Recent reviews by aquern

This is less of a review of the game than the UI of the Steam version. As always, note the date of this review - the UI my have changed since then.

The UI is a web browser. This becomes painfully obvious when you click on an 'external link', and instead of using your default browser, the entire UI of the game vanishes and is replaced by whatever web page you clicked on. If you figure out how to get back (not always obvious - at least once I had to close the game and re-enter just to get back), any 'temporary' bits of your UI will have vanished, possibly making it difficult to continue with whatever you were doing.

The UI has a lot of grey on black features. Depending on your screen settings (and/or eyes), some visual elements may not be easily visible. For example, there is a scroll bar on the right side of some panes that blends in nicely with the background. Some of the text is of a similar color, and thus nearly illegible. I did not easily find any hotkeys (up/down, W/S, Page up/Page down tried) that would allow me to scroll.

As is, I'm finding that the UI is making the game effectively unplayable, at least for me.

This is not a game. It appears to be the intro to a visual novel.

I describe it as 'not a game' because there are no choices. There is no determination of skill - this is a linear visual novel. That said, this introduction for the visual novel introduces a number of the likely characters, the setting, and the probably background for the main visual novel. If you view this as something to give you an idea if you might like to purchase the full game, this may be useful.

Just don't think it's a game.

Like everyone else I'm aware of, I obtained this for free.

If your main objective is to look at very well-drawn art of the characters, this is the 'game' for you. The main issue with it is that (at least as far as I played) there isn't much of a game here.

I played this game for roughly a couple weeks, and unlocked all but one of the features that I was aware of. With all that content unlocked, I only considered the romance under the tree to be a game of any sort, as it is the only place where skill or decisions make a significant impact on play. Note that due to currency limitations, it is a minigame that is only infrequently playable, and it is a tiny variant of one of the simplest skill games playable on a computer - far simpler than, say, Pong.

In theory, there could be/have been interesting choices on who to send into combat, but the automated tools mean that there are no significant decisions there, other than deciding who gets experience faster. This is largely a moot point as maximizing every significant character's level is fairly easy. The multi-player aspect of the game is poorly thought out and difficult to use effectively even if you are trying to.

Even if you manage to make a horrible choice, the consequence is just needing to spend a bit more time 'playing the game'.

TLDR: Nice art; it's too bad there is no apparent game behind it.
Caveats: I did not unlock one piece of content, last played in February 2022 (though I have no reason to think the 'game' changed significantly between then and this review.

Disclosure: I got this game for free, as did everyone else that I'm aware of.

This is a review of version 0.012. If there is a later version, this review may no longer be valid.

[Background]
I am reviewing this after the 9th day of playing it, after getting the last unlock available at this time and roughly 5e16 Antimatter. I made a minor update after 0.012 was released. For full disclosure, at the time of this review, I, like everyone else, obtained this game for free.

[Opinion]
This is not a bad idle game for consuming a dozen or three hours over a bit more than a week. However, its main loop isn't that interesting (unlike, say, Incremental Epic Hero), and there are few choices of any real significance (unlike, say, Underworld Idle). The math in several places seems dubious, as there are direct feedback mechanisms on several of the currencies, and most of the multipliers are not well-limited. Most of the unlocks aren't that interesting, and at the end, mostly I was waiting for fairly short periods of time to access one or another unlock for my workers. Finally, I am uncertain that the automation actually improves the game, and it seemed strange to be spending a lot of the only prestige currency on gaining tiny bits of automation, one at a time.

[Update from version 0.012]
As of version 0.012, an unlock has been added which seems promising - an adventure tab with slotable items and the (currently unrealized) promise of a skill tree. On this version, the skill tree is not active, and this seems to be a simpler version of NGU's adventure - so it does not change my overall rating. I can see, however, that a future update may do so.

[Summary]
Overall, I would not recommend this to most players. If you really enjoy Swarm Simulator-type idle games, and want to play a variant that will likely take you days to get to the end of the current content, by all means, download this and have fun.

Summary:
This is a review of version 0.53. I have been playing this idle game for months, and I enjoy playing it now more than I did at the start. It is a nice way to occasionally spend a few minutes+ playing a game with no longer-term time pressures. By this point in the game, I can pretty much keep playing it actively until I'm bored most of the time.

Disclosure:
I have only reset using 3 different methods, thus far. I am fairly certain there are 3 more (ignoring an "EEEK! I really messed up" method), at least one of which is substantially different from the ones I have used. To put it another way, I think I am in the mid-game as of this writing. I have received this product for free; as far as I'm aware, everyone has.

Cons versus other idle games:
The start is very slow. I believe it took me significantly over a week to the first reset.
Your initial choices are limited.
It is possible to have UI issues which make one loose days unnecessarily, early on.
The current help system is mostly geared to explaining what an idle game of this type is, rather than what is unusual about this idle game (which is mostly the interlocking resources).
This is not a game to play if you primarily enjoy graphics (which are limited, but serviceable), music (absent) or story (which is essentially absent).

Pros versus other idle games:
The multiple resources are well-handled. None of the ones I have used thus far are irrelevant or subsumed by a different resource at all times.
The various resets are significantly different from each other.
The factions are significantly different from each other (this is related to the last point).
The developer has made some improvements in particularly the UI pain points. While I suspect that a new player will likely trip up early on, once one gets used to the game, the UI is moderately friendly.
Once one gets past the early game, there are significant choices, particularly in which reset to use and what your next goal is.