Eventually everything stops making sense.
PROBLEM 1: BAD EXPLANATIONS. I had high hopes for this game, but ultimately walked away disappointed because they give you massive tools and don't explain how to set them up. After 30 hours of happily plugging away at goals, it became clear that scaling up was necessary. To avoid dozens of hours of manual production (literally watching small numbers tick away at hand operated crafter, like a cookie clicker), more power is needed than plants can provide. Plants run out and gathering them is a PAIN to begin with. That means coal is necessary, but HOW do coal generators get going? I ended up frustrated, searching the internet for a quick explanation, but NO ONE WHO PLAYS THIS GAME and NO ONE WHO MADE THIS GAME feel like giving a step-by-step setup guide. Water is needed, coal is needed, and then you flip it one, right? WRONG. You need to jumpstart it, but if you do that the breakers pop. Sorry, but this magically constructed machine cannot jumpstart itself and there is no UI element to guide you through. Online, the community stops explaining with "hook it up" or "you need water and coal and power lines". Yeah. No shiz. But why doesn't it work? Your guess is as good as mine. For a massive game with tons of potential, this is a MAJOR oversight in explanation. In the official subreddit, the most common comment about coal generation is that they need better explanation... yet no one supplies that information in the sub. It's like looking at github fior the first time... in game form. Not fun.
PROBLEM 2: CONTROLLER SUPPORT
It's a game. There are plenty of things that DO work on a controller, but not everything can be done with a controller. In its current form, you will need a keyboard and mouse to do the simplest interactions with the most important system: the upgrade module. Let me say that again: You cannot play this game on just a controller. You can't. Simply navigating a menu has not been streamlined for... you know... video game players with video game pads. If it weren't so simple of a need, I wouldn't bring it up here. You can navigate some menus but not others. You can utilize a game pad for everything except that new thing you worked so hard for, and god help you if don't try the mouse out of frustration. You'll be stuck, wondering what button to push to make the damn thing function.
In the end, this game runs great for a lot of people and I applaud them, but the limitations of the dev team begin at making the game accessible. They don't explain things well AT ALL. Truly, this is the worst onboarding I've seen in a professionally developed game and the failure is systemic (not localized to one gap in knowledge but EVERYWHERE in this game). Finally, the controller support is woefully inadequate.
Give this game another five years to cook. Skip it until the community fixes it.
