Sludgineers

Sludgineers makes a great first impression with its calm, pastel atmosphere and cleverly designed mechanics. The mix of light engineering, building systems and managing different flows feels intuitive and genuinely enjoyable. The world has a simple but charming vibe, and the gameplay encourages you to experiment and keep exploring without rushing. So far, it’s a creative, relaxing and engaging experience that makes me curious to see what comes next.

Looking at the negative reviews for this game, I think people are coming into this with a skewed perspective. I hope this one sets up expectations for new players coming in so you have a more enjoyable time with the game. If you come into this thinking that you should be able to beat a level the first time you play it, that's not this kind of game. If you come into this thinking that if you haven't 100% cleared a level then you've lost, then this is still not that kind of game. So what kind of game is it? It's a strategy game that asks you to replay the same level over and over to make a plan of action while incrementally gaining resources to make future attempts better. You have a limited amount of time (the battery life) to beat each level in. You quickly unlock battery recharges, which have a chance to drop from cleaning certain items hidden under the sludge. Your goal when first playing a level is to figure out which of these items are where, and how hard it is to clean them, how big they are ect, so that you can hit up a bunch when you get low to recharge and keep playing. This is further complicated when later levels add in new mechanics, and then vents that spew new sludge to block your progress. Now, can you brute force it by buying enough upgrades and waiting long enough? Yes, but you aren't going to have fun if you do it that way. I also found the tech/upgrade tree rather thoughtful as well. There are many resources that gate progression, and you have to balance automation of those resources vs van upgrades to get to more resource rich levels. You will have half the tree unlocked by the time you reach the end, and that's okay. How you get to the final level and defeat it is up to you. What you find valuable and worth the effort may be different to someone else. Like I ignored drones completely which meant I was doing most of the work, but I liked having that control. Someone else could bank hard into the drones and have a little army clearing levels for them. If everyone had the same upgrades in the end, then it would be stale. A choice is only real if you have to give something up for it. For those going for 100%, there is a grind at the end to unlock the entire tree. It's not terribly long, I played the last level 16 times to get the money for it. I focused on the upgrades that increased generating resources so it was only really money I was ever short on, which the last level had in spades. It took about 5 hours to complete the game overall, which I think is fair for $7. If you are a fan of cozy strategy games, then this should be a fun afternoon.