Steamworld Build

[Carpet_pissr]

Anyone playing? I see a lot of people have it on their wishlist...currently available for download on Gamepass.

I'm downloading now and will come back later with impressions. Not looking great in terms of reviews (74 so far on Metacritic), and literally 85% of the Steam reviews seem to have been written by bots, all using the same phrases and referring to Anno (not kidding, probably 80% of the current reviews mention "Anno").

Edit: Way too early impressions:
I've briefly (VERY briefly) played a couple of games in the Steamworld universe previously, and I'm pretty ambivalent on the whole thing. This feels a little cutesier than the others maybe, almost kiddie like. It's definitely a walker so far, but Anno this ain't (again, so far, this is very early).

I know there are a few walker/builder fans out there, so heads up for youse guys. If you can stomach the saccharin feel, this might be of interest. Personally, if the game mechanics are enough fun, I can get past any veneer that's not my cup of tea (Theme Hospital's silliness, for one, and its two modern equivalents (Two Point Hospital and Campus). Love all three of those games (LOVE), but the over the top gags are not really my cup o' tea. So if the gameplay is good in this, I have no problem tolerating exceedingly cheerful robot...cowboys.

[coopasonic]

Kid and I are pretty deep in a fresh Valheim run, but I will likely give this a try later on, when I'm bored on Christmas break. I saw a bit of gameplay on twitch and it looked interesting and I've liked the other steamworld games though they are all different so it doesn't mean this will be anything similar other than theme.

[Carpet_pissr]

Kid and I are pretty deep in a fresh Valheim run, but I will likely give this a try later on, when I'm bored on Christmas break. I saw a bit of gameplay on twitch and it looked interesting and I've liked the other steamworld games though they are all different so it doesn't mean this will be anything similar other than theme.

How do you play Valheim with him/her, co-operatively? I just bought it on sale a couple days ago and would love to play with my son. I'm on PC and he's on Xbox. We have a laptop and another desktop, both with pretty low end video cards, so not sure how, logistically, we could play together. If it matters just last night we decided to take the PS4 Pro out of the garage and hook it up in our main living area, so that could be another option if cross play, or whatever you call it, is possible. Cross...platform I guess.

Edit: thanks for appropriately moving this to the Valheim thread

[jztemple2]

First of all, for those who don't want to have to go search the Steam store:



It is also on sale, at a deeper discount, on Green Man Gaming... oops, no it's not, it is now out of stock at GMG . Sheesh, I just got that email an hour ago.

Anyway it might be a bit too cutesy for me too (my taste might run more towards Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic), but I do like a good colony builder. I'll wait for further impressions from Carpet_pissr and others.

[Carpet_pissr]

Initial impressions: It's pretty simplistic so far, which is OK if you're in the mood for "builder lite" I guess. A lot of things that you have to manage in other similar games are in a way auto-managed here. Not bad or good, just know that this is not an Anno game at all.

I'm just now going underground, which feels like a whole new game, really. Should be interesting once defending becomes necessary. Not sure how big a part of the game combat/defense is.

One review mentioned they finished the game in 6 hours, which...if true, is pretty crazy (and extremely disappointing).

There's an enjoyable game here SO FAR (big disclaimer as I'm only an hour or so in), and I would say that it borders on "casual". Still on this side of a proper game, but again, the mechanics (as of now) are pretty simple.

UI is OK so far, but I was sorely lacking in the raw "wood" resource and couldn't figure out how to add another lumberjack for quite a while. Took me a bit to realize that the "build" function for different structures is very much nested, so you click on a worker icon, then click on something else that pops up above that, then another tier above that. I don't love that because when you do that it blocks a lot of (almost all in some cases) screen real estate.

Nitpicking: I don't like the tilt-shift visual effect that is applied to your city...I want to see my city in focus all over the screen, not just in the center. Poor design choice there, IMO.

Overall enjoying it so far for what it is...let's see if continued play unlocks a little more meat here.

FWIW, from the Steam discussion board (I was curious what people thought, and I mistrust the Steam reviews, they seem fake)

"Enjoyed the demo, disappointed in the amount of content for the full game
5 maps with only minor differences between them that ultimately amounts to nothing. Regardless of which map you choose, you will be building your city in an identical way. Beyond that the demo feels like its >50% of the game. At $30, I wouldn't say this is worth it. Go pick up older Annos for cheap or check out Islanders. Steamworld Build feels more equitable at the $15 and under range."

[Carpet_pissr]

And from IGN:

"From start to finish, it only took me about eight hours to build a town, excavate the mines, and construct a rocket to escape SteamWorld. This is a quick and simple city builder, which is both its greatest strength and what holds it back from being so much more. There are five maps with different terrain to work around, but the decisions you have to make while doing so aren’t otherwise going to change very much. You'll build the same stuff every time with little variation. Making your way through the production chain and exploring those maps is plenty of fun – but it's just the one kind of fun, not a deep and engaging puzzle that unfolds and draws you deeper over time."

[jztemple2]

Thanks for the info. I'll pass on this and maybe pick up Workers & Resources Soviet Republic while it is still on sale.

[wonderpug]

I'm a moderate fan of Steamworld games so I jumped into this right away. Maybe I didn't give it a fair enough shake but first impression is that I'm pretty underwhelmed. I think the overland building would have been better if they made it like [what was that German computer game with the little villagers and you could see them go through every detailed step of the labor chain? Like you saw the pig farmer carry the pigs to the butcher, saw the meat go from the butcher to the smoker, then saw the sausages go from the smoker to the warehouse?]

With my opening hour of Build, it felt like the tutorial was encouraging me to just spam residential buildings and place utilities as needed. There didn't really seem to be any decision-making as far as watching my budget or choosing my placements carefully.

From early advertisements I guess I thought the game would have the underground and aboveground portions more directly integrated from the start.

I'll jump in again if others of you seem to be loving it, but for now I don't really feel compelled to play past the opening hour.

[Carpet_pissr]

I think I’ll pause play until the initial patch. There are some rough edges that should be smoothed out.

I would not have been happy had I plonked down $ for this. Perfect Gamepass game, though!

To the above comment, it is a walker (above ground at least) so placement of houses and most other structures is important, but it feels much more lenient than any other similar game I’ve played in this genre.

Had I just been slapping down houses and saloons Willy nilly in Caesar III like I did in this game, my city would be empty and burning right now.

In its current state, I think PC Gamer’s snippet (69 Metacritic score) pretty well nails it:

“Relaxing and brisk, but lacking in the substance needed to please genre fans and live up to the SteamWorld name.”

Sounds like I hate it, but it’s fun enough for me to wait on the initial patch and finish at least one of the campaigns. I enjoyed it while I played and it’s nice and easy to get into (and out if, if that makes sense).

My initial score: 7/10