Titan Outpost

It's hard to put Titan Outpost into a genre because it's got several layers of gameplay. There's first person exploration and survival, resource management, mysteries to solve, and intrigue with many complex characters. Ultimately they all come together to be greater than the sum of the parts and tell a vivid and memorable story. One of many stories, I should say, because your choices actually matter. Out of all the games I've played that are set in an alien world, I've never found one this immersive. The graphics, the music, and the gameplay all tie together to make you feel like you're on a cold and desolate world where it's a struggle just to avoid freezing. Turn out the lights and close your curtains and you'll forget you're still on Earth. If you grew up dreaming about what it would be like to walk on another world, this is the closest you're gonna get if your first name isn't Elon. There's a few rough edges like a few dialogue nodes getting triggered at the wrong time, but nothing that will break the game. It's not some janky, half-broken indie game that you like because of all the heart the developer put into it. It's a pretty slick and carefully crafted indie game that you love because of all the heart the developer put into it.

I regret forcing myself to play this for more than an hour and that I can't even get a refund now. Please don't repeat my mistake. There are bugs and issues in this game like the first playthrough I never got the UI to load at all and the second playthrough after getting much further due to actually figuring out how to do things in the game I'm basically stuck driving a rover at 0-1 km/h in a desert (Shangri La) despite having numerous upgrades to it, and that's just the point where I finally decided to quit. There's just this great lack of transparency for questions like can I do this, what do I need to do this and so on. Everything in the game is a rage-quit inducing slog, but you keep going in the hopes of there being something interesting behind the corner and often there is because the story does seem a bit interesting. While some games are way too "gamey", this is just an attempt at realism that fails to give a sense of realism and it would have done better with being a single decent game first. The game looks deceptive because you think it's like a base building game or something but it's actually more like a point and click adventure with a bunch of rooms in your basement that you never visit. The layout of the base does not matter at all, it's just a grid of rooms in your basement that are of the same size and increase some numbers while decreasing others. Temperature of the base is basically just "turn off the heating system and you die" without room placement meaning anything. Why make them physically exist when none of it matters, except for appearance? You keep slogging through everything in the hopes that a crew member might make things easier or more interesting, but they can't really actually do anything besides make things get built faster or give you more resources (but there's never any indication that they actually work on anything because of the weird way the game handles time), and are more like a decoration like the rooms. You can't send them out with the rover to explore and they don't have "physicality" in the game like your character does. You can't even take them with you to explore. Also the player has a set of attributes and skills that crew members don't, instead of all characters having the same potential to become your main "doer of a certain skill". Where you would think that they would need to get food from somewhere, maybe sit down and eat it, they actually just automatically consume it without any sense of it actually taking place in the base you built for them. Basically none of them seem alive. It might be unfair to have that expectation, but I have it from other base building titles. It's a bit like just another system got slapped on for no reason. And the whole game seems a bit like that. More systems, without realizing why they might be fun to play. The issue with time is you can pass a day of time while not having your character or anything move or do anything, so it seems completely arbitrary. It breaks the suspension of disbelief. It's a bizarre experience. Basically the expectation is that there is a simulation going on and that doing things takes time because of the way your base is laid out and characters moving about, but actually it's just an arbitrary number that gets increased to make numbers go up. There is a bit of "cutsceneitis" going on because transitions from base to rover and back you're forced to watch your character move around, yet you can make time jump a day instantly (on the other hand there is some visible improvements to this in that you don't have to watch your character go outside when transitioning from base to rover, but basically there should be more of that). You have to watch your character walk across incredible distances, then click a button to "do stuff instantly", then watch them walk back to their rover. Why not just make everything happen instantly? The graphics are not married to the games systems anyways. But then the game becomes sort of trivial. Again, it's too easy, except when it's impossibly hard or just boring. Everything is hidden behind terrible UIs and you never know exactly what might happen if you do things. Rather than be one game that is okay, it's like a million minigames designed to be confusing and make you lose, except the second time you play them it's just ridiculously easy. It's essentially the opposite of "easy to grasp, difficult to master". An example is setting up pumps. The first time they were a bit confusing and I died because I didn't realize placing a part takes time. Afterwards this deadly experience turned into something completely trivial and boring, and no amount of skill is really involved. Why can't I just send my crew or drones over to do this instead? I have automated drones building bases, but I can't send them to set up a simple pump? Again, the game suffers from trying to be realistic where it doesn't matter while not being realistic where you might expect or hope it would be. The only way to ensure you don't fail catastrophically is to manage your saves, but that's just not a recipe for a fun time.

One of the better RPGs released in the last decade and the best science-fiction one. Titan Outpost in its gameplay is fairly unique, but not eccentric. It's an RPG that instead of combat focuses on management and survival in a hostile environment. Unlike other science-fiction role-playing games, Titan Outpost in grounded in reality, it is a sci-fi where the focus lies in 'science' instead of 'fiction' like in other games. The world feels authentic and realistic, it is something that you can imagine actually happening in the future. The gameplay consists of NPC interaction (through radio and encounters), exploration, base building, resource gathering and management, and finally performing tasks given by NPCs, all of which utilize various skills of the protagonist. What stands out is the realism and the environment in which the player is put in - there are no amazing sci-fi cities and such, instead it is mostly a solitary confinement at the beginning of the game and eventually recruiting up to a few NPCs over the course of the game while staying in radio contact with a few others. Surprisingly for a low budget indie, audiovisuals are good. Graphics are both good artistically and modern looking. NPC faces are the only aspect where it is noticeably lacking. Audio fits the game very well, is decently done, and you can almost feel the coldness through the ambient. I only dislike the music theme in the main menu. Titan Outpost is one of rare examples proving that games still have niches to explore while remaining to be fun, and that there is a serious lack of game settings based on feasible and conceivable technological advancements. I fully recommend the game to all non-action RPG fans.

This should be a game that I enjoy. I grew up playing point-and-click adventure games and base building games. Combining the two should have a made for a fun experience for me.. Instead, I spent the last hour trying to figure out how to get my character to perform the most basic of actions. This game has no instructions, there are no wikis and there are no walkthroughs online. There are a lot of people who enjoy, but personally I don't have the time to try and learn how to play it organically as seriously this is not an intuitive game to play. I'm not going to ask for a refund however because it does look like a gem of a game, so I'll most likely go back to it when I have more time to learn it.

This was a fun little game. It really only takes about 7 to 10 hours to play, I just sank a bunch of time into it to see different endings. It does a good job of having branching decisions, and it lets you stack ending states to some extent so you can have a variable outcome. I do think the pacing is off, and it can be a bit difficult to get into at the beginning, but it's a solid RPG overall. Nothing remarkable that's going to change your life, but if you enjoy RPGs that reflect your decisions well, I think this is worth playing. I'm interested to play the next game / hope the developer has time to make it a bit longer / more fleshed out.

While definitely a bit awkward and even slightly difficult to get into, at first, Titan Outpost begins to shine no more than 10 minutes after you launch it. You're stuck on Titan. Alone. In a shelter that barely keeps heat in. Work your way out of the situation using your skills, wits and maybe a little bit of charm. Tip: Despite the fact that the game does highlight a few things when you press the TAB key, do use your eyes and brain, and look around. Some things can be hidden in plain sight. The game has also been throughly patched. No bugs here.

A fantastic RPG game that's still in support by the developer after nearly 5 years since it's release

I hadn't played a SF based RPG in quite some time, and decided to give this game a try. Very pleasantly surprised; impressive attention to detail, there's usually many ways to solve any given problem - likely tied to your skills and attributes as befits a "hardcore" RPG, and a solid variety of game activities. While there may not be combat per se, there is no shortage of conflict to be found - an idea that works quite well. The only cons I would even mention are the UI could be improved in spots (e.g., inventory manipulation), and that there appears to be times where the flow of quests can get brittle should you wander far enough off the beaten path. Given the latter is a here and there thing, and the former mildly irksome versus a "deal breaker", I am quite happy with Titan Outpost. 8.5/10

Worth playing this game just for the amazingly unique concept. It's janky and buggy as hell and has some questionable writing at times but despite all that you can see the passion the developer poured into the game in every part of it

An actual science fiction RPG. Not many of those around.