Update: Now there is a short but helpful starting guide (Sole Seeker Basics by Allergen) under the Community Hub in the Guides section.
I'm easy to impress and like simple retro games, but... i think the dev tried to do his best, but it is just not enough, i presume the dev is probably inexperienced, they wanted too much and the result is this barebone game with a small annoyances, which could be evaded.
This review is a really small spoiler, not about the story (as far i went, there were like two hints about it), but about what you can do in the game. So, here is my impressions:
General:
- I was lost in the game, there is no help to understand how it works, you have to try and learn.
- The background story is very brief, i have no clue how far the story will go or what kind of story we get. :D
- Not much talk in the game, but the text bubbles lack the name of the talker. I mean, i forgot the name of the benefactor because they told me few times in the beginning and never again. :D
- I find the vertical doors on the space station confusing because of the perspective, i barely recognized them, also i bumped into the wall the first time and generally just annoyed me after that. :)
- On the space station there are doors which would not open for you at the beginning. After the surprise vertical doors, it was strange. Finally a door, i can recognize it, why it doesn't open?! :D
- There is a room you have to visit to left the station with your spaceship, but because you find the spaceship before that room, you wandering and wondering, why you can't interact with the ship at all.
- I find the resource gathering punishing, ever building needs several different kind of aliens to be killed and harvested.
- never felt i need a base or just to build something, except a "capturer" because i needed to capture an alien. But because the story just began, maybe it has a reason to build bases later...
Space:
- I was confused why i can't enter a star system, why they are restricted. I missed the text about a red star (or something like that) i should visit first. There is no history about the texts, so you can't read them later.
- in the space, i hate how slowly the spaceship turns, i missed systems several times because of it and turning back is so slooow. Also many times i have to zoom out to see where i want to go, but i can't see which direction my ship will go, because it is just a small dot when i zoom out. Also because the huge distances, zooming from ship to galaxy view and back is slow.
- Because there is no guide about the game, i wandered around the galaxy for few minutes until i finally pressed the "switch state" button which shows "territories" of the galaxy, different colors, later i figured out they represent what kind of aliens lives there. Several territories overlap each others so their star system type can be like blue, green, orange, for example. So i found a star on the red territory and i could land. After that, i could land anywhere.
Planets:
- After landing on the planet you can see what is around the ship. But when step out, the game is so zoomed in, you can see maybe like 10 meters/33 feets away. Everything is almost jumps on you.
- Every color represent a hostile alien type with the corresponding color. There are moving red goos, fast blue rat things, a green tentacle, orange volcanos spiting brown jumping rocks and finally rolling purple giant eyes. That is all. You can stun the first two with a net and kill any of them with one or more cuts and loot their colored resources. They are deadly, they touch you and you are dead. The fight is very simple, you net them or cut them before they could reach you. The corpse harvesting is slow, you can't interrupt it, so other aliens probably can kill you.
- I liked chasing the planets and the zooming animation when i land on them. I'm easy to impress. :)))
- I liked there are different biome, even if it means not much. Mostly i liked the music.
Story:
- After some exploring i had no idea where i find the space station, but i remembered there were a lot of stars, it is the center of the galaxy, so i found it. Now, one of the locked doors opened and i could make "building types": deployable weapons, floors and walls.
- Because i got the quest to capture a red alien, i made a capturer and with the switch state button i switched to build mode on a planet, selected the capturer and deployed it, led a red alien into it. I was not sure if i got the alien because i can't see how many captured aliens i have or how many capturer left.
- Anyway, i flew back to the station, there i could contact with the captured red alien (i captured it as it turned out). It just tried to kill me and i got some command to do some experiment on the hostile alien. I had to splash it with some liquid by leading them into a sprinkler, i cut them and finally i should reverse the direction of the alien, but i didn't figure out this. There were direction marks in the room and some thingy, but i didn't know how to use it. Supposedly more successful experiments means more reward, but i have no clue if i got something, maybe red resources? After that i got a small description about the alien in my inventory.
- Surely there is some story of it, because your benefactor sometimes gives away hints about an organism they dislike.
- Now i should capture a purple alien, which means i should kill more aliens to make anouther capturer. I think i pass.
