Galactic Getaway: Build a Home for Pets

The game is cute, but so buggy it's unplayable. The head creator let the dev team go and is continuing the game's development solo, which leaves me with a bad taste and very low expectations for the future of Galactic Getaway. I'm sad to say that I regret funding the kickstarter for this one and it has definitely made me more wary of funding future game kickstarters.

Galactic Getaway isn’t quite what I expected and still feels rough around the edges, with several persistent bugs. It’s technically a partial MMO, similar in concept to Palia: your own planet is a small, private world that others can only enter by invitation, while the hub serves as the shared MMO space. However, in several hours of play, I rarely saw more than 1-3 other players online, which really diminishes the MMO experience. The core gameplay loop centers on gathering materials, either on your planet or through “Adventures.” Once you run out of resources, you’re required to launch a rocketship to another planet. Unfortunately, these adventure planets are just instanced, walled-off areas filled with materials and creatures—there’s no real exploration or discovery, just resource collection. After gathering, you return to the hub and repeat the cycle. Missions exist, but they’re basic fetch or chore tasks like “Give me 10 apples” or “Water 9 planets,” and don’t feel rewarding or engaging. The “befriend” system is another letdown. To befriend creatures, you have to choose between options like telling them a joke or insulting them. The insult option lowers your friendship meter, which feels pointless and tacked on. A more interesting system would let players discover what each creature likes and fulfill those desires, with each creature offering unique abilities—like gathering resources or helping the player in specific ways. Bugs are still a major issue. My character would randomly get stuck for no clear reason, and traveling between zones sometimes caused the camera to lock onto objects, making it impossible to move or open the menu. This forced me to exit the game using Alt+F4, which is especially frustrating. Multiplayer content is limited to a few mini-games at the rocket and some cosmetic options. I haven’t unlocked everything, but so far, there’s little incentive to keep playing. The game lacks the engaging gameplay loops found in titles like Animal Crossing and doesn’t feel fully developed, even for early access. Without more content and polish, it’s hard to stay motivated for long play sessions. Overall, Galactic Getaway has potential, but it needs a lot of work to become truly enjoyable. Areas that need the most attention include: New player onboarding: Make the introduction more intuitive and welcoming to help new players understand the game’s systems quickly. UI improvements: Streamline the interface for better usability and a smoother experience. Adventure zones: Overhaul these areas to add variety, exploration, and meaningful objectives, making them less repetitive and more engaging. More engaging content: Add new activities, events, and gameplay systems to create deeper, more rewarding loops—such as farming, crafting, or meaningful creature interactions. Expanded multiplayer features: Increase player capacity in hubs, introduce co-op missions, and add social features to make the MMO aspect feel alive. Creature companion system: Redesign befriending mechanics so creatures have unique personalities and abilities, making them valuable partners rather than just checklist items. Performance and bug fixes: Prioritize fixing bugs and optimizing performance to ensure a smoother, frustration-free experience. Adding these improvements would go a long way toward making Galactic Getaway a more enjoyable and lasting experience.

As a kickstarter supporter I love the game, it has a lot of potential. However, I truly cannot recommend buying it in it's current state. It's early access, but it feels closed beta at best. It's very barebones and buggy, some basic features are very broken and some missing. As it is right now, unless you're a completionist, everything in the game becomes trivial after a few hours of play, which is indeed very casual, but also doesn't feel properly balanced yet. The art style is adorable, the music (even though there are like 2 tracks...) is very chill and pleasant, the pet system is a nice touch, and overall it feels like it's going to be a great game some time in the future. It could be the perfect cozy world-building/home decorating game we've been waiting for, but it's not there yet.

I bought this game back in April and there have been no updates, no communication about the future of this game. Seems abandoned. It was very glitchy and wasn't much to do (as you can see I only played for 37 minutes). Do not recommend.

i only played for 20 minutes, but that was enough. i wanted to love this game, but it was instead a sad excuse of a monster-collecting RPG. i have never read dialogue so bland, i have never had gameplay make me want to go to sleep so badly before, and i have never seen such low-effort PNGs drop as resources in an otherwise 3D game. i'm sorry devs, the premise is cute at least but the execution at this point is unfortunately not anywhere near good enough

Played game Infinite shells -> Click button for hours -> Many Money -> They fix shells Learned I could put tables in walls -> Table ladder out of bounds -> Dived out of bounds for fun like its a pool Played with my siblings -> Started New Game -> First Pet they insulted until they ran out of new insults Played with wife -> Joined her planet -> Stole her meteors and trees -> Gave her clothes in return -> Happy Wife :) Its a fun game with a lot of potential. I like that even if its early access I feel like there is a lot to have fun with and do. It feels like i'm a part of community who is really nice and will answer questions if you get stuck. I really do look forward to seeing what comes next.

*Received for free from Keymailer IT HAS SO MUCH POTENTIAL, so much. But this game is EARLY access for a reason. [h3] Building: [/h3] Building UI is clunky, and as someone who is primarily a builder in these games, it was so irritating I stopped trying. The camera and character are completely frozen when building, so you can rotate whatever item you want to place but not your view, whatsoever. And when building inside the same thing happens, and the camera doesn't rotate 360 as it does outside. No decorating your doorways! Side note, until you have actually unlocked the building tutorial, you can't use or place any furniture you come across. And I wasn't able to make a storage chest yet, so I was carrying around chairs another player had dropped. I tried dropping them inside my house, crossed my fingers, but they de-spawned :( [h3] Farming: [/h3] Didn't have any issues with the farming mechanic - other than the tools break and you have to replace them. My watering can broke after every 10 crops watered - luckily the upgrade happens early enough. However, I give them points for never having to *refill* the can - idk what space science that is, but I loved it. Refilling the watering can is one of the worst things in this genre. I liked the variety that I found, especially within such a short time span, but tell me wHy the F the apples and "zomatoes" GROW THE SAME WAY. JUST MAKE AN APPLE TREE???? And the art for them is so similar, i kept accidentally feeding the wrong fruit to animals. [h3] The Animals: [/h3] Definitely the biggest selling point, and right now the whole experience leans heavily on the thrill of it. I repeatedly lost animal I had befriended into the void. Befriending animals on other planets seems pointless, as mine would never return with me - and the species would spawn in my lot on their own anyway. They were all VERY cute, and there is a mechanic to help them earn and build skills - but the animals spawn faster than those skill opportunities. I had so many spawning but only one had skills thanks to the tutorial. At one point I went around and made everyone sit down because they kept getting in my way, or stuck somewhere. One of mine just lived in the pond because she couldn't get out lmao. The animals will run into and get stuck on ANYTHING you build. So the goal of raising your planet score by using furniture is infuriating. Poor Helga couldn't figure out how to walk around a stool for 2 (in game) days until i removed it. [h3] Pros + cons [/h3] Pros: - art: cute (CLEARLY influenced by An!mal Cr0ssing. (To the point im surprised they haven't gotten sued) - Loved that you didnt pick a gender when making a character! - and Skin tones were also very inclusive. (however, for those who want it, there were no body size or height modifications) - yay no watering can refills! - Animals are SOOO cute, and the "difficultly" level of befriending them felt fair, and I liked naming them. My favorite was a pink dog I named Strawberry <3 it would be nice to have a name suggested that is randomly generated however - after 10 animals it started to lessen my excitement. - such a small detail, but I loved that the jump was just slower because we are in space. (It really is the little things that make games ensnare you.) Cons: - building: bad, just bad. all of it. - UI had glitches with the chat overlapping the main dialog - also no way to turn OFF the chat??? - MMO settings: NGL, I didn't know it was an MMO, and generally would have stayed away. I love that my friends could play with me, but I dont need to see every conversation that other players are having. Again, I would love a way to turn off the chat, and to include a "streamer" setting. - ew tools breaking SO fast - CONSTANT travelling back and forth to the "HQ" just to complete tasks or travel (AGAIN) to a different planet. I would love to see an "app" that allows you to go exploring right from your own lot, allowing the player to skip one of the loading screens - and EARLY game, not as a reward. - Honestly, way too many shortkeys to memorize. I play a lot of WASD games but I felt like I was doing finger yoga LOL. Most generally use the same keys, but GG's felt illogical. Tab for inventory instead of "i"? E AND F are used to select things (in separate mechanics) which means I dug A LOT of holes when trying to meet new animals LOL. And PLEASE allow the mouse scroll button to work on menus. Please. I beg. - If you are looking to be inclusive, consider adding head scarves, glasses, hearing aids, varied skin pigmentation, and heterochromia (These seem to be the most common additions I've seen lately, but i'm sure there are others players would love to see). For now, no. I would not recommend. This feels like a good base so far, but definitely feels like its in alpha. I will definitely check back every couple months! I can't resist that cute badger skunk thing. Excited to see your future! SBerryGames - playthough available here: https://youtu.be/-fmzoWWXF04 #galacticgetaway #keymailer

It is definitely very bare at the moment, but it has good bones. I am excited to see it be finished. Unfortunately I don't think I can fully recommend it in its current state.

I know i have played this game a short time and i rarely leave reviews so early on, but this game is very lack luster. the only objective is to collect creatures, with very limited base building features. The game becomes repetitive and i must admit that i was expecting a much more fleshed out multiplayer aspect, as this was their primary view point of the game. The planet exploration costs 500 coins per visit which is way more than you can make starting out. There is not quest marker system to follow so, you find yourself aimlessly wondering around looking for the building you need to enter. the building don't have names on them and are hard to identify their purpose on the central hub map. I hope to see much improvement in the resource regeneration because once the resources are gone from your home base/planet ... they take for ever to respawn, which forces you again to have to spend the 500 coins to planet hop, just for your crafting resources. This game needs much work and i can not recommend any of my friends purchasing this game until some of these systems have been reworked.

I can't recommend this game in it's current state. -It is buggy, last time I played there was some duplication bug making furniture copy itself over and over again -I can barely water my plants without massive lag -there's not much to do in the games current state -the UI and map is confusing, getting figuring out how to get home takes a minute -I fell through the map several times It's early access and I love the vibes so I will revisit this game later