Little Rocket Lab

I really wanted to like this game. I like Factory games a lot and this game gives a nice cozy vibe on top of factory elements. However, I have to downvote after finishing it. I will put my review here hoping a fellow factory builder can make his or her own judgment. [h2] UI / Control [/h2] This is the most frustrating part of the game. Factory games require dozens if not hundreds of hours to work with it, so it has to be polished like a mirror. This game has a lot of questionable design decisions that only brings frustration, not challenges. e.g. [list] [*] Tool bar is locked to the player inventory, which makes operating with many different items swapping all the time very painful. [*] Why the hell don't they show keyboard keys on top of the tool bar buttons!? [*] Deconstruction requires an item, which occupies your tool bar button, which may be hidden when the tool bar is rotated. [*] Deconstruction has no confirmation timer. If you misclick, a building with configuration is gone, and there is no undo to revert it. Study other factory games which has timers, such as Factorio, Satisfactory and DSP, because they know [i]losing a building is more costly than adding one[/i]. [*] Deconstruction issue becomes worse at some point, when you have a mount that can mass-deconstruct, which has a different mouse button binding from the character. [/list] These issues make you realise how the big 3 (Factorio, Satisfactory and DSP) are polished and minimize stress. [h2] Map design [/h2] Since the map is relatively tiny, space is always the constraint. The dev resources might not have been enough to optimize the game for larger scale, which I can understand. However, it is very frustrating that transport buildings (belts, pipes, underground belts and cranes) block the character's (and even the townsfolks!) motion. Combined with the map structure that multiple regions connected with narrow passageways make it more like a bad transportation puzzle than a factory game. Of course, it gets worse when you get a mount, which has bigger collision shape. Although the map is small, traversal is time consuming. They could, again, learn from the big 3, which provides means to avoid being blocked from things you have built. [h2] Story [/h2] The story is not bad, but not brilliant. It's just there. The townsfolks are all nice and nothing interesting happens between them. The downside of having a story in a factory game is that it has an end. After you finish it, there is no reason to keep improving your factory, which makes you less motivated to invest optimizing the factory even before the end, knowing that you will throw it away. To be fair, Satisfactory also has an end, but you could keep growing the factory using AWESOME sink. This game does not have such a resource sink. There are side quests that have no point completing. I think they are supposed to unlock features to reduce the frustration, but they are too late and too little. The final chapter requires tons of automation, as all factory game do, but I can just sleep many times in bed to accelerate time instead of running for chores. [h2] Art [/h2] The graphics and music is very stylized and some people may like it. It is not spectacular, but it gives some consistent vibes. I would like to mention particularly the music that changes tone among areas with the same melody. It also has seasonal variations. It is a nice artistic touch, but the problem is that you will spend most of the time in your main factory in the final season, so it will become repetitive nonetheless. [h2] Conclusion [/h2] If you are a casual gamer and like the art style, you may like it for few hours. If your are looking for a serious factory building game with a twist, it is probably not for you.