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4/10 Sims/Don't Starve mix in Mars colonization setting. TLDR: A huge project made by a single dev, currently at something like a pre-alpha stage. The messy tutorial leaves you struggling on your own with the game's cryptic/ugly UI. My recommendation to the dev would be to get paid playtesters and spend maybe another year working solely off their feedback. Or, for a start, exploit the mom/wife/sister first despite all their protests. Good: + obviously a huge interesting game system here that's trying to combine Sims with crafting/survival genre. You gather resources, have a team of characters, each with their stats (like e.g. science or fitness) and needs (hunger, bladder etc). You create some items outside and some inside the habitation dome on the martian surface + character customization is insane and even seems to be an overkill for a game that's mostly about economy anyway + music is pretty good So-so: +/- tutorial, while there, does a rather poor job and leaves many of the mechanics unexplained. I stumbled on my own for a while, and at some point my character just ran out energy before I could build a bed. She was lying on the ground and wouldn't respond to commands. Also …

Unfortunately I can't recommend this game no matter what way I slice it. While this is impressive as a debut from, what I assume is, a single dev team as perhaps a tech demo this is not a finished game as far as I'm concerned. A Sims-like project is very ambitious for a new, small team so I don't want to belittle the game by any means but it just has too far to go before it's something a consumer is probably willing to buy and play, which is the whole purpose of this interaction. There are just too many systems missing. Only single items you can build at first, very limited resources, easy to softlock a run if you don't quite know what you're doing, no other domes or NPCs to speak to unless you create them yourself, broken or simply missing animations; the list goes on. I absolutely applaud what has been shown here, but I wasn't really enticed to play more than an hour of this game and I got it for free so I really cannot fathom spending $15 on this. I know the dev worked hard on this and wants some show for their work, but this is honestly just astronomically high for the game that is being delivered. I implore the dev to keep working and, perhaps, keep the scope a little smal…