Recent reviews by Demonocolips

i liked this game. it was marginally enjoyable to go around to different systems mine resources and build a bigger ship.

then, the maker decided that building a roomba required examining dark matter. which is more or less an end game resource. and since you can only count on robots to do anything in any resonable amount of time. the game ends up wasting your time. alot of time. this is because of the core item which is the brain for robots. which innevitabley is what is destroyed when they are killed. so you might find a core to trade for but until you are in the end game you cant replace your killed robots. and even then the cores require very high end resources that require resources that inevitably will be used elsewhere.
the maker also added a surgery system like rimworld. but you cant queue surgeries so if you need to replace multiple body parts you have to find the pawn after every surgery is completed to replace another part. there is a install all missing parts, a remove all parts button and a remove irreparable parts button. but not a replace all parts. some people have defending this wasting of player time. i dont.
there has also been issues with event and enemy spawns where you will get endless spawns of face huggers killing your human colonists constantly. its really annoying because the interface is not designed to easily find them. you can but its just not great.
theres alot of small problems that come together and are exacerbated by the latest round of changes to the game. right now if you can force your way through the problems you might like it but its not great.

the premise of the game is fine. escaping earth and recovering lost equipment along the way to increase your chances of succeeding. the basic gameplay can be most easily compared to orcs must die. build traps to kill enemies and use your personal weapons to kill them. however in this early phase it cant be compared favorably.
the issue is progression and basic equipment.
the basic pistol you start with is bad. unless you can hit every single headshot it is bad.
the next basic pistol has a scope which makes headshots easier but is still usless unless you can hit EVERY SINGLE HEADSHOT.
the basic smg you start with is again bad. it has way too high of recoil for the amount of damage it does and too little ammo because of how little damage it does.
the shotgun does ok damage but has so little ammo you will need to resupply mid mission. which ensures you will lose. especially since if you choose to use it you can only have the ONE gun.
the traps are not good enough and are in too little number to be useful.
the maps are obviously designed to be frustrating for the player. enemies come down this lane once. then another lane once then a different one and so on. so you have to tear down your traps and replace them after most waves.
so far i dont remember a single piece of progression. didnt get very far in a couple runs and didnt get anything new for the next run. i think the basic and TERRIBLE grenade ability might be a piece of progression but i dont remember.
i played the demo a year or two ago during steam next fest and mostly played with the sniper rifle. still havent found it in this game yet.

a colony management game where you are a colonist, set in a post apocalyptic futue. your working for a defunct satellite that crashed into someones house and grants you research based on what it observes you do. it has a drone follow you around to watch you.

the top down perspective is nice because if there is a problem you can just handle it and the colonist AI isnt too bad. controls are OK and there isnt much to complain about for what is there.

the problem is the game is a little barebones at the moment and 8 hours is enough to complete most of the structured game experience. if i understand how the maps work as well nothing is procedurally genereated. every map is handmade and selected randomly. unfortunately there just arent alot of them. the update cycle has been quite slow as well. the studio that makes this is a sole person however so im not certain what else might be going one. but its a good start and hopefully more progress will be made on it.

this is not a rougelike game this is a rogue game.
meaning when you die you accomplish nothing.
no progress is made and nothing improves or advances.
you will most likely die dozens of time before you see anything interesting in this game.
you will die another dozen before you ever have the chance to see any of the interesting mechanics.
you will die another dozen times for each of the interesting mechanics.
in other words this game likes to waste your time.
yes, you might get better at it and you might learn more about playing it, but there is nothing you can do to improve your chances at getting further in the game other than hope the game doesnt ♥♥♥♥ on you.
i would accept nearly any system to just make it so your not wasting your time when the game decides to ♥♥♥♥ on you.
which is not to say that the games core mechanics aren't enjoyable enough. i do think that some of the mechanics are too simple at times, melee combat is too simplistic and hence a little boring timing blocks and attacks with little in the way of variance is a little boring.
magic is functional but currently there again isnt much variance in it. you find books and maybe you can read them and maybe they will be useful others arent. locking a breakable door. sure ill waste hotbar space on that.
there are shops maybe, sometimes and sometimes they may buy something you have. you may end up wasting inventory space holding on to expensive items that no one is there to buy or they wont buy. you might also just hang on to high value jewels waiting for your appraisal skill to level up so you can gain more experience.
when i can get a good run its fun but i end up wasting alot of time hoping for a good run rather than just enjoying the game.

i do like and recommend this game with the caveat that the ending is a major downer. you beat the final boss after a forseeable twist then are told that you still failed. the evil forces you have been fighting the entire game have continued after your battles and destroyed humanity.
i have to question what the developers were thinking with the framing of the ending and the continuation of the game world. leaving it a bit more open ended would have been more satisfying while letting them make a new game in the same universe if they wanted. however they decided to piss on the universe and the efforts of the player by making a cutscene that tells you that you failed and there is no way you can overcome this eventuality.
the gameplay is fairly methodical with a variety of ways to accomplish objectives though some dont work well for the 3 bosses in the game. some of the options are clearly better than others though and some dont make sense to me at least but there are options.

while the overall feel of the gameplay and mechanics is mostly fine the controls are controller first, which means some things just dont work right on keyboard and mouse, and the interface needs work.
by controller first i mean some things just dont work right when using the mouse and keyboard. some things work correctly and others do. its inconsistent. a weird thing is when items are stacked on the ground scrolling down selects the next item down and scrolling up also selects the next item down. this is not expected or wanted behavior in any game. right click exits some menus and doesnt in others, and in some it exits all menus and in others it takes single steps back.
another controller first feature is there is always a list of problem items in the upper left. you cant click these to bring them up. you have to access a radial menu in order to select this entire list then scroll through this list in order to find the item. and some items that are shown in this list are not selectable, for some reason.
interface issues include unnecessary button presses, i am interacting with a chest of course i would like to take something out of it. why do i need to open the chest interface and then open its inventory in order to take anything out of it.
interacting with the wrong thing in a stack. things stack on the ground. i am holding dirt in order to build a structure in the same spot. cant pick up more that one item at a time. so i have to manually change what is selected in the stack in order to change what i interact with. the game should be smart enough to guess what i want to interact with depending on whats in my hands. this is particularly an issue when you need to pick up a wounded ratizen and their in a pile of crap. the most important thing in that pile is the ratizen if i dont have anything else in my hands it should be the first thing i interact with.
in terms of being a colony simulation game its more interactive than other ones. but its worse in terms of organization and showing the player information and overal feel. this interactivity and player control mean to me that i would prefer this if the controls werent controller first.
this interaction can be a bit of a pain though. the game map is large and there arent many fast traversal options. so if your off on the far side of the map and something happens it can be minutes before you get there and the in game advisor is the rodent version of N'avi. depending on how many things it wants to talk about it will cycle through them every ten seconds constantly making noise. it is very annoying.
building could have a redo because of how slow the ratizens work especially at the beginning. you can only build with things in the actual inventory of the colony. so if you have 100 grass on the ground, well their not in the inventory so you cant build with them. so either you have to carry everything yourself or wait for the ratizens to get around to doing it. oxygen not included handled this better because the dupes and pick up things from the ground and immediately use them. this game doesnt allow for that behavior.
when things are going well its a fine game the problems arise when dealing with the games core mechanics. its not bad just frustrating.

fun concept but not that good. its just not enjoyable to me. on top of that its kinda boring. the enemy hordes are tiny and if it werent for the weird movement from some enemies it would be easy. but things move in weird ways and even the autoaim of the chainsword misses regularly.
there is 4x the ammo necessary to play the game and i keep almost dying because chip damage from respawning enemies is more than what is ever dropped by enemies.
its more a bullet hell shooter than a boomer shooter. more doom eternal than doom 2016.

however even as a bullet hell shooter it has issues. most enemies still have a hitbox for several seconds after you kill an enemy meaning you waste shots destroying a corpse rather than killing the enemy behind them
there is little to no indication that your being hit by enemy shots so suddenly you look down and you nearly dead. there is no indication which shots will do 1 damage and which do 50 damage.
the heavy bolter sounds like a nerf gun.

honestly while being high quality on the art front. gameplay wise this is a cash grab just get space marine for a good space marine game.

fun enough and the large squad size is more interesting than most pve games. but there just isnt enough here.
major issues right now:
the sheer amount of debris that is thrown up in the standard firefight obscuring vision. this includes the massive blood geysers coming out of the bugs your shooting.
bullets do not come out of the gun your using but somewhere in your chest area during standard firing. this means that when in the buildible bunker you are likely to hit your cover even when the gun clears it.
its actually kind of hard to tag certain enemies because instead of just being near them you have to actually tag them and with how spindly some are its difficult. when a swarm is coming just tagging within a meter of them tagging the area their in.
while the progression model is very straightforward its a little dull. so far there isnt much to actually unlock but there doesnt seem to be much more to it than just level up get the next weapon. there is a quartermaster button that is blanked out which looks like it may be the premium shop but who knows. hopefully there is some attachments or adjustments you can put on your weapon to change its behavior to spice it up a little.
there seems to be only two maps. though both maps can be in either daytime or night.
its still early access i would wait a little while as there is less content here than darktide had at launch.

if you liked the vermintide games but wanted more shooting this game is a natural progression.
the game is fun however its unfinished and some things need to be fixed for the game to be completed.
most guns are just worse than others. certain mechanics are poorly thought out and need to be modified. certain weapon blessings and perks need to be modified. the reward system needs to be modified, so it actually feels rewarding.
the core gameplay loop is fine but the game really likes wasting its players time.
so far the game still only has its first set of premium cosmetics in the game and some people are complaining about this. i want more non premium options as they currently are fairly limited and need better equipment options.

infinite resource sinks of finite resources are not fun. have not gotten past the system after Sol. sol lots of metal needs to stockpile thousands in order to make it past the second system because there is virtually no metal there. honestly dont think you can reasonably make it past sol without getting the recycling center tech first. which sucks because most buildings are designed for horizontal rather than vertical space meaning everything takes up way too much room.
every sector you open needs more resources to repair. every smelter is supposed to make enough metal to run 3 repair stations at full tilt when the station is in the worst condition. with 2 i cant keep up with 2 repair stations. where do my resources go. I DO NOT KNOW.
the interface sucks. there is so much wasted space so much flair when a simpler interface would be better. some things should also NOT BE RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER WHEN THEY WILL CLOSE THE INTERFACE YOUR CURRENTLY IN. when i am already in an interface part of it should not disappear while i am still using it. needing me to close the interface and reopen it to get back to what i was doing.
the research tree sucks. why do i need to research the ability for the internal build crew to automatically repair anything. its just stupid. the multi trillion dollar company sends out this craft and for food they have an insect farm. not hydroponics or aquaponics. AN INSECT FARM.
the initial position of the docking bay is dumb. it needs to be moved for things to be efficient.

i understand the story is that the company that put this together were evil cretins. however this does not explain the poor game design choices this game subjects its players too. i should not have to call my workers idiots more than 10 times an hour when they do something wrong.