Crypto Miner Tycoon Simulator

[h1][b] TLDR: A sim that spends more time making you wait than making you think, wrapped in a clunky UI that turns even simple tasks into a frustrating multi-click ordeal. [/b] [/h1] [h1]PROS: [/h1] ➕Steam Workshop Integration ➕Computer building ➕Intricate simulation systems ➕Responsive dev added in sandbox mode [h1]CONS: [/h1] ➖Confusing UI/controls ➖Boring idle-oriented gameplay [h1] [b] Content (Game world/Narrative) – [5/10] [/b] [/h1] The game world takes place in various different grid spaces, like ~260 sq/ft locations. The locations are pretty bare bones with only having the ability to change flooring or put in some useless decoration, as the main purpose is to use these locations for setting up computers. There doesn’t seem to be any other areas other than about ~30 pre-buit rooms of varying shapes. There is actually a somewhat interesting story, and I like how its done. You start getting text messages from a mysterious person telling you when to buy Bitcoin and when to sell. After a few rounds of this, you are given the task of researching a time machine before a specific date in order to prevent a paradox from occurring. While the story is nothing mind-blowing, I did rather like how the game implemented the narrative as the next set of goals. [h1][b] Gameplay (Mechanics/Difficulty) – [4/10] [/b] [/h1] The mechanical loop consists of a few things - researching new technology and expanding your mining empire through computing power, employees, optimal coin selling, and hype. Unfortunately, many of these are idle and take long periods of time. There is a generous fast-forward button, but it still turns the game into more of an idle marathon. I liked the computer component building, how you end up tailoring PC specs to R&D units or mining-focused. The research is just extreme idle that unlocks more research and other various things like overclocking. All-in-all, there doesn’t seem to be much gameplay, it’s mostly managing hardware/software and watching market conditions for buying and selling. The difficulty can be tough if you mess up, as most simulation games go. [h1] [b] Graphics (Quality/Technical) – [3/10] [/b] [/h1] I found the quality to be decent, but simple. There are literally almost no animations and the character sprites are basic. I’d say this is PS2-era quality at best. Of note in this area is what I found to be terrible UI and controls. For the controls, I was constantly pressing the wrong buttons and getting annoyed at picking things up and choosing additional options. The UI isn’t as annoying s the controls, but still often takes multiple buttons to do something things. Why does my character have to be manually moved each night to the bedroom for sleep? They should just figure it out automatically. Things like setting up a rack of computers takes a multitude of clicks, which is even more annoying when you’re setting up a copy of another rack of computers and the store doesn’t keep your previous purchased units, so you have to build it all over again (but it does sometimes? Maybe resets on exit?). The game ran fine, I noticed no issues with performance. There does seem to be a lack of graphical options, though. I noticed no bugs. 1440p @ 240hz | installed on SSD [h1] [b] Audio – [5/10] [/b] [/h1] Music seems okay. Not much to say here other than it wasn’t distracting and fit well in the game. I encountered no voice acting. [h1] [b] Replay Factor (Longevity) – [3/10] [/b] [/h1] With the Sandbox game mode, you can have some decent replay value, but I don’t think the longevity is great - the gameplay, or lack thereof makes this replay value suffer, and it lacks the features like choices, achievements, and leaderboards to make this high. [h1] [b] Final Verdict – [4/10] [/b] [/h1] Crypto Miner Tycoon Simulator (CMTS) is a simulation of crypto mining, and what this consists of is largely split into two parts - managing your business through employees and their skills, and the farming and selling of coins. Both of these elements have the same gameplay premise where you essentially pick a few things, then have to wait a long time. And while I would consider myself to be a fan of idle/incremental games, I found the gameplay here to be severely lacking and uninteresting. Perhaps this game just didn’t click with me, after all, I never seriously mined Bitcoins back in its heyday, only dabbled, so I immediately lack that connection. But I after a few hours of playing, I was left unimpressed by simply waiting around for the next thing to complete. Even when things did complete, it was either on to the next research, or building the next rack of computers for mining. Even when that completed, it was simply watching the market for buying low and selling high. All of this is amplified by the lackluster UI. The entire game is menu-based with limited graphics, so to not feel at home with the UI makes the game that much more of a chore. Navigating multiple menus to do simple things or constantly miss clicking simple commands were a very frequent occurrence. Overall, I cannot recommend for myself, but I can see the appeal if perhaps you were more invested in the Bitcoin craze, you can at least find something more relatable. [h1] [b] Recommend? (Price) [Y/N] [/b] [/h1] [h1]No[/h1] Base price of $24 is way too high. I bought on sale at around $12, and I feel that’s a much better base price point. You can find my curator page here: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Synik_GR