SYMMETRY

I greatly enjoyed the simplicity of time management in this game. The overall tasks are straight forward, but keeping all your crew alive to survive is a challenge. I have yet to beat "Try Harder", but I play it just to test myself

I won't even call this a game. You need to manage 3 resources and if you heal your crew after every run, you will make it.

This game keeps me engaged and entertained. I find it highly replayable and I enjoy it every time. There are a couple of major game flaws that need to be stated: 1. The AI is absurd. Humans will simply keep doing what you last ordered them to do until they drop dead. They will NOT pause on their own to eat and sleep, and they will NOT warn you that they don't have enough energy to complete a task before dying, they will simply wander beyond the point of no return and die on you. So, the majority of this game is just about micro-managing these human automata to keep them alive. 2. The goal, or the way to get better endings, is not obvious and the game never tells you about the fact that there's another ending you could have achieved. For the amount of time a playthrought takes, this is just inconsiderate. The objectives should be well-defined, at least after your first playthrough. Note to devs: We're going to look it up on the Internet anyway, so, you might as well think ahead and design a way to convey the "ending" information into the actual game. It would have made you look more thoughtful and like better designers. Getting the most out of your game isn't supposed to be a trial-and-error secret. Having said all that, the game has a compelling, if slightly predictable/cliched story, and the fact that you can get different starting characters each time keeps it fresh between plays. The ability to quickly pause and change speeds keeps it from becoming too tedious, although if you have a bad run of luck with breaking equipment, you'll be ready to just walk away sometimes. Still, I've been playing it 5 years and I occasionally still get the hankering to reinstall it and play it again, so, that speaks well of the great job this team did, creating the right atmosphere for a time management/survival game.

You need to collect/produce resources to fix your engines. At first resources are near your base, but as you gather them your crew must walk longer. Upgrading the weather station gives you some more reaction time to keep the crew inside if the temperatures drop to far. Educating the crew is important, so a trip gives you the maximum amount of resources. Sadly after the initial hump of who does what, there is no strategic element left. People gather parts, the ship breaks everyday a random part and artificially lengthens your stay. Your crew sees illusions and spouts random nonsense. In the later half of the game some random red beams cover your screen from the AI that spouts random nonsense too - none of which seems to have an effect on the game play, Like some browser game of the 2000: Good for half a day, but no replay value beyond that.

A survival management game which is far too challenging and has too little depth in its mechanics. Managing the few survivors and tasks is easy and you spend most of your time waiting for the progress bars to fill up. But with constant breakages and no way of recruiting more people, it’s easy to get into a fail state and the biggest choice is whether to keep drawing out your inevitable demise or start from the beginning and go through the exact same motions and plot beats again. The art style is good and the flickering images promise at something more in its plot, but it’s never realised. The plot and music is minimal and suits the overall aesthetic, but since the game play is also minimal, it ends up being too boring.