The Crust

As of now, I cannot recommend The Crust. The foundation for the gameplay mechanics are more than solid and the mix between factory building, moon exploration, colony management and contracts is very varied. I see the potential, and if the developers continue to fix things on this [b]before releasing into 1.0 in three weeks[/b], I can see myself changing this review. There are minor or semi minor bugs and necessary QoL features missing at almost every corner of the game. [list] [*]some descriptions and tool tips are conflicting each other [*]active delivery contracts just disappear from the menu until you restart the game [*]some tool tips don't appear at the right location [*]some building menus don't display the costs of the buildings [*]some modal popups in the foreground of the UI still let you click things in the background (which are almost not visible) [*]there is no way to copy more than one building at a time [/list]

Good concept, good game. But poor experience because of confusing controls, UX and UI on PC. - There is no one button to exit menu, lots of menus have their own exit button so player has to guess every time what button to press. - Right mouse button menu is annoying and it cannot be disabled. - No option to remap middle mouse button, or to swap it with right mouse button as I wanted with right mouse button. Which is confusing as you can remap other buttons. - When I plan a conveyors and then change my mind and cancel them already built conveyors that touch planned are destroyed. - Side quests do not displayed properly, so it's a bad surprise when they expire. - Expedition UX is awful. No to option to display target of interest based on currently selected drone/rover. - Sound from dialog does not play sometimes. - Information about structure is not displayed before being researcher or build. So player have no idea what type of material it needs for maintenance and etc. - Buttons do not display hotkey options for them. - Udergroud/Indoor light simply broken sometimes. - Upgrades to structures are confusing.

This is meant to be a hard science thing, right? But the space elevator in the opening cutscene uses a rocket to climb the cable, when the point of space elevators is avoiding the use of rockets and using more efficient fuel sources. An explosion causes a blastwave that flips over rovers and things, despite the moon having no atmosphere to carry the blastwave that way. Some of the character art, if not AI-generated, feels that way. There are indications that AI-generated assets were used during development, but the forum posts imply those would later be removed. However, at the time those conversations were taking place on the forum, people said that no AI disclosure appeared on the storefront. The game's writing is bad. Lazy. During the tutorial a professional lunar colonist is mystified by a baseline technology to convert drones from cargo units to mining units, which another character implies has been standard for years. The emotional atmosphere is one of the player being part of what might be some kind of hostile takeover, but it immediately switches to smiley friendship the moment the tutorial has you plonk down a couple of solar power arrays - and there are dozens and dozens there already. So that emotional flip makes no sense, at all. It comes across as sloppy. And if the game actually used gen-AI during development and didn't disclose that, it makes sense - because those tools indicate that someone believes they deserve our time, money, and attention, but they shouldn't have to put in their best efforts to earn those things. This game, which I'm sure is a ton of fun for a lot of players, does not earn anything. Based on the Tutorial and a quick look around, it's a simple remix of other games without anything original to it, honestly.

The amount of AI content is annoying. Voice acting is horrible and annoying and I would really prefer just a text tutorial. The insults when clicking the wrong building do not help.

Over the last few years I've played a lot of base building/automation games. This is the one that I keep coming back to. I've logged over 700 hours and just love it. I've seen a ton of improvement the devs have added over the last 18 months, and with every new major update I jump back in and play it again. Excited to play it again when full release hits this summer.

The game is full of AI slop. All 2D images are slopped, despite no disclosure on the steam page.

Having played this game for over 1,000 hours now I can confirm that this game is absorbing, challenging and rewarding. It's central theme is "mine and build" but goes far beyond that with storyline tasks (nothing too serious, just saving the entire Earth!), trading and exploring. Still in early access I've seen the game evolve through bug fixes and new features with active developer support and well populated forums, and yes the developers do reply and act on the feedback from the gamers. I've played through four times now and still find it interesting and challenging, I'd thoroughly recommend it.

cant support the use of AI which is a shame this game is definitely my type but AI is lazy and wack

This game has the makings for a great game but there are some fundamental things it just doesn't get right. For example I am soft locked now as I ran out of green science but dont have the market open to do contracts or buy more green science.

When the money runs out, even in a sandbox, the game can be thrown away.