A fun little city builder that plays quite different than any other I have played. Very satisfying progression system tied with the exploration. It's also relatively chill compared to other city builder/colony sim games if that's what you're looking for. Encountered some jank with the building system at times and some performance issues after reaching the end game but nothing gamebreaking. 9/10 Solid recommendation especially when on sale.

Definitely a unique approach to the city building systems. Overall a great title, though there's some friction at times (not being able to check the research tree when selecting specialists can really bottleneck your growth). Worth the time if you enjoy city builders and plate balancing games.

I don't usually recommend games I'm on the fence about, but I've decided to make an exception in this case because this is a really cute game with a lot of lovingly developed content and it's very likely its heart is in the right place.

It is set in a beautiful fantasy world in which humanity has mostly removed itself from the equation but the oceans are not cooked or acidic and life down there is thriving. You sail along on a beautiful blue sea, admiring the sponges and whales and sea life below, encountering the occasional flourishing island bright with wildflowers, etc...

What a beautiful dream, no?

There's pollution to contend with apparently, but I've played for 33 hours and so far it has been idyllic.

So that is my first reservation. It used to be a truism in the world of environmental activism that if you addressed people's climate anxiety they would feel empowered to inform themselves and take action. That hasn't worked, obviously. Who has benefited from that approach, I wonder. Anyway, this game is very soothing.

For a commercial project, it is surely a difficult theme to tackle. Finding the balance between fun engagement and meaningful representation has got to be tough, and I just don't think they've found it yet. It's cozy and comforting, but I'm not sure that the scenario presented truly addresses the underlying issues, potentially pushing the impact from 'hope/resilience' to 'complacence'. But I'm aware that my perspective is a little different and that there are some (misguided) people out there who find the collapse of society more concerning than the collapse of natural systems. It is possible that this game is more for them than for me.

My second concern relates to the ways in which the 'resource management' genre has been adapted to fit the theme - or rather how it has not been adapted. An overgrown island? Let's chop down all the trees! A school of fish? Excellent, let's send out a fishing boat and catch them all. I can't tell my drifters to catch, say, 10 of 20 fish; I can only manually intervene to prevent depletion if I'm paying attention, which doesn't always fit the very casual flow of the game.

I interpret this as scooping up the surplus, for my own peace of mind - just assuming if they show me 20 fish, there are 100 they are not showing me. But resource abundance isn't exactly the theme of the game, so I am uncomfortable. Are there consequences for over-exploitation of resources? Apparently not!

There's a bit about rebuilding civilisation in the intro that gave me the willies and I feel like various elements are coming together to make this potentially a very cute and pleasant game about how nice it would be to have the opportunity of repeating all our worst mistakes.

Finally, the tone/register is inconsistent, which is just mildly irritating. 'Master baiter' really seems to come out of nowhere. On the other hand, some of the auto-generated town names are philologically speaking excellent. Something for everyone? I think the visual quirkiness is significantly more polished and works better than the verbal humour. The visual style is strong and can carry a lot; the English text could benefit from a re-work.

Currently, it's a cute but casual base-building / resource management game with very pretty scenery and a theme I try not to think about too deeply.

So I would like: increased difficulty, a more physics-based research tree, a bit more environmental realism, better adaptation of genre to theme. Experimental branch looks promising!

Finally, I am a hypocrite, because a year or two ago I left a grumpy public comment somewhere saying 'insufficient content', and now that they've developed a really huge amount of content I'm saying 'pfft all this content is a distraction from the real issues!!'. The amount of work they've put in is staggering, and the game feels (in the nicest possible way) like the product of human labour, human processes. There's a lot to appreciate and I'd like to see where they go with it.

On balance, for me right now it is still more a game to watch (with interest) than a game to play.