Recent reviews by Harbingerlll

Short Review:
Game is a hidden gem that hopefully blows up and gets the funding it deserves. I love it so far and am excited to see where it goes. Dev's seem active and eager.

Longer Summary
Quick notes/summary after the blurb.
So I was gifted this game by my brother and was not sure of it at first. I was worried it would just be another grindy ARK-like experience. But I was pleasantly surprised with the game.

First off, the game is beautiful and runs beautifully. I was worried about unoptimized gameplay but it's been pretty constant 60+ frames ~high settings using mid-level hardware. Hon

I have seen a lot of folks commenting about the grindy-ness of the game and how your main character is limited but I think that people should understand there are features built into the game to reduce grind and incentivize using all aspects of the systems.

It's hard to brute force some milestones/checkpoints in progression. Using all the features available seems intended for advancing. You're expected to farm crops, make consumables/buffs, to block attacks, use tribesmen for gathering, harvesting, to craft, and repair things for you.

If you pick this game up, I recommend playing on a private server first with some boosted rates so that you can understand/learn the game at an easier pace because it really is a joy to play and progress through the game. Once you start exploring some temples and dungeons and return back to camp where your tribesmen are taking care of all the "grinding", it will just feel good/cool.

Some disclaimers/Notes:
-Game price point is great. Plenty to do and can actually be satisfying to play single-player. Worth the current price of $29.99 USD.
-Runs great. Haven't encountered any game-breaking bugs. Only minor bugs experienced.
-Your starting character is not the main character. You are the Mask. Whoever the mask is on, is your main character. And your starting character has worse potential than every NPC you meet/find. You can move the mask to others with mask-upgrades later.
-I have limited raiding experience. Haven't had time to raid others or be raided. Just so much to explore/do
-In Early game, predators like Jaguars/crocodiles will seem impossible to fight/survive. Once you get a handle on mechanics and some better gear, they will be much more manageable.
-Default rates are balanced for official PVP servers. Things may feel slow if you don't utilize Tribesmen.
-I have not progressed beyond Bronze equipment/Stone base. Grinding for Iron+ content is unexperienced thus far. With 2x gather rates, I have never really had a hard time for resources.
-Tribesmen AI is still a little buggy but I have not encountered anything I couldn't fix myself. Usually just see them get stuck in a crowded base. (Make sure they have plenty of room to path near the bonfire, rest areas, and workstations)

I purchased this game during Early Access because I am a fan of space and Sci-fi games. Exploring, designing, salvaging, and engaging in combat all while in a physics sandbox sounded incredible to me.

Starting off the game was very rough. There is not a lot of handholding/onboarding to get new players started which I suspect contributes to many negative reviews. I persisted through the tutorial and the troubles of trying to improve the first free ship you get. Eventually I made enough credits and ore to purchase a ship from one of the shops and my whole experience began to change.

There is lots of work to be done concerning the games tutorial as it explains only the most basic of things to get you started but the nuances of EZ-builder and improving your ship are not well explained.

This contributes to exploratory players having a better time of the game as they engage and dynamically learn about all the features/functions of the game that are not given straight to the player.

As many others have said, some of the core gameplay loops are still in development but there is plenty of content present to still engage in a goodtime, especially if you get the community involved and organize in-game events and tournaments.

Overall, I would recommend if you are familiar with what an Alpha version of a game brings, the weird bugs and random disappointment, then I would say you should try Starbase out and join the others in making this a better game.

If you are not okay with an Alpha version experience but are still interested in Starbase, I would follow the game and join their Discord and follow the updates and Developer Roadmap until they add some more complete polish to the game.

Really fun little game inspired by modern day Rugby/American Football with an injection of fantasy. Two games are never quite the same thanks to the RNG brought by a system built on a d6 but it still manages to be quite fun to play, especially if you have a group of friends that get it like I have. We have our own little league and make our own schedules to play each other and all watch each game and have a blast at the hilarity that is Blood Bowl. Really stepped it up since release with the upcoming release of 4 new races (to be given free to anyone who owns the game before their release) and much needed QoL changes in-game. I only see this improving as the Devs listen to their community.

As for my criticisms, the fault lies within the core aspects of the game itself. Blood Bowl at its heart seems to only support two styles of play: Smash or Pass. With teams like Chaos being built as their single purpose to destroy teams, it seems to go against the grain of ever needing to score. Why bother when you can just kill the enemy team? Which begs the question, why did any teams ever care about scoring when their lives are just at risk?

10/10 The game Civ 5 should have been.