colony sim – Gaming with Noobs

Hey guys today I wanna talk to you about Adaptory but first huge thanks to Stormcloak games and indie.io for sending me a copy its greatly appreciated.

Now i love colony sim games ive played a bunch over my years but ive never played one as punishing as Adaptory. This game is clearly inspired by oxygen not included even tho i never played it im sure its easier then this.

So the game opens up with you picking the first 4 people which im assuming you get more as you progress you load in and you crash land on an alien planet your ship is a mess and you gotta move quick as oxygen is running out. Now thankfully there’s a bit of a tutorial that shows you the basics and what to do and thankfully the tutorial stays there for every run which is a huge plus for me but it does lack some info with issues ive encountered during my run more on that later.

So you start digging underground getting materials to start building and thankfully the main material is dirt as you build everything from dirt dont ask me how you get metal from dirty but you do now as your people are building there living against time the oxygen bar is small and runs out quick sadly it recovers slowly which im guessing is there way of getting as close as possible to realism.

Soon your tasked with building a research desk to unlock power and other important things thankfully all material needs again are simple just dirt which I like as it keeps some stress off during early stages but your in space how do you get power theres 2 options solar panels and a small coal plant you can use both well actually your forced to use both as solar panels dont really produce enough energy as for the coal plant as long as you have coal your golden which you find while digging underground.

The game offers special views to monitor the oxygen and power grids but honestly it doesn’t show much in my opinion just an overlay of where stuff is.

Now ive played a few hours into this game over 15 runs and every single time I end up losing to all my idiots dying, yes I called them idiots cause honestly they are they will mope around outside in the void of space sometimes not moving and dying because they couldn’t be assed to move to safety. By best run thanks to RNGesus I was able to get water pumps and oxygen generators going but then what even using the over lay you see where the oxygen is at but it barely moves or expands this is were my mood starts going sour.

Even with a tutorial after maybe 5 minutes the game just stops it doesn’t expand on oxygen generators or water pumps after you unlock them and build it doesn’t tell you or show you how to fully utilize stuff to get the maximum benefit and fine I get it the devs want you to figure shit out but if your not giving players an actual tutorial run people will get frustrated and quit and I did after over 23 runs of just dying over and over I gave up even with everything I learned it still wasnt enough my biggest gripe is at one point a warning icon pops up saying cant operate due to pressure ok how do I fix it where is the info and the game gives you nothing what in the actual fuck am I supposed to magically know what to do no its the devs job during tutorial to show players everything and they cant even be assed to give a proper tutorial.

All that aside yes the game is fun and if your a fan of builder style games then check this out and if you’ve played oxygen not included then you might have no problems here but clearly this game doesn’t want new players and its sad I really wanna keep playing it but im not gonna risk punching my monitor thanks to how frustrated this game made me.

Thats all for today guys thank you for stopping by take care and game on.

First off massive thank you to Pajama Llama games for sending me a copy of the game its greatly appreciated, so let’s get into it.

Flotsam is a city builder on a boat in a world over taken by water, yes you read that right your playing a city builder on the water and at the center of it all is your tug boat I mean let’s be real if you’ve plays airborne kingdom or the wandering village this isnt a far stretch.

So thankfully the game has a tutorial and its really well done it teaches you to move and build as well as how to navigate the map and gives you quest along the way so your not bored its really well done and I enjoyed my time with the tutorial. So my first run or my tutorial run to better put it I played 5.5 hours into it and I managed to do a lot until it all crashed and burned let’s dive into more of the game.

The world is over literally the oceans have risen and your boat is your life line so you travel around in search of materials to use and forage the main one being plastic and wood you see the plastic is used to make what’s called floaters which are basically jugs that wont sink and everything in this game takes plastics which sucks cause in my run there was times I couldn’t find any plastic at all, then there’s wood which you will find floating in the ocean or on little islands where you can cut the trees down and use them to make planks or firewood which sadly both are used alot so the struggle is real so you always gotta think about how to spend your wood as it is very valuable.

Then there’s food I mean let’s be real you just survived the end of the world you gotta eat right so let’s find some food thankfully the food variety is plenty as the first you find is seaweed which is turned into a salad or rope but then you move up to the next tier which is fish and around the world there’s plenty of fish I think there’s 3 different types of fish for you to find and cook. Then there’s the next tier which you find old abandoned super markets and grab food there finally the last tier are the farms where you will find potatoes, corn, wheat and more which I haven’t gotten that far yet. So food is solid lots of great options just gotta find it.

The next problem you’ll encounter is storage and housing which you will need lots of both the houses thankfully help with another aspect of the game.

That aspect Morale every survival has a morale compass basically and the happier they are the more productive there gonna be which there’s a lot to learn with the characters you see they level up but they also have there favorite things to do so its good to make sure you have the right people working in the right spots it helps things go smoother.

Now this is where things started going bad for me I had 9 residents and was working on getting electricity going to make some things easier for my people boy was that a bad idea you see the power grid is very volatile if you dont prepare enough for it you see as your town gets bigger it gets heavier making your main vessel waste electricity faster making it harder to find stuff and progress so you gotta build batteries that help you store more energy but thats not the only problem you see there’s buildings that waste the electricity and they drain it faster then you can make it go figure the game does have a few options to produce energy a bike generator a wood burning generator and oil burner and finally solar panels. But again you gotta know how to balance it so you dont screw yourself over.

This game focuses hugely on production and balance one item feeds into several others and so forth. My next run was much better I had less people so food and water could last longer but with less people production is slower cause you need those people to do everything from gathering to crafting to researching so needing more people is a must but again balance is needed.

My play time isnt a huge amount clocking in just over 12 hours ive come to learn that this city builder really pushes your thinking skills to some im sure it will be a cake walk to others they might crash and burn a few times but not once did I rage quit or get angry at the game I wanted more to keep building and finding stuff to make my characters better and give them the home they so desperately want during these trying times, Flotsam takes a page out of other city builders but keeps it going in an original formula a floating city during the end of the world the games graphics are also very relaxed and colorful nothing to over powering or demanding.

There are a few things I would love to see added maybe a way to make our own plastics also I would love to be able to zoom out more and look at the whole map and not just be limited to a certain area also when your not in the tutorial it feels like you struggle a bit finding people and getting the story going I dont know if thats a user error or if its designed that way.

All in all flotsam is a very solid game and you can easily lose yourself playing it easily sinking hours into it so if your looking for a cozy city builder check out flotsam on steam its worth it thank you for stopping by take care and as always game on.