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Recommended
45.4 hrs last two weeks / 6,486.5 hrs on record (45.6 hrs at review time)
Posted: 21 Oct, 2018 @ 6:30am
Updated: 7 Jul, 2022 @ 5:46am

First of all I love this board game.
I like all mechanics and I am experienced player both IRL and online (as you can see from my hours invested into the game).

So this review is just about the implementation of the game.

My previous review was written almost 4 years ago. A lot of progress has been made after it. So I feel like I need to write an updated opinion. I keep old review at bottom, so you can compare my impressions.

BUGS: The game behaves much much better now, and even glitches are rare, almost all cards are working as they should have (some cards can be broken after next update though).

NETWORKING:
It have been updated much, now it will cause less disconnects and provides more stable synchronization. But there are still glitches sometimes and to fix it you need to reconnect to a game session to so it starts work properly. But it can be a pain if you enabled AI to play instead of you. It does stupid thing and a game session is ruined.
And sometimes even reconnects to the game doesn't fix glitches but such is rare.

But there one big problem - sometimes server is SLOW.
You do the action, and nothing happens for 10 even 15 seconds - THE SERVER IS WORKING to bring you response to your actions. It's not very often, but it more often than I would want it to happen. It affects 30m games for me. With slow repsonse I can timeout easily. It's bad.

So, I think networking still needs more work on it, and powerful server to host all the games.

FEATURES:
They added a timer, but only per game. I'm playing only 30min games right now, because without per turn timer - the problems with afk or leavers are the same as always have been.
I still hope one day developers will implement per turn timer/timeout.
Disabling of animations is great additions, but it would cool to see last action of opponent.
I think approach from Gremlins Inc. could be adopted, and it would be great.

I lack settings for colorblind people too.

UI:
It is still terrible, even some automation of actions were added and most of animations can be skipped, so gameplay become much faster now.
But the game still has a large mobile UI that is not appropriate for a desktop game.
And even though I used to it for these years, I think it still can be enhanced for big PC screens.

DLC:
2 out of 5 IRL addons were implemented. Most simple ones. But the pace of new releases is terrible. In such manner we will see all 5 addons in 10 years after release of original game.
I think for some addons UI is a blocker. There is no space with such enormous UI elements for Colonies and Venus. In fact I wish to they implement Turmoil first, but anyways it's still a long way to go in my opinion.

OVERALL: The game is much more playable now than it was 4 years ago.
I can name it as a good game now.
But be cautioned - each new release still brings new bugs, which arern't so fastly fixed. Meh.

At least now I can recomend to buy this game if you don't have company to play with or $100+ for it IRL.
This one is much cheapper than its real-world counterpart.


--- OLD REVIEW after 40-50 hrs, keeping it for history.
Be warned - it's the WORST UI ever. To make anything in this game you will go through hundreds of unnecessary mouse clicks and endless confirmation dialogs. Having 1440p 27" monitor you will feel like you old grandma looking though +10 glasses - UI is enourmous - you will have only THREE(!) lines of chat visible at such resolution. Only 4 cards at time. To see card description you will need to do 3 mouse-clicks.
If you don't belive me - look at screenshots, and read discussion board.

Second - it's a mess. It's a bug-o-drom. Not only technical issues like network unsynchronized. Players can't do their turns. Wrong stats displayed to each other. You have no idea what's going on.
But also they even didn't tested game mechanics - cards are glitched, working in opposite way, etc.

Network games because of UI, leavers and other problems are real butt-hurting expirience. To keep in good mood till end game you need to be very lucky. Another problem, there is no time limit per turn. One can go to bio-afk in the middle and you will need to wait for him to return like 20 minutes. And then there is no notification about your turn.

I rarely write bad reviews but such ignorant behavior of developers, going totally silent after release, and brinning only new bugs with each update make me do this review.
--- OLD REVIEW END
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1 Comments
zebrailiza 21 Sep @ 8:25am 
Dang, your review tho! It's packed with so much good stuff. I could never write like that. You're incredible! 🤩👌