ExoColony: Planet Survival Reviews

[b]What do you want from a colony sim game?[/b] - Food production - check - Energy production - check - Various materials and goods production - check - Colonist needs/morale - check - Research - check - Population dynamics - check - Atmosphere management - check - Terraformation (end game goal) - check - Survival element - check [b]Mechanics roll-out[/b] Not all mechanics are active from the start, you will unlock them as you progress and research new technologies. For example, morale becomes a pain when your colony is large enought and your colonists are on the planet for multiple generations. [b]What I liked[/b] - unfreezing colonists: easy way to expand if you have enough food but once you run out of them, you have start with education and reproduce in old-fashioned way :) - colonists generations: you have to manage population growing up, education, aging and replenishment - being not productive for 20 years (growing up+schools) will impact your economy more that you might think. - atmosphere: colonists need breath, industry creates pollution, right? You have to deal with both, including pressure and other poisonous gases. [b]Space for improvement[/b] - better UI - some mechanics are not fully implemented yet - more maps I enjoyed the game and I can recommend it. If you want to finish the planet terraformation or manage temperature, wait for next updates or full release."

Really enjoying ExoColony so far. The balance between managing resources, keeping colonists alive, research and expanding the base is challenging but rewarding. Looking forward to dig on the surface. It’s got that “just one more cycle” feel.

If you like games that force you to optimize (maybe things like Factorio or the magnum opus of Dwarf Fortress) this might be your right jam. Graphics are simple to provide a nice overview, mechanics are hardcore to make you kill off your colonists when they dig where they are not supposed to.

I recently had the pleasure of playing this game, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. While it is still quite rough around the edges and missing some polish—such as having only two voices for all characters and a user interface that could use more work (understanding what buildings do, where you can choose to prioritize your workers' efforts, etc.)—what is here is genuinely fun. However, it can be quite difficult to get into the flow of it. The game provides a helpful goal system that serves as a sort of tutorial, giving you an idea of the order in which you should build and unlock things. An issue I had with this system is that it can sometimes be misleading. You might see an icon in the goals that isn't on your screen and then get a tip telling you that the icon can unlock something for you, but you still won't see the icon. This leaves you quite frustrated because it feels like you've missed something. After some more playing, the icon unlocks naturally, making the experience unnecessarily frustrating. A simple message like "You will unlock this feature later" would have helped immensely. When you get to the meat of the game and no longer rely on help, the gameplay becomes very addictive and satisfying. There are many resources to manage, and figuring out the balance between them is quite a satisfying puzzle. To give a specific example, I encountered a situation where I completely ran out of water and food. I thought that my colony was dead, but then I figured out how to save them. (Well, all of my current colonists died, but I unfroze some more, and after a few dead canaries, the colony was up and running again.) It turned out that the three mosses I had placed around the map were consuming water faster than it was generated. After resolving this, I found that I needed more food, which again cost water. Solving that, I found I was running out of some gas; fixing that, I was running out of oxygen, then pressure, then water again. Learning what balances what is very fun, though I really wish things were explained better. Perhaps having a catalog of images that give you hints would help. Another issue I had—and this one I did not find an answer for on my own—is whether or not the buildings operate on their own using power, and whether humans can operate them instead of power being consumed, or not. Or perhaps they work on their own in a limited capacity? Again, some in-game clarification from the developers would help a lot. One aspect of the game that I found myself really drawn to is the civilization simulator aspect. Being able to enact reproduction laws or make my colonists work under grueling conditions was very engaging. Sacrificing a generation so that future ones may live added joy to my gameplay experience. However, I have a few suggestions for improvement: 1. **Voice Diversity**: I understand that adding more voice actors would be tough, but it would greatly enhance the experience if each colonist had a randomly modified voice. Perhaps you could randomly pitch-shift them? Something like that would really help. 2. **Colonist Individuality**: If the colonists were more unique, their deaths might affect me, the player, a bit more. Perhaps adding some random descriptions of their deaths? Or give each one a personality that has advantages and disadvantages? Maybe add some likes/dislikes or a summary of their major life events? Anything to help me connect with my little space minions at least a little bit. 3. **Achieving Equilibrium**: Perhaps make it possible for a colony to reach an equilibrium. For example, implementing a new rule that allows the number of births to equal the number of elderly colonists. I feel like this would be a nice quality-of-life update. As for other things I would like to see: 1. **Better Research Descriptions** 2. **Clearer Explanation of Game Mechanics**: Keep them a little vague—it's fun to figure stuff out on your own—but starting the game today is far too obtuse to understand. 3. **Hints for Resource Imbalances**: Some hints on how different mechanics interact. If I am running low on water, I should be able to more easily identify the cause of the imbalance. 4. **Expanded Overworld Mechanics**: Greater expansion of overworld mechanics or perhaps a way to generate more land underground. It would also be quite cool to see some enemies, perhaps guarding some rarer resources. This could be a cool endgame goal once your colony is self-sufficient without player interactions. I would also like to highlight the cute art style the game has. It adds loads of personality, and the charm does help compensate for the other issues I have discussed. I am very excited to see how the development team further develops the game and really hope that they listen to player feedback to make it something special. For anyone still reading this review, please give it a shot. It is currently a bit of a mess, but a fun one I will definitely be coming back to—once you get over the pains of starting it, that is.

I decided to give ExoColony a try based on the promise of multi-generation building and terraforming. You don't play with as many colonists as I expected. At one point, nearly all mine colonists were seniors, luckily you can unfreeze young women from the cryochamber as long as you have some. Managing rotation of colonists works well, maybe the lifespan of colonists should be longer. For me real challenges started when colonists morale dropped due to colony size and time spent on the planet. I didn't have problem with lack of oxygen or food at all, but I did run into some issues with water recycling. Overall, I can recommend the game.

This is good. Camera controls are smooth, you can drag around with mouse click hold and zoom with wheel which zooms in nice and close. Graphics have a smooth clean feel and good quality for this style. The people resemble real people, not gimmicky like so many other games. Needs more setting options. UI is nice, but lots of room for improvement. The only thing keeping me from playing now is the lack of sound effects when the humans are doing things like digging or building, even when zoomed in all the way. I look forward to that being added.

If you like complex colony sims where you need to think long-term, this is your game. Managing oxygen, food, and materials is tough but rewarding. The time progression system is cool, as you get to see generations of colonists grow old and new ones take their place. I would say it might be a bit challenging for casual players, but if you’re into deep management, you’ll love it.

I didn’t expect to enjoy this game as much as I did. The exploration of what you can do and progression is engaging, the complexity ramps up as your colony grows. A great game for anyone who enjoys a strategic/survival challenge.

It is a good colony management game. It has a nice loop of recycling resources. Water becomes dirty. And you can clean it again. Same with many other resources. It took a bit of time to ensure that my colonists are able to survive. Mainly have enough oxygen. Aging plays a bigger role than you are normally used to in other games. Game definitely requires more micromanagement to ensure your colonist are doing what you want and you are not wasting resources that are needed elsewhere. Right now as long as you still have not too low pressure in your ship room and have some frozen colonists left you can rebuild even when you got 0 colonists alive and 0 food which is not really possible in many games. Bug I encountered when loading a saved game was swiftly fixed by the developers.

As someone, who doesn't play many management games, I expected this game to not hold me for long, but the demo was fun to the point I bought the early access release at launch. Starting a new colony was simple enought I thought, as I basically only had to manage food and exploration. As the colony grew however, new mechanics such as research, atmosphere management, new resources or even the seggs (nice), were thrust upon my noob brain. Long story short, I got my ass handed to me, as the oxygen level grew too low, because I expanded the base too much and didn't manage to produce enough of the breathable gas. Needles to say, all of my colonists died a horrible death of suffocation. 8/10, would play this torture-your-colonist sim again. And most likely am going to.