The basics are there, it's a suitably complex resource and layout problem. Took me about 4 (short) attempts at playing it to figure out which resources / environmental problems are crucial to keep an eye on, and I enjoyed the process of finding out. But it's once you've got the basics that the limitations become apparent. You're constantly using fuel, so the game forces you to keep moving and exploring, which meant I found "Eden" before I'd completed even 1/5th of the tech tree. Research is slow, which again is fine in a game like this, but it needs the game curve to remain interesting as you progress, and the tech tree needs to be relevant to the game. Rimworld went to some pains to match your abilities against the challenges it throws at you. Space Haven feels more like a "Rogue-a-like", randomly throwing devastating situations at you before you have any ability to counter them. Add in the fact you can "finish" the game after a few hours if you stumble across the right planet, and the whole tech-tree / advancement motivation becomes "meh". Some resources currently also seem pointless. I never found a use for fibre for example, yet I could spend hours researching it on the tech tree if I wanted to. I could only find one method to make compost, but even with 2 machines working flat out, I still ran out of compost and almost nobody trades it. Audio is almost non existent. If you turn off the music you'll realise that the game itself is virtually silent with just a few bleeps as audio feedback. Unsurprising perhaps given the size of the game download. It's an interesting game. The basics of what could be a great game are in there, but at the moment it's in need of a lot of balancing and tweaking to give it replay value and maintain interest. I can't see me playing it again after my first few attempts until some major updates are released. For all these reasons I can't really justify the high price tag on it until it gets closer to a finished product.
Yes the GOG version is up to date. There is a enough in here to call it a reasonable game, but it's method of delivery might leave a lot of people cold. The 8-bit graphic style is fine, but basically you spend a lot of time staring at the shelter with occasional flips to fixed scenes for your scavengers on a mission, then back to the shelter again. It's also a very long grind of a game. You need to send people out almost constantly to gather fresh supplies and crafting gear, and the crafting scheme soaks up a lot of resources. There are upgrades as well as unlocking higher and higher tiers of items you can craft. One decent new item or upgrade in your shelter will mean a lot more expeditions just to stock up on the items you used up. So it's a very repetitive game. Mostly repairing items in a shelter while you wait for a quick flip scene from your expedition members, then they hopefully make it back. Then if you're lucky, a quick upgrade or maybe a new item, then send off the next expedition. It really depends on the player whether they are going to find enough challenge in the game to make up for staring at the same shelter for hours while they grind through the crafting tree. It's possible you might ... so some stars .. it's possible you'll get bored enough after a while to just not care .. so not 5 stars. The game has enough content, but for me the presentation of the content got too boring to want to carry on. Also worth noting. The Linux version doesn't save your resolution / full screen preferences, and for me had a quirky (window flickers a lot!) startup. In the end I found it less hassle to download the Windows version and run it under Wine.
