Galaxy Pass Station Reviews

Все было прекрасно, а потом сломался сейв.

[h1] A cute and creative riff on Papers Please with a builder/business aspect. Recommended. [/h1] Papers, Please was one of those games that created a new genre. A niche genre, for sure, but it was creative and opened up a new field. Galaxy Pass Station (GPS) is another entry in the field, and rather than being a copy, it takes the original formula and expands on it, breathing a lot more life into the concept than the original managed. [h2]Come visit Galaxy Pass Station![/h2] This is a game with a lot of flavor, texture, and heart. [h3] Papers, Please with building and management [/h3] Papers, Please was about checking documents and only that. Which meant that apart from the increasing complexity as new elements were added in later levels, it really didn't have much variety on its side. Check the elements against each other and see if everything adds up. GPS fixes that by adding an entire parallel game which sees you building, outfitting, and managing what amounts to a hotel resort in space - with passport control. You need to manage visitors' needs, make sure they don't get [i]too[/i] frazzled, keep them fed and hydrated, give them a place to rest and shop, and process them through the bureaucratic stuff quickly and efficiently. It's a fairly full docket of tasks, yet good design keeps them from being tiresome. [h3] Cute graphics, cute execution [/h3] There's a fine line between "endearingly cute pixel graphics" and "nauseatingly jagged mess." Fortunately, GPS is solidly on the correct side of that line. A lot of care went into the design and visual style of the game, and it comes together right on the sweet spot. It's businesslike enough to be a capable builder/management game, but still has a cute feel to it that isn't over the top. The sheer variety of items you can unlock and acquire means you have a lot of latitude when it comes to equipping and customizing your station. Layout, outfitting, decor - it's up to you, your budget, and your research department. [h3] Document checking is creative and meaningful [/h3] Checking passports and papers is simple enough to be approachable and complex enough to be fun. Better still, you get meaningful rewards. Yes, you can have clerks do it for you, but they're slow - good for help, but not ideal for front line work. Doing the checks yourself nets you resources to reinvest in research and speeds up your path through the game. [h2]Watch where you step.[/h2] Okay, it's good, not perfect. [h3] Tasking and pathfinding are troublesome [/h3] The algorithm for assigning drones to tasks and getting them there is weak. Deliveries of batteries and parts in particular has problems, and having swarms of worker drones distributed across your station somehow doesn't solve the delivery bottleneck problem. It's in the game algorithms themselves. It's not a showstopper problem, but it can be annoying. [h3] More casual than challenging [/h3] With dedicated effort, you can largely sidestep the money and resource limitations. With a little practice, you will easily outpace your expenses for the most part, meaning the challenge is minimal; this game is more for fun. [h3] Progress whether you want it or not [/h3] You can't stop the game from getting more complex, so there's no halting at a comfortable level and playing there. The game requires you to accept more responsibilites and tasks, and that removes some player agency. [h1]The Bottom Line[/h1] This is a good game - fun, fairly casual, creative, and rewarding - and it has replayability to it, giving you more value for your gaming money. If you like a more relaxed management-and-puzzle type game and were a fan of Papers, Please, then this one is likely to scratch a bunch of itches for you. [h2]Recommended[/h2]

Neat idea, neat pixel art. Unfortunately it has issues, ranging from minor (screen tearing when you scroll - someone tried to make their own pixel game engine and wasn't ready for that, perhaps?), to not so minor - like NPCs getting softlocked/stuck despite their destination being ready/operational. And then it has issues at the design level too. It feels a bit schizophrenic in how it combined ideas. Ok, so it has a "Papers Please" style minigame... but then the "station management" side of the game has too little to do if you automate the passport checking (which I do - not my thing). In particular I've run into a bottleneck where I can't produce enough batteries to run my amenities and machinery because I can't build more generators - it's not clear when this unlocks, and research is very slow as it's gated by resources you don't get much of. And it has Stardew Valley-style day ending that... seems to serve no particular purpose? You just push next day and everything and everyone is exactly where they were before. New reports could have been a prompt just like incoming NPC calls. NPCs do not have daily schedules like Stardew. So it just seems pointless. Small thing? Kind of, but it sets the tone for much else too. I do feel that there's the foundation of a pretty decent game here. If it'd just been given more time in the oven. But it seem sthe devs have largely finished and moved on, so.

One of the alien races is anime girl. Need any more convincing? You do? It's surprisingly fun. Papers, Please but without the crushing atmosphere... actually, scratch that, you can completely bypass this part of the game if you want by using clerks, either robotic ones or hired employees. Or both! And honestly, you should automate it a bit because there's going to be a lot of visitors. The "rest" of the game is... hmm, how about Oxygen Not Included, but it's not a PhD level physics simulation? That's the best I got, even though most of the station's population will be visitors. So they come, have fun, fulfill their needs, and leave. And it's up to you to make sure they have a pleasant stay - all the while doing research to find new alien races and new documents to check (yeah). Oh but there's also a separate research systems for your station equipment, and this one is [i]extensive[/i]. So, alright. You need to keep your station relatively pretty, especially in places where visitors gather. These places shouldn't be noisy or smelly, and you need to manage these things. And different aliens have different needs. Do they need a hotel pod, or a charging station? Do they care more about entertainment, or they just want a bite? Oh and make sure you place trash bins, and have enough droids to keep them functional and empty! The station lives and dies by the labour of your cute little drones. Objects require maintenance; the drones carry batteries, goods, repair parts. The drones clean up all messes. The drones take care of the fires, and whatever parasites might develop on your stations. And of course they build and repair. Honestly, I wish you could do something for the little guys, but they generally don't seem to need literally anything. Which is probably for the best. But still! The game has worldbuilding and writing which dances a fine line between scientifically valid and silly as heck. I enjoyed that, and I'm happy to see that the developers are making more games in the same 'verse - especially since ultimately you're a station manager, you don't really get to learn that much about the outside world. But most importantly, its design just makes sense. There's plenty to do, but not to the point of overload. You unlock things slowly, at a comfortable pace, and as long as you keep yourself busy you should always be ready for, well, anything. Not that this game has any world-shattering disasters (it has a solar flare, and that can cause fires). It looks nice, it keeps you engaged. Really, what else could you ask for? There isn't really much else to say. It's cute and has a fun level of complexity. A very nice way to spend the weekend! [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/42922988/]My curator page[/url]