Stellar Overload
Stellar Overload is an adventure game, in a world made of blocks. The playground, completely open, is made up of different cubic planets. While progressing through the science fiction scenario, you will have to explore all these planets, alone or with others…
The playground
Each planet has its specific set of resources. By exploring them, you will unlock access to new technologies. Merx, the small green planet, is the first planet of the game.
Story and important characters
Stellar Overload is a scenarized adventure game where you’ll go on a quest to free the planet Merx from the yoke of the robots.
Some characters, directly related to the main quest, will give you valuable information to help you progress.
Features related to the story and progression:
– Possibility to customize your character
– Dialogues related (or not) to the quests
– Monitor your quest objectives in real-time
– A progression curve related to the quests but also to exploration
– Planets (and enemies) of different levels
Exploration and craft
While progressing through the main quest, exploring the world and the dungeons, you’ll unlock more and more recipes. These recipes will help you get stronger and go further into the adventure.
You will need raw resources to create various objects (tools, weapons, armors…). You can find these resources by different ways: pick them up directly on the planets, find them in chests or get them as quest rewards.
Exploration and craft features:
– A global map of the planets
– A minimap
– A jetpack to travel through the caves more easily
– Possibility to create a vehicle to move faster
– Different craft stations
– Glowblocks will help you enlighten the caves
– Different levels of gauntlet in order to pick up the various blocks of the game
– Teleportation (within a dungeon or between planets)
– Semi procedural dungeons
– Evolving music and soundscape based on the day-night cycle
Combat
To defend yourself against your enemies, you will rely on the creative talents of some important characters in the story, and learn how to create weapons and armors.
The Block-Thrower is an exotic weapon, it can load any of the game’s blocks and throw them at enemies. Depending on the nature of the blocks, damage and effects will be different. Damage aside, if you throw a Glowblock against a cave wall, it will enlighten the cave.
Features related to fighting in this early access version:
– 5 different weapons: the pistol, the rifle, the Block-Thrower, the sonic carbine and the grenades
– 1 armor to greatly reduce damage
– 6 different enemies (Arkuloids, Cognitrons, Legionnaire robots, Plasma turrets, Tesla pylons)
– A boss in the fortress
Construction
Since Stellar Overload is a game made of blocks, the construction (and harvest) is an important aspect of the game.
You can build all types of structures but also vehicles, which will facilitate the exploration of the planets.
A creative mode is available, allowing you to unleash your imagination without worrying about the scenario.
Construction features:
– 6 different shapes of blocks
– Easily place and destroy walls (straight or sloping)
– A tool to “paint” the targeted area with a certain material (adjustable size)
– A tool to save a construction and place it elsewhere (“copy/paste”)
– Possibility to define an alignment grid (to facilitate the placement of shapes)
– Undo / Redo : very useful in creative mode!
– More than 200 different materials
A few numbers in blocks
Merx, the first planet of the game, which is also the smallest, is 1200 blocks long per side, with an area of 1.4 million blocks for each face.
It has a total area of 540,000 m² and is composed of about 2 billion blocks!
For the planet Skahar, the largest, which is 8000 blocks long per side, each face has an area of 64 million blocks. The whole planet has a total of about 500 billion blocks!
Steam User 165
Great game, but I wouldn't tell you to buy it because the game has been abandoned by the devs.
Steam User 45
This review will change if my experience changes after the first two hours.
Stellar Overdrive has a ton of competition. Empyrion, Space Engineers, Starbound, Star Citizen, Elite Dangerous, Rodina, even No Man's Sky- Each of them accomplishes its own goals in its own way. Empyrion has survival and crafting, with plenty of aliens. Space Engineers is all about physics and ship building, putting things together in space. Starbound and NMS have their infinite lineup of procedurally generated world's. Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous focus on the realism of quotidien life as a spacefarer. Rodina is a lonely experience, exploring four unique but barren planets, learning about a story
But not one of these has yet given me the range of emotions an hour's play of this game has. The basic gist: Minecraft on cube-shaped planets, with more to craft, people to talk to, storylines, real vehicles, and the voxel variability that Minecraft is missing. But more than that, this game explores something Minecraft never did but the games in my aforementioned list do: Gravity. Each side of the cubic planets has a different time of day. And gravity reorients as you move. Want to dig to China? Go for it. See how the game handles it when you get closer to the core, and then when you go beyond. Want to fly through space to a forest planet, a desert planet with deep canyons, an ocean planet with little islands and trenches that go almost to the core? How about a moon? How about a lava planet? Build a ship...and go there. Each planet has a different ecosystem with different dangers, monsters, fauna, and enemies. It's a closed system, not open or infinite. But the groundwork is there for the story to expand, the variety to multiply, and the game to evolve.
I know this review isn't very detailed. I'll be updating it after the game leaves Early Access. For now, let me close with this:
If you are a fan of Minecraft but wish the world were a bit more sci-fi; if you're a fan of Elite: Dangerous but wish it were more colorful; if you're a fan of No Man's Sky but were turned off by the lackluster release; if you're a fan of Starbound but want a similar experience in 3D; if you're a fan of Space Engineers but want more survival; a fan of Empyrion but want a more thoughtful art design; or a fan of Rodina but want a game that's more polished with more variety...
...you know what to do. ;)
Steam User 243
If you dont like minecraft like games or incompleate games then I guess this review has worked for you, you can tick the 'found it helpful' box and move on, if you do, then onward ...
The animal and plant life are excelent, the diversity on Istin (the second planet) is breath taking. There are rabits and squirles and boars, and bees, and peacocks and praying manits, and more, a veritable menagary. A pity yoiu cant catch them (or maybe you can and I missed something), or yoiu could create a zoo.
The gravity is quite special, due to a cubic world (planet) each face of the cube has its own gravity (explained in an image on the game website). Digging with the digger tool (secon one) is a breeze and you soon find yourself in a tunnel with perculiar gravity at the bottom (or in the middle).
I shy away from the term minecraft clone, because while it shares an ancestory (or history) with ol'MC it differs from it in several distictive ways, nevertheless it also has some commonalities, mainly in crafting and architecture. WIth a limitless building world the architectural aspects move up the curve with a blocks per meter and block shapes (ramps, corners and such).
There is a multitude of substances, perhaps too many, which quickly fill up storage space.
THe game is early access and as such is not compleate, and probably, quite alot not compleate. There are several usable dungeons built into the main story, which is comming along nicely, and some unusable or cloned dungeons which are clearly just place holders.
All in all an interesting offering with plenty of potential. On the cinema scale I would say good value for money (I paid the price of a cinema ticket, popcorn and a large fizzy pop drink), look at the time I have already played the game, I think I've got value for money, and will dabble in it some more, then, oh, delight, come back in six months time to see what (if anything) the devs have made of this highly promising game.
Steam User 28
Pros:
Amazing Art and Character design.
Beautiful World generation for existing worlds.
Fantastic Sound design.
Fun Building System.
Fairly Difficult.
Has a story mode.
Has Multiplayer.
Vehicle Creation.
Awesome Workshop support for both Creative and Story mode.
Pretty Decent dungeon designs.
Cons:
Not Much to do after getting to the content limit.
Minor Bugs and Glitches, both Gameplay and Graphical.
No real character creation
For an early access game that was released less than 3 months ago, it's got a lot going for it.
But of course due to it being Early access, it isn't feature complete. Meaning that once you complete the first main questline on your starting planet, you are left with only a side mission taking you to the newest planet added (which is gorgeous and massive) Aside from that, there really isn't much wrong with this game.
I went into this expecting nothing special, but I was left pretty surprised.
The Story aspect kept me very interested, to the point that I'm excited for more Story centered updates in the future.
The world design is beautiful, which is shown the second you start your game,the starting town is really reflects how pretty this game gets. And with the tools given to you for building, you can creation some pretty amazing stuff yourself.
You're able to build your own Hovercylces and Space Ships by hand, using the blocks you've gathered to make it really special. You're also able to scan, and save your builds to either spawn (given you have the materials required) or share with other people Via the Workshop.
One of the best things about this game is how the planets are layed out. They're cube shaped, so when walking to the edge of a planet, you're able to go over the edge and land on the other sides. And while this can be extremely jarring at first, it's a really cool mechanic and makes the planets pop.
The combat isn't too much to sneeze at, Typical FPS stuff, but if you're not careful you're going to find yourself stuck in a loop of getting your butt handed to you. The dungeons are the best example of this, especially at the end of the main quest. That dungeon alone took me about 2 hours to get through.
Speaking of which, the Dungeons are pretty tricky at times. Laser grids, Parkour challenges, Mazes, Enemies around every corner, Platforming and Minor Puzzle Solving, They have pretty much everything you could ask for in a challenge.
This is a really solid game, even if it is in Early Access right now, it has enough to satisfy 10 hours or so with it's story content, and if you're a builder you'll find yourself spending even more time playing.
If you're not a fan of Early Access, you should definitely buy this when it comes on sale, or wait until future updates before buying. However if you're willing to trust the developers, which is a good idea in this case, then I would definitely recommend buying this full price and enjoy watching it grow.
Steam User 34
Eye strain.
Eye strain is a very big problem with this game. The brights are excruciatingly bright, and the darks are completely pitch black. Cubical Drift needs to even out their lighting levels and add a brightness slider to the in-game menus.
Other than that, the only complaints I have are the cheesy dialogue, linear progression, and silly crafting. You can think of it as being a 3D Starbound or Terraria.
Otherwise, this has the potential to be everything that Minecraft falls short of. All the mechanics are there. It just lacks... spirit.
Steam User 22
This title is very addicting, good graphics, nice concepts, controls are easy, doesn't throw you in the deep end straight away. Overall it's a neat little game.
I do have a few problems with it, but only 2 major things stand out for me right now.
1. When speaking to NPCs, the English is so bad in places, im not sure whether they google translated the entire game or they didn't proof read their game. (You'll know what I mean when you speak to a few NPCs.
2. The whole idea of the world rotating when going to a different surface of the planet is... interesting, to say the least, when on the surface, it doesnt throw you off balance or make you feel sick in any way.
BUT....... when digging in caves looking for ores to mine, the game doesnt give you ANY indication when you're on a different side of the planet and so the screen starts rotating like crazy because you keep switching sides underground, but you don't realise you're doing it because the in-game map looks like you are dead centre of any given side. I hope they tweak the map so it gives you more information on your orientation, which side of the planet you're on and when you're about to switch sides underground.
Steam User 35
I recommend this for two reasons, The game has amazing potential.
The second reason is EVERY TIME I post some feedback or have a question on the steam forums, a developer always responds to me. These guys are in touch with all of their playerbase so if you want to be heard, the devs hear you. That is whats going to make this game great and surpass many of even the bigger titles!
I would buy this game to support such amazing devs!