Space Haven

A very chill crew management game with base building mechanics added in. Not the most complex or difficult of management games but somewhere in the middle ground where players have to think about details and decisions carefully every now and then.

I'm really into space strategy games with management and combat, I think I must have played almost all 4x space games there are, so just by having a quick look at this game page I knew I had to have and play immediately! I also have a soft spot for Isometric 2.5D games like Jagged Alliance, Xenonauts, X-COM and I also really enjoy games like StarSector and FTL. So I must say even where this game is at it already provides really good gameplay. Pros - Crew Management - No level Progression, all the progression seems to be item based which I really enjoy, although I would enjoy some limited crew progression and experience. - Soldid gameplay loops and strong gameplay progression - Good Attention to detail, the moment I saw aliens incapacitate my crew and then drag them and put them in cocoons fully animated was a really strong point - Enjoyable combat and ship boarding - Good implementation on ship hazards like fire, high temperatures, low CO2, low Oxygen and others Cons - UI leaves much to be improved - Trading values are not set correctly food is so expensive and so is most of the goods, you end up having a ship that produces all, ends almost the need for trade - No quests or missions afaik - No planet landings. - The first time you see a siren planet you have no idea what it is and that is hurting your crew - No much loot to equip your crew like armor or other times of weapons like explosives - The game needs more tooltips on many info on the UI

I will start with this... this is not the kind of game for people who can't handle slowing their pace down a bit, or learning by failure. As of now, the tutorial only guides you... it refuses to hold you hand, as it should! I knew this would be an interesting game when on the first night, my entire crew shat their beds because I forgot to build a toilet. The pause button is there, and you should take your time to get some basic nomenclature before you dig in deep. Or don't! Oversight can be very entertaining in games like this. Luckily the autosave was always there if I had a real issue. The more you play, the more you will learn how to handle certain situations. I was annoyed that my crew members would continue defecating all in their space suits while on salvage and mining missions, but I learned how to manage their tasking and give them proper time for breaks. It makes sense to not schedule external walks for more than 3-4 hours at a time. Totally solved that problem. Working this stuff out on your own gives a real feeling of accomplishment! I've dumped a good 20+ hours in to this game, and I haven't opened the wiki or watched any youtube guides at all. I'm currently on my second play through and really looking forward to making my first hyperspace jump. I prefer being dropped in to the action over a long winded tutorial (ex: Prison Architect, which I returned in the first 10 minutes of playing.) People are right to compare this to Rimworld, or even FTL... however, I feel like this is more what I always wanted from those titles. Considering what BugByte has put together for an alpha early access, they've done an excellent job and my hopes are high that everything will be tightened up even more along with added additional content. Maybe even modding implementation further down the road. There is more work to do, and that is very promising. They are actively engaging their player community!

It didn't take but a few hours, but I'm finally to the point in the game where I can travel within the star system. Hyperspace is COOL. I love the ~7 (in game) hour warning you get for incoming ships, you can easily finish up your mining operation and move on, or risk it for the biscuit. Coming back to the sector is always an option too, but you use precious fuel. I haven't upgraded my ship enough for interstellar travel, but that's next after I build enough hydroponics bays (I'm on the verge of starving and I would rather not be cannibals - this isn't RimWorld! This game does leave that long pork on the table though, if you get desperate. I fought some bugs, salvaged a ship, and mined a few asteroids. Really nice building UI and tutorial, easy to plop things down, a bit more difficult to figure out how you get certain resources. I'm sure they will expand on the tutorial down the road to cover ore processing, but it doesn't look too hard to figure out. Dev team is Finnish, and they are doing a bang-up job. They even have cloud saves! I would say this is worth even twice the price, so long as you like RimWorld. I think I might like this even more since it runs on my old ThinkPad with Manjaro Linux - smooth and not too hot either. Grab it and support these folks!

The game feels very far from finished — the core gameplay loop is very slow, there's only 6 types of enemies spread out across 3 factions, and there's almost no story — and the update cycle feels quite slow, I think it'll be a long time before the game feels finished