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It is hard to find good co-op games. They are quite a rarity. If you are going to google for co-op games, you are going to get such gems like "counter-strike". Anything with multiplayer and lobby system is considered as a co-op game. While sometimes co-op just makes everything incredibly bullet spongy. It is refreshing to see original and interesting co-op games being developed.


A great way to do demos
This is an actual game demo disguised as a free game. I always liked this model a lot more than actual game demos. Such prologues feel more complete, more satisfying to finish. If they are well made, they feel like their own little games. They give an impression of what full game is like. This is especially great for co-op titles, because barrier to entry for such games is especially hard. You need 2 to 4 copies and it is hard to bite the bullet for all your friends. Being able to get a small taste of it sets you up wanting more. In this way you end up purchasing game which otherwise you might had skipped.


A puzzle game is only as good as its puzzles. In this game puzzles are quite straightforward. The hardest part is always figuring out what you are supposed to do rather than a puzzle itself which might be intended due to co-op nature of this game.

Bothersome theatre, no save point
• The only puzzle which is bothersome is theatre. It is after a puzzle and takes some time to solve during which you can die if you are not fast enough. You are set for failure in a first run and few others, because puzzles there are quite vague. "Castle filled with life". Does it mean king and queen is here? "Then king soaked in blood said". Which king? There are two? Do you need to have lamp one? Does he need to have castle or not? Puzzle is easy to solve through trial and error, but it is bothersome as it is gated by another puzzle which can kill a player. There is a missing save point there which makes this game more bothersome than it has to be.
  
  Valves
  
• Valve puzzle is strange one. You have to descent through many identical rooms which serve no purpose. Then my friend failed to identify any puzzle there and I just closed a random valve and it had solved itself. It is a bad puzzle, because clues are not obvious and it is easier to solve by random guess work.
  
  Quite straightforward hieroglyphics communication
  
• Most of the puzzles in this game revolve around communicating hieroglyphics. It is not hard, but requires attention to detail as a lot of solutions are similar looking. There aren't any harder puzzles in this game. They all revolve around communicating instructions to another player. The hardest part is finding what game expects you to do rather than puzzle itself.
  
  Low Replayability
  
• A lot of puzzles do not refresh after a try. For example, chess puzzle will always be the same. Theatre also is identical. If this is a bite of what to expect in a full game, it sets itself as a game with low replayability value. It can be played twice with role switching at most.

This game suffers from lack of clarity. The hardest part is not puzzles itself, but trying to find the puzzle.

Disappearing map markers
• At some point you will have to guide player through a maze. Directions on a map seems bugged as they would appear and disappear for no reason. This leaves you stuck unable to complete puzzle for some time until markers randomly re-appear on a map.
  
  Pixel hunting on projector
  
• A puzzle where other player have to solve chess opening, you have to take the film, put it on a projector, lower torches and then press a button. If figuring that order is not enough, that button is a small pixel which overlaps with a grip which you can press. This leaves players stuck as it is not clear what is interactable and what is not.
  
  Going through tiles, what is considered far west, etc
  
• Later in a game you will need to tell instructions how other player should move. However, instructions on the book are not clear. It states various directions like "start from far west" however puzzle itself has no way of using these inputs. You always start by making steps and you can't start from any location. This resulted in random deaths from some books while clear passes from others. Either game designers had messed up this puzzle or my friend could not figure out those instructions.

Game's interface and settings are very primitive. Technically it feels like a very advanced mod rather than a full game. Clunky menu options, changing resolution, changes UI layout. Game feels very unrefined.

Lack of volume slider for voice
• This game lacks proper settings. Such simple thing as rising up voice volume does not exist. This results in difficulty hearing oral instructions from a game.
  
  Game has always on microphone which messes up with other voice chats
  
• Game has mandatory in game microphone which never turns off. This messes up with other voice chat programs. The whole radio thing is an immersive gimmick, but nothing else. Instead of always communicating with other player, you need to press V to do that! Wow, consider my mind blown!

It is slow to get started, but fun when you start playing. Main difficulty is understanding what you are supposed to solve in a first place. Puzzles are simplistic, but often wandering around, figuring out what developers really meant with imprecise and vague declarations in a theatre.

• There is a bug in this game where speed running ending will simply won't activate. I have done all the steps needed, but door is never opened automatically.
  
  
• Another bug can happen when you are nearby doors. You will start glitching through them and somehow destroying triggers. You can effectively lock doors and block yourself from endings.

• Escape pod ending is still unfinished. You just go empty corridors and climb pitch black staircases. When you reach ending, game just resets. You need mod to finish this game for the developers.

The Stanley Parable is an interesting game. Initially it can feel as incredibly short and shallow. Game requires a player's initiative to get the most out of it. Game requires you to be engaged with its secret hunting element in order to be entertained and to get its fair value out of it. Otherwise, there is simply barely any game here even if you do few endings by yourself.


Walking simulators live and die by the sights and engagement which player receives while walking. This is why it is particularly difficult to create a walking simulator which just does not feel empty or boring. Developer has far fewer tools in making player engaged and those fewer tools has to carry a greater burden. One of those tools is writing.

Narrator
• Narrator's voice and performance just fits perfectly well in the role that he got. His delivery is clear, filled with emotion when appropriate. Writing flows naturally and does not feel forced. He is a little bit temperamental and quick to mood swings, but that is part of a course I guess. A short game requires a quickly changing moods, writing.
  
  Humour tends to flow naturally from a situation you are currently and it doesn't feel forced. Sometimes narrator is slightly off, there are segments where script is supposed to describe your actions, but script is too static and your actions are dynamic. A good example is when you turn mind control machine on. Narrator assumes that you are desperately looking for a button while you are standing still.
  
  Pretension
  
• This game is touted as some sort deep, philosophical commentary about game design. While there is certainly is commentary about game design, answer me this. How much philosophy, depth and insight 18 year old can have? The answer - not much. Everything in this game is paper thin. Its own insights are obvious and self evident. It is more of a refined complaining that a game is not perfect rather than providing a real insight on how it could be better. It is like complaining that in Dota balance is not perfect and making fun of it. It is like complaining that in survival games, its own mechanics are tedious and making fun of it. This is it. This is the whole depth and impact this game has. Other games have humility in being a parody games. This game is a parody game, but pretends to be something else.
  
  Tone Shifts
  
• Another aspect is that this game has just one good ending. All the other endings are just you trying to derail the story. There is one ending which seems out of place, one where you turn on mind controlling machine. Narrator gets uncharacteristically angry and reveals how bloodthirsty he is. In a same way when you try to go for an escape ending, there is suddenly a different narrator. She can change events on its own, but at the end kills you with no explanation. Some endings are messed up logically and thematically. Narrator is a completely different person outside of these two endings. It just messes up whole writing of him and situation you are in. Other endings become illogical and convoluted.

Game is quite well designed. However, there are many areas for improvement, but even ones which I mark as imperfect could still be considered good. Game is based on a source engine and like all non-Valve games, it just feels like a mod rather than its own game. It is enjoyable experience, but there is that distinct roughness in a game which are distinct to Source engine.

The Effort
• The Stanley Parable had a surprisingly big development team behind it. It took them three years to develop and when you will be reading this review, 2 whole remasters. Team effectively worked at least five years on a game which could be finished in several minutes. Such lousy development rate can be explained on amateurish team, learning as they go and inability to work full time on a project. It is neither polished well or there are some intricate design decisions. The key decision is extremely basic, go to the left or right. Any ending and additional content is quick to do when you know how to work with the engine. Even with all this money which developer got from this game, they could not make another game or to properly end this one. Some endings are just not done like Escape pod ending requires mod to be used while narrator remains silent all the way until you reach the ending and then game just resets to the start.
  
  Developer clearly got this job, because of his family's connections. That or drug money. Drug money which he got from sales of this game which he later used for drugs and hookers.
  
  Problematic Design
  
• This game highlights the problem with an open ended games very well. If you want meaningful endings, you essentially cut length of your game in two if you can take an action at the start of a game which would lead you in an entirely different direction. This game is incredibly short, no matter which ending you go for. Despite that, developers had to spend more effort in designing their game and they had to spend a lot time per one minute of playtime.
  
  Game takes You for Granted
  
• Game does a poor job of incentivising player to replay game and just assumes that this is that player will do on its own. Game needs a gentle push towards the right direction, to get players hooked, because it is not a given that an individual will be interested in exploring the game on its own. Non-repeated comments from narrator when you start second play through, visual changes in a map like a graffiti "Do not trust the narrator" and later a sign leading to a shortcut. This would organically enrich the world and make game feel more alive. At the same time, it would hook player on its gameplay.
  
  Static Game World
  Game world does not feel alive. Game is too reliant on "Go to point A -> Activate narrator" interaction. There is precious little interactions with you and the world.
  
  
  • What if you AFK? Game does not dynamically account for that.
    
  • What if you want to explore sparse few places which are there? Game does not take account of that.
    
  • What if you intercept door behind you? Narrator is silent.
    
  • What if you go into many rooms you are not supposed to? Narrator is silent.
    
  • What if you want to un-power computers? Narrator is silent.
  
  Game is too static, it feels dead. There is hardly enough optional content in a game which would allow player sense of wonder. A sense that game is more clever and full than it really is. Game relies on set rooms which are quite obvious when they activate their triggers. Other times it is just sheer blind luck in discovering secrets. That or wikis and every time when game requires you to open a wiki, it is a failure of game design. It breaks immersion and experience becomes muddied as you can't be as excited about finding a secret as you otherwise would be.
  
  Development team which went nowhere
  
• It is just a shame that this was one time hit. Chief designer and development studio never had any other projects. Designer is talentless and his other projects were flops.

it is difficult for me to judge a game without a context. I did not played Walking simulators before, because base idea is just terrible. This was my introduction into the genre and it was great one. I will use The Stanley Parable as a template and as a standard how good other games in the genre has to be.

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...of what puzzle games should be. Game manages to make you think throughout its lifespan as each solution is unique. Puzzles are also self-evident and doesn't devolve into guessing what developers were thinking. Opus Magnum had set a standard for me of what I should expect from a good puzzle.

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Game follows a small story from an autistic graduate from an Alchemy university. In this world, alchemists are extremely sought after and their numbers are very few. This is caused that in this world number of alchemists are strictly controlled. Only select few can join based on political connections and political loyalty. This is why our hero is completely clueless how to do his craft just before his graduation and nobody in the university had bothered to fail him.

Considering how one talented guy can easily revolutionize their entire science of alchemy, alchemists in their world are nothing more than a social class which had monopolized practice that they doesn't have to compete or even try anymore. There are real life connections to modern art where industry does complete nonsense detached from any objective judgement besides their own and they live on as a function of society, that is, being a money loundering tool for super rich.

Story is like this. It is either painful or you read between the lines. When I said that main protagonist is autistic, I did not said that just for a sake of it. It shows and painfully so in this game. Antanovish has all the trademarks of such a person. Completely socially awkward, obsessive over technicalities, complete lack of understanding of world around him, social aspects for him are alien. You will be forced to read how he gets overly obsessive over a joke or a mundane request. This game does not need a story, but I never seen a story where a main protagonist is a genuine and obvious autist. I had found that to be a novel and quite interesting take.

Gameplay is great as you can solve puzzles in four ways. For cost, speed or space. Fourth solution is keeping all four elements down. I only had some minor issues in understanding some concepts later in the game which I had to use trial and error to get hang of. Game also tends to introduce new mechanics in the final chapter when there are few puzzles remaining. You would kinda wish that final missions would be the hardest ones. However, difficulty curve peaks at chapter before that. Then it goes right down until final mission which is the hardest. However, element which I needed to produce was just large and thus it felt more of a tedium rather than a challenge. I just went with just using old good, one molecule at a time method and I ended up at a top with how my solution had ended up.
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3340096133
At the end you are shown how well you did according to everyone else. However, graph is showing hell knows what. There is no precise indicator how much sequences or gold you or others spent. How many players completed how well this puzzle. The only variable which you can get from that dreadfully made screen is, at what parameters most people fall at and what is the theoretically best solution for a puzzle at hand. It is very hard to know how much precisely you need to improve or knowing that by improving my solution by 5 gold, my place had risen by 3%.

This game seems pretty when shown in gifs.
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3338775330
However, these are end game product from advanced players. In reality, you will be playing this game and there will be next to none elegance. That is more, you will see your mechanism up close with various levers and parts clipping through each other. Height is very poorly done in this game and there is little beauty in its individual parts. It is a case where the whole is more pretty than sum of its parts. Likewise from gameplay perspective, you will just end up frustrated and automating one atom at a time in some heavily improvized solution. So, below 50 hours of playtime, it is just messy. It gets good after 100 hours, just trust me bro.

This game is not perfect and the biggest flaw is in its controls. As others had mentioned, it is indeed pretty god awful. There is no way to replicate controls, no way to shift them in time. In a game which is all about controlling various elements through input line, you would think that it should be well done, but it is in fact the weakest element which will result in frustration and tedium. Delay mechanics, reset mechanics. They all could be expressed more clearly in a bar. Some tools for copy, paste would also had helped me a lot. And there are missing commands. A lot of time you would need to do an unique cycle and then your arm should repeat the same action over and over again. However, repeat command would take everything back to the last repeat command. So, it creates such a mess where you have to repeat same command manually by putting 10 same instructions, because game lacks another function where you could mark the start of the repeat instruction. So, there are still areas for this game to improve.

---

I do consider this to be one of the best Zachtronics games as it is most refined, accessible and enjoyable. Studio loves to border between work/study exercises and an actual puzzle game. They are also formulaic as studio has quite a few games where puzzle consists of moving different elements in a way which would form a new thing. That is a major part of their gaming entries and I believe that Opus Magnum is the best overall game which came out of this developer.

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Calicifer's Reviews

If you are interested reading full review or want to discuss something with me, please follow the provided link. I do not allow endless discussions under my reviews, because it rarely ends well.

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I remember a day when I first tried Plain Sight. I was amazed by mobility which characters had. Back then games were following same template where your character could not jump any more than few centimetres. It will be long before mainstream games would introduce any sort of verticality. In an environment such as this, it is no wonder that Plain Sight was unique, new and exciting to play. This game was one of the original games which I always regretted not playing more back then. After more than a decade, I came out to see how well it stood test of time.

I remember a day when I first tried Plain Sight. I was amazed by mobility which characters had. Back then games were following same template where your character could not jump any more than few centimetres. It will be long before mainstream games would introduce any sort of verticality. In an environment such as this, it is no wonder that Plain Sight was unique, new and exciting to play. This game was one of the original games which I always regretted not playing more back then. After more than a decade, I came out to see how well it stood test of time.

It is dead. It had died long time ago which is not surprising for a multiplayer indie game. This is the major reason why I will be unable to recommend this game. It is dead product which you can only play against bots which are not the brightest bunch. Offline experience is not great. It is one of those games which actively gets better as there are more players in the match.

It is complete sense of freedom, verticality, ability to fly like a ninja robot you are. Combat which is quick and deadly. Unique visual style which is both minimalistic, but also manages to be pretty with high contrast colours.

Verticality
• In this game you can jump, dash and keep on gliding as long as you want and then as a hawk descend on your next victim. You can propel yourself with a basic dash move or with lock on attack.
  
  This is where problems start to arise. In this game maps can get huge. However, there is no active ability to move around. Running is relatively slow. Jumping even with maxed out stats are meant to gain an angle on which to lock on, on enemies. You can't actively move in this game which means that if you are stuck in a calm area or want to relocate yourself, you can't do this on bigger maps. Even on smaller maps, action can stop to a crawl if there is no fighting nearby and you didn't heavily invested into movement abilities. Just jumping through objects, getting over a corner can stall action to a crawl. Too much mobility is given on lock-on mechanism which works only when there are plenty of targets nearby.
  
  Combat
  
• While at first it is fun to fly around, destroying other robots, coming back to this game I had noticed that Plain Sight did not had enough depth in its mechanics to keep me engaged even back then.
  
  The problems start with a lock on. It is so casual friendly that you do not even need to aim, you will automatically lock on target and will be able to kill an enemy player. It is so easy to do that anyone can play this game well just by spamming left mouse button. Counterplay depth is a lot harder to pull of. In some modes this is so broken that mindlessly spamming your attack button is the best option. In Godzilla mode, your height messes up your targeting which allows you to lock on, on any nearby enemy. This means that you are just auto-killing all bots nearby.
  
  Auto lock mechanic in this game is one which actually feels like it should be last unlockable upgrade. Game does not have depth and thus it does not have longevity. It is a fun game for a while to fly with funny looking robots everywhere. You get bored quite quickly, because there are no mechanics to master in this game. It is all so simplistic, automatic. Player should be able to charge an attack and go in the direction it wants according to how long he had charged his attack. Upgrades would enchant this basic gameplay mechanic like being able to control direction in which you are going, be able to stop yourself in a middle of an attack, etc.

Shields
• The problem with shield mechanic is that it is not given to a player by default. They require you to precisely time them, immobilise yourself and often window of opportunity is so small that player will not have time to react if he even sees attack coming. This mechanic also duplicates with simply attacking other player. It is a lot quicker, guaranteed and it may yield you a kill. If two players collide during an attack, they each block each other's strikes. Why this mechanic is here is a mystery.
  
  Upgrades
  
• Upgrades are plain boring most of a time. Like running speed increase which feels like it should be part of a base character. Mega perks are so hard to unlock that you need to do well in a match and you will be able to unlock one mega perk at the end of a game. Entire upgrade tree feels like missing opportunity. A lot of power is baked into default character which feels like it should be an upgrade. Most of the upgrades are plain boring, but some specific unlocks are a lot better than the others. It is disbalanced, boring and lacking a direction. It is a system which could not be in the game and nobody would shed a tear for its loss.
  
  Score system
  
• It is an interesting and unique way to evaluate players. It is fun and interactive. You know how squishy you are, you know that you are at risk of dying at any moment. You need to get close to an enemy, open up yourself to an attack in hopes of blowing them up with you. System is great and fun, however it is quite flawed.
  
  First of all, there is no way of scoring points without exploding and to explode you need quite a long killing streak or to steal that streak from someone else. Another issue is that in order to get points you need to catch players in your blast. The problem here is that any player acts as a multiplier. Given the difficulty in achieving this, game is all about one player getting a lucky detonation and him winning a first place with no way of coming back to this game. Game is decided just by sheer luck from one detonation.
  
  Furthermore, detonation in itself is visually unclear. You can't tell if player is exploding and you can dash right into it without you knowing what you are doing.
  
  Perk system
  
• This is something which seems broken in this game. There are 9 different perks which you can take, however they are never active. There doesn't seem an option to activate them. You just pick them, you have them on GUI and they do not do anything. Some of them would be pretty obvious like flaming swords, but I never saw them activated. This entire system seems to be broken from a get go, being either literally broken or so obtuse and rarely activated that it might as well not exist.

Game was great at its time. Looking at it in 2022, game seems primitive. Some systems are either be broken or straight up do work. It could not survive long with a healthy multiplayer community, because its combat system is too primitive to offer anything more than a passing fancy. There is nothing here to master, there is nothing here which would give this game staying power.

Developer mentioned that they are slowly developing Plain Sight 2. If it wants to strike the lighting twice, they will need to do a lot more than release a remastered version of Plain Sight. They need a full remake, taking parts of what made Plain Sight 1 so appealing and heavily improving on its weak underlying fundamentals.

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Highfleet is an interesting mix of an arcade shooter and a military mix. It has good atmosphere, presentation, but falls short on playability. It is a good game which is worthy of your time if you can handle steep learning curve and military jargon.

What to look for in this game

Conversation system

It is an unique and interesting system. I consider it to be among the best in gaming industry even when compared to story heavy games.

Dialogue
• This system is very interesting and feels a lot less gamey than in many other games, including RPG games focused on story lines like Mass Effect. Conversation system is about trying to convince other princes to join you. You have to try and figure out what they like and what they do not. You can get yourself an edge with gifts acquired throughout your campaign which is a nice touch.
  
  This is where game starts to show its limitations. You do not know what each person likes and the only way to find out is a hard one. In reality you would have advisors telling you that an individual is known for. An ability to get clues about person's world views. However in this game all of this remain guess work.
  
  There is a good example in this game. One of a random in-game conversation is downright ridiculous and very arbitrary. One of the princes had asked to translate holy text to him. I had translated it was written. He get upset at me and left. Just why? This is not how humans behave. At most I should get opinion penalty with him and bonus to my worldview stats.
  
  Worldview
  
• Your world view is formed by actions which you take throughout the campaign. There is no arbitrary good/bad karma here. You can be cruel and be rewarded for it realistically. You will only be known as cruel and in return, you won't be able to take kind decisions in conversations.
  
  Skill checks are based on your worldview, if you are always picking some options like being cruel, when a conversation skill check comes for a cruel action, you will automatically pass that, because you are naturally cruel. If you try to balance your character, it will be a chance based roll. The more heavily you lean into that trait, the better are chances to convince others of your worldview. This system is leagues ahead of most conversation systems in other games.
  
  Sadly, worldview forces you to a certain view rather than allowing you to be neutral and excel at having a neutral worldview. In other words, it is always best to min/max your attitude on the world. Be as bias as possible!

Presentation

Good looking people usually are shallow.

Graphical User Interface
• Game excels in its presentation. GUI itself is immersive and represents a cockpit of a military vehicle. Lift up sounds, screen shaking, missile detection. All of these sounds and effects create an impression that you are in a cabin behind a real ship. At the same time game tends to clog up your screen with no way to hide it. It is especially noticeable when resolution on a main screen is small and you can't zoom in at all.
  
  Visual Effects
  
• Game does its own effects well. Thrusters feel powerful when you land, spewing flames like a dragon's fire. High caliber ammunition thunders from your barrels and sends enemy ships to hell, lost in ensuing explosion which obscures their ship. When small caliber guns fire, it fills the air with lead. When missiles explode, they explode violently. When nuke is coming, you are afraid of it. Nothing in this game feels as half done. Effects are wonderfully presented visually.
  
  Sound
  
• All of this is followed by a sound. When nukes drop, an air siren plays. It creates an atmosphere of impending danger. Guns have their own appropriate sounds, from small caliber high frequency buzzing to thunderous roar of 180 mm artillery guns. Engines roar as they try to slow down your descent or are trying to lift your ship into the air.
  
  War crimes
  
• Game has a clever way to discourage use of nukes. It is most potent weapon, able to annihilate whole enemy groups with one strike. Once you start using them, enemy will nuke you in return with far greater arsenal. Use of nukes against civilian targets label you as a war criminal and will make cities unusable to you as a waypoint except for refuelling.
  
  War crime system in this game is broken and does not make any sense. Enemy will consistently nuke you on their own after a certain period. However, their nukes do not destroy the city. They do not get penalties or do not care that they are destroying their own world consistently. However, if you just dear to respond in kind, you will be labelled as a war criminal. Just what? This world is undergoing nuclear winter. It is going through one sided nuclear exchange. Yet here we are lead to believe that we are bad guys for responding in kind?

This game is notoriously difficult to learn. One person told me that he had spent 20 hours just learning. Underlying mechanics under the HUD are simple, but you will have to learn it in the worse way possible.

Tutorial
• You will be thrown right into tutorial as you start the game. It is good one. It is an actual part of the story which helps you to learn the ropes. However, it only tells you the basics before throwing you into the world to die. Prologue needs to be expanded and be its own part of a game. A mini campaign which would introduce everything to you. As it stands now, game practically leaves you clueless.
  
  Tutorial has pop up events where admiral shows you what most buttons do when you might need them, but he does not tell us why we should use them, only how. This leaves a game where you know how to get around, but have no clue of underlying mechanics below the surface level.
  
  It is a shame also since developer had proven that he can make a good tutorial. Prologue could be expanded to its own full blown mini-campaign in which player is introduced to each mechanic one by one while at the same time being engaged in a main story line and dialogue. Game could be so much better and remove its main obstacle of entry. However, I doubt that developer is open to an actual feedback on his game.
  
  Barren Tooltips
  
• Game leans heavily on a military sim aspects. It shuns its arcade roots and tries to be taken as something else. Unfortunately, it severely lacks any meaningful information. Tooltips often do not crucial information like:
  
  
  1. What is a range of warhead?
     
  2. What is its payload?
     
  3. What is reload rate of a weapon?
     
  4. What is armor piercing qualities?
     
  5. What is heat signature of your fleet?
     
  6. What is a radar cross section of your fleet?
  
  Basic information like this is left out of reach for a player. It tries to be something it is not and ends up only confusing most of its player base. If it wants to be a nice dumb arcade rogue light, it is fine. However, when you start mixing in military simulation and ship design into the mix, this information becomes crucial to see in game rather than to theory-craft and datamine your way to something as simple as tooltip information

This game tries to be a military simulator to its own detriment. Mechanics which it does introduce often end up confusing the player. At the same time these mechanics do not provide much gameplay depth as game likes to make each element more of a minigame than innate element of gameplay.

As a simulator it is wholefully inadequate. This only serves to make this game more obtuse and to alienate its more casual audience who are looking for an arcade game. Game misses on a lot of key aspects in making it easy to learn and in creating meaningful mechanics.

A Hybrid
• Game tries to be many things. A military sim, arcade tank shooter, rogue-light game. Such wide range of identities means that this game does not do either thing well. As a military sim, it is quite bare, lacking on details and proper simulations. As an arcade game it is too complex and will cause only confusion and frustration to an average player. As a rogue-light game, it suffers from ship building aspect which completely trivialise the challenge as people min/max in game mechanics. Furthermore, abrupt shift towards completely different kind of a gameplay and the last part will throw most people off balance. Neither in-game systems support such kind of gameplay. For example, no control over towns you own, no ability to track enemy fleet in a wide radius and to prevent them from nuking you besides blind luck or bad AI.
  
  Dramatic shift in gameplay
  
• Game changes drastically when you finally reach Khiva. From a hit and run piracy you become a pseudo ruler. This is in no way reflected in game mechanics remain the same and what is new is poorly explained. It is done so bad that you do not even get a chance to re-arm and repair your ships after a though battle. This leaves you in a scenario where you asked to expand quickly and engage enemy groups, but you cannot.
  
  There is no reflection that you now own cities. They do not report enemy positions. You do not get to leave a garrison. You cannot effectively monitor vast distances involved in protecting the capital. On the other hand, enemies spawn with nuclear strike capable ships just few towns away. You are put on a wild chase to capture those towns and find those strike groups. However, there is no possible way to ensure that non of those ships slip past the blockade. You do not have time. You do not have space. You do not have any in-game mechanics to aid you in this quest. Game becomes more about luck and bad AI who forgets to nuke Khiva.
  
  Game is also bugged at this point. Story tells you how you should not let battle groups to nuke the city. For this you need to secure points around Khiva. You are even given health meter. However, enemies never nuke their own objective. Even when nukes are flying into the city, it just does not take any damage.
  
  Finale
  
• Finale is just bad. Instead of just winning after reaching the end, you are instead are given completely different set to rules to play with. This game is confused on what it wants to be. It wants to be an arcade game. It wants to be a military simulation. It wants to be a rogue-light. However, it does all of these things worse than what you expect from each of these games. It is a confused love child of a developer which made a game for himself just the way he likes it.
  
  Radio Transmissions
  
• These are random in-game generated transmissions which appear at certain points. You can't organically acquire them and tailor your strategy to traffic chatter. This makes them quite pointless, especially as there is a massive amount of useless information available. How I'm supposed to track a merchant when I get single transmission of where he roughly is? Often you do not even get its route.
  
  Messages itself are made more useless as some parts of them are just cut, often key parts which are most important. Just why? I had never seen a game which introduces a mechanic and then goes out of its way to make that mechanic pointless. Even signal itself is imprecise, there is no strength given, bearing is only an estimate. You are supposed to mark that information on your screen, but when you can't get any precise information about the target, it might as well be a guess work. You make a mental note of where everyone is and it is as good as this in game mechanic with radio, pen and pencil gets.
  
  What radio transmission lack are strength of a transmission in order to specify how far away target is. Game needs to represent Doppler effect in order to get movement of a target. You also need to get those traffic messages organically, set list of radio waves which military and truckers use. As of now, this mechanic is quite pointless in this game. The only time it helps is when a trucker outright says where it is going. Same applies to strike groups. All the other messages are useless. There is no reason to draw their trajectories as you do not get enough information for that, just make a mental note and you are as good as you can get.
  
  Radar/ELINT
  
• System on a whole is quite good. Sadly, it is not detailed at all which makes this system very vague and less useful than it could be. There are just some issues with it:
  
  
  • You cannot get precise bearing on an object.
    
  • You cannot get its signal strength.
    
  • ELINT danger is too vague.
  
  Game lacks relevant information to make radar interplay relevant. In addition, as a game is largely dependent on close encounters, radar in itself is quite useless. Enemy will either close in or fire ballistic missiles at you.
  
  There is no intermediary range combat nor anti-missile defence systems. Ballistic missiles (a lot of them are called as cruise missiles despite them having range of a ballistic missiles) have insane range and then you are armed just with regular missiles which range in this game is pathetic. You lack cruise missiles which would serve as a bridge between short and long range weaponary and would allow radar to be more useful overall. It would not be an understatement to call radar useless in this game, just use target acquisition radar and forget about search radar all together.
  
  Infrared detection system
  
• Talk about radar being useless! This little fellow does not even work properly. Its HUD element does not show enemies on screen, just gives you a warning about them. As a radar, it lacks any meaningful detail to be useful. Weather conditions, clouds, heat signature, etc. In this game infrared system is just your basic vision. In this game most missiles are supposed to be infrared, but there is a complete lack of interaction between their seekers and your fleet or an environment.
  
  Trigger happy AI
  
• AI in this game is completely unrealistic. It fires on any radar signature a heat seeking ballistic missile. This means that in this world militaries are blowing up radio stations, radio enthusiasts, planes and anything in between out of the sky for use of a radio. Worse, they fire massive heat seeking ballistic missiles at a range of ten of thousand of kilometres. They are routinely blowing up their own infrastructure and commerce with their own armaments. This also contributes to an unrealistic atmosphere where game is solely about you and them and it is painfully obvious that this is not a living world.

In any game will be made a lot better where you can actually design your own units. Highfleet is not an exception to that. Though, I do have a nagging suspicion that developer's favourite food is spaghetti as you could judge from his code in this mode. Engine is bugged, often not creating right elevations for your guns. Other times it fails to connect wiring to your parts. Doing the exact same thing somehow manages to fix all the issues.

2+2=3?
• Another problem is with developer's math. A lot of parts are of inconsistent weight. Going by 1x1 cubes is a lot better since they have more hitpoints, but slightly lower weight. They accept any item as 2x1 block would do. Furthermore, they have an added advantage of sucking up more damage than bigger blocks. The issue is that this game does not simulate or represents penetration mechanics. A hit is a hit and it destroys a module. If there is more damage than module has health, all that damage just disappears.
  
  This creates an unrealistic and tedious gameplay environment where you have to put countless small modules rather than using bigger modules.
  
  Min/maxing
  
• Ship building in general is cheesy and heavily promotes min/maxing. Partly, because your support ships will never be in combat. Only defending against missile strikes. This means that the only thing which people bother to add are 37 mm autocannons for point blank defence against missiles.
  
  https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2717747526
  https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2717747323
  
  Another issue is that game was balanced around very poorly made base ships. Game is hard then, but once you make your own custom ships, you can trivialise whole campaign. Due to primitive in game combat and primitive ship builder, game heavily incentivises to build min/max'ed ships. There are just my very first attempts, but they are already superior to many ships I saw in-game or online. They could be even better if I would take away minimal precautions which I had given to them.
  
  Arcade builder
  
• Another issue is that the whole ship building aspect is primitive. It does not consider construction strength and thus you can put thousands of tons on 1x1 aluminium block and it will do just fine. Or how planes requires just a flat surface to be placed. This means that any ship can be a carrier as long as it has some unused flat space on its surface. From smallest frigates to biggest battleships. There is no consideration for your ammo storage. It is all free and infinite. There is no need for reloading systems. There is no need for storage space for your aircraft. There is no need for runway length for your aircraft. There is no structural strength requirements. Since in-game system is so primitive as not to require underbelly hangars or runaways, you can take smallest interceptor, add a jet fighter on its head and this will work just fine. Ship building in this game is just ridiculous.

Game is lacking many quality of life features. Clicking in an interface is tricky. You can't easily place a part, you can't mirror your ship in ship builder, you cant re-arm your ship in a shipworks without changing design of a ship. So prepare to see plenty of this in your playthroughs:

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2717956962

This issue is caused by inability to quickly re-arm your ship in game or to prioritise repairs of most pressing parts. You then have to do this manually and each time you will be required to save a new blueprint even if all you did was to put another ballistic missile into the tube.

In this example, you can't move highlighted ship around. You also cannot freely move camera upwards then zoomed. This means that sometimes your ship will go beyond borders of what you are seeing.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2717748945


Bugs, bugs, bugs everywhere. This game has bugs for days! Despite several last patches were focused on refining and debugging this game, it still have them a plenty. Especially in ship building menu.

Spotting Bug

Game actually has a quite nasty spotting bug. When you are being detected by town garrison, your location will be broadcasted. However, AI do not just receive your position. It sees you quite some time afterwards. This raises issues if there are missile carriers nearby they will launch ballistic missile strikes one after another right on your precise location. It does not matter where you try to run, how you try to dodge, missiles will always come straight at you until AI uses up its ammunition and your position becomes invisible to it after some time.

In order to recreate it, just have missile carrier nearby and get detected by the garrison. After that get attacked by missile carrier. Then 'atl+f4', do the same action, but after being detected, move to completely different direction. AI will always know the direction which your ships are going. This way you can see that AI is cheating in this game.

Hull connection bug

This is a bug where your ship just fails to register a viable connection to other elements of a hull. It tends to happen when you briefly disconnect something.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2717748178

The solution to fix this is bug is simply trying to connect modules again. Remove random objects at the area which fails to be detected and try to connect it again.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2717748277

Inability to place objects into the hull

Sometimes shipworks will bug out and you will be unable to put modules into the hull which you should be able to.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2717747826

The solution is simply to remove surrounding modules. Maybe shift order in which you add those modules. Eventually you will be able to add them.

Wiring bug

Game is inconsistent. Sometimes it won't allow you to wire through objects, sometimes it will. Previously I was not allowed to put turret here, because it had no electricity/ammo. I changed absolutely nothing, just kept trying the same thing just removing and adding those modules again in their original places until I was able to solve this bug.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2717747115

Firing Arc bug

There is a bug where firing arcs of your guns are inconsistently generated. Sometimes they will be generated correctly, sometimes other objects will get in their way. Here my autocannon cannot shoot past another gun.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2717746374

I changed absolutely nothing and now all my weapons can fire past each other.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2717746255

Inconsistent behaviour

Here you can see that shipworks can wire electricity through missile tubes and engines. This is counter intuitive as electricity should not be wired through objects, but only through free hull elements.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2717748667

(How fitting is that a bug about inconsistent behaviour gets a bug from Steam itself which fails to properly portray a link as it should)


This game has an outstanding visual representation which punches way above its weight. Amorphism of various HUD elements into its real life analogues adds to an atmosphere. Weather effects, landing under difficult conditions, high caliber impacts. These things are amazingly presented in this game. Game has a lot to offer to a dedicated gamer as it has a lot of depth in its mechanical gameplay. It will take many hours just to learn how to play just by following tutorials online. Then you have dozen hours long campaign and shipworks adds a lot of replayability to the main game mode. To select few, it will be a matter on making the best ship designs online.

To everyone else, I can't recommend this game. I did not had fun in this game. Game does a very poor job introducing player in its own gameplay. Vanilla ships often are extremely bad. Sevastapool (Your vanilla flagship) is actually so bad that many consider it to be a main factor why campaign is so difficult in a first place. If you are someone who wants to just have fun with its game, this is not it. You are looking at, at least 20 hours learning curve. Afterwards in-game mechanics become just tiresome.