Recent reviews by Quinox

This review will have some spoiler content for the game, so if you want to go in mostly/completely blind you have been warned.

To preface this not recommended review, I"ve chosen to select this binary choice because I would only cautiously recommend this game to someone. One of the comments I"ve always heard immediately is how the engine breaking down causes continuous, permanent, and ever increasing damage. There are systems in the game that are solely there to put pressure on the player to survive an initial negative income, but they don"t base themselves into easily accepted rationale.

There are a lot of pieces of this game that, while narratively consistent, don"t make logical sense for the situation at hand. Things like how this is a technologically and sociologically regressed culture, so much so personal computing has apparently gone the way of the dodo before the events of this game start; and yet they are here in space with a FTL engine on a mission to survey other solar systems for a habitable planet. It feels very much like a dystopian future, and the art style is quite pleasing while also conveying this image. Yet it explains nothing about how this Warhammer 40k future where people don"t even have the internet are on a space station with a colonization set-up mission and are apparently totally unprepared for life in space.

You have non-workers, population that is unable to do any meaningful manual labor, living on the station. This especially shows up later as you rescue population, but the question then is how are they so wildly unprepared for an apocalypse when they were part of a post moon-break society. I"d understand them being severely depressed, to a point at least as they had to have kept trying to survive that scenario to even be here; but for such a large part of the population to be completely unable to do even basic farm work it suggests the infirm, elderly, or very young. Then the game turns around and says, "these people are the population required to be trained for the harsh realities of planetary colonization away from our immediate support." Wait I thought they weren"t able to do any manual labor, why are they suddenly doing the colonization ground breaking?

I could go on about how the narrative makes sudden turns like this and if you pay close attention you"ll probably be left scratching your head about why things are working the way they do. Even if you wholesale accept the, presumed, narrative that these space travellers are mysteriously industrial age regressed landlubbers who accidentally ended up on a science fiction super station. A station that was clearly intended to travel between planetary orbits in the prologue, but rattles itself apart each time it travels because it was designed to do so? Okay desperate planning, just chalk it up to bad planning and throw the baby out with the bathwater into the airlock. Which is what *must* be happening around here.



However, this game isn"t long term difficult. If anything it is all focused on the initial expansion as you have none of the necessary tools to deal with it at the start and must initially do guesswork as the tech tree does not show you the vast amount of upgrade technology under each specific core technology to research. Nor does it explain the size, requirements, really anything about any of the core technology except the name of the building.

The tech game opens up once you reach the Tier 3 technologies and nothing outright screams at you that the DLS center is the most important and game changing technology you can take. It allows basic functionality to be activated such as, you know. Convincing your space travellers, as everyone you save has also been in space (awake) for awhile by this point, that they need to recycle their waste products instead of venting into orbit. Because people need to both be told to do this, and they will absolutely hate it equally as much as the Earth being destroyed.

This doesn"t even get into the fact that the best way to play the game is sector specialization, such as turning sector 2 into a space dock/EVA zone which then gives massive bonuses to the station repair procedures, with synergies like optimal workforce giving flat bonuses to repair per EVA in that zone. Meaning you want to focus on keeping that zone optimal and happy so you can stack bonuses to relieve the negative income pressure. On that note, an important aside is that taking your time in a level/map/solar system to collect everything imposes a -1 morale penalty, to supposedly pressure the player into advancing into the next level.

Except mechanically this doesn"t work, as first you can overcome this penalty and usually reasonably easily. More so if you know which technologies to help you do this like better housing, which is both space efficient and boosts morale so core pick there. Secondly, *if* the player was desperate and in a death spiral because of this morale boost they"d simply go right back into it as the sequential level then imposes a swift, permanent, narrative penalty of -1 morale because of the crew becoming depressed/etc. The staying in system penalty isn"t permanent, which is fine as there is no warning for when it will happen, but is basically just a preview of the penalty you"re about to get anyway.

This reality then incentivizes not going forward and building out the perfect colony as your technology trickles in and you get more research unlocked. Ah, but I mentioned the negative income, right? Where your space travellers are tossing processed alloys into space constantly as it then rattles off into the void forever. Except this waste recycling thing I mentioned earlier fixes all problems. You can turn waste into food, which solves one permanent drain, and you can turn waste into alloys, which solves the other. Initially this only comes from factories, but you can research technology that housing also passively produces it. Which is a sudden burst of income from nowhere.

This is probably still okay to overlook on it"s own, but then the logic shows up where the housing/population produces waste, just because. This waste turns into food, but that"s okay that"s just recycling. It also turns into processed alloys, that you then use to repair the station. Forever, as it vents those alloys off into space. Wait, the station isn"t producing alloys at this point and these space travellers keep defecating an infinite supply that the game mechanics basically state are getting destroyed in space.


*Sigh* Welcome to Ixion. It"s a very pretty face, at least.



P.S.

All this as you farm technology overnight IRL as you"ve created a closed loop infinite supply.

Additionally, the game does have a player pressure system using sector accidents, but if your work load is optimal you only get injured workers, no deaths. The accidents are (now) tuned to occur regularly and not randomly create death spirals into ever increasing wounded and insufficient work forces. A.K.A. if everything is set up in an optimal enough way, then nothing permanently bad happens and you can just let the system go infinitely with nothing to personally micromanage, thus trivializing the game later.

This being due to the design of, at least trying, to put a cap on technology you can research per level thus forcing limited overall technology level and choices as you progress. Unless you, rather easily really, ignore the system with it"s own tools. However, the first time run player with no spoilers can go awhile without seeing this path as it is obfuscated initially and once that hurdle is overcome. Well, it"s actually a short path to that infinite supply closed loop when armed with the critical information.

I have no idea if this content will change in the future, but I can"t help that and this will be based on what I"ve seen on 27/05/20. My shortest summary is that this content cuts back on the exasperating grind from a game that wants to be a rogue-like, but also a small empire/cult building game at the same time. In exchange you have a game that obfuscates the mechanics as much as possible and attempts to choke the player"s ability to steadily gain resources by regularly engaging in travel/escape mechanics.


From my experience the expectation of what a location"s value might be is left in question due to regularly forcing a player to move on. Regular play would probably leave you under the, correct, assumption that the city decks are not random and surprisingly more shallow than expected. That isn"t to say infinite cards could not be drawn, only the limitation of variety in play per location.

Should the player know the fastest path to their chosen victory the primary roadblock will be the random chance generation system; which is weighted towards pushing the player forward into the intended gameplay loop should any failure in the discovery/hunting system occur. Even if the player reaches a point where they do not need to take any risky action, a regular background roll can fail and force the player back into the escape spiral.

While an initial failure can be recovered from, the player needs to spend scarce resources on a chance that the situation can be recovered. Attempting this too early can become a waste of resources, as the systems in play are based almost entirely around siphoning away the player"s scarce resources. In effect the fundamental game cycle is about optimizing the preservation of resource gains against the initially inescapable resource siphoning game elements.


Part of the problem, and why I say the game is intentionally misleading, is how descriptive text uses, "small" chance for trace card generation when the frequency percentage in question is significantly, noticeably different in actual application. The earliest/basic resource generation system inherently has a significant chance to engage the player in the hunting system; thus ensuring a regular cycle of hunting/escape engagement. Other systems of resource generation can be engaged with and produce no trace cards / hunting engagement if the player simply uses the proper mechanics, with no random elements if done correctly.

Thus, it can be considered that the beginning phase is where the player must effectively gather and retain resources, learning what all the operations of the cards are while having game systems pull them away. Past that is the phase where pure chance dictates when, or whether, the player must engage in the escape system. Luck will completely determine whether the player with proper knowledge and sufficient resources can play out the rest of the game in one city, or several.

In effect the game"s greatest roadblock to final victory is twofold. One learning the game while it is both giving and taking away access to cards, and two a constant background of random chance determining when a spiral of resource siphoning begins. Given limited resources, trying to combat said spiral is counter productive without a clear, informed plan.


To explain my final verdict, I see this game mode/DLC relying too heavily on player ignorance to extend play time. I do not rate this as a functionally bad game, nor an overvalued game. I personally feel little engagement with a system that emphasizes replay through failures loops that are by design front loaded and unavoidable, with content spread across a surprisingly limited and preset playing field. The order of cards drawn is a significant element in a playthrough"s difficulty; particularly given the limited time frame/draw set in which to build up resources per location.


I personally liken each city to a hand of cards drawn per round of a full match. Except the decks are preset, labeled, and it is pure luck during any card draws that determine if the player must deal with loss mechanics.

If the player reaches a point where they can play out the rest of the game without drawing more cards for one of their new hands, then the dealer regularly pressing a button to determine if loss mechanics are engaged becomes very noticeable. Overcoming this last problem can be accomplished, and I feel confident that even with only a few games under my belt this can be done relatively reliably with few uncontrollable failures.


However, reaching the necessary point of player knowledge where this is possible is clearly the replacement for the RPG like grind elements. It isn"t even a question of solving riddles, following clues, avoiding risks, or discovering meanings in the written lore; just a simple question of have you built up the proper resources and do you know how to build up the exit strategy resource safely?

After understanding what to do: I feel like I"m being nagged by the game regularly to create engagement for what is otherwise a rather bleak and lifeless Legacy route.

Having played through this game, I can say that it works and is functional. The concept itself is interesting, but frankly I find no surprises or further interest beyond the introductory plot development. The story progresses in a manner that is rather easy to guess, and frankly the combat is as equally challenging.

The aesthetics are as seen on display, it reminds me of a higher range flash based game. Which may be better phrased as, there is nothing I qualify as impressive or noteworthy in the quality of animation for this visual work. I don"t expect this game to last more than, roughly, six hours on a single run for an experienced player.

I haven"t tried probing for multiple endings, or branching outcomes, but I suspect that it won"t be particularly hard to reach a desired outcome for a first run through the game. The majority of content to play through doesn"t appeal to me for replay value, so I"m not verifying if there are various good, or a true, ending.

If I"m going to recommend this game positively or negatively, I"m going to lean on the latter side: given the quality of games avaialble for the same price tag is at a minimum competitive if not better, and I have doubts this game is the sort to find significant play times or replayable for most buyers. If you have money to burn, there are worse things to spend it on, but I would not go in expecting a cult classic.

To summarize my reasons for recommendation: the game is well priced at 20 USD, I feel it is superior in quality to standard visual novels which share similar qualities as it applies to story telling, even though the gameplay leaves me disappointed. For the price I feel there is a reasonable return, as the gameplay can be considered just a vehicle to move the much more interesting and involving story along, instead of a primary motivation to continue playing.


It is difficult to review the quality of this game overall, as the majority of the value lies firmly in the story telling and discovery. The story unfolds in a well written and well delivered manner, the quality of effort is noticeable. However, the customer should be warned that reading is definitely required as there is only one significantly voiced role in the game.

All other roles only use gibberish words or emotive sounds to give a sense of tone to the character. The game works hard on pacing to avoid overloading any specific segment with reading. However, that isn"t to say there isn"t a lot of reading compared to gameplay within the run time of a game.


The course of a game is also signficant as you are effectively playing ironman mode. I feel this design intent does work well for the story, and will probably sounds worse than it is; but at the same time I feel it does create negative points for trying to enjoy the gameplay.

There is a strong impression of a team sports game, which I assume was crafted to fit logically into the, "moral of the story," as it were. Initially the game starts off very slowly, and keeps the training wheels on for a long time. A caveat is delivered, saying that the enemy teams will become stronger with more defeats. This isn"t quantified well though and mixes with the other gameplay elements rather poorly, in my opinion.


To illustrate, your team can practice against a training opponent at any point before a match. However, they will never improve beyond their starting state and are poor opponents to practice against for late game matches. To make matters worse there is a Supergiant Games staple of game difficulty modifiers give to the player later on. This is a problem as you can never apply them to the practice matches, and must guess exactly what effect they will have on a match before you play an ironman match for real.

This becomes exhasperating to learn as it is hard to judge how much more difficult a team could become after their 3rd or 4th defeat. Do you play them again with the same modifiers as last time? Increase the modifiers even though they"ve already gotten harder at the most basic level? Drop modifiers and feel bad about your ability to win because you need this to get a win? All these are valid questions as you can"t rely on your practice team to provide any answers to these questions.


As is standard, these modifiers give a bonus to experience earned in a match, but only if you do win that match. Thus it quickly becomes a heavily de-incentivised game mechanic as you have a limited number of matches to play in a game"s run to begin with. Adding on top of that these modifiers only start showing up around the middle of the game, and not all at once. Their effect on experience gain will be minimal by the end of your run given their scale of effect next to the standard and other optional methods to gain experience for your team.

As a final nail in the coffin, the AI teams will eventually have tremendous stat bonuses that rival or surpass the player"s team in the end game. Applying the difficulty modifiers can be virtual suicide, giving an overwhelming advantage to the AI team. Which would perhaps be fine if the AI remained as sluggish in reaction as in the beginning of the game. However, giving a completely superior team to an AI that now can dodge a ranged attack, then immediately move in on that vulnerable teammate and eliminate them, rapidly becomes masochistic in an ironman run.


Granted, this is not a necessary element of the game and can be seen as a scale to match the skill of a player to keep them interested. However, I feel this would have been appreciated as such earlier in the game to get used to, and understand, the tools provided while also making the start less effortless. As it stands, this feels more like a feature applied too late in a run to be fully appreciated, at least I would imagine so for most players.

Given the ironman nature of the game, and with no new game+ in sight, it feels to me these modifiers are like asking someone to break your kneecaps before the game, with a promise to give you five dollars if you win the game. Only apply these if you enjoy the difficulty they provide, although it may affect the final outcome of your run given you can"t effectively gauge the difficulty spikes toward the end of the game, beforehand.

Hindsight is 20/20 as the saying goes, but part of the problem for playing this game again is how much you really enjoyed the story and whether you"d want to experience the bulk of it without any changes again. There are choices and consequences in the story, and they feel well written and at least somewhat meaningful. However, I say somewhat since the game goes out of it"s way to try and make whatever ending you get, in a sense, the true ending.

To detail that statement better, the story telling tries to not make any decision you choose clearly the bad decision. Yet clearly, there are definitive outcomes to your decisions and they may not be the ones you wanted. Without having experienced the story, and without giving it away, this is hard to talk about; which is why I tried to leave this for last as a closing note.


The main, only really, issue I have with the story is the attempt to try and leave it broadly open to interpretation, in a sense. I feel this can easily fall flat for the reader, as the intent is transparently clear to not objectify choices and outcomes as clearly the worst.

Depending on how you value this kind of storytelling as a player, this may significantly improve of worsen your final opinion of this game; but hopefully I"ve explained what the game is going to provide well enough that you won"t be buying into this one without a reasonable base of knowledge.

I find this game a bit shallow, at the very least at this point on release. Basically you have several meters all running down based on who you choose during the three turns / months per season. The game is fundamentally one very similar to concentration, with villager virtue / vice instead of number / icon matching cards.

Layered on top of that though is two states of unknown, the first is where you haven"t seen a virture or vice, and the second when you know which meter the virtue or vice affects. Kind of like learning what suite a card belongs to in a memory game, then next time learning what the number of that card actually is.

The various kinds of virtue and vice are cosmetic really, primarily there are three increments of value per virtue or vice, with the greatest value having the most impact. Which is to say for virtues they are the best villager for increasing the related meter, and for vices they are one of your specific 9 traitors.

It"s got more kinship to the game Werewolf in that aspect, as each villager is rather like a role card and there are traitors in your midst to be killed off each turn / season. They"re just targets though, sitting there to be killed. Granted if you actively used them before realizing who they are, then you"ve been draining your meters at a much, much faster rate than normal.



It doesn"t really sound all that uninteresting, except guesswork is punished in this game. If you can"t point and show that a traitor is obviously a traitor then the family house they come from becomes especially irate, draining the meter faster than normal to penalize guessing. Which isn"t necessarily so bad, but you *also* don"t get the meter bonuses for killing a traitor either so you get double shafted for guesswork.

After awhile you can basically know what a villager / card is with high certainty, although it is hard to guarantee anything early on when you know practically nothing of the playing board. Yet the guesswork will punish you for trying. The other issue to deal with is that RNG can end up with some houses rather loaded with traitors, and even if you miraculously uncover them all, killing them in a row is punished because the family house will riot if you sacrifice from them twice in a row, or more.



You can try to reach the end of the game without going out of your way to kill the traitors, and simply use the most optimal vilagers to maintain your meter balance. The game is in a sense more about how many of these traitors you can kill before the timer runs out. Completing the mysterious voice"s commandments can actually end the run, as the meter threshold immediately gets shifted and might put you in a situation where you have too many meters to balance in one season.

Which is odd since, there isn"t an actual bonus for killing the specified traitor over the other ones. Killing all 8 other traitors first doesn"t cause you any unexpected problems, either. So success may be best achieved by avoiding the voice"s tasks and eliminating the other traitors first. I don"t know if the game"s ending requires you to follow the voice"s commandment"s only though, and avoid killing traitors before the appointed time. Frankly that"s a lot of RNG to wade through for not much gain, IMHO.

Oh, and the mix of virtue and vice on a villager doesn"t seem to have much in the way of restrictions, so you can end up with some runs where you can"t find a villager to give you an even break on points. Others you might find three houses have villagers that actually give you more overall points to your meters, and in the early stages of the game. Town events also aren"t particularly common or interesting that I"ve found.


Closing note:

I don"t strongly feel this is a game that shouldn"t be recommended given what you get for the price it is on sale for.

However, I do feel the consumer should have a good idea of what you"re getting into as this isn"t a very high replayability game. Somewhat similarly simple games like Werewolf have more lifespan because they are social games where the group of people you play with affects gameplay the most dramatically, and what happens on subsequent playthroughs could change dramatically despite the relatively bare and basic game framework.

As this is a single player game, I rather reluctantly give it a thumbs down as there simply isn"t that much ground to tread with the content provided. The price is about right, but it would probably be best to still be warned that the depth is shallower than it may appear to be.