It would seem I got, GOT...AGAIN, and I'm pissed. Not just at the dev, but at myself. I wish I would have booted Pharma Craft up sooner before the two week refund window, UGH.
For starters, the game is an AI asset flip through and through. So let's get all that out of the way real quick. Everything is a janky disaster, I will give credit in one regard. Unlike the other game I'm about to compare this one to, at least this game has a complete tutorial that will lead you from start to finish and explain how most everything works. None of it makes any sense, but at least you're shown how it actually works.
As an example, the first two seconds of the trailer show a ton of belt and production systems, and as best I can tell, none of that actually exists in game. If it does, it's completely hidden from view and there is no research, there are no vendors, there are no buildable items, that remotely resemble any kind of automation systems. So I'm not even sure how they got that in the trailer, because it sure as hell isn't in the game. Hell even the items being produced out of those machines in that first second of the trailer don't seem to resemble anything in game you can actually make. SOOOOOOO... I don't know what the hell is going on there.
I started to realize the game is just going to be about you running back and fourth between a bajillion crafting tables crafting various items that are part of a large manufacturing chain for a finished product. And unlike satisfactory where you're using belts and distribution methods, you're just running back and fourth, on foot, opening the crafting menus to craft an item you need for the finished product you're working towards. None of the systems make any sense, none of them are friendly.
Again if you check the trailer, after those first few seconds, it shows real gameplay, THAT's what you're building. Tons of random machines and crafting tables. Each one produces some type of item that is used in one step of a manufacturing process. These recipes and processes make no logical sense. The materials, container types, all of it seems random. Each one has some kind of random timer to finish crafting and the times can be absolutely ridiculous. It looks like it was just made up out of thin air. In Satisfactory, the math and production numbers would all line up in one way or another, so you can maximize your output and have little to no waste, etc. In this game it's just totally random, and since you do everything by hand it's insane to think you are building an ever widening set of crafting tables that would look like a triangle, with the last step of production needing 8-10 identical machines, just to match tempo with the single machine from the first step. BUT WITH NO AUTOMATION!
Where things get REAL interesting are when I realized that..... not only is this is an AI asset flip, this game is set up EXACTLY like a game I played AND reviewed just a couple months ago, and that game is "SMART FARM".
As it would turn out, the game Smart farm was made under a company called "ZD Games" and this game, Pharma Craft, was made under a company called "ZD Yazilim"... Hmmmmm..... okay then. A coincidence, I'm sure.
This matters because as I start playing Pharma Craft I start getting some SERIOUS Deja Vu vibes of when I had the displeasure of playing Smart Farm. So that's when I started looking into the dev more.
Unlike a standard build system that is actually built INTO the game. You instead have in game items that are blueprints. You put these blueprint items into your hotbar. With the blueprint selected in your hotbar, you hold a mouse button to open a radial menu with buildable items. You can scroll through multiple pages of items inside each blueprint. This is exactly, and I mean EXACTLY how it was done in Smart Farm. It's as though the dev had NO idea how to program the building item asset pack into the game. So instead, just attached the entire building asset pack to an in game item that uses it's own menu system completely outside the actual main game UI/menus.
This is a terrible and insanely lazy way to implement a building system and it's just insane that it seems the same group responsible for this in Smart Farm turned right around and did it again in this game JUST A FEW MONTHS LATER!
When you go to build an item you can't simply deselect it. Again, It's, it's own thing and not integrated into the rest of the UI, so you instead have to back out of the radial menu, then switch to a different hotbar item. JUST TO REMOVE THE ACTIVE BUILDING BLUEPRINT AFTER YOU'RE DONE PLACING! FOR EVERY.SINGLE.ITEM. YOU BUILD! It's absolutely maddening!
You have multiple of these blueprint items with different buildable item sets. So as you're building, you'll have to switch back and fourth between each one in your hotbar to find the item you want to build. It's slow and tedious and it's awful. TAKE THE TIME TO MAKE A REAL BUILDING SYSTEM!
What do you know, just like Smart Farm, the entire game and it's progression is nothing more than going to a computer, selecting a contract (In a computer menu UI that is identical in both as well) and producing the total amount of items for that contract.
Then you also get the pleasure of hand delivering each contract to the corresponding building in the town. There isn't even a logistics system! Make 50 hand creams and hop in the pickup truck and bring 'em to the pharmacy yourself.
Every single manufacturing line has steps that require items you can not produce. and again, no logistics, so you get to drive to the store every time you want to craft something. It is SO ANNOYING. I looked EVERYWHERE, one of your premade buildings literally has a highlighted crate that says its for deliveries, and there are items in there in the tutorial you have to use. But there is NO option in your office, in your computer, in your inventory, nothing. YOU CAN NOT ORDER OR HAVE THOSE ITEMS DELIEVERED TO YOUR SITE! SO YOU DRIVE BACK AND FOURTH TO THIS STORE FOR ITEMS YOU NEED! IT'S SO INFURIATING! Who in their right mind thought that would be fun?!?
To make it even worse, these buildings and stores AREN'T EVEN REAL! You just use a kiosk that sits outside the building. WHY EVEN MAKE THE WHOLE TOWN IF THE BUILDINGS AREN'T REAL AND YOU'RE JUST USING AN ATM KIOSK?! What the hell even is that?! Why the hell did you waste so much of chatGPT's time by having a map and stores and areas to visit, when they don't serve any actual purpose and you just interact with a computer to order items or deliver contracts that sit right in front of them. Wait.. On that note.. Why can you buy finished products? What the hell are you going to do with those?!? The whole point is to build up a manufacturing plant to MAKE THEM. So why did you take the time making kiosk machines where you can just outright buy those items? What am I going to do with teeth care products in this game.. hmm?
Hell why even force us to have to go buy items by hand and in person in a game about manufacturing large amounts of items in the first place? Why aren't these items delivered like EVERY OTHER SIMULATOR GAME EVER MADE?!?
It's wild that I happened upon this game who just so happens to be made by the same people who made another terrible game just like it that I played a few months earlier. I don't think the dev has ever actually played video games at this point, they have doubled down on that odd building system that makes no sense and no gamer would have ever signed off on. the UI is basic and ugly as hell, EXACTLY like Smart Farm. None of the systems make sense logically, everything feels janky, every task is tedious. Whoever made these two games clearly have no experience actually making video games and I suspect may not even have any kind of programming experience AT ALL. This is the second game they've made that feels like a TON of asset packs that were patched together using AI prompts. I wouldn't even call it a video game!
