My review after 50 hours of play
Published on Tuesday, April 12, 2022 By
Dev team, fwiw here are my thoughts about the game after 50 hours of play. First, the good. I felt like I got my money's worth -- after all I played 50 hours. Overall the game worked well for a BETA. I had no crashes at all in that time. There were a few glitches where the game got stuck (i.e. I could not spend a ideology point) but saving and restarted fixed it each time. So no biggie. I LOVE the core world system. It does help deal with late game stall. I definitely think that you are on the right track there. Also I appreciated the ability to slowly improve core worlds over time. It kept that mechanic interesting.
Now for the bad. My biggest complaint would be that after about the midpoint the game feels static. Your fleet ravages out taking over enemy core worlds and colonies like so many locusts. I kept expecting some kind of end game mechanic that would keep it interesting. I was playing on the default setting which I think was "easy" or the equivalent so maybe it would have been more fun in the second half on a harder setting. But I doubt it. I think harder would have made it harder to build up fleets but once that was done the last part would still be pretty boring.
One issue for me was that the sectors were just more of the same. I think it might help if sectors further out had some new resources that were necessary to expand and maybe much harder enemies. Another idea would be to have a threat that is triggered by exploring too far -- wake the sleeping dragon sort of thing. Maybe a horde of Revenge ships that seek out your home world once you encounter them or something.
Another issue is that the little story plots were too shallow to be very interesting. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop when I allowed religious sects to settle in my colonies. I like the idea of these little stories but I'd like to see further development so that the consequences go a few more steps.
Overall I think its a good game that could be great in the final version. Thank you for making it. : )