Before We Leave

I've been on a city builder kick lately and for anyone that is interested in that genre, I'd like to call your attention to a game called Before We Leave. I picked it up in the summer sale partly because it was 75% off. It's a city builder\lite puzzle game (aka cozy city builders I think). You start with a small number of "peeps" emerging from a bunker. From there, it's got the typical citybuilder traits and it does those very well. You have research, resource generation, resource conversion, adjacency bonuses, the whole 9 yard. Below are the areas that make it stand out to me. [list] [*][b]Logistics system[/b] - the game has a very involved and detailed resource web, and they have integrated that into a simple to use logistics system. Once you repair the derelict ancient boat that is lying near your bunker, you use that ship to go and explore the planet. When you find a new island on the other side of the world, you plop down a port and start a new colony. But instead of starting from scratch, wouldn't it be nice if the mother colony sent us some stuff? There is a shipping screen that is simple to use. When you open it, you can select each of your colonies and pick any resource and decide what amount you want the colony to maintain, and based on that number it will either import or export the resource. Then you open your list of ships, and set them to "Auto", and those ships start moving resources around to try to maintain the numbers. It allows the management of a complicated line of supply to be handled with ease. [*][b]Starting over[/b] - as mentioned before, you will likely start at least one other colony during each run. Then game encourages you to find a way off of the planet, and that is a long and tough slog in and or itself. But when you finally launch the spaceship and get ready for the win screen, you are instead presented with a "Space Screen". It is similar to the ship screen, but on this screen you can move the spaceship to a new planet. Then you land, and start the whole thing again. But the colonies on your first planet are still humming along, which is a great mechanic as it allows the people who like building big efficient colonies to play that way, and those that like following the power spike with new beginnings to play that way. Or mix and match. [*][b]Feedback[/b] - there are a lot of interconnected mechanics in the game and there are times that things will happen that aren't obvious at the moment. For instance, I had a new colony that was rich in mining resources, so I decided to make into my version of the rust belt. I plopped down a couple of stone quarries and some iron mines and moved onto something else. The game let me know with prominent icons that my oil pump wasn't being built because I didn't have any iron. "What do you mean, game? I just threw 5 mines at you!" But the mines were indeed not producing. I checked the mines and none had any workers, so I kept looking at the icons to see if I could see what the blocker was. I finally figured it out, and if I hadn't used all of the reports and icons and such that the game gave me, I probably would have quit in frustration. What happened was that this island was a mix of grasslands and desert. I built the road from my houses to the mountains where the mines were through the desert, having forgotten that walking through the desert makes the peeps tired. My peeps were going to work, arriving exhausted, resting, and then going home having done no work. And what statistics are in the game are presented in an intelligent way; not only does it show resource totals like every other city builder, but this one shows you the stats in ways that help. Example, you can view each island's resource numbers. But when you look at them, they show the number AND the number allocated to certain buildings, the amount being exported, and the expected max consumption to allow you to know the whole story at a glance. No more head math as it's all presented to you for consumption. I hope more games catch on to this. [*][b]Interaction[/b] - everything seems to have an effect on everything else. If you build your peeps a house, where you place it matters. If you place it by a field, the house will support one extra peep. If you place it by another house, you get another peep bonus. But if you place it by a well, it gets a penalty. Also, everything has to connect to a road, and if you've boxed yourself in you might have to do some rearranging to get out of it. Then there is the desert issue I mentioned above. And there is pollution, which makes the peeps sad. Everything in the game has an affect on at least one other thing, but usually more than one is the reality. That makes for very interesting scenarios, and if you are a min\maxer, you will get in nirvana. [/list] It's not the most beautiful game, but it really doesn't matter. The engine in this game is designed to make the whole city building process fun. It works to keep you informed while you play to cut down on frustration. It rewards you for reaching little milestones. And to fill up all of the islands on all of the planets in a single game would likely take 50 or more hours of gaming and you can decide at any point to just start over.

An incredibly cute, and easy to understand civilization building game. From the get go I was captivated by how adorable my 'peeps' were, and the tutorial lays everything out in such a way that even I could understand it while multi-tasking at the same time. All around good fun.

Great game overall with mechanics that vary from basic to advanced as the game progress.

This is a surprisingly awesome city/world builder. I has just enough depth not to become too technical, although I would have toned down pollution and happiness needs by a lot.

Cute with some interesting concepts, but missing something. I found myself getting bored very quickly. The game is not optimised which forces the PC to work far harder than I'd expect for this type of game.

Really enjoy this game. Great visuals and a nice management simulator.

This game stays permanently installed on steam, for me. Between the PS & steam versions, I've got 300+ hours in. (The PC version is better, if you're wondering.) It's just one of those games that inspires the player to reorganize and squeeze every last bit of efficiency out of your population.

the game is just not interesting enough to buy it full price.

Something lurks in the stars

Fun game.

Good game