Recent reviews by Arctos

It's a vibe

Absolutely loved the first game, and this sequel understands what made the first one great, and built on it. Fantastic job.

Sweet simple game, a lot of fun, quick to pick up, addictive gameplay loop. Time for you to stop reading reviews and buy it for yourself.

Phenomenal smol world game experience. The unboxing of the game as you play it keeps it from being too much all at once, as well as a sense of accomplishment.

The puzzle-y assembly of the buildings, and arranging and rearranging them to get the most out of them. Well worth the price tag, if anything, it's slightly underpriced for the amount of content and quality.

This is a pure experience that dances with the nostalgic vibe.

*Chefs kiss*

Considering it's an early access game, I had my reservations that it'd be just the outline of a WIP... but after about 16 hours, I feel comfortable sharing, the game feels like Factorio + Satisfactory + No Man's Sky:
The Factorio bones are there. Compact logistical interweaving. Inputs and intermediaries. Third-person building. You have a singular end-game goal. Launch the rocket // build the Dyson Sphere.

Satisfactory ratchets down the scale from Factorio's 100k's down to 100's it adds 3D first-person, exploration. Advancement is tier-based, not tree-based.

It's got the cosmic feel of No Man's Sky, it feels big and expansive. You spend time and invest in a planet, which is what I wished No Man's Sky did more of, jumping from system to system is cool, there's a sense of awe that feels like looking at the night-sky... I just wished there was more of a reason to establish roots. A lot of No Man's Sky is auxiliary gameplay, which as an exploration game, makes sense. Still wish planets had topography maps, and a reason to chart them.

DSP feels like a hybrid. The scale is finer than Satisfactory, I haven't gotten far enough to know how it scales compares to Factorio. You've got freedom to build on the entire spherical planet. Not just your starting planet, but every planet in your solar system, each planet has different native resources to exploit. Certain buildings stack, like storage and labs, conveyor belts can be built at different heights, and interwoven like some spaghetti nightmare.

Dev's currently claim it's got 50-100 hours of content, and at the $18-20 price tag... if you like either of the factory building games above, I'd highly recommend checking it out.

I realllllly like this game, the gameplay is simple, engaging, and challenging. I've spent +30 hours, and haven't completed a mission yet, I've gotten close.

The music alone keeps me coming back,

How quickly a game can spiral out of control, the roguelike gameplay keeps my RTS skills honest.

It's a gem, and it's only getting further polished.

This scratches my gaming itch in so many places: Effenciency/effectiveness planning and optimization, quality trade-offs, tycoon flavored, logistics puzzle game.

It's a great game to play while sipping a cuppa coffee.

Cons: Buying/selling/relocating structures controls is kinda wonky, as such you can mess up the placement for a conveyer belt and have to re-lay it.

Just completed the game.

I had a lot of fun, the game progresses nicely, the story and writing was enjoyable. The fact that I had to replay a few missions to mean meant the difficulty was well struck.

I generally don't play a game more than once, but the replayability here might be high enough that I might pick it back up in a few weeks.

8/10 -- Two points of feedback, the crafting system is largely RNG, and felt underpowered in comparison to the shop purchases. There were also some crafting metrics that I didn't exactly follow: "Crafting Rate"? not entirely clear what it affects? Drop rate? Crafting power?

Challenging and Engaging. A lot of my favorite games lately have been more casual. Nothing more than an hour per session, max. First time I beat the game, the timer read 60 minutes on the nose.

Risk of Rain meets those requirements. It has a lot of unique action-exploration with each play through bringing something unique to the game. Building yourself into a Juggernaut. Unlocking new characters, exploring new unlocks.

It's been some solid Gameplay, only issues have been the occasional bug, and I haven't gotten remote co-op to work, and some UI aspects could use some additional attention.