Arcen has never made titles that conform to traditional genres. While Heart of the Machine may initially seem like a strategic city builder, it is just as much a visual novel, where your choices in dialogue have a major impact on what goes on. And the stories are the heart of the game, whether you're trying to set yourself up as a "benevolent" ruler or you're trying to lure people into VR pods that drain their mental capacity, the stories you choose help set the tone of the city. Many things have already changed since the Early Access launch, and many more changes are in the works. The developer is very open to feedback, and has changed a lot of systems that turned out to not work (or just be tedious) in practice. This is on top of a steady stream of new content, which can be extended via mods. The developer has also been working with the early modders, adding new entry points in the code for them to use, as well as bug fixing the mod tools that don't work as they should. Who isn't this for? 1: People looking for a traditional city builder or strategy game. Most of the city is already built and you won't supplant the established corporations, you're also not going to take control over the entire city whether by force or subterfuge. At least not yet, we only have the first stage of most content, future stages are in development. 2: People looking to hide from the city/authorities. The developer wants players to directly interact with the city and not hide away. The story is written in such a way that hiding your existence is impossible, but you can (try to) hide how you're influencing things. 3: People afraid of failure. The game rewards experimenting with what you can do, even after what appears to be a failure. Sometimes doing the "wrong" thing might lead you to new content.
