I though I'd like this game as I love similar-ish games like rimworld and factorio, but unlike those game which have a learning curve, ONI is so unapproachable. It takes at least an hour of watching tutorials to achieve most anything past the early game because nothing is intuitive(I have ~12 hours in this game and I can confidently say i've spent 5+ hours looking at tutorials). The worst part is that I don't get to express myself through the game anymore, I'm just following the instructions that a video tells me. Earlier I compared ONI to rimworld and factorio, but they are much more intuitive, which I think some people don't understand how huge that is for a game like this. Even as a new player you can slowly progress through each of these games, not as quickly and optimally as a pro, but the game is intuitive enough that you learn and grow through the act of playing instead of mostly growing outside of the game by watching videos. It gives the player a lot of room to try interesting ideas and express themselves that ONI does not. In Rimworld I credit this to their much better research system. The items that you research are items that exist in real life, so as a player you have a sense of what they will do, additionally the research is much slower giving you time to try out what you've researched, facilitating slow but steady progression. In ONI you finished research super fast and most of the researched items are useless without several other branches of research, meaning you end up with a huge list of items you can craft and no clue how to use any of them or even whether you have to necessary tools to do so. You feel lost, so instead of being able to figure things out yourself, you have to look up videos. Factorio would have this problem if it wasn't for their science packs, which cleverly push you to experiment with the new research you've unlocked. I fully believe that if you invested the hundreds of hours into learning this game that it would be incredibly fun, as that knowledge gives you the ability to express yourself as a player. The problem is that other games in the same genre are fun as a beginner and as a master.

I though I'd like this game as I love similar-ish games like rimworld and factorio, but unlike those game which have a learning curve, ONI is so unapproachable. It takes at least an hour of watching tutorials to achieve most anything past the early game because nothing is intuitive(I have ~12 hours in this game and I can confidently say i've spent 5+ hours looking at tutorials). The worst part is that I don't get to express myself through the game anymore, I'm just following the instructions that a video tells me. Earlier I compared ONI to rimworld and factorio, but they are much more intuitive, which I think some people don't understand how huge that is for a game like this. Even as a new player you can slowly progress through each of these games, not as quickly and optimally as a pro, but the game is intuitive enough that you learn and grow through the act of playing instead of mostly growing outside of the game by watching videos. It gives the player a lot of room to try interesting ideas and express themselves that ONI does not. In Rimworld I credit this to their much better research system. The items that you research are items that exist in real life, so as a player you have a sense of what they will do, additionally the research is much slower giving you time to try out what you've researched, facilitating slow but steady progression. In ONI you finished research super fast and most of the researched items are useless without several other branches of research, meaning you end up with a huge list of items you can craft and no clue how to use any of them or even whether you have to necessary tools to do so. You feel lost, so instead of being able to figure things out yourself, you have to look up videos. Factorio would have this problem if it wasn't for their science packs, which cleverly push you to experiment with the new research you've unlocked. I fully believe that if you invested the hundreds of hours into learning this game that it would be incredibly fun, as that knowledge gives you the ability to express yourself as a player. The problem is that other games in the same genre are fun as a beginner and as a master.