanks i appreciate it

[Etermes]

Yep, right now it is a game about stockpiling resources and breeding main character, nuggets.
Everything else is trivial, you can even play without God Powers

[Gremlin Man]

Most city builders are about *spamming buildings". Most shooters about "Shooting things". Most Strategy games are about *Growing your empire*, doesn't mean they aren't fun.

This game does have a lot of interesting subsystems, but some are definitely in need of balance to make them more prominent. But overall, it has a ton of charm and is well worth playing IMO. The God powers may not be altogether necessary if you're an advanced player, but the powers are still pretty fun to mess around with. And it's dripping with spectacular visuals. You'd be hard pressed to find a city builder/god game with this kind of art-style and animation.

A few veteran players with a ton of hours will get bored, because they've already seen and done everything countless times and have their gameplay runs down to a science. There's nothing wrong with that, but I think it paints kind of cynical picture of the game for those interested in it.

[Etermes]

Originally posted by Gremlin Man:

Most city builders are about *spamming buildings". Most shooters about "Shooting things". Most Strategy games are about *Growing your empire*, doesn't mean they aren't fun.

This game does have a lot of interesting subsystems, but some are definitely in need of balance to make them more prominent. But overall, it has a ton of charm and is well worth playing IMO. The God powers may not be altogether necessary if you're an advanced player, but the powers are still pretty fun to mess around with. And it's dripping with spectacular visuals. You'd be hard pressed to find a city builder/god game with this kind of art-style and animation.

A few veteran players with a ton of hours will get bored, because they've already seen and done everything countless times and have their gameplay runs down to a science. There's nothing wrong with that, but I think it paints kind of cynical picture of the game for those interested in it.

yes, I am demanding with a game, especially if devs decide to nerf, trivialize most part of mechanics in it.
because after first impression, after watching colorful cartoonish assets, funny nuggets and Narrator lines, and some effective visuals you need a game, and replayability,

you don't want to play same thing again and again in every alien planet, cheat Terraforming with God Powers or OP space age buildings, just waiting Planet Cracker,
but that is it. more of the same, new wild animals, different planets, commerce, quests...

and as City builder we know the Universim is lacking, not only talking about roads, also UI and micromanagement

If you want we can talk about mechanics, tech tree (lineal), fear/love not shaping anything, disasters becoming irrelevant, and so on

[Gremlin Man]

Originally posted by al.aguilar:

Originally posted by Gremlin Man:

Most city builders are about *spamming buildings". Most shooters about "Shooting things". Most Strategy games are about *Growing your empire*, doesn't mean they aren't fun.

This game does have a lot of interesting subsystems, but some are definitely in need of balance to make them more prominent. But overall, it has a ton of charm and is well worth playing IMO. The God powers may not be altogether necessary if you're an advanced player, but the powers are still pretty fun to mess around with. And it's dripping with spectacular visuals. You'd be hard pressed to find a city builder/god game with this kind of art-style and animation.

A few veteran players with a ton of hours will get bored, because they've already seen and done everything countless times and have their gameplay runs down to a science. There's nothing wrong with that, but I think it paints kind of cynical picture of the game for those interested in it.

yes, I am demanding with a game, especially if devs decide to nerf, trivialize most part of mechanics in it.
because after first impression, after watching colorful cartoonish assets, funny nuggets and Narrator lines, and some effective visuals you need a game, and replayability,

you don't want to play same thing again and again in every alien planet, cheat Terraforming with God Powers or OP space age buildings, just waiting Planet Cracker,
but that is it. more of the same, new wild animals, different planets, commerce, quests...

and as City builder we know the Universim is lacking, not only talking about roads, also UI and micromanagement

If you want we can talk about mechanics, tech tree (lineal), fear/love not shaping anything, disasters becoming irrelevant, and so on

Hey, I'm not disagreeing with you on wanting more out of some of the mechanics. At the same time, you have what, well over a 1000 hours in this? At what point did you get your money's worth?

Maybe they'll address some of your issues, or maybe they won't. Personally I think they will at least try before release. But the bottom line is it's a pretty solid piece of entertainment even if it isn't endlessly replayable and certain mechanics not feeling impactful enough after so many playthroughs.

If we're talking about if new players should jump in, I'd say it's a pretty fun little game for what it is. It's no Dyson Sphere or Kerbal, but it's not trying to be. Should they wait until after 1.0 drops? Sure, that's always a safer bet. Even now though it's a pretty entertaining game

[Etermes]

yeah, you know how much I have helped since 2019, and I feel I gave more than I received,

and it is not about hours, since day one the game did not offer any challenge, and it was harder back in the days,
at the same time new players ask same questions again and again, due to lack of proper tutorial, guidance, that's on devs, and the only difficulty implemented, the rest is a clickfest

is it fun? well, depending on your expectations, if you see the project as indie stuff for kids, sure, you can throw nuggets in the grinder, put Exiles on fire, watch your subjects inside ice cubes, fight a see monster inside a lake and pumpkin zombies,

but as God sim or city builder or something resembling old famous sims it falls short in 2022, and I would advise against purchasing the game at least until 1.0 is released

I have played last updates, 2 days is what it takes to complete everything, there isn't hard choices, different paths, different society according to your decisions, just until I extract every piece of Unobtanium and I terraform the Moon, a good amount of bugs is still there, old and new, and background sims with multiple planets will be a nightmare or faked as hell, I have not hopes

[Drillerman]

“You take your people from Stone Age to the the point where they terraform the moon and can live on it. There is a suggestion that the finished game will include other planets.”

Not a suggestion, a integral part of the game when it was being sold back in 2016 from their website. That’s what made me buy the game then.
Anyway, that was 6 years ago.

This is what the website says:

The Universim aims to revive the glory days of the god-game genre, and bring it into the new generation with fresh ideas and ambitious gameplay. With the powers of a god, you are unleashed upon the universe to begin forging your galactic empire in the stars. From dust to the cosmos beyond, your civilization will rise through the ages under your guidance.


“Galactic empire” and “Cosmos beyond”. Those are the interesting bits!

[WallyRC]

Originally posted by hug.larich:

Originally posted by WallyRC:

It's a good game, still in development but moving forward steadily. You don't just watch - like all city builders you have to balance many variables as you work through from stone age to space age. You can see from the screenshots and the comments here "what this game currently is".

What variables exactly? You just need to spam buildings and voila.

You know what variables. If you don't like it don't play it. I have hundreds of games I played for a few hours to maybe hundreds and didn't like them so went elsewhere. I enjoy this game. It's more interesting than skylines and the others. It has a bit of character, a bit of fun, some unexpected turns and always new bugs to deal with lol. I have no qualms about starting from scratch regularly because every iteration of the planet brings slightly different challenges. Who cares where it goes or even if it gets there - it's the journey that counts.

[Gremlin Man]

Originally posted by hug.larich:

Originally posted by WallyRC:

You know what variables. If you don't like it don't play it. I have hundreds of games I played for a few hours to maybe hundreds and didn't like them so went elsewhere. I enjoy this game. It's more interesting than skylines and the others. It has a bit of character, a bit of fun, some unexpected turns and always new bugs to deal with lol. I have no qualms about starting from scratch regularly because every iteration of the planet brings slightly different challenges. Who cares where it goes or even if it gets there - it's the journey that counts.

Who cares where it goes or if it gets there? Maybe the people who gave them 340k back in 2015 when they promised a 2016 delivery. Here we are in 2022, and this game is just a clicker. It's not a god game, it's not a city/planet building game. Just a clicker. There are no parameters to control/tweak. You just go through your research and spam buildings once they're unlocked.

I don't know why I keep responding to you, but you seem dedicated to negativity, so I might as well be dedicated to counter at least some of it. What a wildly reductive description of the game. It's far from just a "clicker". Plenty of other games just require you to "go through the research". Your exaggerations just get worse and worse. Seems like this is a hobby for you now, to just show up once in a while to swipe at the game tons of people clearly enjoy.

If it was that boring, simple, and awful, you wouldn't have so many hours and play every new patch for some reason. It might be time for you to move on. You said yourself you have other games of the genre you enjoy more.

[Gremlin Man]

Originally posted by hug.larich:

Originally posted by Gremlin Man:

I don't know why I keep responding to you, but you seem dedicated to negativity, so I might as well be dedicated to counter at least some of it. What a wildly reductive description of the game. It's far from just a "clicker". Plenty of other games just require you to "go through the research". Your exaggerations just get worse and worse. Seems like this is a hobby for you now, to just show up once in a while to swipe at the game tons of people clearly enjoy.

If it was that boring, simple, and awful, you wouldn't have so many hours and play every new patch for some reason. It might be time for you to move on. You said yourself you have other games of the genre you enjoy more.

You know, when I'm talking to the butcher, I'm not expecting the sausage to respond... ;)

I'll keep talking about this game in those terms, and I already explained to you why.
Why are you talking about "tons of people" when steam charts shows 24-hour peaks at 225 people (500 on a patch week)?
The other game I mentioned (Banished, solo dev, 8 years old game) is currently at 1200 players in the last 24 hours, which clearly shows TU is far from the popularity you blindly want it to have.

Anyway, I guess we'll have more discussions on other comments.

Why are you comparing it to Banished (a wonderful game, but extremely different and not even CLOSE to as technically complex) and bringing up highly variable Steam charts? Why not factor in the reviews as well? Why not just continue playing Banished then and ignore this game instead of trying to convince people how terrible it is, in some kind of bizarre hate crusade?

It's not about "blindly wanting it to be popular" (seriously, how do you come up with this stuff? It's embarrassing). I don't care how popular it is, I just want to see it get a fair shake. And I certainly don't want to see it continuously slandered and relentlessly negatively shot at for the sake of lulz or whatever it is you're after. That really doesn't help anybody. None of your criticism is being constructive.

There are nuggets of truth in some of it, such as balancing issues people (including me) can reasonably agree with, but you coat it with such bile and simplistic nastiness that it does nothing but turn away anyone interested in the game for unfair reasons.

[Gremlin Man]

Originally posted by hug.larich:

"highly variable" = lol. You can't come up with better words for it? 200 player peak is a sign of a dead game. We can factor in reviews all you want, at the end of the day, this game will not be coming back from those numbers.

And I'm the bad guy because I'm voicing concerns that every KS backer has?

I could say that you coat your comments with so much asslicking that it does nothing but mislead anyone interested in the game for unfair reasons.

Anyway, let's discuss this further when 1.0 releases, and we'll see. I'd love to be proven wrong. But it won't happen.

No, I get it. You're just one of those negative people who always assumes the worst and feels burned by anything that isn't exactly how they want, when they want. Crytivo ain't Activision Blizzard over there, they're not trying to screw you over... it's a tiny dev group with big ambitions, who have struggled, but haven't given up. That much is clear, even if you have no idea how game development (especially of a project of this scope) works. Of course there are one person massive hits that found their perfect slam-dunk like Banished and Stardew Valley. They're extremely rare for a reason. There are thousands of others with bigger dev teams, who worked just as hard, that ended up having to end their development. There are so many factors involved that you would have no interest in considering.

You're not "voicing the concerns every backer has". The backers that do have concerns generally know HOW to voice them, is my point. Including me. Not calling the devs "liars" and saying it's "just a clicker" is a start.

I've done my huge share criticizing the game and some of the choices made by the team, repetitively, so implying I'm an "asslicker" just adds yet another piece of over-simplified nonsense to your pile.

Yes, we will see once 1.0. hits. I have a feeling though, that no matter what releases, you'll assure everyone how bad it is.

[mrtimb]

It's a game. If you enjoy it, play it. If you have stopped enjoying it, quit playing it.