Recent reviews by ATP

I have tried playing this game like 10 times but it never hooks me

I can't remember playing this game

Such a good game. The music is good, the gameplay is fun. I can see the vision of "Start in a New Year's evening and finish a bit after midnight"

I would love to recommend this game, but I just can't. The emotional climax of the game is so good, hit me pretty deep. But it carries no weight. There characters feel flat. They don't have develpment. They just feel like puppets to fill a purpose without motivation, without ideals.

Finally, the ending is just not there. You just hit the climax and then get hit with credits. No resolution of the events. No final battle that feels satisfying. No nothing.

Very addictive. It feels like if the devs saw the pitfals Rust has fallen into and decided to make a whole new game balanced for single player.

Nothing works. 30 minutes of troubleshooting and the issue is that it sucks.

TLDR: Fun, polished, a treat. Bogged down by design choices and improperly implemented system, thus it is not a factory/automation game as the game claims it to be.

Let me preface by saying this game is fun, unique, and so colorful! The game is full of potential, but because this is an Early Access game, I am on my duty to be up-front about what the game is and isn't. And so, I must give it a negative review.

Originally, my review called into attention that the upgrade system went directly against what your goals are: You get upgrade tokens for completing extra objectives. The upgrade tokens can be used on a shop to unlock upgrades to make your buildings more efficient, which you can then choose to apply in-game.

However, you are discouraged from doing so because all levels have an extra objective of getting the maximum score without upgrading your buildings. At first glance it sounds like a fun challenge, but it goes directly against what the game claims to be.

Star Birds claims to be a resource management game, and while it's true, the biggest constraining resource is space - more accurately pipe placement. To maximize your throughput, you must connect several buildings at once, and it becomes difficult to achieve when you have more than 3 distinct resources that need to connect directly to a building in a 2D plane.

So, Star Birds is not an automation or base building game. It's a puzzle game like Mini-Metro, and my negative review stems from this. The game is painted like a factory game, but it isn't. There is a set solution to every level. The biggest example is Level 3.1. You have several asteroids with a single launch pad crater, which all, except one that can have further refinement, have the same procedure - Place 4 miners, connect them to the launch pad. This is the intended solution.

There is no logistic challenge in this game, because all levels have a "correct" way to do it. If you don't do it that way, you don't get the extra objective. This makes it so there is not fun to come up with new solutions, like an automation game would. It locks you into a single optimal "intended solution".

I wouldn't have a problem with this if the game was described as what it is - a puzzle game. It's not an automation game because there's no need to adapt, only a need to do what the developer intended you to do.

Furthermore, the developer seems to be not listening. My review called into question the design dissonance of giving you upgrades and then punishing you for using them. Instead they replied to my review condescendingly, explaining that buying an upgrade on the main menu it doesn't permanently lock you out of the upgrade achievements. Which to be fair, they acknowledge they can do a better job communicating, but it wasn't the point on my review.

Instead it comes across as a canned copy-paste response to be used when someone talks about this topic.

I can't blame them though, the team is incredibly small, which makes this game being as polished as it is a treat for an Early Access title. I must insist that the game is fun, but it sets up expectations it cannot reach, and until the game leaves early access or it addresses this, I cannot recommend it, especially since it blurs the line of where the dev team want to take this game.

Best after-work work simulator.

This game is a marathon, not a sprint. Enjoy the trip more than the destination.

I cannot currently recommend the game because the only ones still playing the game are people who have played one hundred hours or more.

This is very clearly a feature-rich alpha. Lots of things to add, lots already there, but not for the ones who'll cry at every bug.