Volcanoids

Some people dislike the single player experience. I have no friends. As a lonely man in a lonely time, I play alone, and enjoy it.

This game is a hard one to actually review and I will try to be open and honest.

Graphics - At times a rather comical affair but then at the same time, nicely made. Not exactly pushing the boat out but gets the job done.
Gameplay - On Easy = ok ...normal = hard ....hard = WTF. Without providing spoilers, the latter stages due to game mechanics means that on normal and hard the final "key" to the last area is a damn pain in the arse and should be made more reliable and not so....temperamental.
Mechanics - standard. Nothing overly impressive but then nothing that makes me say "eeeek".
Longevity - medium. Now I have finally completed it, to me it's a job done, tick, the end. It's a closed story which, to be fair, is kind of stupid as once you have finished then you either restart or just quit. This game had a permenant quality to it but they decided to close loop it. Better for the story but kills the game off.

I would say its a 5/10 to be fair. It has a nice niche feel to it, but it has a short life, little replay and the gameplay is a little monotonous and is frankly just graded to 3 levels of actual difficulty. The mission guidance is average at best which kind of hampers progress because at time you can be looking around for what to do next instead of a clear path of progression which the game requires. 160 hours of play and frankly I'm...meh. Buy it cheap but, frankly, only buy for cheap thrills....like a cheap hooker on pay day, you can have some fun but it's brief and you might regret it later but it scratches an itch (try to avoid the itching ;) )

So far, this game has been a lot of fun! There's something about setting up a mobile base armed to the teeth with guns, while also sending out mining drones that just hits the spots.

Wish I could build my own tanks/bots though to send out against the onslaught that comes for me.

Great little game!
Gameplay loop is short, yet satisfying and relatively good, multiplayer is stable, and the amount of refined crafting and automation available is actually kinda impressive. You can tell they are crafters at heart.
It has real potential but its been in EA for 6 years and it still needs a lot of love.
It needs a texture overhaul real bad... its got Oblivion level graphics from a 2016 engine.
It needs to expand the playable area, add some enemy variety (even if it was different movesets per refinement, production, etc...), make windows NOT a module, and allow the end game to include the ability to own more than 1 drill. (You get to the end of upgrades an thats kind of it. We need motivation to keep playing).
Got it on sale for 13$usd. That is the right price point for the amount of content currently.
It retails for 20. By that ratio, they need to up the content by 65% and it will be perfect for its pricepoint.

comlicated, difficult, but pretty fun! also, please give me the rolling cog vehichle thing its so cool i need it please i need it

There's not many steampunk themed games as ambitious and immersive out there, so after reading the interesting "drillship" idea of this one, I decided to jump into it. And after literally devouring it in 24 hours played in less than a week, I have to say that I'm definitely satisfied with my experience.
This is an early access indie game, and a quite ambitious one, so of course there's some jankiness to expect. But despite of its few minor annoyances (like destroying an enemy drillship, and just when I was going to scavenge the remains another one spawned in place, erasing all the loot, like, wtf), this is a pretty solid game that managed to keep me really hooked.
The execution of the idea (managing, improving and expanding a drillship, equipping it with weapons and diverse modules to unlock better equipment, plus being able to reach further underground) is really well done. Even the enemies (steampunk/teslapunk robots) ended having more personality than I anticipated (what's going on with the tanks sounds lmao), and their variety actually felt well thought of. You can end up with a really long drillship full of heavy weaponry, or go with a more compact one with fewer but strategically located efficient weapons. Of course, greedy me, finished the game with a moving fortress, and it was really awesome.
Combat is nothing especially complicated, but again, this game excels with its simple approach: different kinds of enemy specializations, different types of actual steampunk and teslapunk looking weapons with a few ammo variations to let you approach every combat situation as you consider (though in the late game there's only one viable way to destroy tesla towers, that block every single incoming projectile except bullets), and there's some real satisfaction in breaching into an enemy drillship, be it force-bruting your way into it via demolishing its defenses, or sneaking into it and destroying it from the inside. Pretty epic, I must say.
Personally, the only negative point I can see is how exploration feels bland and boring, since the island repeats the very same formula for the different zones, just changing resources and the level of abandoned tech you need to advance. The "hidden" loot in abandoned villages and places is pretty simple and uninspired, just breaching into a building's cellar, then finding the same crates with one or two useful thingies. And the landscape doesn't offer anything special either. But yeah, that's about it, and considering how well developed the main mechanics and ideas of the game are, I'm not even complaining about this part to be honest. Devs focused their efforts in the main formula, and it feels awesome. Some parts of the game feel "rustic", but that reminds me of some old indie legends like Mount & Blade: Warband, where everything was as janky as one could imagine, but the main idea, atmosphere, and the core gameplay formula were just glorious. It's kind of similar here with Volcanoids.
So, yeah, I totally recommend this game. And personally, I'll be following this dev team from now on, because having a good original idea, then executing it well and with good taste, aren't two things we see everyday nowadays unfortunately. Plus sign me in for any immersive steampunk game, anytime. This makes me think about how fun would be to play a game like this one, but managing a ship, a submarine, or even a flying machine in a similar way. Well done, Volcanoid team.

One of the only games on the market that does base building on a mobile base well. I can tell this game is a passion project for it's devs.

Can't wait for when the big new island drops!