Strategically this is as simple as just making sure that each area and building has enough employees, but it is more busywork, and therefore you will at least feel like you’re doing things.
Another will handle the entertainment in the recreational area. Another manages the plants in the organics area. One alien type will work the trash recycler. You will need to recruit some of these visitors to handle tasks on the base. There are also a huge number of different types of aliens that will show up at the base, and they’ll all have their own individual work talent. Deep into the game, this feels like relentless busywork, but the strategy behind the game is so simplistic that it’s the only engaging quality it has going for it. The symbiosis between these three tiers is simple and obvious, but it does force you to keep flicking between the three of them and micromanaging a lot of moving parts within the starbase. The third tier is purely for recreational pursuits, and it drains a lot of resources to maintain, but does so in exchange for a lot of in-game currency.
#SPACEBASE STARTOPIA REVIEW FULL#
One tier is full of organic plants, and it produces the raw materials that you use in a second-tier to build rooms, items, and objects to keep your visitors happy. This space doughnut has three different “tiers,” which are separated physically as three sets of separate doughnut rings. Mechanically it is standard genre stuff, but competently structured. I could never muster the will to care in Spacebase Startopia, and for a genre as time-consuming as this one, that’s a big problem. Whether it’s Planet Coaster, Two Point Hospital or Project Highrise, I care a great deal about the aesthetics in simulators, as I like to watch the results of my decisions turn into a growing, thriving, thing (whatever it is that I’m building). Sure it’s all metal and the way it is curved gives it a “science fiction” look, but it’s claustrophobic and, frankly, aesthetically unpleasant, and the only relief is the tiniest window that hints at what’s outside. With Spacebase Startopia, you instead see little more than the inside of doughnuts. I want to build domed “outdoor” areas and provide my visitors with parks that they can stargaze from. I want to be able to advertise my recreational facilities to various planets, and then watch ships of space tourists turn up.
I want to have a sense of what I am doing is in that context, too.
I want to see the station slowly grow from the outside, floating in the void of space. It’s hard to believe that the same company that, in just the last couple of years, has brought us consistent excellence in Port Royale 4, Tropico 6, Immortal Realms, Railway Empire and Dungeons 3 would think that this is a good idea.įor one thing, if you tell me that I am going to be able to play a space station builder simulation, I kind of expect to see space. It’s disappointing, given that it’s published by Kalypso, a publisher that usually has such an eye for this genre.
#SPACEBASE STARTOPIA REVIEW SIMULATOR#
Unfortunately, Spacebase Startopia, which does try to be a satirical simulator in the vein of Two Point Hospital et al, has left me feeling very cold indeed. I know that space is a cold place and all, but that doesn’t mean that games set in space should leave me feeling cold.
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