Nylige anmeldelser av Glidercat

Trappist is a cool space colony sim where you start off on a modest space ark and set out to build your multi-planetary empire.

I played for several hours on Itch.io before Trappist came to Steam. For the first 10 minutes or so I played, I wasn’t convinced this would be a game I’d enjoy. However, I stuck with it and about 15 minutes in, the game started to reveal its systems and complexity and then I was hooked.
Here are some of the mechanics of the game I enjoyed:
Each planet has its own special resources and its own shortcomings in being able to support life. The one exception is your starting settlement in Haven, which can easily support life on its own. The rest of settlements all required assistance from others to become sustainable.

Just as each planet and settlement SITE has its own special characteristics, so do the colonies that settle there. For example, you first colony in Haven can survive on Potatoes, however your colony on another planet won’t make it on potatoes and needs something else, maybe Health Drinks, in order to survive.

As each colony grows, it will require additional items to keep it satisfied, and each colony will be different. This turns out to be a lot of fun.

You start out with 2 cargo ships and in addition to surveying unknown planets and moons, they can also be assigned trade routes to provide each colony with what they need from the other colonies in your empire.

I recommend this to any player looking for a new space colony builder with a new and unique feel.

You can join me as I play Trappist here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_Yt--RKGRfajrPqfpT9iPcINizrEyAmG

I played an early version of Backwoods and I think this game has tremendous potential. At its current state at the time of this review I had a ton of fun.

The early version I played did not have a ton of content, but it played super smooth and was bug free. It really showed the potential.

There was only one boss to defeat at the time I played along with some smaller, more manageable nuisance enemies. I’m guessing more will be added.

There are some cool mechanics around crafting, forestry and farming. For example, when cutting a tree down, if you line things up correctly, you can knock over another tree in the process. Very soon, you’ll be planting your own trees. Plant them in a tight row and you’ll see the potential benefit of dominoes forestry! 😺

There was only one NPC in game when I played and large sections of the map were blocked off. I can’t wait to see how this one develops.

You can watch my short playthrough here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_Yt--RKGRfZry0D_LH6JjAlO2JidoCv7

Early Thoughts On Techtonica After a Few Dozen Hours Played - Glidercat

I have a few dozen hours into Techtonica at this point and it's really blowing my socks off!

The game released on 7/18/2023, however a number of content creators were given early access. I was one of the lucky ones

It has it's rough spots and will no doubt get some Quality of Life improvements over time, but the exploration is amazing in this game. The exploration is waaay better than Planet Crafter and Satisfactory doesn't even come close, IMO.

The fact that you're in a huge underground world with tunnels that snake every which way (N, S, E, W, Up & Down) makes long distance navigation a supreme challenge, but still quite fun.

There is an innovative 3D map in game, and while it's extremely useful to locate hidden rooms and tunnels in your immediate vicinity that you might want to dig to, at the same time the map is extremely limited in helping you navigate long distances, since it only displays the portion of the world in your immediate vicinity.

I legitimately got lost for over an hour trying to find my way back to my main factory. 😸

Currently, there is no map in the game to show the entire world from a top down perspective, like we have in Satisfactory. I'm hoping they might add something like that down the road.

The game world in Techtonica is HUGE, visually quite stunning, with many unexpected sites. I found the exploration to be nothing short of exhilarating! Truly.

The factory building is challenging because there are byproducts you need to deal with if you want to keep things running unattended without backups. Meaning you process one material and you might get two other products out depending on the process.

It's not easy to determine how best to manage these and the game doesn't yet display the production ratios, so I've found it takes a fair amount of trial and error to get a balanced production line.

I have no doubt that Techtonica will be a major head-to-head competitor with Satisfactory.

Satisfactory has a big lead with the level of polish, particularly with regard to how smooth and seamless it is to build your factory.

That said, Techtonica has an edge in that you can actually terraform the game world to your wishes, which is a huge positive in my book.

Techtonica also has a story baked into it, while we're still waiting to see that from Satisfactory (it's in the works, though).

Techtonica does not have enemies in the game.

I like games both with/without enemies, but Techtonica's game world would be IDEAL for some type of enemy presence given the snaking dark tunnels you'll be traversing throughout your gameplay. But again, today there are no enemies in Techtonica.

I think both games (Techtonica and Satisfactory) will be limited to a single, massive, hand-crafted map which limits replayability a bit.

Satisfactory also has an edge in it's extensive number of production lines, depth of tech tree progression, and overall variety of things you can do and decorate with.

It still early days for Techtonica, but they have a pretty sizable team behind it (in the dozens of people, I believe) so I expect we'll see it evolve at roughly the same pace we've seen with Satisfactory.

I just wanted to share those insights for people interested in the game. I highly recommend checking it out.