I’m 4 hours in with a fully component fitting specialized factory and am stuck in a drudgery of whack-a-moleing the competition’s overwhelming research, very little of which demands any puzzling or retooling of my factory. I seem to be in some bizarro half-world where no one demands airbags but they reversing cameras are deemed basic. I wonder if I’m alone in feeling that research has to progress a little more slowly but demand much more layout changes per research.
Tagging on little doo-dads here and there and creating stockpiles of servos and new components every now and again is not very challenging or engaging, and I’m also left unable to feel that I’m pursuing my own visions for the company’s direction rather than continually ticking a growing checklist. I think competing solely on the basis of technologies rather than processes and overall strategy is a mistake. It makes the competitors feel bland and without character and traps the player on a railroad.
I really love the core idea of the game but there needs to be a bit more of a meaningful narrative further along. I’m hoping at this stage that some of the game is really well polished, fleshed out, and thought out, while others are very open to reworking, because some aspects of it have a way to go still, and I’ve seen lots of games lose their development momentum after passing the point of early access in recent years.