Earth Analog Reviews

I am an avid flight simmer and was looking forward to playing this game. The graphics are marvelous, but the controls are difficult to use. I was able to land when the game first came out. However, I haven't been able to land since the game was patched (repeatedly). The controls cannot be mapped to an individual's taste. I quickly lost interest when I was unable to land and drill.

Great game but it takes some getting used to. Seems bare bones at first but it becomes more complicated as you go. The controls also seemed Janky to learn but after a while it becomes second nature. I turned on the Interstellar soundtrack as i played this and I ate a significant portion of cheddar cheese as i flew through the cosmos. This game gives very little direction and it's easy to get lost. Especially if you are on the Indica and are sleepy from all the cheese. Happy travels.

I completed this game today. I has a definite story and a proven ability to create atmosphere. Overall the game is austere (as you might expect from a fractal rendering base game). The light effects from atmosphere and objects combined with enormous planetary vistas that are difficult if not impossible to recreate in the same way without this rendering technique make this a unique game. It is perhaps still a little rough, it took more than the average amount of effort to play this with a controller, but the developer is actively working to improve this. Once I got the controller configured though I kept coming back to see what weird world I would jump to next. Happy with my purchase.

*** edit: Quick patches and version updates added great QoL things and fixed some things that didn't feel right to some people including me in the beginning. So big thanks for reflecting, I can't wait to fly around some more when I have more time :) *** My first review on steam (first review in life) - I hope it will help both potential players and devs! This game is a GEM but uncut. The promise of strange worlds made possible (only) with fractal math is awesome and stunning at times - I really look forward to exploring and taking in those amazing vistas. I think the engine and aesthetic in Earth Analog is well worth working through the pretty hard to learn flight model. At first it feels similar to Star Citizen but very soon you'll be crashing into planets like mad and next time missing them by thousands of kilometers. After less than two hours I managed to do some objectives and jump to the next system (very interesting) but boy oh boy it felt like double the amount of time and it was very stressful. I didn't feel accomplished I just felt beat up. I don't thing movement has to be easy like No Man's Sky where you can bounce around almost indestructible - but I also don't think it should be this bloody hard. The main thing about this game for 99% of people is gonna be visiting those mesmerizing worlds - how am I going to enjoy all that with so much worry about the weird complicated controls and a hardcore flight model. I guess I'm way too relaxed by today's easy games but I still think it's just super hard. Many people are gonna give "compliments" on the UI/menus and stuff... I think they have character and should stay that way. They are unique and minimal and that's just dandy. But what's really bothering me - I can't wrap my head around this at all why.... WHY did you pick of all sounds that you can pick for those alarms some of the most unpleasant honks and beeps... like straight from Satan's Aural Torture BEST OF vol. 2? They are SO LOUD and just horrible and they honk all the time.. It's among some of the most painful sounds I know, man... I'll have nightmares about those tonight. And that ship voice isn't really helping the situation... flat, dead, and boring... no power, no soul, nothing interesting about it. Since it's (probably) the only voice talking to you throughout the game, why not ask someone with a pleasant voice to do a dub? Or just some other automated voice... but with character. Other than that the sound design is quite nice and I like it. I heard just one song up until now and I'm looking forward to more music and possibly some atmospheric sounds I dunno. It's nice, just please - change those alarms or just send them back to hell from where they rose. I can't stress this enough. Don't get discouraged, I think the first wave of reviews is gonna be bad despite the core of your game is absolutely brilliant. I believe Earth Analog has a very bright future if you'll be able and willing to put the same amount of craft that you put into shaping those planets into stuff like • satisfying flying mechanisms - I think ideally less "real" or newtonian or whatever and more fun and simple. There's nothing wrong with simple. If you want real, go park a car. • an intelligent save system (multiple save slots) would be nice (people would be happy to just load the game, fly around on their favorite planet for a bit and go on with their day) • better sound for alarms, some more beeps, and announcer's voice • maybe a HUDless GOD mode would be a welcomed addition. For a relaxed "a walk in the picture" experience that some (maybe many) people would prefer when there's so much exotic artistry to see. Visit any planet - any time - no danger. Anyways congrats on a very interesting project, I hope you'll make it truly shine. The potential is absolutely there. Good luck and see you in Earth Analog!

This game doesn't deserve the mixed reviews, in my opinion. If you've played other space sims using a keyboard, the controls are right on the mark. Just beware the newtonian physics outside of atmosphere: slow down before you crash into something. Also, spacebar for retro thrusters are your friend - in a precarious situation, it's very helpful to be able to zero your velocity. Use alt controls to land easily. I'm blown away so far. I personally have always been fascinated by space, math, and fractals, and this game combines them perfectly. It's kind of like the exploration in Elite: Dangerous, but souped up on psychedelics and without any boring, barren filler planets in between the 'good stuff' ;)

Just lost all my progress due to not being able to save manually and a loading a save, only to have it trigger a quest event and save over my progress putting me back at the start of the game... Could be fun, Stay away until they add a proper save system. Did get it working with my Hotas after a bit of remapping.

TrackIR is supported since today at the writing of this review. It wasn't so at launch, the devs didn't even know what TrackIR is. However they bought one right away after we suggested to add this feature. And updated within one month. That was fast!! I'll feel guilty if I don't recommend this!

The good + [b]Works great on Linux with forced Steam Play without any modification :-)[/b] + Very nice atmosphere + Great sound + Incredible idea + Looks incredible on my 32:9 screen, although unplayable without dynamic resolution switched on, GTX 970 + Minor jump scares, which I really like The bad - Controls are somewhat strange -- Landing somewhere is finicky at best, especially if you need to be quick - No controller support - Flying through square rings in the tutorial reminded me of Superman 64 (I'm not sure you want that), especially because I had to fly back to nearly each one of them. - Very cryptic at times -- It took me almost 2h to figure out I can actually scan for different things than H2O -- Oh, it's a 'where the f*k do I have to go' kind of game. [spoiler](I'm looking at you, blue beam of death and the scrambled message including "blue -> blue")[/spoiler] -- Suddenly a time limit? Oh wait... The ugly - UI is really, really bad. Having to constantly switch with different F buttons is almost entirely breaking the experience - Navigating menus with the Numpad? Seriously... Why? - Following cryptic signal bars and signal strenghts as main objectives without any other visual indication is getting boring - The cockpit seems to be a slapped-on, pre-rendered texture without any real shading - While taking off from a surface and forgetting to set the alternative controls (especially if died before!) the mouse position suddenly changes and you will probably crash again after a second Some suggestions UI: Why not have more than one screen? And i.e. a dedicated "scan" button which then tells you what you are scanning for and works all of the time, not only when you are in the "Scan" sub menu. The mini games like drilling and fixing equipment look like directly ripped-out from a mid-2000s Flash game and are incredibly unforgiving, hence not explained in detail. An option to lower the sound of the alarm would be appreciated, I could not hear anything after jumping because the fuel was low and there was about two minutes of "blergh blergh" from the fuel alarm in the black loading screen without being able to turn it off. Controls: I don't know. It just feels wrong at times. Once you get the hang of it, it works somehow. You need to know that anchoring only works at <=20 altitude, sometimes <=30 and sometimes even <=10. Auto pilot for landing maybe? (No Man's Sky...) I really like this game but it needs a lot of work going forward.

I'm not far into this game but I don't see myself getting much further. After seeing the awesome visuals in the trailer I assumed this game was an exploration game about seeing these cool locations. But so far, 30 minutes in I'm struggling to find anything fun. So far I've gone a bit through a very painful tutorial, focusing on scanning and landing and repairing broken things and none of it is intuitive or interesting at all. I don't know how much more of that I have to get through to finally be flying and seeing cool stuff but they start you on the most boring planet and tell you to navigate a 90's cell phone menu with your arrow keys. repairing and scanning for things, most of which are invisible and have no feedback when you accomplish them. Its like if you took the least fun parts of No Man's Sky and turned it into a text based adventure while watching the intro to the wrath of khan. To the dev: Please just add a pure exploration mode. I just want to fly around and experience the stuff I see in the trailer. What I see there looks awesome but getting to it is like filing my taxes.

EDIT: The new update which allows non-linear exploration with procedural worlds and much easier landing mechanics is exactly what this game needed. This is a real sleeper in space-exploration simulators. I guess I'm going to be the odd one out and say that this is exactly what I was hoping for when I saw the trailer. Apparently people are having trouble flying? It really isn't that hard, there is a very simple tutorial that explains how flying works. It is velocity based so don't expect to be able to pull sharp turns and banks like a fighter jet, you have to have fine control of your acceleration and have to slow down to turn efficiently. In addition, when you aren't within the atmosphere of a planet there is no max speed because there is not atmospheric interference so when you see people complaining about zooming past planets, its because they are just slamming their accelerator to max, ignoring their speed as it constantly climbs and climbs and then not understanding that every second they spend accelerating is another second they need to spend decelerating if they want to stop. If you spend a minute speeding up to a planet and only start trying to slow down when you are 10 seconds away from it, you're going to hit the planet a good 50 seconds before you can kill your speed. You need just as much time to slow down as you need to speed up when you are in the vacuum of space, its common sense. This isn't the case once you are within a planet's atmosphere as the atmosphere will give you drag and slow you down naturally, capping your speed. For that same reason if you are within a planets atmosphere and want to fly to the other side of the planet, it will take forever unless you fly out of the atmosphere to boost your speeds above what the atmospheric interference allows before dipping back down towards the surface. My experience with the graphics has looked pretty much the exact same as the trailer videos, I'm not seeing the bad graphic claims at all, it really doesn't look different than the trailer from what I've seen so far (and I'm running a gtx 1060 so its not like my rig is anything special). A nice slow and relaxing exploration space sim.... except when you get into the cube field... that shit is stressful. The quests are also pretty straight forward... you get a signal strength meter and you head to where the strength increases until a beacon appears on your hud, then you land next to it. Each quest gives you pretty straight forward directions to the next step. For example one of the first things you do is land next to a beacon, your next clue is to "head towards the blue star in the sky to find the next landmass" sure enough, if you look around from where the first beacon is, there is a very obvious blue star in the sky and you fly in that direction until another beacon appears on your hud. It really isn't that complicated yet a bunch of reviews are claiming to not understand how it works.