Aground Zero

Aground Zero is a game that is meant to be mostly like Aground, but in 3D and with a huge focus on automation and base building. And I would say it succeeded as far as the automation is concerned. You get quite a few resources to extract, components to craft, end-game components to fuse together so you can work on making the most efficient base and build the most powerful tools. The starting biome (the caves) can be expanded, remodeled as you wish, or you can just leave the planet and work wherever you feel like.
After a while, you will have finished setting up your workshops and you can wait for whatever you need to be produced while focusing on other projects. The different planets and biomes come with their opportunities for terraformation, some suggested by the game, others not, so you won't be bored as long as you don't limit yourself to the main quest (which after a while starts losing steam, imo).
The main problem with this game is, as other have mentioned, that it offers a lot of different kind of content while never expanding much on it.
Vehicles can be crafted, but don't have much of an impact because there is usually not a reason to use them aside from the spaceship - which can let you travel through space, obviously. Base building is possible, and you get many different kind of walls and floors to use, but there is barely any furniture to put inside to make them feel lively. There is a combat system, but not that many enemies to fight, only one weapon for most of the game, and by the time you unlock the magic weapons the only real enemy left is the final boss.
Overall, my gut feeling is that the game dev tried too hard to bring in everything there was in Aground (which was what the players requested, mind you) when the game would have benefited from focusing on what it had at the beginning.
Still, I will recommend this game. After launch, I started a new game and got so far something like 20 hours of content, and I am still not done with it. It might be frustrating at times to consider what it could be, but so long as you focus on what the game is instead, I believe it will be worth its price.

This barely gets the thumbs up.

This game is *vastly* worse than Aground. If you haven't played Aground, turn around and go play that one instead. Seriously, go. Compared to Aground, it's so bad that it feels *awful* to play.

But, if you're *not* comparing it to Aground... I mean, it's not bad. It's not great, but not bad. Base building is fun and relaxing. And the gameplay generally is fun. It's not too expensive, all told. The endings suck, the plot is stupid as hell and terribly conveyed. But like... my family and I *did* have fun, so I guess that means I have to thumbs up, right?

Great game. It's game loop is like crack. Was loving it for the first seven hours- but it's gotten too grindy to progress. I could probably automate things better to move a bit faster, but I'm not interested in doing that right now. Still recommend, and I'll probably come back to this one.

The game is actually really nice
My only complaint is that it is way shorter than the original aground and one would expect more from it. But this is understandable because a 3D game is way harder to make than a 2D one.
8/10

This game is a spinoff of Aground, it´s not that great like the original but it´s more accessible to Multiplayer and play this with your family or friends is awesome

Aground Zero is an addictive game with satisfying building mechanics. I loved expanding my base and watching it produce me lots and lots of resources. Definitely recommended!

My verdict: this is a small, but nice game. I have genuinely enjoyed it and think it is a good spin-off for the original aground. I could have been better and can become better, but it is kind of good enough. There are things I don't like, but the game is short enough to not annoy me much.
Let's start with short points:
- Visuals are nice, but the way characters are done is not my cup of tea.
- Lower visual settings make game look weird.
- Optimization is not good, but not horrible. My notebook handles mid-game well. Than at some point I get periodic micro-freezes. But that is what one just expects from a Unity game.
- Story is well-done, but very limited.
- Final quests are not good. You just have to craft a lot of specific items and that is the most of it.
- Sound design is nice. Environment, creatures, machines produce fitting sound. Music feels right.
- Colony management is basically non-existent. Colonists are more or less just parts of some machines. They have no needs besides food and home and just work besides that.
- There are some secrets that are kind of well hidden in the plain sight, just the way I like it.
- Player-built space stations and orbit serve no purpose. There is just no point building anything there, which is a shame as the mechanic is very nice. One way they could have been done better is to limit particle accelerators to being produced there and add a low-tier alternative fuel for the ship that e.g. gives 4 energy per piece. Or to allow uranium there. Plus, to add some new recipes.
- NPC station is basically a decoration and has no useful interactive content, just a single go-to quest and 3 or so small dialogues.
- All main item upgrades cost just same two resources via unlock->buy system. Having something like t1-4 upgrade chips would have given at least some feel of progression.
This is a very small game, there just is no way around that. There are 4 planets with orbits, moon that is more like orbit, some separate smaller areas. There are just two types of spaceships and 3 other vehicles. There not that many recipes and most of them are either building material and food or other consumables. Adding more content of all kinds (except for food unless it is somehow reworked) can significantly improve the game. Both entire world, and areas themself are too small to build anything large or explore for more than 2-3 explore.
Logistics are made in a very unique way, or at least I have never seen it like this. But the problem is it looks like factorio-style and feels like that initially, which produces a lot of confusion and head-ache. After you figure it out it becomes trivial and basically non-existent. I wouldn't give any example of that, because it would spoil the puzzle. I think it is significantly better than in previous title.
There is a couple of bugs, but nothing huge. One that I have encountered most is that when you play on a notebook screen, close your lid, stick it into an external monitor and switch fullscreen->windowed->fullscreen, it crashes, likely due to caching previously used monitor handle or something like that. My point is there are some bugs, but nothing serious or annoying. Game even handles switching sound device just fine.
UI is not good, but not horrible. It is very simple and could have some QoL polish. Some examples:
- It is inconvenient to scroll through lists of recipes in some places
- Crafting stations don't have any option like "craft until N items are in the attached container", after container was filled they start dropping items to the floor nearby.