It doesn't have any deep gameplay and won't keep you busy for dozens of hours, but what it does, it does really well. It's a relaxing little game that you can play after a busy day to unwind. It's not difficult either, so you can just play without having to concentrate too much. Spreading color and life through a barren landscape is always fun, as is exploring. Just don't expect to spend a lot of time on this game, as its content is quickly exhausted. For me, I decided three runs, which took a total of four hours, was enough, but these four hours were definitely enjoyable!
I know it's still in-dev, so maybe there's some hope for it yet, but at its present stage, it's simply no fun to play. I couldn't even bring myself to finish the tutorial, I loved Industry Giant 2, so I suppose I had high hopes of this game. Suffice it to say, they were not met. One of the things I loved about Industry Giant 2 was its structure, which is something that's missing from this game. Everything, starting from the placement of the buildings in this game and culminating with the construction of roads and railroads feels just so wonky. And the user interface is not very good either. Whereas Industry Giant 2 was a well-designed and polished machine that just worked, and where all the parts fit neatly together, this here just seems like a big ball of mud. So if you enjoyed Industry Giant 2, do yourself a favor and play another game of that instead of this one.
I really enjoyed the early and mid-game, but the end-game grew a bit tedious. That's when it became apparent that the map is actually pretty static and not procedurally generated as it seemed at first, and the game stopped rewarding me for exploring and pretty much forced me to get on with the story. Until that point it was very fun, though, and even with that it's still an enjoyable game that I'm glad to have played and can only recommend. Took me pretty much exactly 30 hours to beat.
I had a good time playing the game, gone into the mid-tier without any trouble, never died on a mission, got my first B-ranking spell and all. I had played every biome at least twice, which only took a few hours, and then there was something opening up that I identified probably as the midpoint dungeon. Something fancy happened there, hinting at a hidden layer of depth in the game. The midpoint dungeon took a while to get through, as did the boss, but again, it was no problem and I managed it all on first try. To me, it seemed like the game was just about to move into the next gear... ...when it simply ended. I couldn't believe it. In fact, I looked up if I had done something wrong and thus gotten the bad ending halfway through, but no... this game is simply short, and since what turned out to be the final dungeon is pretty easy, you can get through the game in a jiffy, ignoring all the high tier levels of the spells, because there's nothing you really need them for. So yeah, it kinda feels like half a game. I enjoyed it enough that I was looking forward to the second half, but as it is, it feels like a movie that simply ends during the midway commercial break.
This feels like a long-overdue sequel of Theme Hospital. If you liked that game, you'll like this one. I found Theme Hospital okay, and found this one okay. Not something to capture my attention for too long, but definitely something that was nice to play for a while. However, for me the game went stale after around 5 campaign missions. It's not that there was anything particularly bad, though. The game is definitely well rounded. It's only that after 10 hours or so, it starts feeling like I'm doing the same things all over again.
It's definitely an interesting game, but the rate at which the game throws objectives at you even at the lowest difficulty prevented me from enjoying it. It only got enjoyable at the end of the missions when I finally had time to actually focus on building and achieving these last one or two objectives without any time pressure, but before that, starting from the second or third mission you always have situations when the clock is ticking, and sometimes the game doesn't even explain to you how you're supposed to achieve something, such as spawning a huge alien mothership right in front of your allies' colony on the other side of the planet, telling you to stop it, after which it throws you into cutscenes where your advisors are slowly talking as the enemy ship approaches your ally, and in the end destroys them, causing you to fail the objective with you having no idea what you could have done about it. And that's on the easiest setting, mind you. Apart from that, the building aspect of the game is pretty neat, especially with the icosahedral spherical planet grid where you build on triangles. Apart from the unforgiving pacing, the game is actually pretty enjoyable.
They say the good games are the ones that you come back to, and it could not be more true for this game. Each map takes 20 or more hours to complete, and yet I find myself coming back for more, especially since more and more features are being added to this addictive and innovative city builder. It's really fun to think up of different solutions to the puzzles that the maps pose, and over enough time turn your lone beaver building into a bustling mechanized metropolis.
A very unusual game with a great sense of humor. I particularly like how the game functions in terms of production rates rather than stockpiling resources, which means you never have to wait for everything. At first it is a bit tricky to figure out what the game wants from you, but once I had somehow made my way through my first playthrough, I could hardly wait for another one so I could now play the game "properly", with everything I learned about the way. Mechanics-wise, it's kind of like a big puzzle with no pressure whatsoever, apart from trying to figure out how to make use of the space that you have in order to get everything where it needs to go without tripping yourself up. It probably does not offer enough for a third playthrough, But it is definitely worth playing twice, which should take around 30 hours or so.
This is definitely not a game like any other. The mechanics are unique and fun to play around with... for some time. Three hours into playing this game, and I feel it's running out of steam. I don't regret having bought it though. It was definitely worth the experience, and for people who are a bit more into optimizing things than I, this might be just the thing.
Compared with other Metroidvania games, this one falls short. The combat system feels kinda mushy, and you don't want to know how often I've accidentally cast a spell when trying to perform another action. Add to that the fact that the difficulty is quite tough, and there's no way to lower it, and you have a game that at the very least is not very enjoyable for me.
