I took a sneak peak into this rabbit - hole of a game, playing the demo for two hours on the Switch and what can I say, but: I think, I saved myself.

After struggling with the controls for a while, I realized my own stupidity and optimized my play-style, as well as my small factory. And that is, what this game is all about: optimize into infinity.

I totally get, why people spend thousands of hours into this type of game, that looks and feels to me like a weird hybrid of Into the Breach, Frostpunk and Minecraft. It's the type of drug, I know, I would extremely enjoy, but just this bit too much. So for now, I stick to watching other people taking it.

I say for now, as I was not brave enough to abandoned this game, because a small, devilish part of my subconsciousness still hopes for a point of weakness and the sudden access to unlimited free-time.

Graphics - 8/10
This game has the old retro game feel as the graphics are entirely pixelated but high enough resolution so that you can still see the small details on each of the machines.

Gameplay - 10/10
Be prepared to never go outside again. This game is the heroin of video games. The gameplay loop is so addicting. So much, in fact, that that 10 minutes that would be used making lunch WILL be better used optimising your blue science line. You will starve to death before you stop playing this game.

Performance - 10/10
The game's engine is capped at 60 fps, so i have not experienced any frame drops as of this point.

Price - 7/10
£25 may sound like a lot for what the store screenshots make it looks like, but trust me, this game is worth every penny. Its a hell of a lot cheaper than drugs and 10x more addicting.

Give my peaceful proclivities, the game essentially undermines itself because the native creatures apparently only attack once I start building things. So that means the ideal way to play is just not to build anything, completely undermining the point of the game. Fortunately there are settings to change how the game works and there are many mods. But there's still the problem that turning on peaceful mode means much of the tech tree is wasted. Part of the problem is that there's apparently no real reason to build anything. There's nothing driving actions in the game, apart from simply the urge to build. But this is at odds with the native creatures. So the peaceful method is to do nothing. The ideal scenario for me would seem to be a story in which the aliens are not just destroying my base once I start building, but are actually some kind of hostile invading force that is actively trying to kill me. Or maybe if I had a small society of humans that are threatened by native predatory creatures. I don't like games where I feel like I'm the "bad guy" and this game too often gives me that feeling. It's too bad because there's so much here that is extremely compelling to me. I suppose the Pacifist mod is the best path for me, as it removes military tech, but I would prefer the have the mililtary but in a game scenario that was purely defensive as opposed to the default which feels implicitly aggressive.