June 26, 2023 - Day 177 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 196

Game: Before We Leave

Platform: Steam
Release Date: May 14, 2021
Library Date: Aug 21, 2022
Unplayed: 309d (10m5d)
Playtime: 38m

Before We Leave is a cozy city-building strategy sim. Set on a post-apocalyptic planet, your "peeps" have come up from underground to a newly green planet to repopulate & rebuild civilisation.

In some ways, it's not unlike Timberborn, which I reviewed earlier this month, which is unfortunate.

Even with the post-apocalyptic, "mine the remains of the previous civilisation" thematic similarities, it feels very different.

Before we leave, in keeping with the "cozy" idea, uses big cutesy hex tiles, on a round planet that you can explore to find other island and settle.

The downside is that unlike other city-builders, the use of hex-tiles with the big graphics makes everything feel cramped. I found myself getting frustrated with the game early on, because virtually everything needs to be connected to a road, but with large hex tiles in a relatively small space, I felt like most of the space was taken up with roads.

While the whole "mining the bones of the past" enables skipping over several steps that would be involved in getting from ore to metal in other games, in Before We Leave, mining the remains creates areas of pollution that, once again, suffers because of the "large hex tiles in a small area". The areas of pollution easily end up overlapping areas I'd rather they not, and given the fixed location of the ruins, it then becomes a question of whether I rip up all my buildings and start again, or just start the level over.

There's still something there that kept me playing beyond my initial 15 minutes; it remains to be seen as to whether that's sustainable long-term.

Before We Leave is:

3: OK

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