Mercury Fallen

Don't get fooled by the positive reviews on this one. The game lacks late game balancing. If you don't manage to do some steps early on you will get stuck in the end game and there's almost no way around it. The last proper update was June 2024 and then the developer moved to another game. I enjoy the theme, but I wish I've seen the negative reviews and it would have saved me several hours. At least I managed to watch some movies while trying to lvl up some of my characters.

No updates since June 2024. Super basic and needed a lot of attention. I only played it for 13 minutes before I decided to set it down and wait for more updates. It's May 2025 now, and the developer is working on a different game.

This is a game very much like Oxygen Not Included. If you played that you'll find it very similar in overall strategy. It is a thinking game. If you want to run around with a gun in your hand shooting at everything, this game is not for you. There is a little instructions and help but it is very minimal. If you are clever enough to do this then this is an excellent game. I am eighty-seven and not quite so bright as I used to be. Therefore, for me it was a little difficult to get going. But in the end the effort was well worth it. If you are up to it, give it a go.

I like the core concept of the game is is fun with satisfying progression, but only when you actually progress, it feels very slow even when playing the game at max speed constantly, with near constant bottlenecks on progression. I would like to recommend this game but it hasn't been updated in a year and is just lacking that final balance and polish.

Awful graphics. Clunky interface. Ugly UI. Got this from a cheap Fanatical bundle and I still feel ripped off.

At one point I was gearing towards 100%ing this game, at one point I was going to give it a thumbs up. But I honestly can't do any of that. Right off the bat this game has a huge issue with communication. I don't care how smart you are, There will be MULTIPLE times where you have absolutely no idea what you're supposed to do. This will happen multiple times. You will scour the discussions finding countless posts where the dev had to chime in to explain how something works or where something was, or why you haven't been able to figure something out. There were nearly a dozen times where I needed to research something or produce something to progress with absolutely nothing in game telling me how to do so. Also understand that this isn't an issue of needing to have your hand held, its an issue with how you choose to progress. You can play the game however you like, and that's going to be different for everyone. However, the actual progression is very linear, so there will be times you accomplish certain things, find certain things, that lead your progress in a certain direction, not realizing you're actually being lead off the beaten path and are missing things in between. If you look at other negative reviews talking about game breaking issues, or bugs that stop you, or weird unexplainable things happening in the game. This is what I'm talking about. It isn't that the game is bugged and stopped working, it's that you've missed some small key component that has now screwed you up. And in some cases you could find yourself in a position where your whole game can be ruined, and that's a problem. A big one. And after about 20 hours now, some of this is caused by pure laziness, and some of it by inexperience. This game has an awful UI that's loud and messy yet the time wasn't taken to add any little notes on items or buttons or descriptions. Simply adding a (Progress story further to unlock) note attached to progression markers on items/resources would have solved half these instances because there is no real direction on where things line up. So you can accidentally discover something earlier than you're meant to, and you won't understand why the game has come to a complete stand still. It's just plain frustrating. The first few times I found myself in this position, it felt like maybe something had glitched or broken. It wasn't until much later after sticking it out that I realized it wasn't glitching, but it was the loose game structure causing this to happen over and over. The game also has a time issue, that's usually always caused by the above issue. You'll see that mentioned in other negative reviews as well. I ended up playing this game by lowering the resolution drastically and running in windowed mode. That way the countless times I had to sit around and wait, I could just do something else on my PC while that happened. Most of the time it was because I got stuck again and had to wait for something I missed to finish. In reality if the game's linear progression was more structured, you probably wouldn't have to do much waiting. There will be times you realize the thing you just built needed a whole bunch of other stuff that you now have to wait on to get the original thing you built to work. It's a shame because a lot of this probably comes from inexperience from the dev, as well as a bit of laziness and lack of through play testing. Part of me wants to give it a pass because if it wasn't for these constant halts in progress, there is a really, REALLY cool game underneath. But at the end of the day there were too many times where I was having a lot of fun, only for that to be ruined because the game stalled out again. And it happened enough where I decided it's not worth it to keep dealing with this in order to beat and fully 100% the game, and when it's like that, how could I possibly recommend it, ya know?

Mercury Fallen, developed by solo developer Nitrous Butterfly and published by indie.io, is a thoughtful and engaging colony management simulation that trades frantic pacing and survival pressure for a more measured, methodical experience. Set in a sci-fi future where your colonists awaken from malfunctioning stasis pods deep beneath an alien planet’s surface, the game drops you into a derelict underground facility and tasks you with rebuilding it from the rubble. Over time, you’ll construct an operational base, manage the well-being of your crew, explore the alien surface, and uncover the mysteries that surround the planet you now call home. The heart of Mercury Fallen lies in its balance between infrastructure-building and colonist care. You begin with very little—just a handful of survivors and a broken-down facility—but the tools at your disposal gradually expand as you clean up debris, mine resources, build rooms, and research new technologies. The game’s approach to progression is one of incremental rewards: unlocking new rooms like farms, medical bays, kitchens, and research labs brings meaningful advantages and changes to how your colony operates. Power and water management become increasingly important, and optimizing layout for maximum efficiency becomes part of the core gameplay loop. The game never rushes you, allowing time to experiment with room placement, resource pipelines, and colonist task assignment. One of the more distinctive features of Mercury Fallen is how it treats colonists as individuals rather than nameless workers. Each colonist has their own set of traits, preferences, skills, and needs. Assigning jobs isn’t just about filling a role—it's about maximizing efficiency and morale. Scheduling shifts, managing fatigue, addressing injuries, and improving overall happiness plays a central role in keeping your colony functioning smoothly. These systems are layered in a way that makes the simulation feel alive without being overwhelming. You’ll learn to recognize who works best at night, who hates farming, and who needs a shorter workday to avoid burnout. This added layer of personality gives depth to what might otherwise feel like an abstract resource management sim. As your underground colony stabilizes, the game opens up even further by allowing you to expand to the planet’s surface. Sending out expeditions to explore points of interest not only uncovers valuable resources but also progresses the game’s story through event logs and lore entries. These missions often involve decisions or risks and can uncover alien ruins, hostile anomalies, or critical supplies. The surface exploration adds a welcome sense of adventure and broadens the game’s scope, contrasting nicely with the slower-paced, interior-focused base building. Vehicles, satellites, and remote outposts become key elements of the late-game, pushing players to think bigger and more strategically about how they grow their presence on the planet. From a visual and audio standpoint, Mercury Fallen opts for clarity and functionality rather than spectacle. The art style is simple and clean, favoring bright colors and clear iconography that make it easy to track resources, monitor rooms, and manage colonist behavior. While not graphically intensive, the design works well in service of gameplay. The interface is generally intuitive, though it may take some getting used to when handling certain systems like prioritization or shift management. Performance is solid across a wide range of hardware, and the game includes useful options like customizable work schedules, alert systems, and detailed colony stats. Mod support through Steam Workshop also adds long-term value, allowing for tweaks and expansions created by the community. What truly elevates Mercury Fallen is how it handles pacing. Unlike many survival or colony sims that throw disasters or enemies at you to force challenge, this game lets difficulty emerge from the systems themselves. Managing power needs, food production, research goals, and colonist well-being becomes more complex as your base expands. There is tension in the late game—not from external threats, but from internal balancing acts. This makes it a particularly good fit for players who enjoy planning, problem-solving, and base optimization over combat and chaos. The addition of a campaign-style narrative with version 1.0 gives the game a sense of structure and ultimate purpose, guiding players through planetary restoration efforts with defined objectives and rewards. Despite its strengths, Mercury Fallen isn’t without limitations. Some systems, such as pathfinding or job automation, can occasionally behave unpredictably, leading to inefficiencies that aren’t always easy to diagnose. While the game includes a solid set of tutorials and tooltips, new players may find the onboarding a bit minimal once things start to scale. In the late stages, certain processes—particularly around resource logistics—can become tedious without more advanced automation options. That said, the developer has been actively supporting and updating the game, adding quality-of-life features, new content, and balance adjustments, and the overall trajectory shows a clear commitment to long-term refinement. Mercury Fallen is a quiet but compelling entry into the colony management genre. It thrives on atmosphere, deliberate pacing, and an emphasis on personalizing the management of both space and people. By combining underground base-building with surface exploration and character-driven mechanics, it creates a well-rounded and deeply satisfying experience. For players looking for a thoughtful alternative to high-stress survival sims, and for those who enjoy watching a broken world slowly transform into something stable and thriving, Mercury Fallen offers hours of relaxing yet engaging gameplay with enough complexity to keep it interesting from start to finish. Rating: 8/10

НЕ ПОКУПАТЬ. Генерация мира сломана, 2-ы начинал игру с 0 и дважды точки интереса находились в недосягаемых местах. Доступная часть карты полностью исследована и просканирована, выучены все технологии что доступны, все доступные точки интересов исследованы. На карте нет ни одной точки для добычи xeno scrap, прогресс по миссии застопорится т.к. точка интереса находится за пределами суши на которой нахожусь я. Строить машины что могут передвигаются по воде не могу т.к. на моей части суши нету этой технологии или нету точки интереса главной миссии (может это открывается после её прохождения - без понятия). Что ещё интересного: загрузка из середины игры иногда ломает игру, пару раз не мог выйти из игры в главное меню она просто зависала. Сырой недопиленный кусок кода...

---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☐ Beautiful ☑ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Audio }--- ☐ Eargasm ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{ Audience }--- ☐ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ Grandma ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☑ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{ Difficulty }--- ☐ Just press 'W' ☐ Easy ☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Significant brain usage ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{ Grind }--- ☐ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☐ Isn't necessary to progress ☑ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You'll need a second life for grinding ---{ Story }--- ☐ No Story ☐ Some lore ☐ Average ☑ Good ☐ Lovely ☐ It'll replace your life ---{ Game Time }--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee ☐ Short ☐ Average ☑ Long ☐ To infinity and beyond ---{ Price }--- ☐ It's free! ☑ Worth the price ☐ If it's on sale ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{ Bugs }--- ☑ Never heard of ☐ Minor bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6 ☐ 7 ☐ 8 ☑ 9 ☐ 10

no help as there is no tutorial, click to mark stuff to mine, gather, harvest and they did not do anything, however if you click to decommission the capsule they came out of they did decommission those BUT would not do walls. 20+ mins is all it took before i un-installed and threw it into my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ folder. Waste of space and time with this one, where the hell did the favorable reviews come from, bunch of fake positives there.