WITWI - Flotsam, Ocean City Builder (Ultrawide Impressions) (Early Access)
1In this episode of What in the world is, I am taking a look at the early access title Flotsam, brought to you by Pajama Llama Games. It is a beautifully crafted city builder with a twist- you are building your city around a boat, in the ocean.
Steam Curator Page:
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/36307721-Healthy-Criticism/?appid=1708091
+ Unique concept
+ Thoughtful crafting
+ Challenging (this can go either way)
+ Large world and replayability
+ Ultrawide support and stable performance
- No graphical settings besides one
- Water management is a stressful experience
- Been EA for quite some time
- Does not inform you if buildings need electricity before you put them down
-Research point gain is slow because it depends on levelling up
When the world has come to an end, all the ice in the arctics has melted and humanity is lost in a global wave of water, you are left to fend for yourself and create a new community, on a boat. You must travel around the world and discover new areas where you can collect and craft resources, rescue survivors and put them to work, crank the handle on your boat to generate electricity and go!
The basics of the game are as follows. Your boat runs on energy. That energy is replenished by initially cranking a handle and later on researching solar panels and charging stations to make it easier. That electricity also powers certain buildings.
You must firstly find a way to collect water, food, storage and so forth.
You also have to watch out for pollution in the water. If your survivors accumulate too much pollution from micro plastics they will become sick and will require a day off. Pollution can be mitigated by processing the food you find further and by building a mooring point where your survivors can use boats to collect scrap and visit islands for gathering resources.
I am not very keen on the way you accumulate research points however. The research tree is immensely important to expand your capabilities and ensure a smoother ride. You gain research points however for every level that your survivors gain. This can be a painfully slow process and can artificially slow your progress down to a halt. I would like to see a more intuitive and steady research point generation in the future.
What I would also like to see is more attention in the graphical settings. I would love to see more options rather than the one option that does not seem to be doing much. Furthermore on the subject, I would like to not see the developers bundle more than one option under one setting, most notoriously the post FX setting that includes things like post processing, depth of field, motion blur etc.
This game is, still, in early access. More in depth critique will most likely take place when (or if) the game ever fully releases. For now, what you are given is a competent package, on a respectable sale.
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