I’ve been playing at this a little. Nothing I was planning to save and return to yet. Just trying to figure out, how the game works and what needs to be done to progress. I just play it to figure it out, didn’t really read anything explaining things. But all in all as an experienced gamer, this is pretty baseline of playability. Does seem like much at the moment, in regard to tools for players to use. Basic things like multi-select seem to only be for colonists and managing colonist is automatic in the assignments. At least from what i’ve played in 6 hours.
I do have some questions. I will come back to ask later. But it’s a start good for early access. I hope to see many improvements in the near future.
I consider myself a Relative Newbie (a little over 75 hours of playing time over the past 6 weeks). The game is in a unique place right now. I consider it a fully-playable game with only a few details and some polish yet to be complete - for about the first 2 - 3 Tiers of the game. By the time you get your Housing to 4th Tier (Manors) and your Town Center upgraded to Tier 4, you start running out of things to do except ramp up population to the 1000 maximum currently built in to the Early Access. Fair Warning: unless you have a bunch of fascinating things to do in the process (like reshape half the map using the Leveling tool or Trade Clothes, Baskets and Shoes for everything else) the End Game is currently pretty bland.
The other problem is that, even with the tool tips added with Version 0.8.0, there’s a lot of stuff - details - in the game that are not well-explained, and have to be learned by trial and error - and error, and error . . .
Some of this is just keeping up with all the details in the game, but some of it is going to be a problem right up to Final Release, because things keep changing. They can’t really write up a complete set of accurate tips and explanations when what is being explained may change, and the change, if not explained accurately, may be Catastrophic. Case in point, between 7.6 and 8.0 the Small Plaza lost its positive Desirability bonus. A lot of gamers and made great use of the Small Plazas to build up their housing, and had to scramble like mad to keep their suddenly-less-than-adequately-desirable housing from crumbling before their eyes.
I’m sure they do NOT want something like that to happen on Release, so I assume that between now and then we won’t get a complete set of in-game Tips and Suggestions on every aspect of play.
It’s still a great game, though.