Not worth 30$ here’s why. (Review)

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Problems:

Planet landing?
A 50ft circle with different colored rocks that represent ore and plants. The occasional crashed satellite or scan location marker.

Enemies?
Some are unique, some are taken from free assets off the web.

Random Generation?
Games can be as quick as 2-3 hours, as the zone is generated off of map seeds of a rather small grid map. Aprox 20 wide by 40 long. Though only around 20 zones might be actually searchable (have planets and debris.)

Ship infestations?
Hope you like searching your vents after every time you send a mission out, use the tractor beam, or refine a material. Assuming the crew in that zone don't get murdered by the creature that spawns from it.

Is it a good game?
For a 15$ indie game it would be, but for what it is. It has a lot to be desired.

Pros: (by request)

Loading Times?
There is not a lot going on in the game which requires transition to new zones outside the players base. Aside from Hangar missions which usually take 5-7 seconds to load (very fast).

Runs Smooth?
Both Pro and Con, given it’s a small game It’s low spec, so you shouldn’t see any frame rate drops; should run fine on just about any rig.

Helping with tasks?
You are more than just the captain, you can assist with any task in progress or do it yourself. Thus if you lack the spare crew or need to speed up a job you don’t just have to sit around and wait.

Unique?
It’s not the best game in the world, though given it’s a forerunner in hybrid game genres (Survival FPS / City Builder) it’s a unique experience. Which is why despite disapproving of certain choices, I will still support the game.

Cons:

Repetitive?
Once you have seen one planet, though they may look different you may as well have seen them all. As other than the Genesis planet each mission will be the same.

Tractor beam, 1 of 2 things will happen. 1. You collect the material. 2. You collect the material and a local monster spawns.

Hanger, auto-missions will always bring back hostile lifeforms and even if you kill them all it’ll spawn the start of an infestation on your ship.

Vents, hope you enjoy shifting through them because it’ll be 40-50% of the game. As only you can clear out the infestations or repair damaged power nodes.

Lacking?
Small worlds, few ship options, and limited things to do. Once you have done it once, it gets old.

Predictable?
On missions and if boarded the enemy spawns in randomly decided waves, it’s anti-climactic. Also they will murder any crew in 2-3 hits as they swarm and the crew don’t fight back till too late. So the only thing crew are good for is sending them on auto-missions as if you go with them they will likely die.

Improvements

Mod Support:
The best thing a small game can do is add mod support. The community can increase the life of a game, as well as attract new players. For instance the game STONEHEARTH which sold out and didn’t deliver on their kickstarter promises. They opened modding and now the community is going above and beyond (ACE project) to complete and build on the core game. (Yes I am advertising our volunteer group, but it does go to show what dedicated gamer communities can do.)

Larger worlds?
The genesis mission is how all missions should be. A small camp guarded by the NPCs you bring as you go down in the tunnels and dig up resources. (Except trees: why are trees and plants mined from rocks? Seriously) I understand this will bump load times by a small bit. It’d be worth it. A cheap and easy options would be to put busted space ship habitat units and structures on the planet to search.

Random Generation?
It’d make exploring more interesting if upon reaching the boarder of the map it’d give the option of searching a new sector (load in a new map seed)

Useful Crew and\or Robots?
The crew should be able to if directed through a option make decisions like tractor beam materials on their own without being told.

Part of the time refining materials is taken unloading cargo. It’s a bother so being able to choose what rooms they wait in would be a blessing.

Crawling through the vents should be needed early game, as late game it gets old. Since the crew can’t do it being able to build small roaming sentries in the vents would save a lot of waisted time and effort. Also repair drones to fix the busted power modules as well.

Also since crew can’t defend themselves well, it would be a good addition when upgrading a room to have it place a permanent turret which operates so long as the room has 50% power. So if creatures attack the power in the vents it can disable them, thus it won’t be OP/broken.

Lastly, automated sentries or turrets in corridors. Once you get boarded by an enemy it’s basically game over as the crew in nearly incapable of defending themselves. So having a turret upgrade to corridors would make sense. Otherwise like Robotnik, having a mobile sentry you can build roaming the corridors.

(Leave comments below if you have any suggestions.)

[Zothen]

thanks for letting us know...

[Mentally Unstable]

Thank you for the review.

[Darkreaver1980]

Originally posted by The Heretek:

Planet landing?

A 50ft circle with different colored rocks that represent ore and plants. The occasional crashed satellite or scan location marker.

Enemies?

Some are unique, some are taken from free assets off the web.

Random Generation?

Games can be as quick as 2-3 hours, as the zone is generated off of map seeds of a rather small grid map. Aprox 20 wide by 40 long. Though only around 20 zones might be actually searchable (have planets and debris.)

Ship infestations?

Hope you like searching your vents after every time you send a mission out, use the tractor beam, or refine a material. Assuming the crew in that zone don't get murdered by the creature that spawns from it.

Is it a good game?

For a 15$ indie game it would be, but for what it is. It has a lot to be desired.

(I’ll edit this post for possible improvements later today, in 4-8 hours)

how about you also list good points?

[Nopalito]

Thank you very much for your review, keep me pending.

[DaLagga]

Originally posted by Darkreaver1980:

how about you also list good points?

While I can't speak for the TC, I have played the game for about 8 hours now but to be honest, nothing has really jumped out and truly impressed me. The game is fun for a little while, but repetition sets in quick as you spend most of your time grinding while the same tiny handful of easy events play out. I'll list a few things that have a positive aspect to them if you like.

-Ship building is fun and it's always nice to be able to walk around your creations.

-It's reasonably well optimized. I have been playing at max settings on a GTX 960 and it runs great. The framerates are high, there is no stutter or hitching whatsoever, loading times are very short on a standard HDD and I have not experienced a single crash or graphical bug of any kind.

-There is a bit of planning involved in how you build your ship, but not a whole lot. After a planet mission you will return with boxes of resources which have to be picked up and manually carried to depots by your robots. They then have to be carried to a refinery for processing which means that you do need to keep these structures close to one another. However, creatures can also hide in the resource loads so you likely need some defenses or decontamination units between your shuttle bay and refineries.

What's odd is that after resources are processed they just magically teleport into storage and when you build something they are just instantly consumed. So it's as if they tried to design the game with a realistic logistics system for resources but then stopped halfway.

-Planet missions can be fun for a little while but do get old fast as the area you can explore is tiny, the enemy comes in small predictable waves, and there's no real challenge to it whatsoever. In 8 hours I have had 1 death on a planet and that's because I underestimated the range of my grenade launcher and killed myself in 1 shot. Your crew serves as extra lives and is easily replaceable so the penalties for death are negligible.

-The shooting mechanics aren't amazing, but they're not as bad as I've heard some people saying. The laser rifle is boring and feels limp, but most of the other weapons do feel like they pack a proper punch and enemies tend to die in satisfying ways - especially went you shoot a grenade into a group and watch a flurry of blood, dismembered alien parts and ragdolls fly all over the place. Compared to something like Doom though, it's pretty bad but for a low budget unity game the shooting mechanics are satisfying enough.

I realize a lot of these come across as backhanded compliments to the game and that's kind of how most of it plays. Some features are fun but poor design in other ways really hampers them. One thing I will say for sure though, this game is NOT worth $30. Not compared to all the other amazing games you could get for that same price or much less. If it goes on sale for $10 and you're still interested then I'd say go for it but otherwise, skip it. You won't be missing out on much.

[Master myst eversong]

yes ♥♥♥♥ of to epic store and ask your questions ther.

[Master myst eversong]

ohh no you cant .

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Originally posted by Nopalito:

Thank you very much for your review, keep me pending.

Updated

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Originally posted by Darkreaver1980:

Originally posted by The Heretek:

Planet landing?

A 50ft circle with different colored rocks that represent ore and plants. The occasional crashed satellite or scan location marker.

Enemies?

Some are unique, some are taken from free assets off the web.

Random Generation?

Games can be as quick as 2-3 hours, as the zone is generated off of map seeds of a rather small grid map. Aprox 20 wide by 40 long. Though only around 20 zones might be actually searchable (have planets and debris.)

Ship infestations?

Hope you like searching your vents after every time you send a mission out, use the tractor beam, or refine a material. Assuming the crew in that zone don't get murdered by the creature that spawns from it.

Is it a good game?

For a 15$ indie game it would be, but for what it is. It has a lot to be desired.

(I’ll edit this post for possible improvements later today, in 4-8 hours)

how about you also list good points?

WIP: but I plan to do so. Updated a few points but once I jump back on later today I’ll flesh it out.

[Mentally Unstable]

Originally posted by DaLagga:

Originally posted by Darkreaver1980:

how about you also list good points?

While I can't speak for the TC, I have played the game for about 8 hours now but to be honest, nothing has really jumped out and truly impressed me. The game is fun for a little while, but repetition sets in quick as you spend most of your time grinding while the same tiny handful of easy events play out. I'll list a few things that have a positive aspect to them if you like.

-Ship building is fun and it's always nice to be able to walk around your creations.

-It's reasonably well optimized. I have been playing at max settings on a GTX 960 and it runs great. The framerates are high, there is no stutter or hitching whatsoever, loading times are very short on a standard HDD and I have not experienced a single crash or graphical bug of any kind.

-There is a bit of planning involved in how you build your ship, but not a whole lot. After a planet mission you will return with boxes of resources which have to be picked up and manually carried to depots by your robots. They then have to be carried to a refinery for processing which means that you do need to keep these structures close to one another. However, creatures can also hide in the resource loads so you likely need some defenses or decontamination units between your shuttle bay and refineries.

What's odd is that after resources are processed they just magically teleport into storage and when you build something they are just instantly consumed. So it's as if they tried to design the game with a realistic logistics system for resources but then stopped halfway.

-Planet missions can be fun for a little while but do get old fast as the area you can explore is tiny, the enemy comes in small predictable waves, and there's no real challenge to it whatsoever. In 8 hours I have had 1 death on a planet and that's because I underestimated the range of my grenade launcher and killed myself in 1 shot. Your crew serves as extra lives and is easily replaceable so the penalties for death are negligible.

-The shooting mechanics aren't amazing, but they're not as bad as I've heard some people saying. The laser rifle is boring and feels limp, but most of the other weapons do feel like they pack a proper punch and enemies tend to die in satisfying ways - especially went you shoot a grenade into a group and watch a flurry of blood, dismembered alien parts and ragdolls fly all over the place. Compared to something like Doom though, it's pretty bad but for a low budget unity game the shooting mechanics are satisfying enough.

I realize a lot of these come across as backhanded compliments to the game and that's kind of how most of it plays. Some features are fun but poor design in other ways really hampers them. One thing I will say for sure though, this game is NOT worth $30. Not compared to all the other amazing games you could get for that same price or much less. If it goes on sale for $10 and you're still interested then I'd say go for it but otherwise, skip it. You won't be missing out on much.

Thank you for the detailed writeup.

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Originally posted by Master myst eversong:

yes ♥♥♥♥ of to epic store and ask your questions ther.

This is for the people on steam curious about the game.

[Power_of_Mike]

how can they mod support cosumer friendly when it's on epic i don't see nay of that ♥♥♥♥ over there its you shut up and give your money if you have a problem or a question go somwhere place...

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Originally posted by Power_of_Mike:

how can they mod support cosumer friendly when it's on epic i don't see nay of that ♥♥♥♥ over there its you shut up and give your money if you have a problem or a question go somwhere place...

It’ll be on steam eventually so why not have it open to the workshop on release?

[Nopalito]

Many thanks to The Heretek and DaLagga for that excellent information, beyond the nonsense that the game right now is only available in a store where you can not read reviews and you have to risk buying a game that you know that there is a very high possibility that it is a junk product (that there is a refund policy) does not take away the bad taste of mouth paying so much for something like that and having to wait a whole year to realize these things, thanks for the people who take a risk to buy the product and bring us a sincere analysis.

As a final comment it is noted that this company the reason for payment and conditions and the knowledge that in that store no one could criticize how ugly the game is, by the time I get to steam I assure you that it will come with corrections.

[Kashra Fall]

You can prevent ship infestations by actually building defenses. This may or may not of been said, but going into the access tunnel start point and placing an energy barrier will completely stop things from getting into those tunnels. Do so for the hangar and the tractor beam, but that is not the only way onto the ship, but it substantially haults it.

Get the awareness alien power to find the infestations that sneak by, because they can lay dormant for a very, very long time, upwards to 3+hours.