A cute automation incremental game in the same style as Forager but a little smaller in scope.
This is a game about settling on a planet and automating resources to survive, thrive, and expand, with the ultimate goal being to send a package of resources back to earth, at least I presume that’s the story, since it’s not too too focused on.
In reality, this is a game about setting up efficient automation with limited tools.
At the start you have your mining laser, which allows you to collect resources, and eventually build an oxygen supplier that you can build on your island and feed with water (that grows on little water trees) to replenish the air in your space suit. You can also build a furnace to turn the twigs into charcoal, and the ores into ingots that allow you to build more machines, a research station/tech tree, etc. Again, if you’ve played Forager, this will all sound familliar.
Where this diverges is when you unlock the drone port. There are three drones, Collectors, Logistics, and Defenders. Collector drones are able to collect one type of resource from the island they are on, and either drop the resources on the ground near the drone port, or store them into a depot. Logistics bots will take dropped items, or items from depot, and move them into whatever machine or depot is requesting them. Each depot can only hold one type of item when used for logistics. Defender bots can be set to either protect or hunt, killing any mob that tries to attack you or your bots, or whatever it is configured to find. The challenge comes from the fact that each island can only support three (upgradable to five) bots.
As you progress further, you’ll unlock new islands with new biomes and resources, as well as the ability to automatically move items between islands, and at this point the logistics challenge becomes deciding where is most effective to build your factories and how best to route the items around. Routing becomes a little easier when you unlock drones, but in return you start running into throughput challenges due to only being able to support 5 bots on each island. Overall a very fun progression.
My one minor gripe with this game is the inventory limit. Unlike Forager, or most other games, where you have a dedicated backpack menu and a decent capacity to hold items, in Nova Lands, your inventory is entirely your small hotbar. It can be upgraded a number of times, but that still leaves less than 10 stacks of inventory space at your disposal. However, as you progress the game, you’ll have the ability to unlock builder perks, which have the effect of setting the build requirements for certain materials to 0, freeing up one of your inventory slots.
All in all a very fun little experience.
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1501610 £16.49
Humble Bundle: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/nova-lands £16.49
Switch: https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Nova-Lands-2380700.html £17.99
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