SteamWorld Build
I was SO excited when I saw the announcement for this - intrigued to see them branching out in to yet another genre. As always the game is highly polished, beautifully executed and is fun to play. The UI is great and they're demonstrating yet again that they can take an existing genre and add their own unique, high quality spin to it. Unfortunately my first thought from the demo was correct - I don't see any replay value. Gameplay in the overworld is an anno clone, and the mining gameplay is great, but can gets repetitive even on the first playthrough. It's a good 8 hours entertainment, but lacks replay value and complexity.
Pros
- Really pretty
- Buildings have really nice animations
- Demolishing buildings gives back all resources
- Same high quality as all the other SteamWorld games
- The game ties into the previous mining games by having you dig down. People who've played both SteamWorld Dig games will know about the machine world deep underground and the possible plot twist coming in this game
- In the mine you can designate areas to dig, and have to stabilise the ceiling when you open up large areas
- Unlike the surface where you plonk down pre-designed buildings, in the mine you can build Miner and workshop quarters, which is a click and drag affair to make them whatever size you like (and the size affects how many people you have)
- Like my favourite Anno game, there is a window which tells you EXACTLY how much you're over or under producing something rather than guessing at watching up and down arrows
- You can move buildings any time for free
- Switching between the city and the mine is seamless
Cons
- Although the game is highly polished, I did find it getting boring fairly quickly. It's very easy, and there's not really any challenge to it
- The city on the ground level is a straight up Anno clone. 4 tiers of citizens which require a combination goods and service buildings
- Building things is instant with no animations
- It's very unclear how producing pickaxes works. You need to produce pickaxes to equip your miners with pickaxes to dig through sandstone, but if you just stop making them, it seems like they can carry on digging through sandstone just fine
- Money balance is way off. There are no random variables or a constant changing of needs, and resources are infinite, so as long as your balance is positive, you can leave it running and everything will continue to work perfectly, and your money will go through the roof
- Basically no replay value
- The "tower defense" aspect of the mine is very simplistic
- After about 4 hours, I'd pretty much seen everything and there wasn't much engaging going on. Set miners to mine more blocks, set up turrets, set up extractors, rinse and repeat for 4 more hours.