I’m really enjoying watching City Planner Plays play it. There’s lots of attention to detail, easy to immerse yourself in it.
I held off because I’ve been stung by early access before. A decent EA buy?
But between this and the new KC:D I might be on a medieval theme for a while
I bought it last night and only have a few hours in. So far it’s pretty great though. I look forward to seeing it continue to develop, and according to reviews posted by pre-release testers the developer is very open to community feedback.
It’s definitely not a fully complete game yet, but I expect I’ll get at least a couple weekend binges out of it before I shelve it and wait for more content.
Also, it’s working perfectly in Linux (through Proton) so extra points there.
I played some last night going in completely blind. I enjoyed it, but there isn’t really a tutorial, just tooltips that come up periodically. Unfortunately my town died after a few hours because I didn’t understand I was supposed to be preparing food for as soon as possible (crops grow on a year cycle, so you need the seeds in ASAP). Makes logical sense, but the game doesn’t tell you and then I was stuffed.
I think it’s totally fun as a sandbox/run-based game, but if you’re looking for something more you’ll need to wait.
unfinished release
I feel “early access” has this implication that it’s not just a product that is unfinished being sold for money with a pinky promise that it’ll get better in the future. It’s better than a normal release that ends up being unfinished, but only by being somewhat open about it.
That being said, game looks fantastic. If they keep at this, could become something really really cool in the future.
Early access is extremely effective, when used correctly. It lets smaller studios get an income stream a lot earlier, which helps significantly. It also lets them form a tight feedback loop with fans. They can find out what works and what doesn’t. Some examples of it working well would be Rimworld, Kerbal Space Program, and Factorio. All released as amazing games, primarily due to early access.
Unfortunately, a lot of companies seem to be abusing the idea right now. Particularly bigger studios.
Yeah plus from a consumer perspective it’s nothing special.
It’s just a buggy release, only the bugginess and unfinishedness is known and openly announced. Which makes it more earnest, of course. On the other hand just like with any other release you have 0 guarantee or influence over whether missing features get added in the future and/or bugs get fixed. If the content is worth the money asked it’s a buy, if not it’s a wait.
Looks really promising but way too much in early access for me to risk that price tag, I’d rather try furthest frontier or the game from the settlers creator since they are further along iirc. I do look forward to trying it out one day tho, seems right up my valley if they manage to add some meaningful late game goals or challenges!
It’s on game pass if you just want to try it out.