- Addictive, satisfying core gameplay loop.
- Pleasant sound design and music.
- Robust, varied progression systems.
- Repetitive, slow mid/late game progression.
- Frequent crashes and technical bugs.
- Considered overpriced, lacks sufficient content.
Emotions
Players felt satisfied due to the game's overall quality, completeness, and its ability to meet or exceed high expectations, especially as a solid incremental game. The engaging gameplay, well-designed systems (building, upgrading, automation), good UI, and developer responsiveness to bugs significantly contributed to this positive feeling.
Enjoyment stemmed from the game's addictive nature, simple yet engaging gameplay loop, and overall fun experience. Players found the progression from basic production to more complex systems entertaining and appreciated the stylized graphics and music, making it an effective time-killer.
Excitement was generated by the game's high quality, potential for growth, and its unique take on the incremental genre. Players were eager for future content updates, recommended the game highly, and felt hooked by its engaging and immersive theme.
Frustration was primarily caused by frequent crashes, game-breaking bugs, and technical issues. Players also expressed annoyance with excessive clicking, tedious manual tasks, repetitive mid-to-late game grind, and balancing problems.
Disappointment arose from the game not meeting expectations, often contrasting unfavorably with the demo due to perceived changes or lack of new features. Recurring bugs, poor value for money, insufficient depth, and a repetitive prestige system that led to lost interest were also significant factors.
Verdict
Mixed
Summary
Positive 70% · Negative 30%. Score: 30 / 100
Positives:
- Players consistently praise the game's core gameplay as exceptionally fun, engaging, and highly addictive, often causing them to lose track of time. The continuous sense of progress and well-timed dopamine hits contribute to a highly compelling experience that is hard to put down.
- The game's music sets a good vibe, enhancing the overall atmosphere. Specific sound effects, such as bullet production, are noted for providing a surprisingly pleasant, almost ASMR-like experience.
- The game is lauded for its unique and polished approach within the incremental/clicker genre, often exceeding player expectations. Many consider it one of the best, successfully fulfilling a niche like the 'Arms Dealer fantasy' with fresh mechanics.
- The game features deep and well-developed systems, from basic production to advanced economics, offering diverse strategic paths. Its unconventional, rewarding prestige system and flexible build options enhance replayability and make progression both challenging and satisfying.
- Both the active manual crafting and passive automation systems are considered highly satisfying and well-implemented. Excellent production mini-games and seamless automation, including quick restarts after prestige, keep gameplay rewarding and allow for background play.
Negatives:
- Players find the progression, especially after prestiging, becomes excessively slow and tedious. Manual crafting of weapons and other items, combined with a lack of meaningful automation, forces repetitive clicking and makes the game feel like a chore rather than enjoyable progress. Prestige upgrades are often underwhelming, further contributing to this issue.
- Many players feel the game is overpriced given the amount of content it offers and the overall gameplay experience. Some even state the full game's experience is worse than the demo, particularly regarding the value of certain in-game items.
- The game suffers from frequent crashes, often rendering it unplayable and leading to significant progress loss due to the inability to save at will. Beyond crashes, players report various other bugs, including non-functional or impossible achievements and minor performance issues.
- Players noted rough edges in the user interface and, more significantly, many upgrades lack descriptions. This forces players to apply upgrades blindly, hindering informed decision-making and overall gameplay understanding.
- Despite being tagged as an 'idler', the game demands excessive manual input and clicking, particularly in the mid-to-late game. This contradicts the expectation of an idle game and has led to player discomfort, including reported wrist strain.
Gameplay:
- Players experience a flexible factory progression system, starting with manual production and scaling up to automated factories producing diverse items from bullets to nuclear weapons. The game supports focused builds, allowing players to specialize in specific product lines instead of unlocking an entire tech tree.
- Product creation features engaging input mechanics that evolve as complexity increases. Early items might involve simple clicks, while mid-to-late game production requires more intricate interactions, including holds, drags, slides, and precise manipulation of buttons, sliders, and knobs.
- The core gameplay loop is defined as a simple idle game experience, focusing on increasing numbers and continuous factory growth. The initial 'clicky' phase quickly transitions into a more automated progression style.
- Many players had a positive experience with the game's early demo, which motivated them to purchase the full version upon release. Reviewers noted that there were only minor changes between the demo and the final game.
- The game incorporates a stock market system where players can invest to earn money. This adds a strategic layer of financial management and economic planning beyond direct factory production.
Performance:
- Players are experiencing significant technical issues including frequent crashes, graphical errors, and even system-level failures like blue screens of death. These problems severely hinder the gameplay experience and suggest critical stability flaws.
- The game provides flexibility by offering both OpenGL support (noted specifically for AMD systems) and a Vulkan rendering option. This allows players to choose the API best suited for their hardware configuration, potentially impacting performance and compatibility.
Recommendations:
- The game receives high recommendations, especially for enthusiasts of idle and incremental games akin to Cookie Clicker or Adventure Capitalist. Many suggest it fulfills the 'incremental itch' and offers great value, particularly when acquired on sale. This feedback indicates a strong appeal to its niche audience.
- Players report significant issues including frequent crashes, problems with achievements, and perceived repetition in the mid-to-late game. Many advise waiting for these critical stability and progression bugs to be resolved before recommending the game. These technical and content depth concerns are major barriers to player satisfaction.
- Feedback suggests the game is well-suited for passive background play, particularly once auto-production features are unlocked. This implies an effective idle loop that doesn't require constant attention, aligning with typical incremental game expectations.
Miscellaneous:
- Players see significant potential in the game, having often waited months for its release, but feel it currently lacks sufficient content and depth for its price point. They are eagerly anticipating future updates to enhance the core experience.
- The game's demo was highly engaging for many players, with some playing it extensively and reaching top ranks. This positive demo experience significantly raised expectations for the full game's content and mechanics.
- Feedback suggests improving the prestige system by adding more tiers and implementing automatic crafting for lower-tier items upon prestiging. This would enhance progression and streamline gameplay.
- Players desire more complex strategic elements, such as global politics, the ability to initiate wars, supply factions, and more intricate resource trading systems. This would add significant depth to the gameplay.
- One player suggested that the game's style and mechanics would be 'spectacular' on mobile, indicating a potential market for a mobile port.
