One of those cases when you wonder what an interesting universe and idea would look like if it had the budget and support of a major publisher.

This is the story of Val, a young inventor and mechanic who lives in a city where people employ numerous devices and machines in their daily lives. Unfortunately, she is also unregistered. This means that the authorities and robotic guards will arrest her and sentence her to death. The reason for this is that the city has limited resources, and only registered users have access to food and water.

Val's life is turned upside down when her sister is arrested. She tries to save her, but the sister is sentenced to death by the city's tribunal, which is presided over by the queen. Angered, Val decides to utilize her powers to fight back and spark a rebellion.

Considering the game's limited development and assets, the city looks fantastic and is one of the game's finest achievements. People are strolling, sitting, or simply going about their day. You will also notice many other features that bring the city to life, such as a train passing overhead, gears rotating and moving various equipment, and shifting time that transitions between day and night, as well as fog that blankets the city in a dismal color.

It is a shame the game was not backed with a larger budget because of the lack of polish, which is painfully evident with bad cut scenes and stiff character animation, as well as optimization issues. It does not occur throughout the game, but there are a lot of places or even crowded locations where the game slows down. This can also happen when you merely turn the wrong direction, causing the game to struggle and significantly lower the fun factor.

There are a few minor nitpicking flaws, such as invisible walls and assets appearing when you turn the camera quickly enough. To be fair, you might not notice them if you are focused on the main objective, but you might spot them if you are high up and looking far into the distance.

The city is divided into four areas, each having a distinct function and social status in the city. Individual districts are quite large, allowing you to explore them. Of course, you will not be able to stick your nose everywhere because districts become available as the story progresses. The handy city map is quite helpful. It is mostly used to choose missions or side-quests waypoints that direct you to them. Quest are nothing memorable as they follow the generic template: go somewhere, find or destroy an enemy, and come back.

The city contains a variety of structures and obstacles, so you are limited to specific places and paths. However, there are walking platforms that add vertical dimension to the city. You can jump, but because the height is just enough to get you onto the top of a barrel or a box, you can forget about climbing over an obstacle. Preventing you from climbing everywhere is a good thing because falling from a height can kill you instantly.

The major barrier is doors that require you to flip a switch. This switch is commonly positioned next to a door or somewhere nearby. A door never closes after being opened, making it a convenient shortcut. Travel tubes are another important feature inside districts. When you activate it, you can quickly travel between other tubes throughout the city. The only need is that you turn it on first by flipping the switch.

Exploration plays a big part because of various secrets. There are three types of collectibles scattered all over, which includes chests, towers, and wall junctions. Unfortunately, the game commits one of the worst mistakes by not including a mini-map that displays crucial information in the immediate vicinity.

This makes it impossible to find or even notice anything vital; you could be standing right next to a chest and be completely unaware that it’s even there. What’s more, you have to open a separate map each time you want to find the nearest travel point, mission, or health dispensers. Although the main map displays the counter for all three collectibles, it contains no information about what is actually done. This brings us to the second worst mistake a game can make: wasting your time.

Chests contain core, which you may use to build bots, as well as crowns, the game's currency. While chests are simple because all you have to do is interact with them, the other two require your companion. Its name is Scrapper, and you carry it on your back. With the press of a button, you may point it at specific objects in the world and perform an action. For example, you can send it at towers to demolish them or at wall junctions to collect a bunch of cores.

The city is a dangerous and controlled place, so you’ll also have to rely on your stealth to avoid robotic guards. The mechanic is mostly fair. It’s often used in main missions, but getting spotted only gets you zapped and doesn’t instantly fail the mission.

When you press the crouch button, you will enter stealth mode that makes you harder to spot. You will also see the guard's vision and detection range, as well as most useful things. One of them is a bell that will catch their attention and allow you to pass by. There are also cameras, however they are easily destroyed using Scrapper.

Getting caught sneaking will initiate combat in which you can employ your bots to attack and protect yourself. The mechanic is unique and straightforward. Your only responsibility is to click on one of your bots and direct it to either the left or right side.

The opponent will do the same. If bots collide, they will attack each other; if the path is clear, they will attack the opponent. You can create and deploy as many bots as you want, but only when there is enough power. Fortunately, this recharges itself, so you will not have to worry about running out of resources. Both you and the enemy have several health slots, but it takes a few shots until one slot is removed.

Sadly, combat is not enjoyable due to its repetitious nature. All you have to do is spam bots left and right while steadily attacking the enemy. Most of the time, you are caught in a stalemate because bots destroy each other before reaching the primary goal. Another issue is that, despite their similar appearance, robots do not have the same attacks or health. You might beat one quickly and then take several minutes to beat the next.

The reason for this is a terrible attack that damages or destroys all of your bots. This is a very cheap way to prolong an already repetitious combat because you can overwhelm an enemy and then lose everything with a single attack. It would be acceptable if an enemy used it once in a while, but it keeps spamming it every round. This is why I suggest you go with the easy difficulty. It’s also fair to point that, while destroyed enemies and cameras do not respawn in the city, you will see them again when the mission demands it.

Your arsenal has 12 distinct bots and gadgets, each with its own set of skills, characteristics, and power costs. You begin with one basic assault bot and a swarm bot composed of three weak and tiny bots, but you can unlock more, such as a healer or shield bot. The criterion is that you find the blueprints and collect enough cores while exploring. Bots cannot be upgraded, but you can equip them with a single mod that increases their attack or movement speed, health, or causes them to explode when they lose all health.

Although there are robots that cannot be destroyed and will take almost all of your health when seen, health can be quickly restored using dispensers distributed throughout the city. Even if you die or fail a mission, the game's auto-save feature ensures that no progress is lost. It saves whenever you open chests, find collectibles, or defeat enemies.

In conclusion, the game has problems. However, this could change in future updates because the game has an "early access" tag and a low price that would normally be three times as much.

It's funny to think of this as "early access" because the polish is quite good, no major bugs, good performance and it feels like a game that will actually get better over time.

My main takeaway is the combat, it's about sending out robots on either a left or right path, with new ones and skills to unlock. It's definitely not the standard 14th Assassins Creed Title, where it's kind of "always the same".

You should take this game for what it is, a creative indie-game that's fun to play.
It's worth it to support the Dev and I'm happy it's only a couple bucks and not a 20€ title, so I'd say just grab a copy and enjoy the game.

Plus The Naked Dev, is a sweet person that listens to feedback, so if you'd like to see change he's probably going to respond to your message persoanlly.

My pc gets hot when i run this game