Ostranauts

this game could be cool but it needs time to cook the good - flying is fun - fixing a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to be something good is fun - taking a ship apart is fun - learning what's worth selling, keeping, or selling is fun - the gig system is fun - the pda has stuff like an in game timer and notepad the bad - the build planer feels bad to use - the pda takes up the left half of the screen - the AI has a stroke when following the build planer (will often go outside of the ship when it can be done on the inside) - when building a ship the whole the AI will take one lose item at a time even if it stacks (pick up one floor, drop off the floor, pick up one new floor, repeat) - most items that can stack will not do so if the durability is not the same (a 80% floor doesn't stack with an 81% floor) - stolen ships have a 10 second delay when you enter the pilot seat - barter zones don't work on stolen ships - for a stolen ship to be "yours" you need to buy it - you cannot own NPC ships

The space privateer sim I’ve been waiting for since the 1990s

Great concept, the initial and core loop is kind of satisfying and interesting enough. It really did scratch that itch of being trapped inside a worn out spaceship controlling oxygen levels, pressure, etc but after a few runs where you have to dismantle derelict ships for parts to sell, it quickly turns into a chore. Also, everything else feels half-done, the combat UI is horrible with a barebones combat log with no proper feedback to what is actually happening. The NPC interaction mini-game is one of the most unfun systems I have ever saw in a game. I would recommend buying it only as tech demo, as the game is clearly unfinished and was pushed out the door with a 1.0 tag on it so the dev can call it quits and move on to other projects.

I bought this game a long time ago because I saw the vision the developer was wanting to build and I wanted to invest in it. I played for the first time since announcing the 1.0 release. Unfortunately, I can't recommend people get this game if this is what the developers consider a full release. The game is supposed to be a gritty "life simulator" game where you're a poor nobody living in local space who finally gets a chance to escape the drudgery so that you can, finally, start to make a business for yourself. The game advertises scavenging derelict ships and finding rare and valuable components--there's no diversity in components. A thruster is a thruster, an antenna is an antenna, etc., there's only one variation of each ship component. There are systems in the game that are completely unused. I cannot tell you why I need to have a social life, it doesn't seem to affect anything in the game. Not that it matters because you can't customize your ship into a unique space to call home or anything. Combat is terrible. I've found it much easier to exploit a bug and take the CO2 scrubbers from enemy EVA suits. They'll pass out from CO2 poisoning soon enough. There doesn't seem to be anything to actually *do* in the game besides repeat the same repetitive docking mini-game, uninstall components, drag them across space (you literally drag them as if you're in gravity). There's no piracy or policing or station/colony development. There's nothing to this sandbox of a game. If this is what the devs consider 1.0 then I recommend people keep their money until a lot more content has been released.

At present, in its current form, all of the game's flaws worth noting are a result of frankly terrible design choices that should not have seen the light of day. Inventory management is a complete nightmare first and foremost, with the very concept of organization being a mortal enemy of the devs. Imagine if you had a book case. But Despite being as all as you, that case only has three shelves. And only one book can be put on each shelf. This is literally how the inventory system in the game works. Which is funny, because a 1 meter tall shelf has LESS of these "slots" than a pair of overalls. That's right, your jumpsuits has four slots. MORE FREE SPACE than a literal industrial storage rack. The overhead bin on an airplane that you can fit and entire suitcase and some extra luggage inside of? Six slots. Wear a pair of cargo pants, you'll get like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ TWELVE instead. ALL logic in the game follows this ridiculous philosophy. The "trade off" for wearing normal clothes with pockets like a sane person instead of only moving one single toothpick at a time? You can't wear a space suit. At all. Not even "put it on over the clothes." No, you can't just buy a bigger pair of pants to wear over the space suit, and god forbid you just add pouches or a fanny pack to the suit you filthy heretic. Your suit can only have two slots. The bare minimum you'll need for your tools is three. Do you want a coffee machine? Too bad. You're barely tolerated being allowed to interact with them, let alone just buying one. Why? Because they just decided you don't deserve that privilege. Do you want to salvage ships like the game advertises? ♥♥♥♥ you. You have to deal with random supernatural magical ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ because the devs wanted to shoehorn in their own homebrew SCPs. There's supposedly an entire system for investigating and solving the death and potential murders of unlucky bastards who die on ships you're salvaging. I wouldn't know, because I've been completely locked out of it by literally every single corpse invoking this supernatural dickery. You didn't ask? Too bad, now ships will randomly have giant tumors on them that may or may not try to kill you like cancerous amoebas. The AI lacks any more sophisticated logic than taking the shortest route from point A to B. Regardless of any objects that they might fatally collide into when going as fast as possible at all times and costs. It's so bad that the docking system is forced to teleport objects and ships into position when they get close enough. This more often than not has unintended side effects, just as teleporting a third party ship in-between you and another ship you're trying to dock with. Or ALREADY docked with. Have fun with the ensuing G-mod style cacophony . And on and on and on it goes. The best way to describe the game is as the middle ground between Rimworld and Barotrauma, but with none of the clever techniques that really make those games work. It's a good game, and you'll enjoy yourself if you're extremely patient. You just have to be able to tolerate the fact that the game does not respect you or your time in spite of the money you've given up for it.

[h2]A great core idea but with an underbaked release[/h2] I've had my eye on this game for a long time, deliberately holding off until it was finished. So I was thrilled to see it hit 1.0 a few days ago, and with a sale on top of that I bought it immediately. The recent mixed reviews gave me pause, but I didn't pay them much attention because I wanted to finally experience the game for myself. In hindsight I probably should have listened, because I now find myself agreeing with the consensus: this is a very underbaked 1.0. And I don't just mean bugs, of which there are many. You can tell while playing that a lot of features were built to about 20% and then left there. Space navigation. It's genuinely very well done and enjoyable, and it's the one part of this game I have nothing bad to say about. One example that stands in for a dozen: I have a zone full of building materials, a cart in my hands, and a blueprint waiting to be filled, and my character will deliver the materials [b]one at a time[/b], despite correctly using the cart when I explicitly tell him to haul. These systems are just plainly unfinished. My read is that the devs got overly ambitious and tried to implement a lot of different things at once instead of going vertical and polishing each set of features before moving on, until they hit some kind of wall (money ran out, publisher pressure, burnout after years on the same project, who knows) and ultimately labeled this a finished product. The NPC system exemplifies this. Hiring crew, but also just talking to station NPCs to handle mood requirements: something I thought was really cool for the first two minutes and that turned out so bad I wish it simply wasn't in the game. Contrast this with something like Project Zomboid, where the devs pulled NPCs entirely because they weren't satisfied with the implementation, and shipped narrow but fully polished slices with each release instead. That's the discipline this game needed, rather than forcing a broken system in. [h3]Where that leaves me[/h3] Exactly where I was trying not to be by waiting for 1.0: enamored with the premise and creative direction, but frustrated enough with the state of the game that I can't enjoy it without getting mad at some system not working properly every five minutes. The devs have promised at least another year of development, and I hope that means more than a few bugfixes, because several systems urgently need more love and attention. As things stand I can't recommend it to new players, partly so nobody else walks into what I walked into. Wait 6 to 12 months and see where the progress is by then, because whatever labels are used, [b]this game is still in an EA state[/b]. [hr][/hr] [h3]Software engineering side note[/h3] I've read the dev's post about not wanting to use generative AI for coding tasks, and everyone is free to work how they please, but as a software engineer I think it's a self-inflicted wound. Getting half-finished features across the line is exactly where these tools are strongest. Hardcoded text strings apparently blocking localization is a couple of days of work at most with an assistant scanning the codebase for them.

Extremely buggy. As if game breaking bugs weren't enough; I hope you like your save files randomly corrupting, for no reason at all.

I closed and refunded as soon as I had to choose a pronoun for my character. I signed up to play a space salvage simulator; not a body dysmorphia/mental illness simulator.