The Mims Beginning

The Mims Beginning Review
The Mims Beginning is a breath of fresh air in an increasingly stagnate gaming pool. At first glance, the game may look light and simple but very quickly you begin to see that this is a deep, well-designed strategy/god-mode game. The graphics are very detailed, the artwork is beautiful, the mechanics are flawless. If you think that because its a god-mode strategy game that it will be boring, then guess again. There is plenty of action/activities to keep you busy without having to micro-manage your units and economy. Research will increase the options and powers available during gameplay while continuing to upgrade and expand your alien colony. For any strategy gaming fan, I strongly recommend picking this game up. Most games are only moderately worth their sale prices, especially indie games. But this game is well worth the full price.
The big name gaming developers should take a few lessons from the Squatting Penguins Studio. This is how a game is supposed to be released. Out-of-the-box, ready to play. 100+ hours of gameplay and I have yet to experience a single bug. No glitches in gameplay, no graphics hiccups or units falling through maps, no game crashes. The game runs smooth and seamlessly like any released game should. Even more amazing is that this is still an early-access game so bugs and glitches are normally accepted and typically expected. A lot of care and effort went into this release and true gamers will notice and appreciate it right away.
Without going into a lengthy game description, The Mims Beginning will have the typical RTS simulation components, but with its own distinct approach. Expect a well-balanced economic system, a rich story to tie the campaign missions together nicely, an assortment of interesting buildings and units to build as you establish your camps, and a variety of research.
The one area that is lacking when compared to most games of this genre is the variety of units. In this game, you have only a couple of types to choose from. The basic, or generic Mim performs assorted tasks as you assign them rather than being specialized. Perhaps in the future more unit types will be added, but the game functions just fine with the current unit structure. The developer has stated that more features and game modes will be added as development progresses. As for the game's mechanics and features, here are some things that you should know:
The Good:
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+ Graphics are top-notch and run flawlessly even on the highest settings. Great detail and color
+ Absence of bugs/crashes (Makes a game much more enjoyable)
+ Gameplay is rich and deep with a clever resource economy and challenging goals
+ Learning curve is acceptable for beginners and an in-depth tutorial campaign is included
+ Camera controls are included and easy to use while navigating the maps
+ Although this is a God-mode game, autonomy option is able to be turned off when desired
+ Simple game controls / Window mode available if desired
+ Well-developed story for the campaign mode
The Bad:
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- No save feature included in current release
- Limited options for adjusting graphics in the event your system has trouble running the game
- Window mode is restricted to specifically selected screen resolutions only.
- Currently not a lot of replay value (likely to change in the final version with Survival Mode)
- The AI for units is sometimes frustrating as they seem to wander aimlessly about rather than perform their assigned tasks (possibly by design?)
Final thoughts:
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Keep in mind that at the time of this review, the game is still in Early Access beta and will likely improve and include more features. Considering that, this game is very impressive. At first glance it looks like its going to be some simple cartoon-ish indie that will fill an hour or two of free time. But nothing could be further from the truth. Hours of challenging and entertaining gameplay awaits and a good bit of light humor is mixed into the storyline as well. Rarely do I enjoy an early access game this much. I anxiously await the final release.
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A funny and cute god/strategy game with missions and a survival mode, clearly made with a lot of love. The tutorial was good, and as a left-handed player I didn't run into any problems (left-handed mouse works fine and the right-side keys I prefer do as well).
Two big cons:
- Can't save in the middle of a mission, and you don't know in advance how long a mission takes. (I'm too old for long playing sessions, and my kid who likes to play this with me, is too young.)
- The swaying main menu which gives me instant motion sickness. What were they thinking?!
Overall: 3/5.

This is a really tough game to review. On one hand, the art and animated characters are both just amazing. The cutscenes are well crafted. Even the little characters walking through the level are a joy to watch. The levels have a ton of tiny details that make them visually interesting.
But the gameplay is really rough. The A.I. for combat is not good, and the manual interface for moving combat units is difficult to use. Further, the game does not explain important parts of the mechanics, like how energy buildings work. It is hard to understand why things are not working when they don't. And then, there's the lack of mid-level saves... The levels can go for hours, but they are either finished in one sitting or started again from the beginning later.
So, with the splendid art, it takes a long time to see how the gameplay is such a mess. I suppose they had a vision for the game, and they stuck to it, regardless of the complaints in the support forums. The interface is quirky, just like the characters in the game. But it is consistent and it is not especially buggy. It's just not good.
But, at the end of the day, I like quirky games. I also like quirky people. And I know enough quirky people who like quirky games, too. I would recommend this game, despite the limitations. It has enough interesting things happening here that it would be worth purchasing.

TLDR at the bottom - The Mims Beginning is a game that mixes city building elements with some aspects of god games and plays in real time. You play as the first deity that the Mims, a strange and cute looking alien race, encounters after they crash land on a series of floating islands while fleeing their doomed homeworld.
Overall gameplay impressions
The game starts you off with a pretty decent tutorial that teaches you the basics while leaving room for discovery as you play, either through survival or story mode. At its core, the game might seem some somewhat complicated at first but, once you get the hang of the major mechanics you’ll see that it isn’t that complicated at all, but it does offer some degree of challenge and requires you to plan on how you expand and what you choose to build and research. You have to keep a steady supply of biomass, which you can get from certain plants, energy to power your buildings and gems, which you can get either by selling adult animals to offworld marketplaces or by finding them in each level.
That said, there is one complaint I have about this and that is the fact that to construct buildings and create certain units you’ll need gems. The thing is that these gems are limited in quantity and you can get yourself in a position where you’ll have to restart the entire mission. Yes, the entire mission, because unfortunately the game doesn’t have a save function. One time I lost about an hour of gameplay because of miscalculation of resources. Still, that was a one case scenario and usually missions are shorter than that.
While most of the game relies on autonomous actions from your Mims to gather resources and ensure that your settlement keeps on going, you also get to play an active role on this process. You can use various powers to boost your Mims or to protect them from dangers such as, creating fire or giving your Mims a boost in speed, health and energy, but you’re also able to directly control individual Mims such as warriors and some “hero” units. While you’re actively trying to protect your settlement from pests and predators, combat doesn’t really play a huge role like in other RTS. The game presents some pretty well thought mechanics such as pests, catastrophes and predators which some are triggered based on the smell of your settlement (for real) and things like the amount of livestock that you have at any given time. You can actually research some technologies that allow you to predict when these will happen, which is shown in a bar at the bottom of the screen.
Visuals and narrative
In terms of actual story, usually at the beginning of each mission and sometimes when a certain event is triggered, there are some the conversations between characters presented in the form of cutscenes, which unfortunately are not voice acted, but the dialogue still manages to pull out some nice humour. The story is well presented both visually and in terms of narrative, right at the start it kind of teases you what happened that led the Mims to have to flee their planet, which kept me interested in going on, and it also introduces you to some unique characters that help shape the story and add character to these little folks.
One thing I must say is that performance is somewhat of a hit or miss. The game is not really quite the looker (aesthetically I think it looks good, what I mean is in terms of graphical fidelity by todays standards) but the Mims themselves look rather nice and the buildings have this sort of steampunk look to them which I find to be rather appealing.
Final verdict
Overall, despite the major flaw which I consider to be the lack of a save function, The Mims Beginning managed to surprise me. It mixes elements from god games and city building/management and puts them in a world where you have to look out after this little tribe while helping them restore their former glory. If you’re a fan of god games I highly recommend you check this one out.

The mims has hours of enjoyment. I'd guess a new player would take ~30 hours to beat the game if they pick up on the strategy fast. Some of the missions have unique stories and objective, so each mission isn't a clone from the last. Overall good game.

The Mims is a god-game where you play the mysterious creator who has ultimate power over an alien species who have crash landed on a set of floating islands. It's currently in early access and only the story mode is available, nevertheless I have not yet encountered any bugs and the game is very polished (short of a few typos) for day one early access.
You must harvest resources, create buildings, keep your Mims happy so that they can work productively, create and grow animals that you can then sell for more resources, defend your base, fight off creatures, and search for the parts you need to rebuild your spaceship and go home.
It starts off fairly simplistic but does gather depth as you progress. Problem is it takes a while to get there playing the story mode. If you're finding it too easy - it does get more complicated once everything is unlocked. I hope that when sandbox is implemented you can build on a much larger scope and hopefully set conditions that provide more of a challenge. I'll return to edit this once that is added!
I'd also really like an option to save in the story mode, especially considering some maps have a fail condition, ie. if your special hero dies - you lose a solid hour of play.
The (currently not rebindable) camera controls are the biggest negative and take some getting used to. I hope the developers consider reworking with the standard right click hold to rotate and tilt rather than having to move to the edges of the screen as well as adding bindings. Otherwise I can see the current system really holding the game back and frustrating players from the start.
Despite some negatives that need to be smoothed out, the game is charming. Beautiful graphics, runs very well, cute, entertaining and fills a niche in a genre which is sadly devoid of recent titles. I don't think this is the deep strategy god game some people are still hoping to appear in the genre, but it still has an absolute ton of potential at this point. Time will tell.

The Mims, though cute and quirky, are a frustrating lot due to their lack of intelligence. If you're patient, however, The Mims Beginning is a solid god game.
.Story/Premise.
The Mims are strange, multi-eyed orange aliens who have landed on this scattered collection of floating islands as the result of a meteorite rain in space. You are their Saviour who will lead them to the missing parts of their space ship and their lost DNA Orb, which has the power to settle entire planets. The writing is amusing, though sometimes the humour felt a little forced.
.Game play.
In typical god game fashion, you have to plant, build, and use your powers in order to keep your little Mims alive.
Plants are important in both animal husbandry and building. Species require specific fruits in order to mature so that they can be sent to market and those same fruits can also be ground into biomass, which serves as a currency for creating animals and building structures. Gems also serve as currency and these can be gotten by selling adult animals or by breaking nodes found randomly around the map.
There is a total of 16 buildings, ranging from resource refinement to unit production. Placement is affected by the range of your Psi Tower, which acts as your HQ and allows you to launch rescue parties into space and recruit more Mims. The Psi Tower also allows you to use your powers. Other buildings such as the Science Lab allows you to procure various species and the Port allows you to sell them for gems.
One interesting thing about The Mims Beginning is the smells system. By planting plants, you raise your plant smell meter and by raising animals, you raise your animal smell. As the smell level rises, critters both troublesome and deadly appear with increased frequency. The system forces you to pace your expansion and maintain a balance between production and military strength.
Your powers range from fire, which is primarily used for terra-forming, to speed buffs and debuffs, to spells that replenish your Mims' energy. You can use any of these powers as long as you have the energy to do so and energy replenishes naturally--though you can build electricity-producing structures in order to speed up the process. Electricity is also used to power your buildings and having enough means that everything will run efficiently.
.Graphics/ Art Style.
The Mims Beginning is cute. The art style is bright and colourful in a very family friendly way. The story is told in faux- cutscenes which are shown in the form of gameplay with a text box displayed at the bottom.
.Longevity/Difficulty.
I found that the difficulty spiked at random intervals during my play on the normal difficulty. Some maps took me near/longer than an hour to clear while others took only a few minutes once I figured out how to approach my objective.
.Pros and Cons.
+There are a host of abilities for you to use, which keeps dealing with the various problems that come up interesting.
+Clean, uncluttered U.I. Everything is clearly labelled and easy to access.
+Cute, sometimes funny story.
+Clear objectives, which are always available for you to review.
-The Mims very rarely clump together, which means refreshing their energy takes time and careful positioning.
-Limited structure selection.
-The Mims' artificial intelligence leaves a lot to be desired. I found that I had to do a LOT more micromanaging than I wanted (which means selecting Mims one by one and turning off their autonomy so that they'd do as I instructed) just to ensure things would run smoothly.
-Your godly powers can hit friendly units. This would be fine if it wasn't so easy to punt one of your workers off the side of the map while attempting to rid yourself of other enemies.
-No ability to select a group. Even when your warrior units are in formation, sometimes they won't all move together as one.
.Bottom Line.
Fans of god games and RTS will enjoy The Mims Beginning, and even those new to the genres could get their feet wet. Assuming you have patience, of course. I can't say I'd recommend it at full retail price, but if it sees a substantial (40~60%) price cut and you're really looking for a god game, then go for it.