2025-05-02 13:40:40

The game has a great start. The premise is very strong, enough to carry it over the threshold of being a recommend out of the box, even with the current state of it. That said, there's a lot of obvious glaring issues.

Map generation isn't perfect- I don't know how to make it perfect, since that seems very complicated. Running my own small town as a map leads to issues. The devs say the issues are going to be resolved with non-curated map gen, which is good because in my opinion this is the main draw of the game.

In terms of gameplay, the game is excessively front-loaded. Events occur as you loot that will prompt objectives. One of the earliest objectives for me was to work on an armor factory, which is one of the last things it seems like you'd research, as both routes to get it are extremely expensive and behind other researches you must complete first. It is easy to become overwhelmed early, but then later feel like nothing is happening, which leads me to the next point.

The elephant in the room is map size. As it stands, the actual playable area is excruciatingly small- it does not cover a small town. There is simply not enough gameplay in such a small zone to sustain interest until all objectives are completed. On Day 47 the game has only just begun giving me the call for vaccines, when every single building on the map is looted, and all nearby areas have been explored.

I think there is a need for the game to give better early warning systems. Take Rimworld for instance- in Rimworld you get told a few days in advance if you're projected to run out of food soon. In here, things can just sort of creep up on you. Building a warehouse when your own warehouses are full, but not with wood, is extremely annoying. This extends to other things we could get an early warning for: a squad of mine was reported as starving without any warning they hadn't eaten. Relating to an earlier point, the game should also suggest early game progression better- such as telling me about the vaccines and whether they might be useful early or not.

On map generation, I think if the idea is that larger maps require more loading time, there are two obvious options to address that. The first is that players should be allowed to choose map size, and if it takes really long, that's their call. I've played Dwarf Fortress and allowed it to map gen for hours, I can tank whatever is available here. Alternatively, and perhaps better, replace the expedition system with a system to expand the map in-game. The map gen process can be obfuscated by a Scouting period, which entails sending a squad to a new square of the map, after which it opens. As it stands, it is far too easy to exhaust all buildings in suburbia.

There are minor gripes to go with it. Walking speed in this game is fucked up, what might be a two minute walk in real life is a 1 hour affair in here. Workers are highly inefficient. While I assume this is down to the map provider and not the devs, a lot of buildings are misrepresented or just missing (and, amusingly, some things are misinterpreted as a building- the game dubbed the building "Amphitheater" but did not realize that it was an outdoor one, resulting in a seven-story apartment building named "Amphitheater" appearing in the middle of the local park). The game uses a lot of AI art which sucks for obvious reasons but one hopes that this is sought to be phased out later on.

The game has a long way to go but is in my opinion worth the money asked for, especially with the devs seeming so open to communication. I'm optimistic.

2025-05-01 03:32:12

It's a little tedious and very rinse and repeat but overall the game is very well made, the cherry on top is you can play wherever you want, literally i live in a place which isn't well known and almost no one has ever heard of yet this game has it! and if not then you can download it, feels cool to play in my own town but of course with very few houses around it's very hard to make progress haha, still a cool feature though, also lots of cool random events, you will notice lots of repeats throughout the game though and it can get very tense at times but overall it's good, it's still in early access though so it will have more to come hopefully. 8.5/10

2025-04-29 20:38:59

any game with AI slop in it is an automatic no for me.

also, the gameplay loop is tedious. there's no real attachment to the characters.

2025-04-15 23:28:30

Worth a Play, But Be Warned

After nearly 100 hours across two stints with the game, I can recommend it—but not without caveats.

Pros:

Unique map generation system.

Fun mix of survival, zombie defense, and colony building—think Banished meets They Are Billions.

High difficulty is genuinely challenging and rewards smart squad management.

Developers continue to release updates, making it worth the sub-$20 price tag.

Cons:

Major bugs can halt progress even after 10+ hours, forcing restarts.

Endgame becomes stale; once your colony is self-sufficient, it’s essentially AFK mode.

While map variety is fun at first (real-world locations like your IRL home town), most are poorly optimized. You’ll likely stick to dev-recommended maps.

UI needs work—especially inventory and squad management, which becomes tedious with more squads.

If you're okay with some rough edges and enjoy challenging colony sims, this one has a lot to offer.

2025-04-15 19:39:02

A fresh look into RTS and zombies. The map creation is unique (or at least I've not seen it before), and the gameplay interesting. Worth the cost.

2025-04-15 14:13:40

A game with a great concept, great development and developers! Definitely worth money and time if you are into zombie survival genre.

2025-04-15 08:36:12

Fun game. Being able to make your own neighborhood the site of the zombie apoc, hands down best feature in any similar game. Hopefully the dev team continues to build on this premise. Still needs a bit of work around the edges.

2025-04-15 00:03:09

Pretty good game, done 2 "tours" in it with a few months apart, after major updates. Keeps getting better. First time a lot of micromanagement (mainly repairing was a pain, fixed with repairmen), not enough wood etc, seemed to be resolve the second time I played. Devs seem active and improving the game. Preparing for a third round shortly after upcoming major update (was really missing the partial building adaptations previous playthroughs).

One small point of feedback, not sure if it has been fixed/adjusted, sometimes, really hard to tell if zombies can pass through a building and where its exits are. Can be tricky if you want to use buildings as garrison-able walls. Maybe allow to barricade certain entrances/exists or whole sides of a building? Also wish there was a way to put squads in larger buildings in a way where they got line of sight all around it. Would be OP in some cases, so maybe would need special squads or multiple "patrols" stationed inside.

2025-04-04 23:03:38

I'd love to like this game (you can tell by the fact that I keep trying), but I can't play it more than 10 minutes before it crashes. My PC is brand new, I did try to remove autosaves and limit them; nothing works. I'll try again in a few months. For now it's unplayable.

2025-04-02 23:51:31

As someone that LOVES the OG gaming RTS style ... but also has some fun with the new more "finite" systems approch - this blends it perfectly.

All of that while letting you choose to defend your own house... like ... ON THE D*^&Y%$ GOOGLE MAPS !
its not "your character" having their life changed .... this is a trip down memory (or now if you got a place of your own) that gets your blood pumping to "defend what was yours"

and to have all of this only in early acess means that its gonna get better (i'm an optimist)

100% recommended