Recent reviews by Colix Naia

I've played this for almost a couple hours now, and this is... weird. I don't know if there's something I'm supposed to be doing differently, but here's why I'm starting off with a bad opinion:

1. There is no tutorial, no tooltips, nothing that even says "hey, do this first". I normally mostly skip tutorials, but I feel like every game should have some base form of one at least.

2. Food
While I can more or less get my town off the ground rather quickly, I literally always run out of food within the first twenty minutes of the game. No matter what I do, my colonists consume food much faster than I can produce it. Farms take too long to produce a harvest, Fishermen seem to gather food only some of the time, and Hunting Camps (which seem like they'd be the most reliable early on with deer EVERYWHERE) literally don't ever do anything.

I want to like this game, and maybe I'll edit this review in the next few days after trying some more. But for now, I have made 5 different saves over the course of less than an hour and a half because of how quickly my entire colony immediately begins to starve and die.

((And is it just me, or does the snow and winter weather last about three times as long as the fair, food-producing weather?))

Honestly, I'm getting a refund for this game, and I just want to put in my two cents for anyone thinking of getting it, before my refund goes through and stops me from posting this.

This game is rather half-baked. It is very bare-bones, and seems like it has a lot of potential, but.... It feels like someone looked at "My Time At Portia" while it was still extremely early access, and decided to make a low-budget copy with cutesy stuffed animals.

The characters:
They are mostly all rather devoid of personality or warmth, as they (your character included) have completely static faces and textures with no animations or reactions. There's very little creativity and pretty much the only interactions you'll have with anyone is when they ask you to get stuff for them or when you go to their shops.

The writing:
This is a rather weird thing to put here for a game that doesn't seem to have much noticeable story, tutorial, or hook from the outset, but I actually mean the literal writing. The dialogue (and even the typing in the letters you receive in your little mailbox) is all terribly done. There are text formatting tags everywhere (for example, /n and /i), which already shows there was absolutely no proofreading or editing done after the initial type-up. On top of that, there's not much understanding of grammar on display, and a lot of things characters say feel oddly worded and unnatural, even for an NPC.

The soundtrack:
It's okay. Really not anything much to say about it. It doesn't stand out at all, and the repetitive loop eventually gets annoying. It seems overall... okay. Maybe I'd give it a 'C'.

Honestly, I didn't play into the game for more than a bit over an hour, and I was already starting to get an idea of how it seemed to have been started and never finished. It looks cute, but it really feels like something similar to writing the first half of the first draft of an essay, then turning it in without even proofreading. To put it bluntly, it feels incomplete, and like even what's there was never actually checked for problems. (There isn't even a tutorial or intro sequence or anything. Start a new game and you're just.. there, in your house, ready to start your first day without knowing anything about the gameplay.) I wanted to enjoy a relaxing cutesy farm-sim, but really, this isn't what I wanted. It's worth no more than $10, and I'm not sure I would pay that. Right now, it's selling for $20, and that just... isn't representative of the amount of content or quality of content in this game.

I really enjoyed this game.

I was wary, at first, when other reviews called it out as "social justic warrior propoganda" and "everything wrong with gays." That being said, I disagreed completely. 2064: Rom has a really great story filled with characters that you can either fall in love with or learn to hate, depending on your choices. I think the game had a lot of messages packed in about rights for people no matter how different, as well as philosophical thoughts of "what does being human mean?" It can be a lot to take in and, in this game, you may find the time. It's not a long game, per se, but the story tends to slow down in a lot of places.
Something that I loved was the music; the music was really great and definitely made it easier to be immersed in the game.

On the negative side, this game is definitely not for everyone. It's advertised as a point-and-click adventure, but it is a lot more like a visual novel. I will agree that 2064: ROM is completely story driven and your character is often more of a tag-along than a protagonist. Though some actions affect the gameplay and story, those choices are often few and far between. The lack of autosave is frustrating, but that can be remedied by learning to save whenever you've just gotten done with a long scene. In many places, I must admit that I was frustrated by how your character is treated in the scope of the story since, as I said, you are very much a minor player in the story--more of a spectator who helps with a couple important decisions.

TLDR:
The story is really great with a lot of cool ideas and thought-provoking moments. The game is very, very dialogue-heavy in more of a visual novel style; and it does have some stale moments where extra dialogue seemed a bit unnecessary or clunky. Great music, cool visual ideas, diverse characters and personalities, and an interesting setting all contribute to what is a great point-and-click visual novel. I highly recommend it, but I repeat myself in saying it may not be for everyone. I say to at least give it a go; it's definitely an unique game that I really found myself getting into!