Penkura

Penkura may currently be the size of a demo or an extended tutorial level but it has an excellent foundation. The developer got rid of many infamous components of Unreal Engine 5 and wrote his own solutions from a scratch. When modern AAA studios can't be bothered to tweak basic engine settings and even Epic engineers aren't much help, Lionard as a solo programmer writes custom anti-aliasing, lighting, volumetric fog and navigation systems. All of which allow the game to perform fantastically on low end machines while not looking any worse than most contemporaries out there. These efforts alone are very impressive and commendable. And there's still more to this game. It scratches the nostalgic itch for 1980s and 1990s takes on alien sci-fantasy and the aliens in Antarctica theories. This distant world is an eerie and often gloomy place but it's equal measure beautiful and intriguing. Several mysteries are introduced very early, and the further one goes, the weirder and more unsettling it gets. In a way, it reminds me of the story progression in Phantasy Star Online. The next large update is supposed to take us underground and I'm really looking forward to it. Gameplay systems are currently simple and serviceable. We can't go crazy with the base functionality, automation features or world infrastructure just yet. However, the UI deserves some praise. There are many tutorial resources directly in game, often incorporated as a part of base computer software. Every item and buildable object has a description that makes its purpose clear, and even more additional info can be obtained by just pointing a scanner at things. It's one of those rare games that don't require having a wiki or a strategy guide opened at all times in another window. There's even an in-game notepad, very useful for writing down access codes, item checklists and such.

I thought Penkura was a bit rough when I tried it a while ago and ended up refunding it. It turns out that I bought it during a very brief period when it was unstable and saving wasn't possible. That got fixed a few hours after I refunded. (Facepalm.) I bought it again and it seems like a really interesting game. It's still in development, but what's implement so far is pretty neat. It could use a little rebalancing, but for this stage in development it's fine as it is. I made what I thought was a bug report earlier using the in-game bug reporting system (in-game bug reporting is always appreciated). However, this game has something I've never seen before: in-game replies from the devs! I got a short note back quite quickly explaining that what I experienced wasn't a bug and telling me what I hadn't understood properly. That was awesome! Looking forward to seeing where this game takes me as it continues development.

Great ideas, there's enough gameplay to convince you that this is/will be a good game, development is slow but steady so I don't regret buying in EA. I wish development was faster, but as the saying goes: "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game will be forever bad". Looking forward for this game when it gets 1.0.

Penkura is a survival/exploration/base building game made by a very small team. This is exactly the game that Early access is for. Yes, there have been periods with fewer updates, and there are periods with more frequent updates (just like now). The developers communicate A LOT: they're active here on the forums, and the game has not just a bug reporting system - but you will get responses from the developers directly into the game. (And I got one on a Sunday!) If you read some other reviews, they also talk about this. I will skip describing what the game is about in detail - there are plenty of reviews or posts about it. In my review I want to emphasize this is one of the indie projects made by passionate people, and that's worth supporting.

I knew this game would probably be entertaining, and I also knew what I was signing up for initially, having done my research on the game and keeping an eye on it for the last while. Only two biomes thus far, limited quest content, unfinished game design, etc. But oh my, what's there is good. For starters, this game has mostly, if not entirely, original assets. You won't find another game with the same aesthetic as this one, because this game's dev handled it himself. As for what you do in the game, it borrows from a handleful of genres for the gameplay elements, in just enough ways and just the right kind of combo. At it's heart, this is a survival game. You need to sleep, eat, and drink. You also need to watch your oxygen levels when venturing from a secured shelter, as the game's environment (a moon orbiting a gas giant) hosts an inhospitable atmosphere. You build a base using a combination of prefabs and freeform building, and the base needs to be adequately powered and supplied with a substance called hydrogel, which is what you need for a range of things, such as biofuel converters and farming plants as well as keeping up oxygen levels inside the base. So far, power sources include wind turbines and solar arrays, while hydrogel can be harvested from the local atmostphere or produced in huge quantities in a specialized facility, which costs a damn fortune to build, I must say. Appropriate, though. There are several types of biofuel (six, I think) that can be harvested from plants in varying quantities depending on the plant, as well as biowaste, which is used as fertilizer. Every plant has varying amounts of either three or four of the biofuel types. The types stay the same no matter what stage of growth a plant is at, but the amounts change, and sometimes a maturing plant has a lot more to harvest than a mature variety of the same plant. Biofuels are used in complex crafting, from ammo to mods to nutribars and nutriboxes. A keen eyed player won't fail to notice that the base display shows a tab for base defense, and another display shows that the base has the capacity to be shielded. Right now, these things are not in the game, but I think they will flesh out an already very fun gameplay loop, once added.

First, I had fun with what I could do. It's not a bad start to a game. The problem is it feels like a little bit more than a demo. If you were locked in the first area before access to the rail car then I would say it is just a demo. It's not a bad start to a game and runs well, there's features I think are cool, like you don't have to pull up a menu screen to see certain progress bars, like in the crafting devices, but the story isn't even half finished (I hope that's just the beginning anyway, no more than 1/3rd of the way surely). The story IS compelling, but there's also nothing to it. You get a few message entries that hook you, some audio that intrigues you, but it goes nowhere at the moment, and I'm sure I would change this when the rest of the story comes out if it goes the way the rest of the game has, but it's been 6 (5.5 as writing this) years since it was "released" on early access. I hate to know what it would have been like in 2019, being sold even for $10-13 (I got it at $13). Buy this if you would like to finance this dev's pet project but it's like buying a "project car" that has a frame, some of the electrical, a transmission, and nothing else, with the promise that you'll get the engine "soon" and maybe if it feels right they'll add the tires, seats, horn, and all the other bits eventually maybe. Do I regret the buy? nah it wasn't too expensive, and the dev apparently hasn't abandoned it yet. Would I have bought it knowing how much of the story was in it? no, it's like the first two chapters of a 10 chapter book. I'm not trying to bash the dev's ability, there's more game than I could make, certainly, but I can't recommend others to buy it expecting at least a story with no QOL, it's more like QOL and no story, I think, actually

Actual hidden gem of a game. Enjoying the gameplay loop tremendously.