I had the privilege of playing several play tests this past month. Crosswinds, and then StarRupture. And let me tell you, we're about to get some great survival games. StarRupture is a Sci-Fi survival game from the house that brought us the deadly GreenHell survival game. Blending in elements of classic survival elements such as exploring, eating, drinking, and running from creepy crawlies, StarRupture adds in factory management. Stranded on a world where everything is trying to kill you, from the ground to the neighboring star, you're tasked with building a factory, mining for minerals, and then shipping them back...
I had the privilege of playing several play tests this past month. Crosswinds, and then StarRupture. And let me tell you, we're about to get some great survival games.
StarRupture is a Sci-Fi survival game from the house that brought us the deadly GreenHell survival game. Blending in elements of classic survival elements such as exploring, eating, drinking, and running from creepy crawlies, StarRupture adds in factory management. Stranded on a world where everything is trying to kill you, from the ground to the neighboring star, you're tasked with building a factory, mining for minerals, and then shipping them back home to pay off your debt. Pretty sure there's a political message there somewhere.
Anyway, this game so far has a bunch of cool mechanics. The idea of building a factory in a survival game just seems natural. It doesn't feel forced. This works, and I'm all for it. I'm not one for factory games generally; games like Dyson Sphere Program or Factoroids just don't do it for me. I'm not about micromanaging a factory. But StarRupture makes it seamless and unintrusive. Not to say it doesn't have its downside, though. Where it starts to get kind of tiresome is when you get past the tutorial stage of the game, and it expects you to follow the loop. Build more complex machines, to make more complex items, ship them home, collect points, rinse, repeat. Balancing the constant need to expand resources, gather them, forge them, and ship them gets tedious real fast. Not because it's boring, but because it starts to slow down your exploration. And for me, since I tend to be OCD about building, I tend to let finding food and water take a backseat.
This isn't a huge complaint, but it was something I noticed. Probably the biggest issue I had was that the game crashed, and I lost an hour or more of gameplay. I don't know if that's just a quality-of-life fix that is planned, but my save game that I restored from was several hours old. That irritated me a bit. Regardless, this game is a must for any survival game player. And I will be happy to pick it up on release day.
