need to know
what is that? A frostpunk-inspired space colony sim that follows a small mistake of blowing up the moon.
Expected payment: £30/$35
Release date: right now
Developer: Bulwark Studios
the publisher: Kasedo Games
Review date: Radeon 5700 XT, i5-9600K, 16GB RAM
Multiplayer: No
Link: Official site (opens in new tab)
Warhammer 40,000: In a jumble of genres, from small-scale skirmishes in Mechanicus to the (ideally) automated production chains that keep Ixion’s giant space station running, developer Bulwark is compelling I came up with a premise. Ending human existence on Earth as a result? But the shift from squad-based tactics to colony management and collective trauma management comes with a bevy of pacing and technical issues.
With so much Greek nomenclature circulating (the first shuttle that docks at your station is identified as Charon, the mythical ferryman of the dead), someone has bothered to reaffirm the brand and make humanity You think you have the future of rest. As you know, Dolos, the name of both the company funding your ambitious space endeavors and the CEO whose philanthropic declarations sound dubious even before catastrophe strikes, is Greek for means “malicious”. Wipe out seeds in a whole new light.
Depressingly lifeless and suddenly stranded in the uncomfortable Milky Way, I, as the custodian of the Tiqqun space station, ensured the continued survival of the crew and what happened during the catastrophe during launch. Our first priority is to discover As with similar base-building games, the fascinating enormity of the task at hand is masked by a reassuringly limited set of starting options. The construction of important buildings such as living quarters and clinics, the design of roads to facilitate transportation between them, and the most pressing trends. The station’s irrevocably bleeding hull, its hull ripped apart by the force of its world-shattering jump.
The first few hours are balanced and quietly elegiac busy work, and even if Bulwark decides to keep training wheels on for a bit longer, it staves off two major threats to novice admins. I’m teaching you how to disappear into nothingness. To avoid that, I look for raw materials outside the ship and convert them into alloys, organize the limited space to house warehouses to store them and factories to process them, and use mining vessels and cargo ships. You need to direct routes and optimize their flow. Tiqqun. Ixion does a decent job of introducing these logistical responsibilities in the first few hours, but at the same time, it felt like I was being held back for too long. I couldn’t wait to roam the galaxy.
As for crew morale, the same bleep probes are tossed into the void, seeking out mineral-rich asteroids, and floating ice mountains discovering event spots. Answer pressing questions, uncover cryogenic human caches to unfreeze and add to your crew, locate scientific data to unlock new technologies that improve living conditions, and long-term possibility of survival.
These are fun events that offer a degree of unpredictability and a welcome change of pace from the monotony of base building. Their results advance the plot of Tiqqun’s pilgrimage, shedding light on the intricate backstory, sometimes presenting a fairly simple alternative, and sometimes something more exciting: a piece of the plot. sometimes. After all, making a living off locally-harvested insect protein is a good thing, but like other starfarers, what Iksion’s refugees crave is a cause for optimism and a dream come true. It’s something like
new hope?
The dream appears as coordinates. Protagoras, an experimental Dross ship that disappeared from the solar system after an accident, planned a route to a potentially habitable planet. Not only does this revelation suggest there’s more than a few beings orbiting the smoldering Earth corpses, but the resources needed to upgrade Tiqqun for its next interstellar jump and ensuing pursuit. hastened to cause the first major change in the game.
At this point, after several hours of pleasant but uninspiring monotony, the game finally opens up to a range of exciting possibilities. Explore unknown star systems and research newly unlocked technologies, some of which will teach you how to manage your colonies. For example, building a DLS center allowed me to play the role of a politician, enforcing section-wide laws to increase productivity, or yelling propaganda to appease a restless populace. I made it. Effectively manufacture new resources out of thin air.
A new hazard also appeared. Due to the high incidence of work-related injuries and associated power outages, we need to invest in resource-wasting solar panels and batteries. On the other hand, crew discomfort increases as each cycle progresses to the next with little progress, instilling a sense of urgency in the workers. Seek out the elusive Protagoras so that their despair does not turn to anger. Admittedly I was getting a little too comfortable at that point, so it’s a necessary escalation, but the game’s infuriating tendency to throw all the accidents at once makes the sudden difficulty spike feel artificial and exacerbated. I got
The selection of events has also become tougher, sometimes requiring the transfer of large amounts of cash from ships, while one misstep can put the science team in jeopardy (although the logical consequences of making a wrong decision can be daunting). Some feel more like cheap pitfalls than consequences.) And of course, Ixion’s bursting hull, Frostpunk’s equivalent of an insatiable generator, unlocks every section of Tiqqun to make use of the extra space, and an interstellar jump closer to finding a permanent home. We estimate that the emotionless announcements from the ship’s AI can survive up to 4 jumps, worth a chapter of the game.
Despite the risks involved, what Ixion explores at its most exhilarating is every jump in a fresh star system, from piecing together details of what has already happened, to leaping into the yet-to-be-written future. It’s time to shift focus to the leap to the unknown. Unfortunately, that’s also where things start to fall apart.
moon buggy
As if succumbing to the weight of the sheer amount of processing, Ixion’s serious technical issues come to the fore as we walk to the conclusion: severe framerate drops, screen lockups, and irregularities. menu. The bugs I’ve experienced range from harmless (such as unlocking achievements before their conditions are met) to playthrough-ruining. Restarting chapters is the core option Bulwark offers when all else fails, but after drawing itself into a corner with Chapter 4, it reloaded the first chapter instead. And two-thirds of the crew mysteriously disappeared. And when I finally got to the ending (on the 3rd run), even though I had met all the requirements, pressing the final button that would lead people to the promised land left me brutally greyed out. I got
At times, I felt like I was struggling against the game’s flawed circuitry rather than against the intended challenge. some others persisted in my last playthrough as well).
Other, less accidental flaws are revealed as the story progresses. Chapter-closing sequences often require a concerted effort toward a grand goal, such as awakening 2,000 souls from a cryopod. This, ironically, means letting the excitement die out at the very moment you crave to sprint. Somewhere new. To make matters worse, the balance in the production chain management that forms the interactive backbone of the game is unobtrusively tight, allowing hours to cruise before the side effects of bad decisions (like entire section layouts and spending). . energy to a particular specialty) becomes apparent. One of the joys of the production chain subgenre lies in the creative rush of eradicating and rebuilding on the fly. But the way Ixion sneakily slips into an unsustainable doom spiral favors reloading over redesigning.
Frustrated by the mounting setbacks, I was excited to see what lay ahead, but after reading through the early chapters, finding humanity’s new home requires more than just getting coordinates. I quickly realized that it was.Finding Protagoras is the first step in a much longer quest that involves tracking down a Dros ship by a surprisingly warlike UN task force (you It was (responsible for destroying the Earth after all) and a mysterious group called the Black Market Society that engaged in shady dealings with both organizations.
Surprisingly, given the calm nature of the game up to that point, the final act evokes more Lovecraftian horror than the logistical challenges of a traditional base builder. The mood of these tense moments is heightened by the swelling chorus and ominous drones of Guillaume David’s consistently excellent soundtrack. Various endings will be available depending on your decisions.
When the last refugees landed on that fabled Earth-like planet, my feelings were mixed. Satisfaction at having achieved a conclusion with a compelling narrative and securing the future of mankind, and relief at retiring from finicky and often counterintuitive management simulations. Sitting and watching it run smoothly on autopilot was, as always, a very satisfying experience. But at the same time, lots of bugs, long periods of inactivity, and disastrous collapsing dominoes that can result from a single omission or bad decision made to a game that frequently causes insanity. Its biggest obstacles, whether designed or unintentional, brought little joy to overcome.
