Subterrain (List price as of 2018-01-22: $16.99)
What's in it?
- Twin-stick top-down shooter
- Survival - Thermal/Oxygen/Infection/Hunger/Thirst/Bathroom needs
- Crafting - Weapons & Equipment
- Exploration - A number of various facilities
- Dark, claustrophobic atmosphere. You use a flashlight to explore infected corridors.
- Simplified combat resource management. Power. That's all you need to run your guns, shields, and flashlight.
- Visuals. Everything in the game works. It's not drop-dead gorgeous, but it's not a dog either.
- Lite Gameplay. So far in my 8+ hours of play, I haven't found anything that was overly frustrating or pushed me to move super fast.
- Sameness. It's hard not to feel like you've already seen this dark corridor and that dark room. Very limited variety in tile sets.
- Grinding for resources. There's stuff to pick up everywhere and you have a limited inventory, which means a lot of running back and forth.
- Pacing can be skewed. Combat isn't constant and generally happens when you open doors.
- MkI > MkII > MkIII. Yes, there's crafting. All those resources you're grinding are so you can recycle your Mk1 item to make a Mk2 item to make a Mk3 item. There's not a huge variety in the items, and only five weapons and two kinds of grenade. That's a lot of numeric transition with little variety.
- Sitting. I actually find myself sitting my character down (it doubles the game speed) periodically just to pass time while I wait for something to get repaired or constructed.
- A special note for the clutter in the game. You can move furniture around, as can enemies. Sometimes this is a little annoying when you bump something out of place and then get momentarily stuck on it when an enemy is coming at you. Other times this seems helpful as I spent some time (okay, way too much time) playing "Moving Simulator" in the central hub and jammed all the movable furnishings into the hallways enemies spawn from to attack my core. Upon further testing, I did manage to jam enough angled desks into one hallway that enemies can't get through and I only have two halls to worry about, cutting the threat by 1/3 - so "Moving Simulator" is a valuable minigame here, I guess.
The Steam reviews are right about a few things, but I don't personally feel like it deserves the "Mixed" reviews it's getting. These are mostly because of one big element the game leans on heavily - "grinding" for resources. Like any other survival game, you spend a lot of time gathering resources. I'm not even sure I need all the stuff I'm accumulating. Like some other RPG games, there's "stuff" everywhere. Do I really need to collect these Pool Cues, chalks, and wine glasses? Probably not, but I do because I can. Almost all of it is useless to you except that you can recycle it for components to make other things. Recycling is done on a large scale; one button click and it's all pulverized.
Around the grinding, it could be my natural OCD hoarding tendencies in games that makes it hard for me to pass by items on the floor. In most games that let me, I'll pick up everything and try to find a use for it. It was only once I realized that I had 3,000+ of some resources that I stopped picking up everything and started being selective. I may not even need to pick up what I'm picking up. I don't know what I'll need down the road. This aspect of the game doesn't bother me much, but it could make people who hate running back and forth to store items angry.
Overall, it's a good-ish game that's different enough that I don't feel like I've already got three copies of it. I'd put it somewhere around 6/8 Tentacles in the twin-stick survival shooter genre. If there was more shooting and less grinding, it'd be more fun and get a higher score. The other mechanics are pretty solid. It's not a must have and it's not a buggy pile of crap code. I picked it up during the Christmas sale and don't mind at all that I splurged on it for $4; I've certainly gotten more than $4 in entertainment out of it.
2019-01-23: As a quick addendum: Re: Grinding
The more I play, the more I see what people were griping about in Steam reviews - however - I don't find it too tedious (yet) and kind of like that I'm starting to feel some measure of stress over getting enough upgrade parts that I can stave off the inevitable collapse of my generator, which would lead to my untimely demise.
Additional note: The game isn't hard. I've only ever been knocked down to 1/2 health once, and I've never felt like I was in danger of dying. At most, I've felt like I was in danger of not completing upgrades fast enough to outpace the wear down of existing equipment.
2019-01-28: Still playing, but interest is waning. The long slog to Teir II research/production/mining/harvesting almost broke me - and it looks like I'll have to work through Tier III through Tier V in the same fashion.
Still - I more than got my money's worth, and won't be deleting my save. It's an okay game to spend a little time with here or there and doesn't require hours to accomplish something.