SYMMETRY

This is a game about trying to keep some people from going outside when the temperature is minus 60. They really really want to go outside and die, and you have to stop them.

Quite a nice game, interesting concept, pleasant graphics and for the most part, entertaining gaming. Reminds me partly of games like Sheltered, partly of Tharsis. Yet both games are more complex than Symmetry. It is true this game has micro-management, but very simple. It has randomly assigned crew members (3 of pool of 6), but they differ mainly in what they say. There are three skills (another one becomes available on day 8 or 9 with scripted appearance of another non-random crew member) and you can very quickly train every crew member in every skill, so virtually only distinction is their appearance and monologues (which, however, do enrich the story quite a lot). I beat the game in say 5 or 6 hours, and maybe will replay it once or twice to get other crew members monologues. Or I may not, I spent half the game resting the crew members so that they manage to get electro-parts for upgrades and return before freezing to death, while spending the same parts on repairs of failing shelter devices. A bit monotonous, quite a lot actually, compared to Tharsis. Haven't seen anything about caring for mental health and moral choices are limited to eating the dead, but you can't afford anybody to die. All in all, good game with small replay value (would appreciate more skills and more to do, or another "level" to change the scenery and shuffle the gameplay), thus four stars.

Game with great potential unfortunately very shallow exploited. I doubt there are really many strategies for winning: you basically repeat the same activities all the time: cut wood, make food, find some parts, fixe broken stuff. Random breakdowns of old equipment are not random and the whole thing looks like very linear game. If one of the crew member dies, is it basically gameover since you will not be able to collect enough resources to survive. There is basically no interaction between people you control. So at the end it was a great idea covered with nice and stylish graphic but the gameplay is lacking a lot. A real pity because it could've been great game.

The game looks and sounds good. There are some intriguing plot developments that kept me going for some time. The problem is, the gameplay itself is completely, utterly, eyes-in-the-back-of-my-head tedious. The entirety of the challenge is not in managing the dwindling resources (we're low on this, prioritize that, etc) - instead, you just assign everyone a single task (coincidentally, there are 3 basic tasks in early game) and spend the rest of your playtime making sure their tum-tums are full and their diapers are clean, because these lemmings WILL go outside into shriveling cold at 15% health, and the game WILL NOT tell you they feel bad until it's possibly too late. There is no team management interface either, you just have to peek at everyone every minute like a helicopter mom. I more or less put myself on a self-sustaining loop in an hour or two (tip: get the bare minimum resources and then study - raising a skill takes a surprisingly short time), then got drip-fed the plot over the next hour as I spent my resources to make my resource boxes bigger. I only got this far because I wasn't in the mood for anything strenuous. In the end, I overextended on a single upgrade just as my life chambers broke down, and lost half of my crew. I should probably restart, but over to my left is a wall of drying paint that's woefully unwatched.