I never thought I'd actually play a clicker game in my entire life, but I'm a sucker for anything space related, so I swallowed by pride and tried out Spaceplan. The game is pretty standard clicker fare. Make the number go bigger so you can buy better equipment so you can make the number go bigger faster. By clicking a button you generate energy (referred to as Watts, a unit of power, with an optional toggle to correctly display them as Joules. It slightly annoys me that's not correct by default) which you can use to build devices to generate more energy per click, or to generate automatically. You and your trusty spaceship AI are in orbit of a mysterious planet and by generating energy to send out probes and scans you attempt to figure out where you are and how to get home. The humor is very Portal (down to the inclusion of potatoes) but it works rather well. There are some minor twists in the plot, so I won't reveal too much, but for a game that could have had nothing at all, I was pleased with the events and dialogue. The UI is also very aesthetically pleasing. You mostly view a minimalist depiction of the planet, your spaceship, and any potato-based items you send into orbit or the surface. Good use of shading and subtle effects make it much more pleasing than a mostly empty screen could've been. My one criticism is that there are some gaps in rewards where it's unclear what you're working towards, or that the next reward is a much larger wait than previously. It's a fairly minor complaint, especially since the game still generates energy for a time after you quit, but it's worth mentioning. The very nature of the game means that it's not going to go on my favorites list, but I did rather enjoy my time with it overall, even if it is on the shorter side (especially for this genre).

Reviewed on Aug 26, 2023


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