Info about Drift: Space Survival: Official game description: Roadmap ======= About the Game ============== Drift: Space Survival is a co-op survival adventure set in a mysterious asteroid field. Craft, build and explore alone or with friends to rebuild the technology you lost when your research ship crashed. Adventure Together ------------------ Join up to 7 friends as you wrangle asteroids, build vast ships and travel deep into the field together. Be on the lookout for strange fauna. This far in space, there's no telling what you might discover. Build Your Own Interstellar Ship -------------------------------- Your research ship, once a small town bustling with science, is almost entirely gone. Use the resources you gather to build it anew. Life Support and other advanced systems can remove the pressure of space life. Bring home scavenge from the field to make it feel like home. Explore The Field ----------------- There's something more than large rocks in this field. Gear up and explore the cosmos with your friends one rock at a time to find the resources and answers you need. A beautiful soundtrack by Curtis Schweitzer will accompany you on your expeditions. Craft and Automate ------------------ This is more than you can handle by hand. Craft survival gear, multi-tool upgrades, tractor beams and more to help you survive the journey. Embrace the power of automation to do work for you while you venture deeper into the unknown. Rediscover Space Technology --------------------------- You're lucky to be alive, but you're not alone in this. A basic maintenance drone managed to stay with the ship, and is ready to learn. Together, collect and research what you need to build the technology to get home. Release date: 12 May, 2023 Categories: Cooperative Multiplayer, Survival, Crafting, Base Building, Exploration, Resource Management, Automation Game, Research and Discovery - Hardware Profile: No data Feature extractions: - Community Price: No data - Playtime Metrics: No data - Time-to-fun: No data - Player Archetypes: No data Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category. Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews. What players like: - Enjoyable & Relaxing Gameplay (weight 0.99): Players generally find the game to be a fun, engaging, and relaxing survival-crafting experience with good core mechanics and a solid foundation. Many appreciate its chill atmosphere and the balance it strikes between grind and progression, leading to extended play sessions. - Responsive & Active Developers (weight 0.15): The development team receives high praise for being active, responsive, and consistently listening to community feedback, implementing bug fixes and updates quickly. - Excellent Music & Audio (weight 0.12): The game's music and audio design are consistently praised for being peaceful, fitting the space theme, and enhancing the sense of exploration and discovery. - Appealing Graphics & UI (weight 0.12): Reviewers appreciate the game's good graphic quality, appealing art style, and cute, colorful visuals. The UI is also noted for being well-designed. - Realistic Space Movement (weight 0.1): The movement mechanics in space are highlighted as feeling realistic, contributing to an immersive experience of floating and collecting resources. - Rewarding Exploration (weight 0.06): Exploration in the game is described as interesting and rewarding, encouraging players to discover new areas and resources. - Polished Early Access (weight 0.06): Despite being in early access, the game is noted for its polish and the opportunity it provides players to experience its development. - Unique Alien Concept (weight 0.06): The game's originality, particularly the concept of playing as an alien with crystal-based technology, is a unique and appreciated aspect. - Fun Slingshot Mechanic (weight 0.06): The 'slingshotting' mechanic using the Tractor Beam is specifically mentioned as a fun and essential aspect of gameplay. - Impressive Solo Development (weight 0.05): The fact that the game was developed by a single person using the Godot engine is seen as impressive by some players. - Creative Base Building (weight 0.03): The game allows for impressive and creative base building, as demonstrated by player creations during the demo phase. - More Content Than Peers (weight 0.03): The game is perceived to offer more content compared to other similar titles in its genre. - Fast Progression Potential (weight 0.03): Players can quickly advance their progress once they understand the game's resource mechanics. - Cool 'Raft-in-Space' Concept (weight 0.03): The game's concept, often described as 'Raft-in-Space,' is considered cool and appealing. - Useful Short-Range Beacon (weight 0.03): The Short-Range Beacon is identified as a helpful tool within the game. - Helpful F1 Log Feature (weight 0.03): The F1 log feature, which provides a record of in-game dialogue, is a useful quality-of-life addition. Common complaints: - Excessive and Tedious Grind (weight 0.73): The game's progression, particularly around acquiring crystals and other late-game resources, is described as an excessive and tedious grind. This is exacerbated by unclear guidance, reliance on RNG, and high difficulty spikes, making advancement frustrating and time-consuming. - Critical Bugs and Instability (weight 0.62): Players report numerous critical bugs, including frequent crashes, game-breaking glitches like getting stuck in terrain, and significant issues in multiplayer such as desynchronized UI elements. These technical problems severely hinder the gameplay experience and indicate a lack of polish. - Poor Inventory and QoL (weight 0.62): Players are frustrated by highly restrictive inventory limits and the inability to stack many items, leading to constant inventory management. Tedious mechanics like manual crushing further contribute to a clunky and inefficient user experience. - Insufficient Content and Value (weight 0.51): Many players feel the game lacks sufficient content for its price point, especially for an Early Access title. The initial gameplay loop quickly becomes repetitive, leading to boredom after only a few hours, and some perceive the pricing as a 'cash grab' given the limited offerings. - Lack of Clear Guidance (weight 0.5): The game suffers from a lack of clear tutorials and explanations for its mechanics, leaving players confused about how to progress, use tools, or understand crafting systems. This unhelpful design contributes to a frustrating learning curve. - Clunky Movement and Controls (weight 0.42): The character movement and controls are criticized for feeling clunky and imprecise, impacting the overall fluidity and enjoyment of gameplay. - No Automation Features (weight 0.03): The absence of automation features means players must manually perform many repetitive tasks, which adds to the feeling of grind and tedium. - Misplaced Development Focus (weight 0.03): Some players feel that the developers prioritized non-essential 'flavor' features, such as character dances, over addressing fundamental gameplay issues and core mechanics. Gameplay feedback: - Core Survival & Crafting Loop (weight 0.25): The core gameplay loop involves players, often described as aliens, surviving in space after their ship is destroyed. They must gather resources from asteroids to rebuild their base/ship, craft essential items like oxygen and food, and progress through research. The game is often compared to 'Raft in Space' due to its survival and crafting elements. - Asteroids: Primary Resource Source (weight 0.2): Asteroids are the primary source of resources, including various crystals essential for research and upgrades. Players frequently engage in 'rock fetching' to collect these materials, often venturing further from their base to find larger asteroids with more advanced crystals. - Lack of Automation & Manual Tasks (weight 0.13): A significant point of feedback is the lack of automation. Players must manually sort inventory, load machines, and manage multiple copies of the same machine for different recipes, leading to a 'manual' and often tedious gameplay experience. - Multitool & Movement Mechanics (weight 0.12): The multitool is a key item for player movement between asteroids, utilizing a 'gravity pull' mechanic. As players progress, they unlock propulsion systems and other movement upgrades, allowing for faster and more extensive exploration within the asteroid field. - Tiered Research Progression (weight 0.11): Research is crucial for progression, divided into categories like basebuilding, exploration, and multitool. Advancing through research tiers requires increasing amounts of specific crystal types, often necessitating back-and-forth resource gathering. - Immobile Base Structure (weight 0.08): The player's initial base or 'raft' is stationary. It serves as an immobile platform where players place and operate various crafting machines and workstations. - Vital Resource Management (weight 0.06): A core survival mechanic involves constantly managing vital resources such as oxygen, food, and electricity for certain items to ensure player survival in the harsh space environment. - Multiplayer Death & Respawn Bug (weight 0.06): A critical bug in multiplayer causes players joining a friend's game to immediately die with a cracked helmet, often respawning far from their body, severely impacting the multiplayer experience. - Accessible Multiplayer (weight 0.06): The game supports multiplayer, and joining sessions, particularly on Mac, is reported to be straightforward. - Infinite Length & Replayability (weight 0.05): The game is designed with an infinite length and aims for unlimited replayability, suggesting a sandbox-like experience without a definitive end. - Breathable Planet Resource Hubs (weight 0.04): Discovering planets with breathable atmospheres simplifies resource gathering, as all necessary resource types can be found in a single location, streamlining the process. - Clear Progression Goals (weight 0.04): The game effectively guides players by always showing their next objective and the steps required to achieve it, providing clear progression goals. - Time-Consuming Exploration (weight 0.03): The game design encourages and requires players to dedicate significant time to exploration to find resources and progress. - Outpost Establishment (weight 0.03): Players have the ability to establish outposts, suggesting a mechanic for expanding their presence beyond the main base. - Inventory Navigation Bug (weight 0.03): A specific bug was reported where opening the inventory could prevent players from navigating items or completing the starting tutorial, hindering initial gameplay. - Basic Box Storage System (weight 0.03): Storage in the game is straightforward, primarily involving placing items into various boxes for organization. - Developed in Godot Engine (weight 0.02): The game was developed using the Godot engine, which is a technical detail about its underlying technology. Performance notes: - System performance generally good (weight 0.02): Based on very limited and low-quality feedback, there's a vague indication that the reviewer's system generally handles games well. This point lacks specific details about the game in question or any actionable insights. Recommendations: - Promising future, wait for updates (weight 0.52): Many players express a positive outlook on the game's future, despite its current early access state. They recommend it with reservations, often suggesting waiting for further development or content updates before purchasing, especially if hesitant about the price or current content amount. - Needs more automation and less grind (weight 0.18): Players frequently request more automation, particularly for resource gathering like asteroid catching, and a reduction in manual grinding. They suggest starting with basic automated tools to improve the early and late-game experience. - Good for specific genre fans (weight 0.14): The game is recommended for players who enjoy specific genres, such as exploration, crafting, base building, and mellow, grind-heavy themes. Comparisons to games like Raft are often made to set expectations. - High price for current content (weight 0.1): Several players feel the game's current price is too high for the amount of content and enjoyment it offers in its early access state. They advise against purchasing at full price for now. - Demo is a good indicator (weight 0.03): Players suggest trying the demo as a good indicator of whether the full game will be enjoyable. If the demo is liked, the full game is likely to be a good fit. - Prioritize bug fixes over features (weight 0.03): A few players emphasize that developers should prioritize fixing core functionalities before adding new features, indicating a need for stability and polish. - Consider 'Drift' if not bundled (weight 0.02): One reviewer specifically recommends 'Drift' if not purchasing the game as part of a bundle, suggesting it might be a better standalone option. Other player notes: - Limited Early Access Content (weight 0.25): As an Early Access title, the game is noted for its current lack of extensive content and story, which is typical for games in this development stage. Players acknowledge this limitation but anticipate future updates. - Surprisingly Addictive Gameplay (weight 0.19): Many players found the game surprisingly engaging, often playing for several hours despite initial reservations. This indicates a strong core gameplay loop that hooks players. - Raft-like Space Survival (weight 0.18): The game is frequently compared to 'Raft' but set in space, often with elements of 'Satisfactory' or 'Astro Colony'. This helps players understand the core mechanics and genre. - Minor Miscellaneous Feedback (weight 0.07): Based on limited and varied feedback, some players noted average PC requirements and a suitable price point. Other comments were less substantial. - Poor Searchability of Name (weight 0.06): The game's current name 'Drift' is considered problematic for search engine optimization, making it difficult for potential players to find the game. - Responsive Developer Support (weight 0.04): Players highly praise the developer's responsiveness, noting quick hotfixes and active engagement with community feedback. This builds confidence in the game's future development. - Solid Game Foundation (weight 0.03): Despite being in Early Access, the game is recognized for having a strong and stable foundation, suggesting good potential for future growth. - Grindy Gameplay Loop (weight 0.03): The game involves a significant amount of grinding, which is a common characteristic of survival-crafting games. Emotions: - Frustration (weight 0.23): Players frequently experience frustration due to persistent technical issues like game crashes, especially during menu loading or on specific platforms like Steam Deck. This is compounded by tedious gameplay loops, including excessive grinding for resources like crystals and batteries, and difficulties with inventory management, progression blockers, and unhelpful UI, leading to a sense of wasted time and repetitive tasks. - Satisfaction (weight 0.2): Satisfaction stems from the game's intuitive controls, enjoyable multiplayer, and a generally chill and relaxing crafting and survival experience in space. Players appreciate the balance between grind and progression, the game's originality, atmosphere, and fitting music and visuals. The overall quality, polished feel, and solid progression contribute to a positive player experience. - Disappointment (weight 0.1): Disappointment arises from the game's perceived unfinished state at launch, leading to an inability to play due to frequent crashes and a lack of quality-of-life updates. Players feel the game quickly devolves into a 'rock fetch simulator' with limited content, poor design choices like an immobile ship, and a lack of automation, diminishing its value for money. - Excitement (weight 0.07): Excitement is driven by anticipation for future content and continued development, as players find the core idea of the game cool and enjoy the interesting exploration and unique movement mechanics like slingshotting through rock fields. There's a strong sense of optimism for the game's evolution. - Calmness (weight 0.05): Calmness is a common emotion, attributed to the game's relaxing and engaging gameplay, often described as a 'chill' or 'zen' atmosphere. The presence of cute space dinosaurs and a lo-fi experience further enhances this peaceful feeling. - Enjoyment (weight 0.05): Players express enjoyment from the overall game experience, often losing track of time while playing. The simple pleasure of floating and collecting rocks, along with the fun of the game itself, contributes to this positive feeling. - Optimism (weight 0.05): Optimism is high due to the active and responsive developers, the promising trajectory of the game, and the potential for new content and future improvements. Players see a bright future for the game's development. - Fun (weight 0.04): The game is widely described as fun, particularly in its core activities of exploration, crafting, and base design. Players enjoy both solo and cooperative play, highlighting the inherent enjoyment derived from the game's mechanics. - Hope (weight 0.03): Hope is tied to the game's significant potential and the expectation of future adjustments and continued development. Players are hopeful that the game will evolve and improve over time. - Joy (weight 0.02): Joy is experienced through the sense of exploration and discovery, which is often enhanced by the game's soundtrack. The overall enjoyment of playing the game also contributes to feelings of joy. - Engagement (weight 0.02): The game successfully keeps players interested for a considerable period, indicating that its gameplay is engaging. Players find themselves drawn into the experience, maintaining their interest. - Confusion (weight 0.02): Confusion arises from a lack of clear explanations for game mechanics and insufficient guidance, particularly regarding the scanner and its resource consumption. Players struggle to understand how certain systems work. - Anticipation (weight 0.02): Players express anticipation for more updates, eagerly awaiting future content and improvements to the game. This indicates a desire for continued development and expansion. - Admiration (weight 0.02): Admiration is directed towards the development team, particularly noting the impressive work of a single developer. Players appreciate the effort and dedication behind the game's creation. - Tedium (weight 0.02): Tedium is a direct result of the perceived wasted time spent on grinding. The repetitive nature of tasks and the extensive grind contribute to a feeling of boredom and inefficiency. - Boredom (weight 0.02): Boredom sets in when the initial fun of the game fades, and the game loop becomes repetitive. Players find the experience less engaging after the novelty wears off. - Surprise (weight 0.01): Players express surprise at the unexpected enjoyment they derive from the game. This suggests that the game exceeded their initial expectations. - Annoyance (weight 0.01): Annoyance is specifically caused by the game's name, which makes it difficult for players to find relevant information online. This minor issue impacts the user experience outside of gameplay. - Appreciation (weight 0.01): Appreciation is shown for the developers' ongoing work in adding new content and expanding the game. Players value the continuous effort to improve and grow the game. - Gratitude (weight 0.01): Gratitude is expressed towards the developer's responsiveness to player feedback. This indicates that players feel heard and valued, fostering a positive relationship with the development team.}