Review Space Haven: Going into a vast universe

Space Haven is a simulation game that has just been launched on Steam and attracted the attention of One by accident through its stream. Being quite fond of games with elements of building and developing his property, I immediately jumped into Space Haven to explore its gameplay.

Space Haven : Interesting gameplay 

In Space Haven, it's the gamer's job to take care of a team of survivors who have just escaped a dead planet, and help them reach the promised land safely. Because we only start with a wrecked ship (or a shipyard depending on your choice), gamers will have to collect the necessary resources on their own. You will have to help the evacuees create air, food, water to ensure survival to the materials needed to upgrade your spacecraft from a 'flying coffin' into a The machine is capable of penetrating vast space, enough guns to protect itself against hostile factions and safely reach the destination.

To do this, gamers will be forced to bring the survivors they care about into danger. They will have to go to space-drifting meteors to dig materials, explore space-drifting wrecks to collect components, build machines of all shapes and sizes to produce types of supplies and equipment necessary for the operation of the ship. Space Haven has a huge amount of items that you can mine, trade and craft, so you'll need to take quite a bit of time getting used to the game.

Although a simulation game, a bit of combat has also appeared in the game including fighting inside the ship and outside the ship. You will be involved in battles in ships when sending people to explore old wrecks or land on enemy ships, and air battles will take place when ships of many hostile forces meet in the same a planetary system. These battles are usually very simple and do not require the ability to control generals or shooting skills of gamers, but will require the micro management capabilities that we will discuss later.

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The interesting thing about Space Haven is that the game allows gamers to enjoy the game freely, and the task of 'going to the promised land' is not your ultimate goal. Gamers can completely see Space Haven as a sandbox game and explore every corner of the planetary systems of the game, turning its own ship into a promising land with full amenities, self-sufficient be self-sufficient without having to worry about resources or health. You can also build a powerful fleet armed with countless cannons, lasers, missiles and become . pirates (or space pirates?) To plunder the necessary resources, causing enemies. plague resentment across the galaxy.

Space Haven: ... and extremely complicated

To be able to enjoy the exciting and free gameplay that Space Haven brings, gamers will have to go through a lot of failures because the game is very complicated and the instructions of the game are not yet complete. It is just enough to introduce gamers to the basic operations of the game, and leave quite a lot for people to literally discover or grop. I have had to try and make many mistakes during the experience of this game, not to mention seeking help from my friends on the game's Discord server.

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The complexity of Space Haven comes from many different aspects of gameplay, starting with your team of survivors. The game allows you to change the number of characters you will control at the beginning of the game and can also be recruited or reduced through the activities in the game, but not always many people are good. The game simulates factors such as the needs, moods, health and skills of each person, making managing a large team a complex puzzle when gamers must consider who should be assigned to do. what to do, who to do, when and where to rest.

When the situation gets worse, gamers will face completely different decisions. For example, if you are stuck in a deserted area without both resources and humanity, you may have to consider . butcher (literally) to keep the rest alive, or leave to those and for those who defected on a new spacecraft to spend less fuel. When an assault on an enemy ship is unsuccessful and someone is taken as a prisoner, or someone is captured by alien, you will have to decide whether to pay dearly for rescuing hostages or firing at enemy ships and leaving hostage's life for fate.

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And all of those behaviors will also cause a reaction from the survivors. As I said above, the characters you control in the game not only have needs but also personalities and emotions, so the death of close teammates will greatly affect the mood and effect. productivity of those who remain. Not to mention that the gamer himself will gradually feel attached to his characters over time, so after spending dozens of hours to care for his crew, the sacrifice Someone is an extremely difficult decision that is difficult to make.

The second factor that creates complexity for the game lies in the huge number of stats, items, and equipment that gamers need to manage to operate their ship. Every second that passes in the game, every construction, mining, and teleporting activity you take consumes a small portion of the resources you have on board, and when they are exhausted the ship will also ' Space Haven doesn't actively remind gamers of the amount of these essential resources, but once you get used to the gameplay there will always be an invisible ticking clock in your head.

This feeling of being driven and chased is one thing that I believe is very suitable for gameplay, because you are not riding a motorbike in the city and can stop pumping gas at any time, but struggling to Survive on a tiny ship in immense space, cold and still. Therefore, gamers will have to calculate in each step of their steps, from the weight of the ship, the number of engines available, the amount of remaining fuel to the vital factors such as where to go and where to stop. Every time you fly to a new area (sector), gamers will also have to consider whether they have enough time and fuel to fully exploit all resources in the area or have to dive to get enough water. then jump into a new area to avoid the ship running out of fuel and becoming an ice cave in space.

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Finally, the third element that is often not mentioned but always present in the game is the management of the narrow space of the ship you are operating. Although you can easily build more anytime you want and do not need to pay attention to the weight of the train, the overload will cause fuel consumption when flying soaring, and the engine is not an easy thing to do. because it requires a lot of advanced resources. Therefore, during the process of playing Space Haven, gamers will constantly squeeze their forehead to think about where this dish is placed, where the other dish should be squashed, whether it is necessary or not .

As the needs of the ship as well as the crew members increase, the arrangement of equipment and rooms on the ship will become more and more complicated. Although we always wanted to have a spaceship that looked neat and tidy, for some reason, all of our nerds gradually swelled up into a mess and chaos. Therefore, I definitely do not want to invite alien guests to be guests on my ship.

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Space Haven : Worth but still have disadvantages

Like other games of the same genre (Rimworld, Dwarf Fortress, Faster Than Light .), Space Haven has a large randomly generated world so you will have a completely new game every time you press the New Game button. It consists of many planetary systems, each with many different regions and different flight paths, helping players to take an adventure for dozens of hours if desired.

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And when I say that each of your games will last dozens of hours, I am not too talkative. The game always gives the author an indescribable satisfaction whenever seeing new items appear on the ship, the stores gradually fill up or the hull is expanded to make room for new items, the cities New members, new rooms. That satisfaction also comes from seeing useless wrecks in space gradually being dismantled and recycled into useful items for the survival of the tiny people that Boring is caring for, or when looking at see those tiny people welcoming a newly rescued member from a hibernation compartment.

With so many advantages, Space Haven also has some shortcomings that we want to mention to gamers . mentally prepare before entering the game. With the extremely high complexity, the tutorial of the game is not detailed enough and skips many important steps, such as when the game requires Beetle to 'choose a meteorite,' it does not say how to choose. and so we have to rely on the game's Discord server for help. It is not until this time that Beetle knows about the existence of miniature viewing angle (implemented through scrolling the middle mouse), a very important feature in the game.

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Besides, the needs and emotions of the crew members as well as some items are sometimes not reasonable enough or not detailed enough, probably because the game is not complete enough. A small example is the toilet of the game: you can put it right in the middle of the road, and the characters using the toilet do not react when someone else is right in front of the 'watch line' waiting for their turn. Luckily, in most cases, these issues are minor and you can ignore them without affecting the gameplay.

Conclusion

Space Haven is not a groundbreaking game in two parts - sound because it only has simple 2D graphics (but quite nice) and sounds just enough, but the cosmic context of the game allows Bug Byte make a difference with simulation games - built in the same genre. The development team has succeeded in creating a game that has an 'addictive' gameplay loop that can make gamers want to return to the game, create better spacecraft, travel farther and explore More new things in the game's vast universe.

So, although Space Haven is still in the Early Access stage, I believe that what the game brings is worth the price of 220,000 that the publisher set on Steam. It gives gamers a long, challenging game, high replay value and interesting details during the life and survival of the characters, and in the future as the game continues to be updated. , the content of the game will surely be even more interesting.

Advantages Space Haven:

1. Complex gameplay, depth.
2. Many things to discover.
3. High replay value.
4. No configuration required.

Defect

1. Somewhat difficult to get used to.
2. Some small bugs.