Hydroneer
Hydroneer is a sandbox mining game, a very impressive effort for a single indie dev. It feels rough around the edges, but can be quite immersive and relaxing. You start out with a shovel and a pan, then move up to building an automated system all running on hydro power. It's worth trying if you like those kinds of games, although you'll need to be a bit forgiving. It's a very slow start and there's no inventory system, including for money - which means you have to pick up and move everything by hand, and you can't carry your money and the thing you just bought at the same time. If you do put a few hours into it, it's satisfying to see automation coming together, but there's no end game.
Pros
- Relaxing background music
- Satisfying mining, once you get the hang of it
- Landscaping system
- Robust 3D building system (minus the bug mentioned below)
- Conveyor/automated mining systems
- The minimalist interface is annoying, but it is immersive and unusual
Cons
- Going to town to buy things is tedious. Especially given that you have to pick up each item drop it in the cart, pay for it, pick it up, drop it in the truck, drive home, pick it up, carry the item and place them all individually.
- I was hoping to discover that there were multiple kinds of ores (other than just iron and gold), or new things you could create and sell. Unfortunately it looks like everything you find in the first digging area is everything in the game. New shops don't open, no new items to build.
- I really get the feeling that it should be made for VR - it would be perfect with the whole "no inventory" system and simplistic art style. Unfortunately not.
- Even once I got flat concrete surfaces, items often fall over instead of standing upright when you drop them
- No in-game tutorial or intro. There's a 3 minute video - but other than that you're entirely on your own
- No achievements, which might have given some goals for what to do
- It's kinda weird that everything in the game looks medieval, but you start with a modern day diesel truck. It would have been better to stick with just the wooden cart
- The towns feel really empty with no people in them. Buildings are closed. Who am I selling this stuff to? Even if there were just NPC models that didn't talk, it'd help make it feel more alive
- No inventory system at all. It's a nice idea in principle, and it does add a sense of immersion, but it becomes annoying really quickly. For example, you have no pockets so you have to carry your coin stack in your hands. You also can't pick up more than one object at a time.
- I built a water pipe system, and no water came out the end. I removed and re-built each piece one by one, then it worked. Makes me think the underlying systems are rather buggy