FEED MY MECH

Game is great, up until the last two areas. I slogged through Transit, then died in Research after 30 minutes of grinding only to lose it all and have to start over. The game has immaculate atmosphere, and the ideas are all there. Little heavy handed on the difficulty, in my opinion. I recommned it only because It really is excellent up until the end. Definitely keep an eye on this dev, future projects are sure to be promising.

The closest game I can say it's to is Iron Lung with like 1 fnaf mechanic included in there. I enjoyed it at first but the gameplay of the third area ultimately made me quit. The instructions were hard to understand, I had an easier time understanding by feeling out or trial and erroring the things around me rather than what the tutorial was trying to tell me. It was pretty confusing overall. The flashlight mechanic is easy to comprehend, don't stay still too long and you won't get creatures for your features. The pulldown scanner takes too long and sometimes easily slips off but is overall fine. The driving mechanics were hard to understand but were also fine. Scanner feature is good and the hull damage telling is pretty useless but isn't a bad feature, just feels pointless. Rerouting the power is overall decent but annoying with how often you need to do it, and the numbers in them wasn't necessary for game design other than more difficulty. So what are you here to do? Your goal is simple, search the area for signals off the bodies of those before you to come back and gain your in game citizenship Now here's what I disliked To begin with my issues was the signals. I didn't have a problem at first until a mech attacked me, the game did not at all explain to me what exactly to do if one attacks, what the game also failed to explain was the huge mounted gun you have and what's the purpose of it. So what did I do? Tried shooting the mech. Didn't work, and I died because all I thought of else to do was back up as much as I can and get away. I quickly died and was told I died because 1.There was two pully like emergency looking arms that I was supposed to pull one depending on which side the mech was attacking. Really helpful when the game didn't tell me that AT ALL before the encounter, 2.I triggered the mech via switch that turned on heat reading signals. But like I said, the game told me none of that information. What's the issue with the signals? Well you have a huge map to explore and when I already collected 2 signals off dead mechs, I lost those 2 signals and had to heavily backtrack just to get them again. I get the idea that it's someone different coming into this mech after the first dies but making me need to backtrack and scavenge a huge map that can also be frustrating to operate through gaps and narrow openings is just NOT fun. The first area you're thrown into requires you to find a whole 4. One of which was even behind a wall I didn't know I could go through due to a big boulder/rock blocking the way, but due to my scanner and heat reading. I saw the mech and decided to just try and go forward. Was like I clipped out of bounds into the wall to get my goal. Another signal I literally found straight ahead, a dead mech at a dead end. Nothing in my way, but there was some invisible obstacle blocking me off. So I had to spend more time finding a completely new route AROUND instead of a straight ahead path to get that mech. (And yes I did try the gun before I left to try and see if I couldn't see something breakable) What ultimately made me quit was the third I would say area in the game (SPOILERS ahead). When your mech catches some hungry virus, there is an area with a whole lot of trees. Navigating them is incredibly tedious, but then suddenly a mech I was very clearly touching was saying I wasn't in range. Going around I am able to grab the sample and then a mech attacked again. I burned it off, had to flashlight the flesh creatures off the back and reroute power, I just did and the mech proceeded to attack again, draining all my power and a creature silently somehow clung to the back. As I was stuck rerouting a second time. I died because I didn't hear any sound cues from the creatures as I did before. Well that was wonderful. Story wise I just find it a bit cliche or overdone. The main point I rolled my eyes was the creature attaching itself, needing something to eat, the system scanned for any hazard and said "Nope, it's all good" which feels way too old. I like the idea of a machine corrupted by flesh or trying to host it. But I don't think it was very interesting. It's not a horrible game, a lot of effort is in it and it's bigger than games like iron lung, It filled a horror niche itch I had but honestly $10 for what is a LOT of backtracking and making a mistake and dying costing time and making you backtrack so much is imo not worth it. Wait for a sale to give it a try like I did.