Solar Showdown

If you do decide to play this game, play it with a grain of salt. Also for the love of god, please read the description with your working eyeballs attached to your brain. Is this game anywhere near absolute perfection? No way. Is it a bit graphically intensive comparatively to what is actually happening on the screen? Absolutely. Is there any multiplayer aspect to this game? Nope, go get a friend for some Couch PVP Is there any way this game is going to actually get updated past release on Jun 14, 2023? 99% chance it is never going to receive another update. Does it NEED two Xbox controllers to be played? Yes, it says so in the description of the game. "Solar Showdown is a 2-player competitive game with RTS and Tower Defense elements. It requires 2 controllers to play local multiplayer." However you have to really think deeper to understand and see what this game actually represents, this is a student-lead Capstone project for a bunch of people who have never actually made a video game before. The time and effort put into this product from people who have no business and absolutely no prior knowledge of how a game is going to be made makes this product, despite it's flaws, a beautiful creation by students. This is not a Triple A studio, this is most likely, a class of college kids with dreams and aspirations of wanting to do this full-time. Thus, for a first-time project, I will say this is surprisingly fun and playable regardless of any glaring issues. At it's core, it is a management RTS game with a rock-paper-scissors-esque economy. You want to build solar panels to win the game, in order to build solar panels you need solar. However, you need solar spots, and you will not have enough solar spots on your side of the map to win the game. Therefore the conflict arises, the other person has the same objective, you yourself cannot destroy anything and must rely on your machines to do the work. Your factory builds little units that destroy things, but it cannot defend itself, the units will heat seek anything, but cannot heat seek other units. The defense tower destroys the units, but it cannot destroy other buildings. The shield defends against attacks against anything within it's walls, but cannot defend itself once the shield falls. I think you can get the idea from there. This core gameplay loop is what keeps it entertaining since you essentially have the same tools as the other individual (given similar skill levels) and are working to 'manifest destiny' into the other opposing individuals land. The approach is very interesting and fun and keeps both players entertained. The characters are unique once you really look at them and both concepts (iterating on each others core gameplay designs) are fleshed out and complement each other (plant/science vs industrialization). For those that complain about the controllers, can I ask you this? Would you like to share your keyboard with someone else? As a couch local PVP game, it is kinda ridiculous to expect two people to be able to play on one singular keyboard. Once you do get into a game, you can see the certain level of complexity baked into the controls and can then assume the controller is the perfect amount of complexity for the game's controls. For those that complain about multiplayer: I agree that is a concern. However, I reiterate again, this is a class of college kids, I'd rather them put out a full-baked local game, then a half-baked multiplayer laggy game with servers that are not going to be sustained in the next 2 years. This game will stand the test of time and will be playable regardless of the player base as you quite literally just need to grab someone and hand them a controller. All in all, I may be biased as my wife did work intensely on this game, but despite it's short-comings, I think this is fantastic game to just have in your library for whenever you need something a little bit competitive that you don't really have to care about. TLDR 8/10 - Enjoyable casual game with a very intriguing core gameplay aspect. Has limitations, but said limitations prevent it from becoming irrelevant which was probably thought of by the college class that made this game. I'd give it a try ONLY if you have a friend and two controllers.