Starmancer Early access

 It's a start, certainly.

Up there amidst the endless black, around blinking quasars and drooping nebulae, drifts a single lone entity, a derelict space station; inhabits being a single lonely AI and an Ark full of human DNA to clone and do with as it pleases. There, in the simpliest nutshell imaginable, is my explanation for what Starmancer promises to the player, and probably what drew me in those past two years ago when I happened across it. Seems I have an eye for these Star-based products that are spawned in early access with wild dreams and a song in their hearts. I remember another story I came across was that of Starbound, a side-scrolling building adventure game set in space that seemed to be trying to be the 'next step up' from Terraria, but never quite seemed to nail the execution. When last I played it, Starbound was slowly receiving new modes and systems that didn't really effect the core experience all that much, and then the team just went silent. (Presumably to move on to bigger and better things) So I'll coming into the early access field I am a little cautious, I haven't be burned as bad as some others (Starbound's final version is still a great game I've spent 100 of hours with) but now I know that even success-bound projects can have their final ultimate drawbacks.

Thus Starmancer would have had to do something really special to get my attention, no? Well, they let me play the thing, and that actually helped a great deal in deciding if this was worth my time. Yes, back when Steam did their 'Summer of play demos for upcoming games', Starmancer was one of the games that went for the bait, and even with the hour-or-so I had with the game I could tell it was the sort of thing I'd love. Born from the genre of games that bought us Dwarf Fortress and Dungeon Keeper, Starmancer is the sort of game about managing clones of humans to build and sustain a space station whilst dealing with the basics like making sure the oxygen is running, wiring up and then keeping power systems connected, ensuring that rooms don't freeze their occupants to death, and maybe fending off the odd Space zombie that winds up on your station. It was pure sandbox, very intuitive, and sported a totally gorgeous flat pixel aesthetic that rotated perfectly to always face the camera. How could I not fall in love?

From there I did learn that the game was made by only 2 people, which came with it's own share of optimism and worries. On the most obvious half of things, it's only two people: How can you expect the best outcome from that? Most sandbox games take entire dedicated teams of people who live and breathe their game to come together in a coherent way, but Starmancer expects to sail by on a tiny team like that? But then I find myself thinking to Stardew Valley, a fantastic and great game, which was born from but one person. Kenshi, a labour of love from a single man. Don't Starve, Bastion, Super Meat Boy, Cuphead; sometimes it just takes someone who really cares about the genre they're working with in order to nail the execution on a game. Give them the time and enough materials and they will build that game they promise, they're passion driven. Of course, such projects need the right two people working on them, but confidence is an apt shield to hide behind when I ponder how anyone could start a project with this much passion and not be dedicated? (Blind optimism? You betcha!)

In the time since then I've been trying to keep uncharacteristically out of the affairs of the game itself so that I might gauge the game fresh when it arrives, whenever that may be. I kept an ear out, but turned my attentions elsewhere, hoping onto the Steam page every few months and so to make sure there wasn't any 'surprise announcement' that I would have missed out on simply by having my attentions elsewhere. But as it just so happens I needn't have bothered. A game that was revealed during an E3 event was hardly going to miss dropping that release date outside of E3, and I whooped in giddily surprise when I saw that title make it's surprise drop-by with that news I was waiting for. Finally I would have the chance to see the game that blossomed out of that promising demo. And so needless to say, I picked up Starmancer Day 1, something I hadn't done since Persona 4 Golden on PC. But have I fallen quite so hardly in love as I did with Persona?

Not yet, truth be told. Not even nearly. Whilst the game did live up to everything I saw in that first demo and a little bit more, it hasn't really ballooned into a game with a solid direction to it yet, and that's something you feel right from the get-go. Yes, there's a threadbare story that acts like a tutorial, but when it comes to the main gameplay loop of building your base, there's no endgame state to shoot for. Which makes sense how everything wouldn't be laid out yet, of course, this game released in early access; but I'm just having trouble seeing the vision I'm supposed to be excited for. As it is I've played less than 10 hours and am having trouble really seeing what to keep coming back to the game for. I mean I love the art, and building up by station with the necessary systems and trip breakers so that one mistake doesn't cripple the whole base is pretty fun; but where's my draw? I'm waiting for that to be answered with bated breath, and a little bit of crossed fingers too. 

Aside from the basic, yet functional nature of the game, is a lot of non-functionality as well; meaning bugs, bugs, bugs galore. Or at least that's what I'm told, as a vast majority of the horrific issues that have been crippling people's ability to enjoy this game on even the most basic level have totally flown past me. I guess I'm just lucky. Reports have come out of the game crashing all over the place, AI falling apart, leaving the airlock without putting on a spacesuit. (I actually did spot that happening once. But it wasn't as funny as that sounds, the guy just went about his business as though he was equipped) I've seen, at worst, a bug where a power-draining insect couldn't be engaged by my crew, and so it kept draining power for days without being touched until I literally just re-routed the system around the damn thing. My issues are more fundamental, such as how the ice-mining system is supposed to work beyond just dumping ice on the ground and waiting for it to dethaw, or how specific jobs are meant to be assigned beyond just setting 'priorities' and praying the game picks up what you want them to do.

What concerns me right now isn't the idea that this game will need to improve, that much is obvious and I have the patience to wait and see this flower blossom, it's more what future a game like this could shoot for, because I'm not overly familiar with the genre in question. The roadmap has some details upon it such as adding factions and tools of defence, will will certainly work towards fleshing out the world and adding purpose to building in defending from the outside, but I feel like these sorts of games benefit from having internal goals too, not to keep things complicated but to motivate the player beyond "I need to keep living because if I don't then I won't be alive anymore." I was personally thinking of something that leaned into the 'evil AI' concept a bit more, like perhaps some advanced shady research you could trick your crew into working towards, like advanced genetic research to grow up some abominations. Just real messed-up stuff like that to keep the players invested in something other than constant expansion and defence. (But I'm talking literal end-of-development, 1.0, stuff here, for now we could use something just basic and simpler for the health of the game)

As with any Early Access title, jumping on right now is starting on the road to a finished product and not buying one outright, so going in expecting a totally fleshed-out experience is really just setting oneself up for disaster. For a sandbox, however, I would envision just a little more in the realms of replayability at this stage, and lacking that does encourage an eyebrow raised, if not genuine concern being seeded. But a smaller, indie game, that doesn't even cost a whole lot; I'm willing to give a lot of wiggle room and jump back on the game from time to time to see if I can't make my own fun with messing around and punking my space crew, the way that any self-respecting AI would. But would I recommend jumping into Starmancer at this stage? Not especially, unless you'll happy to support a small team and want to see the best out of them, because the product in question might not be worth the price of admission alone, at least not yet. I will be keeping myself, and maybe even this blog, updated however; I'm sticking till the end with this one.

I played the demo (Alpha) for Starmancer

Feeling closer to the stars

Hardly a week back, Steam decided to do something very interesting in order to piggyback off of the 'completely online' E3 that we found ourselves dealing with. Taking the advice and example from last year's VGA's, E3 decided to actually bite the bullet and reach out to smaller indie devs in the hope that they could provide their platform with E3 exclusive demos. That's right, the age of demo's are back ladies and gentleman! I remember those evenings of yore spent browsing through countless snippets of titles you'd never quite forsee, all the time experiencing gameplay that you'd never expect. Of course, back then it was mostly for title that were firmly out, what we're looking at today is even more bizarre than that; this are in-development titles that have conjured some mid-dev vertical slice for the public to try out. Truly it's an odd situation, but one I encourage greatly and hope really catches on for future E3s. (What's cooler than actually getting to play these games?)

Through this I was able to try some games that I've had my eye on and others which just caught it, such as this one title which was published by a studio with whom I'm quite familiar; Chucklefish. (The guys who published 'Starbound' and 'Stardew Valley') Now I'm always up for a romp through a pixel-rocking title (which is odd considering how condescending I typically find that 'faux-retro' aesthetic) so when I saw the ominous, almost horror-esque, flash card for a title called 'Starmancer', I immediately downloaded the demo with no questions asked and no idea what I was getting into. Which is yet another cool thing about embracing the world of demos, jumping into something without extensive prior research is usually a sure recipe for buyers remorse, yet that robs some of the mysterious fun of picking up something wild that surprises you. Point in case, I downloaded this title expecting some sort of space-gothic Metroidvania; and that was absolutely so far afield of this game that it likely touched down on another continent.

Starmancer is a pixel-styled space-station building title that, according to the Steam, was built by a team of two people using Unity. With that in mind, I must say that I'm quite impressed with what they achieved (Aside from the way that the fullscreen kept clicking off but I'll choose to blame that on Unity) It's a game in the style of 'Prison Architect' or, in their own words, 'Dwarf Fortress'. (Personally I've never played Dwarf Fortress so I'll have to defer to their expertise on that matter.) That is to say, the core loop of the gameplay is based around slowly expanding your operations and the scope of your base whilst managing the various needs and wants of your buildings/staff. In this way the game both resembles this sort of dynamic puzzle element of solving management issues and this creative side of creating an entire station completely to your own whims.

In terms of story, the game takes place after some catastrophe on Earth has forced humanity into the stars in order to fair their best amidst the cosmos. You take control of an AI assigned to lead this effort and ensure the survival of the Human race, maybe, your really left to your own devices at that point as far as I can tell. (I am really curious about how much of a malevolent AI you're capable of becoming.) Humanity have gone full SOMA and uploaded their consciousnesses to your artificial systems so that you can grow their archetypes from scratch in a manner reminiscent of 'Oxygen Not Included'. Of course, building and sustaining a new space station home is just the beginning of your work and, as the trailer hints, the later game will require the handling of situations largely outside of the AI's control such as invasions from roaming space-pirates. (Avast!)

The demo, however, contained none of that as it was only the opening hour of gameplay, that being said I still played enough to get a general feel of what things were like and to become hopeless addicted to a title that doesn't even have a prospective release date. (Darn) As I implied I have played this sort of game before in 'Prison Architect' and I have seen enough of 'Oxygen Not Included' and 'Rim World' to roughly recognise the ins and outs of this genre. So what does 'Starmancer' have that those games are slightly lacking on? Well, accessibility; at least based on the little I have tried of the game so far. Some of those games, 'Prison Architect' in particular, have this tendency of drowning the player in information overload to the point where the actual meat of the game becomes difficult to just pick up and play. Master that difficulty and you'll have lots of fun, to be sure, but that's still an initial hurdle to overcome. Starmancer, on the otherhand, was straight forward. To the point where I could pick up the ins and outs within a single hour time limit. (Something I never imagined would be the case for a game like this.)

The controls and tasks at hand at incredibly simple and easy to learn. You have to maintain your power and bio levels at the beginning of the game, with water and fuel becoming a factor as you start to expand. The trick comes in hitting that sweet spot where you can keep your residents fed and productive whilst growing out the base and ensuring that the power doesn't cut out. (Because if it does, so does the life support.) The basic act of designing the layout, expanding, laying cable and (I imagine) isolating sectors from the grid, (I didn't get to play long enough to achieve that glorious moment) is all the basic fun of these games wrapped up in a nutshell. For those who get excited about the idea of planning and reiterating to find what suits them, this is exactly the sort of game up your alley and I cannot recommend it enough. What kept me coming back again and again to this demo, however, was the challenge of balancing everything when it could all fall apart due to a single blunder. Several times I managed to completely wipe out my station by suffocating everyone. (And most of the times it was an accident. That other time they really did deserve it.) I can only imagine how this might expand and develop as more factors are wound into the equation, as is the promise of that eventual final release.

Any gripes I had with the overall experience are honestly minimal, even more so considering that this is apparently being worked on by a team of two. All I can really say is that I feel the HUD could use a bit more work in order to feed information a bit easier, (It took forever for me to realise how much energy I had at my disposal) and maybe there could be some sort of map with icons included to get a quick overview of your base at a glance. Again, this wasn't really an issue in the short demo but I can imagine things getting a little confusing in a full game. But all these complaints are based on an Alpha for game that is months, maybe even years off, so it's likely that the team already know and have plans for all of it. Personally, I just can't wait for this title to get fully realised so that I can get a proper session with it; the promise of randomly generated factions and universes holds quite the allure for the stubborn endurist like me. (Excluding that one game of Stellaris where I got mauled by my neighbouring empire right out of the gate. Which was also my first game of Stellaris. That was uncalled for and I still have that save file so I'll return someday. Don't hold it against me.)

Already I have to say that I positively adore this new initiative, whether it be a product of the E3 staff or just Steam's prerogative. (I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this was more Steam.) Finally this is a system that allows those smaller titles to really stand out and connect with an audience in a very personal and unique way. Point in case; I'd never heard of Starmancer and might never of until this event, and now I'm an excited fan who's ready to buy that full game as soon as possible, all because of these demo days! It's rare when I have something so unilaterally good to say about somewhere the industrious gaming landscape is trending, but this is one of those exceptional moments of clarity. Keep this up, Steam. And keep up Starmancer, Ominux Games, I can't wait to see what becomes of it.