Beyond These Stars Review Summary

Loved for its cozy city-building depth and beautiful art, yet held back by a flawed pollution system, frustrating resource loop, and buggy unfinished state.

Highly praised cozy city-builder: Reviewers overwhelmingly describe the game as beautiful, chill, and genuinely fun, with many calling it incredible or a blast. The cozy, relaxing tone combined with satisfying gameplay is the most frequent positive theme.

Satisfying depth and complexity: The game offers enough complexity to tickle the brain, with a lot to do, tons of research, and a smooth difficulty curve that eases players in before ramping up. The perk and talent systems add unique replayability.

Beautiful art and presentation: The art direction, graphics, animations, and overall aesthetic are frequently praised as gorgeous, cozy, and visually comfortable. Light effects, backdrops, and the detailed Peeps add to the delight.

Unique space whale setting: The concept of building a city on a space whale and traveling the galaxy is repeatedly called novel, compelling, and a fascinating twist on survival and colony sims. The whale theme and its integration into gameplay are standout features.

Enjoyable colony management loop: Managing the colony, watching residents move through the world, and growing the city is consistently described as comfortable, relaxing, and satisfying. The game loop is familiar but very satisfying and transparent.

Pollution system deeply flawed: Pollution is overly punishing yet also too easily removed, creating a frustrating loop where production zones shut down and require manual cleanup. The balance shifts between being a nightmare and being trivial.

Resource economy frustrating loop: The resource and byproduct system creates a dead cycle where coal ash and slag generate everything but are insufficient, forcing reliance on trade. Storage overflow and limited storage options compound the problem.

Unfinished and buggy state: Multiple bugs severely impact gameplay, including save corruption, stuck loading screens, broken work prioritisation, and inability to complete fuel transport tasks. The game needs polish.

Poor tutorial and guidance: The tutorial is disastrous for new players, with confusing power mechanics and resource handling. Without it, players face unexplained shortages and cannot deal with obstacles like the green obstacle.

Lacks player choice and freedom: Players feel like they are just following preset plans without meaningful decisions, even for building placement. The game removes worker assignment control and makes building feel meaningless.

City and Colony Builder: The game is primarily a city-builder or colony sim with settlement-building mechanics. It includes classic features such as roads, buildings, and resource management.

Terraforming and Landscaping: Players can reshape the environment by terraforming, rerouting water, leveling mountains, and turning dust into forests. This adds a dynamic layer to city building.

Pollution and Byproducts: Pollution is generated by factories and chemical plants, creating toxic tiles that can disable production zones. The system includes adjustable settings and cleaning mechanics.

Space Whale Setting: A unique premise where players build a city on the back of a giant space whale. The whale is integral to gameplay, allowing travel to other star systems and exploration.

Power and Resource Management: Buildings require power to function, and resource chains like chemicals production involve sludge and fuel. Managing these logistics is key to sustaining the colony.

No bugs encountered: Users report not running into any bugs while playing. This points to a generally stable and polished build.

Clean Linux build experience: Players on Linux mention no noticeable bugs or issues so far. This suggests the Linux version is stable and well-supported.

Mixed Reception Overall: Opinions are split between positive recommendations and negative assessments. Several players find it enjoyable while others express dissatisfaction with the game's quality or value.

Price Concerns: Multiple reviewers consider the game not worth its current price, especially at $30, and recommend waiting for discounts or refunding. Suggestions include waiting for a 75% off sale or a price around $50-60.

Comparison to Before We Leave: Players familiar with Before We Leave compare this game to that title. Some feel it is not an improvement and does not reach the same level, though newcomers may still enjoy it.

Cozy City Builder Appeal: The game is recommended for those seeking a cozy, relaxing city builder experience with story-driven exploration and settlement. It offers a nice vibe for players who enjoy such games.

Target Audience Recommendations: The game is recommended for colony sim and civilization builder fans, those who enjoy slow progress, and players with plenty of time. It may also appeal to fans of Becky Chambers' sci-fi books.

Session length: 8.0h.

Players report enjoying this city builder right away, describing it as intuitive and addictive while still inside the tutorial; early friction centers on placement limits, unexplained shortages if the tutorial is skipped, and limited control over peep work assignments.

Friction: Early-game reliance on water pumps restricts where farms and houses can be placed, limiting how many can be built; Skipping the tutorial leads to strange resource shortages the player does not understand; Cannot control where peeps work in a city-building management game; One player objects to DEI content present from the opening tutorial.

Unlock drivers: Doing the tutorial first prevents unexplained shortages and clarifies why resources behave as they do; Early-game rebalancing since the demo relaunch made the opening more fun and casual friendly; Following the questline and story keeps players engaged during the opening hours.

Cozy Depth Seeker: Expands slowly, learns mechanics at a comfortable pace, and avoids combat pressure. Motivation: Relaxing, pressure-free city building with satisfying mechanical depth. Stance: buy.

Balance-Critical Systems Tinkerer: Monitors resource chains, pollution, and power coverage; restarts maps to test layouts. Motivation: To build a stable, optimized economy and overcome logistical bottlenecks. Stance: no buy.

Predecessor Veteran Skeptic: Compares systems, pacing, and design changes against Before We Leave. Motivation: To see whether the successor meaningfully improves on the predecessor's formula. Stance: no buy.

Only one cohort with usable performance evidence was provided: Windows systems with under 8GB VRAM. The single included report describes smooth, great-running gameplay on a laptop.

Windows <8GB VRAM: positive. Reports describe the game running great on laptops, with no performance problems noted in the included evidence.

Direct sequel to Before We Leave: Multiple reviewers identify the game as a sequel or successor to Before We Leave. Some fans consider it an improvement while one felt it did not advance enough and plays like a first entry with a deadline.

Compared to cozy and other games: Reviewers compare the game to The Wondering Village, Star Trek Voyager Across the Unknown, XION, and Civilization on easy mode. It is also noted that there are cheaper and more pleasant-looking cozy game options.

Played demo before release: Several reviewers tried the demo, and some followed the game for some time before release. One loved the demo and skipped the tutorial.

Boat theme and eco-citybuilder: The game has a boat theme and is the most recent eco-citybuilder from Balancing Monkey Games. The developer is a studio in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Similar to Timberborn and Stellaris: Reviewers compare the game to Timberborn and Stellaris, though it is considered closer to Timberborn. It also shares city building mechanics with Timberborn and Whiskerwood.