Holy Potatoes! We're in Space?!

Had to review this after buying it because of my experience with their first game. You like FTL and its ilk? You will like this. Like their first game? This one is just as full of corny, adorable, cute, and odd references and pop culture. Not as grindy feeling as the first game, not as demanding either. The folks that made this made something that they enjoyed and it shows. So I say buy this game, support people that make something that they would enjoy. Feeling wishy-washy about it? Buy the first game, try that! Gets five stars, for being programmed well, for being an enjoyable game, for amusing me (and hopefully you!), and for being an all-around nice to play game.

There is a lot of really dumb dialog that you can't skip. I got tired hitting space button to skip the walls of dumb pointless jokes. The setting in general is on par with dialog, it's like watching a really dumb cartoon, you know the kind the make 'for kids'. Other wise it's a mix of Halcyon and FTL, but doesn't really add anything of its own.

There are tons of weird weapons, characters, upgrades, research, planets, weather, silly stories, boss fights, and the art is great for its style. There are some little niggly details about the game that could have greatly improved it (I stopped writing down game issues for a while to take a break because normally I would list them), but for the most part, it's interesting and enjoyable. I soured on FTL pretty quickly, because I could see that the system is meant to be repeatedly played ad nauseum, whereas I typically enjoy a long, story-based game. HPWIS delivers this. However, I played the game on "infinite sol" mode (effectively how many "turns" you have to complete a system). I'm not sure how enjoyable it would be otherwise, because it didn't seem like the balance of this type of game was forgiving enough for the RNG factor, and are typically designed for replay. If you get a good weapon vs a bad weapon, it can be dramatically less effective, which begins to snowball. I artificially tried to limit how many sols I would use just to make things interesting, but towards the end was just enjoying the weapons and whatnot so didn't need to. Some of the boss fights are pretty insane, coming down to the wire even though I had infinite sols, so I'm not sure how the game would fair otherwise, if death is permanent, etc. where I could see that being pretty frustrating.

It's combat mechanics isn't quite as intricate as FTL, and there are no any New Game + options like alternate ships/layouts, which limits the replay value yet there's still enough sights to see and things to do to tempt you into multiple playthroughs. The writing is... Well, it won't win any gold awards, but it's actually OK, the game tries too hard to be funny only occasionally (prepare for the cartload of vegetable puns in every encounter though) and there are a couple genuinely moving moments. The story itself is more fleshed out than FTL, but there are still randomized elements, and one major player choice, that actually affects both gameplay and story. Technically the game is easy on the hardware, I ran it on something just above advertised requirements with no issues, it is stable and mostly bug-free. The way saves work is a bit wonky, but it's a no big deal. All in all it's probably worth playing if you either ever liked FTL and want something new or want some silly adventures of anthropomorphic vegetables in space.