![]() Sometimes a piece of art comes along that so deeply reflects the zeitgeist, it deserves to be dug up in thousands of years to form the basis for some future academia’s entire understanding of our time. There’s still a load of rubble everywhere. Generate a small, bountiful map and turn off the timer? It’s no longer a frantic scramble, but an uplifting endorphine spiker about a go-getting little community building a new civilisation that runs on renewable energy. It’s remarkably flexible, too: sessions don’t have to be tense. In the work from home era, seven quid for an endlessly compelling sandwich companion that keeps the doom-scrolling at bay is quite a bargain. Minor gripes aside, this is a terrific and timely release. A drag select tool would save a lot of clicks, as would the ability to just prevent the incessant “Farm needs replanting!” message from repeating itself when you’re in the endgame and quite unconcerned with tilling more barley. It’s not quite as perfectly formed as it deserves to be – some quality of life improvements wouldn’t go amiss. This is a game of constant iteration, and there’s a glee to be found in refining your approach, like discovering you can cook, then figuring out not just the what to put in the casserole, but the why, and when. The only goal is to get your number bigger. So far the most I’ve managed to save is roughly the population of Swansea (246,217 in 2019), but this is a high-score game. It takes a while before you gather enough stuff to start building the big boy rocket, but it’s worth holding out, and immensely satisfying to watch your survivor count start flying up past the 100,000 mark as your map starts to look like a missile silo. It is hugely satisfying to watch little lightning bolts bounce around the map to where they’re needed, on a rudimentary national grid that leaves plenty of space for roads. Eventually, you’ll have learned the hard way where not to put stuff, so you don’t do yourself mischief later. Initially, it feels as though the setup makes any sort of planning redundant – a 30 minute window surely requires seat-of-the-pants thinking without too much headspace for efficient municipal zoning. ![]() The equation is deadly simple: make the first number go up while the second number goes down. To the right of it sits the eponymous timer. An ever-present counter on top of the screen reminds you how many human lives you’ve ‘saved’ – this is a running total of your ad-hoc space program’s seat capacity. To do this, as in real life, you need raw materials and infrastructure. ![]() ![]() Plonked in the middle of a post-apocalyptic grid map with limited visibility, your task is to build rockets, and keep building rockets until the timer runs out. It boots, you click ‘play’, select one of nine scenarios (ten if you count the tutorial level, which we won’t), or opt to randomly generate a map with its streamlined yet surprisingly comprehensive level conjuring tools.Įach session starts with a citadel and some meagre resources to get you going. There is no elaborate FMV opening sequence, or tutorial disguised cannily as a helpful civil servant. T-Minus 30 eschews the genre’s usual formalities. There’s only one thing for it: some high-octane town planning, and more daft rockets than a Richard Branson fan club. An unspecified catastrophe has left civilisation in ruins, and the planet will explode in 30 minutes. The goal? Get as many people off Earth as possible.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |