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.

What really killed it for me was the money system. Little quests that in a life sim would be about gaining favor points but here give tiny amounts of money. Their are the main income source. Yet I have ridiculous amounts of material, but no where to sell. It makes gaining cosmetic items and the Vary expensive expansions take forever.

Wow, I am impressed. I was beginning to dislike automation games, due to the constant similarities. However, this game was a refresher! I enjoyed the story and characters. The automation was focused on improving the town, versus other automation games where you destroy the environment and leech resources.

The premise is pretty simple: it's a blend of factorio and Stardew Valley with stripped down mechanics from both games. The gameplay is not deep in either respect. But the main story is sweet and well-written. And you can finish in about 30 hours if you're not messing around. The blend of gametypes has some drawbacks. It has a Stardew like village, day system and relationship system. But the day system constantly interrupts your building without adding much to the game. The villager relationship system is like Stardew on the surface, but you don't get much in the way of item or story rewards for making friends, relationships don't degrade if you don't maintain them, and none of them are essential to win. The game wants you to build all over the town, but narratively you're discouraged from blocking the paths of villagers even though there's no way to go ham on your factory that doesn't. Fortunately, there's no negative consequences for doing so. Overall the two game systems don't mesh that well together, but it's ok because they make it so there's no need to engage with most of the game's mechanics if they're not your speed. Just build the rocket. Mess around with whatever else feels fun.

It tries to be stardew valley, and it is bad at it. Controls are ackward, story is boring. Not for me.

Idea is nice, realisation - very bad. Too much backtracking. Constant problems with veins. No blueprints. No verticality and no place to build. Just tired to tune and rebase everything because of a new veins and logistics inconviniences.

This game scratches my brain in all the right places. Loved making all the puzzles (conveyour belts) fit to produce all the procuts the rocket needs. Love it and can't recommend it enough.

A really well made automation game with a Startdew Valley coat of pain. I finished it and recommend it. You should definitely play Satisfactory over this if you have never played automation games before, but if you've played it and you're looking for new ones, this is one of the good ones.

♥♥♥♥ off Jamie, you do NOT need 50 cable cranes

Cozy factory game.