80 days - To travel around the world, west to east from London to London. In what is a story based game about adventuring, route optimization, wondrous stories and relaxing rides through an alternate 1872 as the valet to a well known gentleman who has made a wager.
Along the way you will need to manage funding, items, packing, and selecting the routes to follow. It sounds simple, but it is complex enough to keep you busy.
To get it out of the way, yes, this is phone game. Do not let that scare you off, all it truly means for you as a PC gamer is that even your most outdated toaster can run it, the controls are simple and they do not need to be any more complex to do what you need to do. Game mechanics themselves do not suffer either, with a great majority of your options being simple choices in dialogue. Choices that actually do matter many times, with stories to tell you that I found surprisingly pleasant and interesting to read.
You can embark on an adventure and enjoy a richly filled world while balancing your own interest at exploration and your task as valet to keep monsieur Fogg in good condition and comfortable, on track to win his wager. It is not difficult to make it in 80 days if you try and plan things out in advance, but often there will be opportunities and potential rewards just a little off your chosen path. A lot of tempting things can drag you out to somewhere you didn't intend and it can both be a great boon to your funds and travel time or a disaster. With every city and most travel lines in the game having their own or connected stories, you will need multiple playthroughs to see them all. And even then it may not be likely unless you actively try.
Losing is alright as well. The wager won't bankrupt you, and you will be able to just try again. After all, why bet only once? A playthrough will take about an hour, perhaps a bit more or less depending on how much of a rush you are in.
But then there are some things that you should probably not get very hyped about either. Racing other people? Live multiplayer feed? Unless you actively go looking on the map for them, you likely won't find others except near the start. Even then, there is no interactions with them and I have yet to notice any sort of multiplayer feed. At best there are some icons on the map of where others went before you, and some things you aren't told and have to find out the hard way(Leaving a train at a midway stop when you have a ticket to the final destination of the train voids your ticket. You aren't allowed to get back on with the next train passing by. Some routes don't let you resume at all if you buy only a partway ticket, and so on)
The game is surprisingly easy to break as well, crashing or freezing if you try to do too much at once. A good autosave system helps with this, so you likely won't have issues- Just start it back up and you're back to where you were.
But in the end, these are small issues that don't actually hold it back.
80 days is a great game that tells you a story, while giving you full control over the story it tells, with excellently fitting graphics and amazingly done mood setting. Its flaws are few and easily forgivable, with a very competitive price to make it definitely a worthwhile buy.
28 September, 2016
18 September, 2016
The Storm Guard: Darkness is Coming Review
The Storm Guard: Darkness is Coming is an interesting mixture of many
ideas brought together in a single game, yet combining many good ideas
is not always a good idea itself.
I find myself conflicted, since I want to like this game, but I am considering to refund it while I still can. Nobody will see the screenshots and go in expecting good graphics, but I will say that the graphics and animations are actually quite decent. Though the screenshots featured put them in a good light, in game you will find that most models are less pleasing to look at close. That said, they aren't why I was considering refunding.
The reason for that is that for everything this game does, there are other games who do it better. Nothing here is very bad bad, but nothing is exemplary or exceptionally good either. During most of my time playing this, I thought back to other games who did as this does but arguably better. Sure, none of those games combine all the features offered in The Storm Guard, but they focus on making those few that they do offer great.
There is a village and narrator, Darkest Dungeon style. But less interesting to listen to, and the village appears less complex and with some interface quirks that are not very intuitive.
The combat itself is interesting, but ultimately it just doesn't offer that much depth past 'Put the guy with a shield up front'. Maybe this will change further into the game, maybe not. I can't say I'll make it that far when it takes more than an hour to gain a single level on a hero, and with them potentially dying I would certainly hate to have to re-train them.
Another thing you will quickly notice seems to be directly from Darkest Dungeon as well is the dungeon map system, except it simplifies it even further. Move from encounter tile to encounter tile, eat food along the way. Dungeons are simply encounters connected together through minimal narration- Like a DnD game ran by a newbie DM, rather than actual dungeons and a world full of story it feels like a string of random encounters, followed by a semi-random boss fight that often may as well be a regular random encounter.
As a whole, and in individual parts, it just doesn't have the complexity to justify the overal average-ness of the game. It's certainly not bad, but I feel very much like there just isn't anything for me to do aside from positioning. Deciding what hero goes onto a mission didn't feel very important, and then there is no inventory for me to bother with either, nor complex armour or weapon management. The interface is slightly clumsy, that's not really an issue- You can learn the quirks. But one of the big things in a tactical combat game is that you need to see, at a glance, what's going on. You can't do that as there does not appear to be much of any indication that for example your hero's movement points are reduced until you get to his turn and find that he can't move as far. All the combats appear very similar, with no significant changes outside of scenery. Outside of combat the repetitiveness doesn't fare much better. All missions appear to be of the 'move to tile and kill stuff' variety, even if their description and reason for killing these things are different.
In conclusion, I had expected a somewhat quirky turn based tactical combat game, one with interesting maps and a lot of interesting combat scenarios. In the end, I didn't get any of that. While I can see the potential, The Storm Guard is most alike a string of fights generated by a random encounter generator, with some narration about why this is happening and sometimes a choice which encounter you want to fight.
Perhaps if it goes on a sale it's worth it, but there is no way I can recommend this for 20 euro.
I think I just convinced myself to refund it.
I find myself conflicted, since I want to like this game, but I am considering to refund it while I still can. Nobody will see the screenshots and go in expecting good graphics, but I will say that the graphics and animations are actually quite decent. Though the screenshots featured put them in a good light, in game you will find that most models are less pleasing to look at close. That said, they aren't why I was considering refunding.
The reason for that is that for everything this game does, there are other games who do it better. Nothing here is very bad bad, but nothing is exemplary or exceptionally good either. During most of my time playing this, I thought back to other games who did as this does but arguably better. Sure, none of those games combine all the features offered in The Storm Guard, but they focus on making those few that they do offer great.
There is a village and narrator, Darkest Dungeon style. But less interesting to listen to, and the village appears less complex and with some interface quirks that are not very intuitive.
The combat itself is interesting, but ultimately it just doesn't offer that much depth past 'Put the guy with a shield up front'. Maybe this will change further into the game, maybe not. I can't say I'll make it that far when it takes more than an hour to gain a single level on a hero, and with them potentially dying I would certainly hate to have to re-train them.
Another thing you will quickly notice seems to be directly from Darkest Dungeon as well is the dungeon map system, except it simplifies it even further. Move from encounter tile to encounter tile, eat food along the way. Dungeons are simply encounters connected together through minimal narration- Like a DnD game ran by a newbie DM, rather than actual dungeons and a world full of story it feels like a string of random encounters, followed by a semi-random boss fight that often may as well be a regular random encounter.
As a whole, and in individual parts, it just doesn't have the complexity to justify the overal average-ness of the game. It's certainly not bad, but I feel very much like there just isn't anything for me to do aside from positioning. Deciding what hero goes onto a mission didn't feel very important, and then there is no inventory for me to bother with either, nor complex armour or weapon management. The interface is slightly clumsy, that's not really an issue- You can learn the quirks. But one of the big things in a tactical combat game is that you need to see, at a glance, what's going on. You can't do that as there does not appear to be much of any indication that for example your hero's movement points are reduced until you get to his turn and find that he can't move as far. All the combats appear very similar, with no significant changes outside of scenery. Outside of combat the repetitiveness doesn't fare much better. All missions appear to be of the 'move to tile and kill stuff' variety, even if their description and reason for killing these things are different.
In conclusion, I had expected a somewhat quirky turn based tactical combat game, one with interesting maps and a lot of interesting combat scenarios. In the end, I didn't get any of that. While I can see the potential, The Storm Guard is most alike a string of fights generated by a random encounter generator, with some narration about why this is happening and sometimes a choice which encounter you want to fight.
Perhaps if it goes on a sale it's worth it, but there is no way I can recommend this for 20 euro.
I think I just convinced myself to refund it.
08 September, 2016
Where I've been
As it's been a bit over a month without review, I figured I'd place a message to say why. So here it is, my reasons for not writing a review in the last month or any other post.
Stellaris and Overwatch.
That's pretty much it. Stellaris I won't review because as a general rule I don't review products in alpha states, and Overwatch I didn't review because there honestly isn't that much for me to say that would actually be useful.
I can write entire essays on its design and analysing it, but in the end it will all come down to two things:
1. They knew exactly what they were doing and designed perfectly for their intended target audience
2. I am not their target audience.
Without being salty about it, I can still play it and pass the time, but I can not say I enjoy it much. It's certainly a decent enough game that I would call it good if pressed on it and fully reviewing it, but I will never call it a great game. I can call a lot of the design choices bad because I personally disagree with them, but truth is that for the majority of players all those choices are acceptable or even very good ones. Choices that would have been taken specifically to cater to a specific kind of player that just isn't me.
It's okay, really. I can write a long list of complaints, but most of those are just going to get summed up as their target audience being significantly different from me. I still like playing it with friends, but everything is fun and playable with friends, so that's not really anything to judge things on.
That's where I've been. That, and not finding games I find it worthwhile to review.
Though I will probably put out a review in the next few weeks anyway
Stellaris and Overwatch.
That's pretty much it. Stellaris I won't review because as a general rule I don't review products in alpha states, and Overwatch I didn't review because there honestly isn't that much for me to say that would actually be useful.
I can write entire essays on its design and analysing it, but in the end it will all come down to two things:
1. They knew exactly what they were doing and designed perfectly for their intended target audience
2. I am not their target audience.
Without being salty about it, I can still play it and pass the time, but I can not say I enjoy it much. It's certainly a decent enough game that I would call it good if pressed on it and fully reviewing it, but I will never call it a great game. I can call a lot of the design choices bad because I personally disagree with them, but truth is that for the majority of players all those choices are acceptable or even very good ones. Choices that would have been taken specifically to cater to a specific kind of player that just isn't me.
It's okay, really. I can write a long list of complaints, but most of those are just going to get summed up as their target audience being significantly different from me. I still like playing it with friends, but everything is fun and playable with friends, so that's not really anything to judge things on.
That's where I've been. That, and not finding games I find it worthwhile to review.
Though I will probably put out a review in the next few weeks anyway
05 August, 2016
This is the Police Review
This is the Police is a mostly story based game in which the player takes control of a police department as Jack Boyd, chief of police and on the path to an unwanted early retirement.
You will uncover intrigue, mafia plots, a serial killer, and many criminals trying to hide from the law during a playthrough, interspaced with regular calls for the police to respond to.
As it is a mostly story based game, the mood and setting is excellent, with perfectly fitting music. excellent voice acting and a story that makes you want to keep going through the days to see how things go and what will come of them. As such I would recommend playing it blind, and without prior knowledge of the plot past the basics. The story does not disappoint, though you will have to accept that the game is telling you a story, rather than giving you a sandbox or deep gameplay experience if you are to enjoy it.
During your 180 days before retirement, you will be able to deal with the mafia, sketchy business owners asking for some questionably legal help, and the regular crimes happening in the city of Freeburg. All this while you are given a motivation of collecting half a million. A number you will likely have to do some less moral things to achieve.
Most of the gameplay is simple. I can not call it great, but it certainly isn't bad either. You dispatch officers to calls and occasionally get a multiple choice about how they should proceed while at the scene. While these are some of the more interesting, the results of a call are always one of a few options. The criminal can escape or be captured, the cops can get killed or survive, and a bystander can be killed or survive. There is nothing in between, it's dead or alive without any injuries or details on how many civilians got killed.
Further, there is an investigation minigame, in which your detectives find photo frames and you have to personally arrange them in the right order to unlock the next step- An arrest of whoever did it. I've found this personally to be incredibly difficult, with vague frames and sometimes missing information. This is sadly to the point where I have now stopped playing the game as I can not solve investigations without help from someone else. While I applaud the idea of this puzzle, I personally just can not enjoy it.
A disappointment was the gang and mafia system, which appears at a glance to be an interesting net of people to comb through, but in truth is just a straight line up to the top where if you fail once, the entire gang becomes off limits to you and you can't continue an investigation or try to arrest them. At a glance there is depth to the gameplay, but this illusion is quickly dispelled once you play.
In short, This is the Police is a great game if you accept it for what it is. A story-driven game with some basic gameplay to hold you over in between story segments, not a police simulator and certainly not a detective game. You hire the detectives, you don't go out with them. It is priced appropriately, and well worth what it asks as a good story and overall pleasant experience.
You will uncover intrigue, mafia plots, a serial killer, and many criminals trying to hide from the law during a playthrough, interspaced with regular calls for the police to respond to.
As it is a mostly story based game, the mood and setting is excellent, with perfectly fitting music. excellent voice acting and a story that makes you want to keep going through the days to see how things go and what will come of them. As such I would recommend playing it blind, and without prior knowledge of the plot past the basics. The story does not disappoint, though you will have to accept that the game is telling you a story, rather than giving you a sandbox or deep gameplay experience if you are to enjoy it.
During your 180 days before retirement, you will be able to deal with the mafia, sketchy business owners asking for some questionably legal help, and the regular crimes happening in the city of Freeburg. All this while you are given a motivation of collecting half a million. A number you will likely have to do some less moral things to achieve.
Most of the gameplay is simple. I can not call it great, but it certainly isn't bad either. You dispatch officers to calls and occasionally get a multiple choice about how they should proceed while at the scene. While these are some of the more interesting, the results of a call are always one of a few options. The criminal can escape or be captured, the cops can get killed or survive, and a bystander can be killed or survive. There is nothing in between, it's dead or alive without any injuries or details on how many civilians got killed.
Further, there is an investigation minigame, in which your detectives find photo frames and you have to personally arrange them in the right order to unlock the next step- An arrest of whoever did it. I've found this personally to be incredibly difficult, with vague frames and sometimes missing information. This is sadly to the point where I have now stopped playing the game as I can not solve investigations without help from someone else. While I applaud the idea of this puzzle, I personally just can not enjoy it.
A disappointment was the gang and mafia system, which appears at a glance to be an interesting net of people to comb through, but in truth is just a straight line up to the top where if you fail once, the entire gang becomes off limits to you and you can't continue an investigation or try to arrest them. At a glance there is depth to the gameplay, but this illusion is quickly dispelled once you play.
In short, This is the Police is a great game if you accept it for what it is. A story-driven game with some basic gameplay to hold you over in between story segments, not a police simulator and certainly not a detective game. You hire the detectives, you don't go out with them. It is priced appropriately, and well worth what it asks as a good story and overall pleasant experience.
20 July, 2016
Bounty Train Review
I don't usually review early access(2016-7-19), but for Bounty Train, I figured I may as well
Bounty Train is a game about running a train through the not-so-wild eastern coast of the USA right in during the civil war, trading in the cities and ferrying small amounts of passengers around. It has several ways to make money, and plenty more ways to lose it. But in the end every part of it works great on its own, but is still not really working together as a single whole game just yet.
You can trade, you can customise your train with carriages and historical locomotives, you can do combat when the bandits try to take your money, you can level up, and you can have a chase scene almost straight from a western. It is already entertaining and a pleasant experience, with the base gameplay being solid and simple enough to understand even for someone new to the game. At the same time it allows you enough control to remain interesting after you learn the basics.
The graphics and sound are pleasant, with the world map being a well made stylised view. That is where my first complaint lies. Specifically, with the transition between your train view to the world map. Every single time you do this you get a loading screen, which slows down the game by a lot as anyone who doesn't know US geography will need to go check the world map every time they see a place name to see where it is, and even those who do know will need to check it regularly to see if there is an indian camp or army position at the track they plan to take. This is quite harsh on the flow of the game, especially if you need to switch back and forth multiple time before actually moving your train.
Other negatives are balance issues. As it is early access, I'm not weighing them as much since they are mainly numbers that need tweaking, or things in need of more explaining. For example, the ability to escape from bandits is fun to have, with the chase being interesting and very good at engaging you as you have to control your train. But what it doesn't say is that you have only old trains, and you are not going to go fast enough to escape from anything at all unless you've left most of your wagons at the station. Any train that has enough cargo to make a profit is better off just stopping and shooting the bandits until they stop coming, simply because of the weight of your cargo slowing you down enough to make escape impossible.
At a similar note, often you do not get a chance to escape at all. When the army engages you(Which they will, both north and south will en up hating you for no particular reason other than you existing) you are only given the option to attack them, with no way to escape until time on their barricade runs out. The barricade they have lasts long enough for them to completely destroy your train before you can move on, which will feel like the game just said "Okay, you encounter this event. You lose", rather than it being your fault for your loss until the late game where you can defend against a small army group.
Another balance issue is the weaponry, some of them are just plain better than others, and when the bandits attacking you have these stronger guns and you don't, you do not have a good chance. What is worse is that you can not loot their weaponry; Loot is randomly generated after combat is already over.
While Bounty Train has a lot of potential, it is still unfinished as the Early Access tag says. Even then it is certainly worth keeping an eye on for when they tweak the gameplay and finish adding the rest of it. The price is a bit steep for what is in it at this point, but there is a promise for more, and if you are sceptical about that then there will be a sale for it at some point.
Bounty Train is a game about running a train through the not-so-wild eastern coast of the USA right in during the civil war, trading in the cities and ferrying small amounts of passengers around. It has several ways to make money, and plenty more ways to lose it. But in the end every part of it works great on its own, but is still not really working together as a single whole game just yet.
You can trade, you can customise your train with carriages and historical locomotives, you can do combat when the bandits try to take your money, you can level up, and you can have a chase scene almost straight from a western. It is already entertaining and a pleasant experience, with the base gameplay being solid and simple enough to understand even for someone new to the game. At the same time it allows you enough control to remain interesting after you learn the basics.
The graphics and sound are pleasant, with the world map being a well made stylised view. That is where my first complaint lies. Specifically, with the transition between your train view to the world map. Every single time you do this you get a loading screen, which slows down the game by a lot as anyone who doesn't know US geography will need to go check the world map every time they see a place name to see where it is, and even those who do know will need to check it regularly to see if there is an indian camp or army position at the track they plan to take. This is quite harsh on the flow of the game, especially if you need to switch back and forth multiple time before actually moving your train.
Other negatives are balance issues. As it is early access, I'm not weighing them as much since they are mainly numbers that need tweaking, or things in need of more explaining. For example, the ability to escape from bandits is fun to have, with the chase being interesting and very good at engaging you as you have to control your train. But what it doesn't say is that you have only old trains, and you are not going to go fast enough to escape from anything at all unless you've left most of your wagons at the station. Any train that has enough cargo to make a profit is better off just stopping and shooting the bandits until they stop coming, simply because of the weight of your cargo slowing you down enough to make escape impossible.
At a similar note, often you do not get a chance to escape at all. When the army engages you(Which they will, both north and south will en up hating you for no particular reason other than you existing) you are only given the option to attack them, with no way to escape until time on their barricade runs out. The barricade they have lasts long enough for them to completely destroy your train before you can move on, which will feel like the game just said "Okay, you encounter this event. You lose", rather than it being your fault for your loss until the late game where you can defend against a small army group.
Another balance issue is the weaponry, some of them are just plain better than others, and when the bandits attacking you have these stronger guns and you don't, you do not have a good chance. What is worse is that you can not loot their weaponry; Loot is randomly generated after combat is already over.
While Bounty Train has a lot of potential, it is still unfinished as the Early Access tag says. Even then it is certainly worth keeping an eye on for when they tweak the gameplay and finish adding the rest of it. The price is a bit steep for what is in it at this point, but there is a promise for more, and if you are sceptical about that then there will be a sale for it at some point.
11 July, 2016
Evil Genius Review
You begin by building your base, designing corridors and rooms and placing the neccesary furniture in them. A place for work, a place to let minions relax and recover, a power plant. And then you gradually unlock more rooms and more items, expanding more and more until you've outgrown the small first island. But that will be a while.
During your growth, you're going to deal with agents of the forces of good, investigating your base for wrongdoing, and sabotaging, stealing, or outright assualting you. And for you to defeat them there are varying kinds of traps, misdirection, and just plainly having them taken care of by a minion with a gun(Or indeed, multiple minions)
The basic gameplay is solid, and while it has a few annoyances in the minion and agent AI, it is still very enjoyable. Base building tickles all the right spots for those who want to be creative, and managing your evil base is even immersive in some ways a
The graphics may be a little out of date, but they are still perfectly fine in most cases. It is true that characters viewed up close don't look as shiny as they may be able to with today's graphics, but when zoomed out and inspecting your lair you will not notice much of this, with an artstyle that matches the game's theme. It remains even today a nice sight to see the corridors and rooms with your minions walking around in them.
Sound design is well done, with the music being the best fit for the theme that I could imagine. All other sounds are very much what one expects of them, clean and clear so you can tell what's going on, and the only sound that becomes annoying is your blaring alarm. When you're dealing with a base under attack, you're going to want to keep the alarm on. But your ears will want it off after a while because it is loud and repetitive. More reason to finish off those intruders then!
The game happens to also be laden with humour, as after all, you are a cartoon style villain of sufficient evilness, I highly recommend taking a look at interogations and reading the fluff text of your nefarious deeds on the world screen, almost every part of the game fits seamlessly into the others, with a unified theme that never seems to fail or fall apart except for technical reasons.
But then, there are issues too. As there are always issues with games that will lessen your enjoyment. Luckily for Evil Genius, these issues are few. Specifically, they are twofold, though other flaws exist.
Super agents, and the AI.
The AI is the simplest to find, and simplest to complain about. It is incredibly simple, and even without resistance it will not go deep into your base, or pose a threat to your evil genius avatar. A little planning and you will always be safe, though you may lose all your minions as they too don't think about things. You will see a horde of minions happily run into an attacking army to repair the door that is being broken down, or to use a fire extinquisher on an item that is still being actively attacked.
The agent AI is not much better. For the 'forces of good' they are remarkably bloodthirsty, with some super agents and soldiers shooting everything that moves on sight. They will enter a hotel and shoot all the valets, bomb the tourists' bedrooms, and declare their mission a success. They will destroy a cardboard target and explode the pressure plate triggering it, then get injured by their own explosion and go on alert because they took damage. The AI is, sadly, incredibly simple and completely incapable of making sense or anything resembling planning.
That said, it is still functional, though the killing spree and indiscriminate destruction these agents cause will be most annoying as you can not tell a few highly trained minions to sit back, thus almost guarranteeing that you will be spending the next 30 minutes recovering from AI sillyness. And recovering is a slow thing, as everything is expensive, and income is low.
As for the super agents, I won't spoil them. But I will say the complete anticlimax that is the final super agent is a shame. Instead of an interesting ability like the other agents, the only thing this one has is boosted stats and an interface screw. The best way to deal with his ability is to pause the game and fix what he messed up, which can take a while with bigger bases, and manually set everything back to normal.
In the end, there is a lot I can say about Evil Genius, but even with its flaws it remains a very solid game capable of hours of enjoyment, unique and interesting with all the right things to make you feel like you are, indeed, the evil genius.
s you get to be the big boss cartoon villain for a change. It provides you with every tool you may need to feel like you're in charge, with systems that are neither too complex, nor too simple to enjoy.
No pictures this time because it's near impossible to add them, instead, here's a link to a few of the things
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198002567771/screenshots/?appid=3720
14 June, 2016
Space Food Truck Review
Space Food Truck is a game about traveling the universe cooking food and staying alive. This is as is usual with games something that involves a lot of risks and dangers. That said, it is doable on a first try if you're somewhat experienced with risk-management games.
You play as a crew of four, each with their own job on the ship. The engineer to repair and upgrade the ship, the chef to cook the ingredients, the scientist to research, and the captain to pilot the ship. You can be one of these in multiplayer, or all four in singleplayer. Either way, you're going to have to work together to get through things safely. With that said, it's not actually that hard, at least on normal difficulty. It's very forgiving and you can handle most things just fine unless you've messed up your card deck building.
Speaking of which, you handle your options through a card based system, with cards being your available actions and the fuel to use on these actions. In some cases litterally, with the captain's card to move the ship taking cards with power points to fill up the FTL engine. At the end of your turn, you have to buy a new card to add to your deck. As such, it is important to find ways to trim your deck, or you will be left with useless or lesser quality cards. Several ways to do this exist, and as such you can usually keep your deck under control.
Then there is the actual cooking. Gather ingredients, have the chef cook them up and then deliver the dish to its destination. It seems easy, but it can get a bit more complex. Some ingredients are much more rare, some need to be unlocked by the scientist. And then you have to actually get them cooking too, which again costs you time to find the right cards. After some time though, it begins to feel like everything is the same.
After some time though, it begins to feel like everything is the same. Very few things will ever change and in one or two playthroughs you will have likely seen everything it has to offer. You can stabilise safely and last almost endlessly as long as you have the right cards and did your deck work right. Science becomes mostly useless after they finish researching, and engineering turns into 'play all your cards to fix everything, end turn'. Especially if you play multiplayer, it may begin to feel like your turn is automated where the rest of the crew actually does things.
With a fitting graphical style, simple but functional animations, and what I would definitely say is above average humour with simple but not unthinking or boring gameplay, Space Food Truck rounds out to be a decent game with some replayability troubles. While I would certainly recommend it if it were half price, 20 euro is pretty steep for what you get out of it.
You play as a crew of four, each with their own job on the ship. The engineer to repair and upgrade the ship, the chef to cook the ingredients, the scientist to research, and the captain to pilot the ship. You can be one of these in multiplayer, or all four in singleplayer. Either way, you're going to have to work together to get through things safely. With that said, it's not actually that hard, at least on normal difficulty. It's very forgiving and you can handle most things just fine unless you've messed up your card deck building.
Speaking of which, you handle your options through a card based system, with cards being your available actions and the fuel to use on these actions. In some cases litterally, with the captain's card to move the ship taking cards with power points to fill up the FTL engine. At the end of your turn, you have to buy a new card to add to your deck. As such, it is important to find ways to trim your deck, or you will be left with useless or lesser quality cards. Several ways to do this exist, and as such you can usually keep your deck under control.
Then there is the actual cooking. Gather ingredients, have the chef cook them up and then deliver the dish to its destination. It seems easy, but it can get a bit more complex. Some ingredients are much more rare, some need to be unlocked by the scientist. And then you have to actually get them cooking too, which again costs you time to find the right cards. After some time though, it begins to feel like everything is the same.
After some time though, it begins to feel like everything is the same. Very few things will ever change and in one or two playthroughs you will have likely seen everything it has to offer. You can stabilise safely and last almost endlessly as long as you have the right cards and did your deck work right. Science becomes mostly useless after they finish researching, and engineering turns into 'play all your cards to fix everything, end turn'. Especially if you play multiplayer, it may begin to feel like your turn is automated where the rest of the crew actually does things.
With a fitting graphical style, simple but functional animations, and what I would definitely say is above average humour with simple but not unthinking or boring gameplay, Space Food Truck rounds out to be a decent game with some replayability troubles. While I would certainly recommend it if it were half price, 20 euro is pretty steep for what you get out of it.
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