Phattso wrote:
I noticed this on Steam today for the first time and, as it had a Mac version, my pointer naturally hovered over the 'buy' button.
Anyone else here in the alpha? How is it going, is it complete enough to warrant a look? Something I've really enjoyed since signing up to a couple of Kickstarters is the weekly updates, is there anything similar here or do you have to go digging on the forums for info?
Cheers in advance for sharing any experiences.
It gets better and better every month. Right now it's perfectly playable, there's been loads of bug fixes recently (but still plenty more that crop up), and there's lots of new features.
There is a forum to lurk in, and a place to submit bugs (although it's rare to find one someone else who seemingly plays 24/7 hasn't already submitted), and whenever there's an update they email out a download link and video that covers all the latest new stuff, so you don't have to go digging on forums. If you get the Steam version you don't even need to bother downloading the new version, it auto-updates.
Gameplay-wise, it's no casual affair. Personally I tend to get fed up of running out of money well before I manage to build anything even a fraction as comprehensive as the prisons they use in their monthly demo videos, so I've restarted *a lot*, but you learn from your design mistakes with each restart.
Like the chap above said, the blank slate at the beginning can feel very intimidating, and ultimately once you manage to get a decent cash-flow setup there's not much more to do than watch and expand (ie, it's a goal-less sandbox for now) but it's probably the best sim/management game that isn't out of alpha available right now, and has bucketloads of promise.
Edited by TarickStonefire at 10:00:32 27-04-2013
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