Project Astra Dominium Reviews

More of a puzzle than a game. Just a few maps into it, you run into what the developer calls a difficulty ramp, but in actuality it is just "Do you know exactly how he wanted you to beat this level?" For a Tower Defense game, it lacks the best part of a tower defense game: the ability to be creative. Sure, you can be creative much later into the game once you've farmed a ton of resources, built up your base, and done hundreds if not thousands of package sends to Earth to get all of the skill ups and modifications. Until that point, you'll spend every level completely resetting your skills to respec into other towers, as the game meanders from 1 resistance to another, and 1 gimmick to another. Good puzzle? Perhaps. Good game? Not really.

This game's setting feels like it holds on stitches and duct tape. You have to craft then build every facility for the factory part yet towers in the 'defense' part come from nothing. Resourses are physicalised in factory part yet are just numbers in defense part. Production and logistical capacity of your factory has zero effect onto your defensive capability, it does somewhat affect resource gathering speed in defense through single-use beacons and defensive capacity through one-time crafting receipts but neither actually require a factory, just manual crafting. Factory is technological, defense part is against magical golems that arrive via magical portals and teleportation. On top of that there are balance issues and unholy amount of grind and waiting, I was doing pretty much every 'attack' at 8x speed and it's still slow. 'beacon mastery' achivements in particular feels like pure grind. Individually both tower defence and factory parts are significantly below average. Can't recommend at the moment.

Project Astra Dominium is an incredible tower defense game that combines basebuilding and automation elements to create an exciting and engaging gameplay experience. The game offers a unique premise where players must build up their base to become a supply hub for Earth's desperately needed materials while also defending against an unknown alien threat. The game's graphics are stunning, and the attention to detail in the design of the towers is impressive. The gameplay is challenging and rewarding, and the addition of automation elements adds an extra layer of complexity that keeps players engaged and motivated to continue playing. What sets Project Astra Dominium apart from other tower defense games is the depth of its gameplay mechanics. Players must carefully balance resource management, basebuilding, and tower defense strategy to succeed. Overall, Project Astra Dominium is a must-play for tower defense fans looking for a unique and engaging gameplay experience. With its stunning graphics, challenging gameplay, and innovative mechanics, this game is sure to keep players entertained for hours on end.

It's not what I expected, in the best way. I went in expecting Mindustry, but it's very much two more distinct, separate halves - a pure Tower Defense mode, and a pure, non-pressured factory/production line mode that intrinsically feed each other. There's a lot to want with the game, such as hotkeys for building/menus (I await being embarrassed by someone saying "but Falk there are hotkeys for building/menus") all the way to more minor details like manually crafting completely locking you out of things like the entire craft menu (so you can't work on a modification or browse recipes, for example) and the entire level select menu (so you can't even view enemy/level information) but it very much is a unique experience within its obviously labor-of-love limited-resources framework, and despite some uneven bumps in difficulty manages to scale itself to absurdity. 15 minutes in I expected Tower Defense and Automation and I got relatively janky implementations of each, but underneath all that is a hidden 3rd gem and its real unique hook - planning and executing broken upgrade combinations within specifically defined caps and limitations brings to mind a completely out-of-left-field comparison - it feels like I'm playing an Atelier-powered Tower Defense game, just without the cute girls doing cute things. The same way wracking your brain to come up with a hilarious bomb that 1shots enemies way beyond what the Atelier game needs at some point or another, making a broken Gun Turret that mows down enemies you previously had problems with is cathartic.

A nice mix of classic Tower Defense and Factory Management. Relatively easy to get into and hard to get out off, even if you normally avoid TD Games. Graphics and Style are crisp & immediately recognizable, not once have I struggled to find or mistook something. What I really like is that Towers have their own full Skilltree, makes it so much more engaging than simply "Build next Level of Tower", now I have to actually think about what I want to upgrade and do. Very much going to keep playing!

First of all, it must be said that the game is still at an early stage. Nevertheless, the developers have been very busy in the last weeks and months and show that there is a lot of potential in their game and from what I have seen and experienced so far, I trust them to exploit it completely. The idea to be able to skill towers separately is not a new one, the depth in which the towers can be skilled on the other hand is something that I have not seen in any other TD game. The hub world with the possibility to process and craft resources automatically is also clever. This also opens up a lot of potential. All in all, I've had some fun and sometimes tricky sessions so far.

This game is no fun at all. What a HOT MESS! As far back as 4/2023, other reviews mention how grindy this game is. Guess what? 9 months later it still is! Way too much of a grind to accomplish anything useful. Very tedious. Also, user interface needs to be redesigned as it works against you. Either my computer must be too fast for this game or the devs don't know what they're doing (or both) because when an info screen is presented, it goes away after 1-2 seconds and I can't read it completely. Mentioned this in Discord and the devs "basically" said too bad. This game overall needs a LOT of work to be even remotely enjoyable. They need to work on their attitude also. Don't even bother with this one unless you like being frustrated while playing. Response to the devs: As you can see I have over 900+ games and even though I haven't played them all, I can safely say this game is the absolute worse of the ones I have. Oh, and I played a few more hours and the Outpost stage is just as grindy so lying didn't help. And I see you updated your response again today but this time you put in some BS about me leaving the discussion before we could talk. Untrue. You said you were not going to fix it. Just stop lying to try to protect your game. Jeez, try to find some integrity. I guess SNOBS don't have any.

Holy crap. This game is adicting. Great idea to combine Factorio with Tower Defense! The gameplay loop is very rewarding so you don't even acknowledge it is in the middle of the night already.. Can't wait for more levels and content!

Rough around the edges.... Diamond in the rough.... Edit after playing some more: (Devs I have wishlist / recommendations at the bottom of the review) - I expected somthing like Mindustry, DSP, Factorio, etc. - This is more like the old Warcraft 3 TD games where you need to figure out how to approach each map and wave. Plan your building sequence with your limited money. - This is the Distant Worlds / Dominions of the tower defence genre -> Crazy amount of features and UI is a struggle. But if you push through and learn it is damn REWARDING and FUN. No game breaking bugs or crashes. Needs polish and some QOL stuff.... learning curve / unlocks is confusing (objectives helped). that said.... - I like the random range (which isn't punishing like other games) - Unlocking and progression is fun - Maps are good with a nice verity. - Towers and Customisation/Builds is fun. - Factory building is fun but feels like it is a 'extra' not sure but I am almost at the last planet and didn't really need to do a lot of automation. Maybe I am missing something end game... will see when I get there. Edit: Yeah factory building for me is end game read below: Still 9/10 from me. Good complicated and easy/casual fun (if that makes any sense :P) for a good price. Edit after playing some more: (not important just wanted to share my experience) Ok so the last level/planet was just to hard to finish with my current setup... on the last wave no matter how I build I always leak about 5-10 to much and lose. This game provides a LOT of different ways to get stronger, but I decided I wanted to increase my Outpost HP by buying the global perk Fortifications in the Combat upgrades tree. LOL this isn't as easy as I though it would be. Now I need to craft common resource packages which needs a lot of resources, this lead to creating a bigger factory and more automation which I am enjoying immensely. While messing around with factory building I decided to try fleet management and sending ships to another planet to auto gather resources just to find out I now get another factory map to start a fresh factory to extract the resources and send it back home. (got some Dyson Sphere Program vibes) My wishlist or recommendations: Less scrollbars and more grids with icons (like factorio, DSP etc.) More short-cut keys: 'U' for quick upgrade of selected tower '3' / 'L' to quick build the laser tower when build spot selected (I know 3 currently set to 4x speed) 'Enter' / 'N' next wave Toggle for auto next wave. (OK my bad, after about 30h playtime a saw the auto wave button next to the speed button top right :P) THANKS!!! (Sorry my own little nit pick) The tower upgrade sound is to loud in comparison to everything else plus I personally don't like the sound. So LOL I don't enjoy upgrading towers. And I don't like writing long reviews. So thanks for this game you just made me break a own personal record.

This game is trying to be a lot of things and it doesn't do any of them particularly well. It's not a bad game, it's just not quite there in terms of good. I think the ability to set your traps where you want, rather than the linear chosen spots is what this game is lacking to truly be great. So far this game offers nothing that hasn't been done better by other games. I'd like to give this a neutral rank but it is thumbs up or down, so it gets down. A copy and paste ability for the little factory area would be great too.