Recent reviews by Dycart

I've been really enjoying this game. Many of the complaints I've seen are due to people not spending enough time to learn more about it or only going off what they've seen on streams and let's plays. Those of us that streamed the game spent most of our time learning, which caused our games to look very similar to one another.

Though it may not be the game for everyone, I'm having a blast with it. Don't want "easy mode"? Choose a difficulty and also add your own restrictions. You control everything. Maybe try a no medical building play through or no bars or no food distribution buildings so everyone has to eat raw.

Pros:

-Graphics. The buildings, units, and landscape are great and zooming in to see detail can be very entertaining.

-Being Commander. You're in complete control, bring people in and start the struggle right away or wait to build a large infrastructure before the first colonist arrives.

-Randomized research. Each play through has the research items randomized so you may not start with the same things you did last time.

-Randomized resources. Map topography will stay the same if you choose the exact coordinates of a previous game. However, resources are always random.

-Game Speed. If you get bored with the general tedious resource gathering of most games, turn it way up. If you enjoy watching the little details, turn it down and zoom in.

-Modability (is this a word?). Built right into the game is a mod editor. You can create your own starting sponsors, items, anything, really. I'm excited to see what awesome things people come up with.

-Personalization. Almost any vehicle, colonist, or building in the game can be renamed. Sad we lost Stephen Hawking? Name your first genius colonist after him.

-Replay. Due to the RNG research and resources, each play will be a bit different, even if on the same exact map location. Mods will likely add a great deal of items to make replay fun as well.

Cons:

-Controls. Some controls seem awkward at first until you get used to them. For instance, you right-click to move vehicles but also right-click to open the build menu. This can cause confusion when you accidently tell a vehicle to go somewhere when you were trying to open build menu. Main map uses WASD to move around but can only use your mouse to the far right of screen to scroll research. Of course, many controls can be changed in options to solve issues people may have. It just didn't seem "standard" or "intuitive" to me when I started playing.

-Camera Movement. When zoomed in, camera movement seems slow and clunky. However, if you spend the majority of your time zoomed out in "normal view", you don't notice. HINT: use the HOME key to snap back to normal view.

-Learning curve. This may not be a con for many players. It would be nice to have a tutorial scenario to play through. I understand Quill18 did a great tutorial let's play series and I learned a lot. However, there are many players that would rather have the faster, more convenient in-game tutorial or at least written guide for the basic starting steps. The in-game hints work ok, but don't get too deep and could cause some to get lost. Again, many players enjoy the challenge and discovery so may not be a con.

Summary:
I'm loving this game and expect to get a LOT of hours out of it. Each time I think it may be too repetitive or easy, I get something thrown my way to challenge me (dust storm with a meteor shower and colonists die off all within 30 seconds, SURE!). I hope players that are interested in the game will spend time getting to know it. There are many things you can do and control that are not apparent right away.