This review contains spoilers, click expand to view.
Aven Colony is a great game.
It's set apart from other city simulators out there because you are in fact responsible for what your colonists do in almost every aspect.
You are in charge of choosing not only where they'll work and live, but you choose what they farm, what they eat and how they choose to "Enhance" themselves. This will make you feel a part of the colony you will create and will make you feel more invested in actually designing the colony in a functional productive way.
This may sound trivial or cliché, but it truly makes a difference considering other city building games like Sim City will only give you "some" element of control over which buildings will be created where and what industry will decide to put their factory in your city. You simply zone an area, put down some parks, schools, etc... and then it’s up to the virtual citizens to decide what they do. Which will undoubtedly sets you apart from the city, you are just the designer but not a true part of the city.
Gameplay-wise, its elements are simple and elegant.
The circular motion of the building menu is very cool and does in fact make it feel futuristic, rather than just being a menu full of boxes. The different climates and soils of the maps will present a nice challenge that will make you take certain routes and somewhat determine a number of decisions you’ll have to take but it’s a nice curve-ball to have to deal with.
Having the ability to choose where and how many colonists you want to work at a specific building definitely make your colony really versatile in terms of efficiency and what objectives you are pursuing in case of an emergency.
The elements that allow you to control the colony (I guess the "policies") do feel rather limited, to be fair there's like 10-20 but only 2 or 3 truly useful.
Expeditions are a great little mechanic that made me feel like the world was in deed much larger than this limited space you are given to build up.
The graphics while not complicated look AMAZING, the buildings look incredible and like they really could be used to populate an alien planet. The maps are visually striking! If you zoom into it you can see in great detail the small elements like the rovers and natural flora around the colony. There's some great views with elements on the horizon that make the world feel very much alive, with gusts of wind coming in and the oceans having proper reflections and movement. There's not a lot of weather effects, but it's ok, thunder storms are rather impressive and the effect of the ground freezing look proper and make the environment feel alive.
Sound design is ok, the music is not my favorite element, I expected more especially from Team 13 and the amazing job done in sound design of The Escapists. The ambient noises truly help the experience feel immersive, gusts of wind and thunders are a great element that helps out in this aspect quite a bit.
The difficulty curve is rather simple, I feel like you can master the game quite quickly which is not particularly good. After a couple of hours getting the basics down I found what I felt was the optimal route to get everything to 100% without much trouble and I don’t think there is another way around it, and that means your choices are limited to just 1 proper path and after you do that you are all set for the rest of the game.
There’s a couple of minor bugs, specifically with the camera movement when entering certain overlays or when about to set down a building, the camera will jam in place not allowing you to move unless you zoom in first and then it gets “unstuck” and then you can move however you like. Nothing that can’t be fixed in an update.
There’s a couple of elements that could use more diversity.
Research is almost all limited to food creation, with only 4 boosts to your colony and I believe 5 upgrades to your expedition ships. There’s no research for medical facilities, new energy sources, architecture improvements, etc.… it’s not a big deal but it would help creating a more advanced colony as it grows rather than having almost everything stay the same from start to finish.
Certain building categories could use more diversity so would the sources of power.
Anyway, Aven Colony is a great game!
This to me feels like the beginning of a great game, hopefully with following updates they can exploit the great foundations they’ve set up.
Do not hesitate to pick it up, you’ll get addicted to this in seconds and you’ll find that time flies while playing this game and won’t be able to stop thinking about this game.
A decent 9 out of 10.… Expand
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