Synergy

Not feeling it. Did the tutorial, was intruigued, then went on into a sandbox game, because the story seemed like "more tutorial" and I wasn't really interested in it. It's very bare-bones. Colour me surprised by how tedious this game immediately became once the "guardrails" of the tutorial were gone. I picked the first map ... and was immediately confronted with having nothing to do. Then, later, I tried a different map, because it felt so different from the tutorial, and lo and behold, that map had the tutorial area resources again, berry bushes, etc. Something you can actually make decent use of at the start of the game, while the other map required an "agri farm" for sustainable farming ... you know this entire game's theme. The agri farm, however, takes like 10 hours to even unlock, it's at the very far end of the research tree, no matter from which side you approach it, so you're left there just ... sitting and doing nothing. Can't produce basic meals, because the ingredients to do so are not available with your current "farming" methods. Can't harvest the funghi on the map, because that DESTROYS the node entirely, never to respawn (meaning, you can apparently soft-lock yourself out of this resource forever). Guess what you need to NOT destroy the funghi nodes? Bingo, agri farms! Can't really produce fibers or clothing, because again, can't farm them without destroying the nodes, probably permanently, unless they randomly reappear at some point. Can't produce any medicine, either, for the same reason. And so it goes. You keep looking at the research tree, while waiting to slowly accumulate more research points in your research center, because the initial method of gaining research, analyzing your surroundings, is done in a few minutes. The surface analysis, at the very least. After that your field research thingy is just dead weight, until you can somehow research more detailed methods, wherever those are, because the research tree is anything but easy to parse. So, that's your colony: pick some shrubs, gather some water, send some people out on the initial 2 or 3 expeditions, because afterwards they're too far away anyway ... and wait. And wait some more. You could produce tools ... but you don't really need them now, so you wait. Nah. I'm good. For a game that is all about "synergy" and "sustainability" I find it incredibly tedious to set up your colony. Maybe that's the point ... Graphics-wise ... it's distinct. I would neither call it good- nor bad-looking, but it's not my kind of art style. Music and sound effects are barely there, animations are sparse. It's a very basic-looking game with I'm sure quite a bit of depth, especially when it comes to building, maintaining and upgrading your various districts to gain the respective bonuses, but it just doesn't feel worth the effort to maybe get to that part ... Basic resources should be readily available and you should be able to harvest them sustainably. You can then lock the more advanced stuff behind either research for sustainable harvesting ... or immediate exploitation with all the negatives this entails, like no longer having access to these resources, or polluting/damaging the environment. As it stands, the game just feels too boring for me to engage with.