First Look: Autonauts
By Thunderheavyarm
It’s time again, someone made a mistake with trusting me with colonizing a planet and making it ready for humans. I think the last time I was made responsible for a colony...oh yeah, it got invaded by aliens. So looks like this time around they’ve given me robots, to eventually make all production autonomous including the development of more robots. What could possibly go wrong? Developers Denki and publishers Curve Digital sent me a copy of their game Autonauts in an effort to find out.
As this is just a first look, I’ve only managed to get a few play hours into the game since it’s been released. Initially, the game comes off as a general survivor game like Minecraft. Gather some basic supplies, to make some basic tools and build some starting structures. However, since many of the structures need a large amount of supplies you’ll need to set up some basic automation, with some basic robots. Adding an extra layer, requires the player to understand a little bit of basic coding in order for your robots to perform their simple actions. Just setting up automation for lumber and stone took a few hours making sure that items were then being collected and stored and even robots made to keep the working robots, well working. As of today I’ve managed to clear out the introductory objectives and getting ready to start making places for actual humans to arrive. There’s a couple of things that I still need to figure out...like this need for food thing. And whatever colonist Wuv is...and yes I’m aware what it sounds like when you say it out loud.
A delightfullyfrustrating game that combines two things that I enjoy: exploitationand turning any game into an idle game that plays itself. Thesimplistic programming makes the game come across far easier than itinitially seems when you’re thrown in. And even the blockinganimation and music is incredibly endearing once I got over my ownineptitude of robotic programming. The game becomes available onSteam on 10/17. So if you’re like me and think of human expansionas a business opportunity, then pick up a copy. Until next time.