In recent years it has been increasingly frequent the release on the market of PC video games still in development phase through various digital platforms that allow you to expand the range of potentially interested users. Basically it is a system, very often used by small software houses, to self-finance and try to complete the development work. The team too Brace Yourself Games he chose this path and through Epic Game Store released these days Industries of Titan, a fairly classic RTS set on the largest moon orbiting the planet Saturn: Titan.
Thanks to a code kindly offered by the developers we were able to try it even though it is still under development.
Industries of Titan will put you at the head of a corporation whose purpose will be to develop a colony on Titan and increase revenue as much as possible by collecting and selling materials that can be obtained from the hostile alien surface. The gameplay is quite classic: through mining you can obtain - both from underground and from abandoned structures already present on the map - minerals and isotopes useful for building more complex structures capable of making your colony prosper. To do this, you will initially have only a handful of workers who will need to give orders to get them to work.
Through a list of priorities you can give group orders and decide the activities to be carried out with more urgency than others. The various workers, based on availability, will try their hand at various tasks even if it will not be possible to manage them individually. In addition to workers, your colony will also need settlers who, in addition to producing waste that must be disposed of in special storage centers, will be able to generate money by spending practically all day in special booths that continuously broadcast advertising messages.
If you find yourself short on manpower you can always turn one or more colonists into tireless workers thanks to a kind of machinery that will transform them in a short time into perfect workers at the cost of one or more "Artifacts". The latter will be recoverable only after having scanned the various structures already present on Titan's soil and having purchased the license to be able to use that particular portion of land. Both settlers and workers will need to build lodgings where they can rest after long and exhausting work sessions.
As already mentioned, each inhabitant of your colony will produce a certain amount of waste which, if not disposed of, will lower the mood until they migrate elsewhere or even die. However, you can always use yours Influence Points to make you send new colonists by the Supreme Entity that regulates the activities on Titan through space ships that will land with a certain frequency.
The state of development of Industries of Titan, being in early access, is still in its infancy therefore lhe staff management phase of your colony is still a bit uncertain mainly due to the total lack of notices in the event that a worker is unable to perform a certain task. On the other hand, it is interesting that in Industries of Titan there is also a micromanagement of some building structures and useful for the sustenance of the colony itself. You will have the possibility to decide directly what to build inside some buildings such as your headquarters or factories by simply clicking on them.
Inside the various buildings - which can also be expanded on several floors - it will be possible to place a whole series of equipment useful for the sustenance of the colony itself such as power generators, batteries to store energy, accommodation for staff and more. You will therefore be able, at the same time, to supply energy to all the various buildings or structures including the centers where the waste produced by the population will be burned. Consequently you will always have to keep an eye on the level of pollution which, if it exceeds a certain threshold, could penalize your activities.
The internal management phase of the various buildings is certainly the most innovative and interesting aspect of the game even if, at the moment, an end in itself given the few possibilities it still offers. Moreover, the lack, even in this case, of clear warnings for the failure of a generator rather than an electrical network will lead you too often to consult the various submenus to understand what is not going the right way. It is true that small icons will appear above the various structures to signal an anomaly but we would have much preferred a more practical visual signaling system. We hope that the Brace Yourself Games guys will also work on this aspect as well as that, no less important, of expanding the choice of the various machines to be included within the various industries to diversify the strategic side which unfortunately, at the moment, is quite poor in content.
Industries of Titan, in addition to the purely managerial side of the various resources and structures, also offers a competitive side pledging to build defenses for your colony. By building defensive towers you have to eliminate the ships of the gods rebels that from time to time they will attack you due to your unwelcome presence on Titan soil. Even this feature, although very interesting, unfortunately it seemed to us at the moment in the unripe phase but if it is developed in a deeper way it could earn the final product some more points.
The graphics do not scream a miracle but are full of small details and overall good when compared to that of other similar titles. The various structures are all well designed and diversified from each other and the overall glance of the colony, on the whole, is really very pleasant as well as the numerous menus present, clear and never invasive. The animations of the settlers and the workers are also quite plausible although quite simple.
Only note that we allow ourselves to do in this respect is the use, too often, of too dark colors such as black, gray and brown that make the game atmosphere dark and depressing. Probably this is a choice desired by programmers to give a good idea of life on the moon larger than Saturn but some colors a little brighter here and there certainly would not have spoiled.
Industries of Titan, at the moment, is a hybrid in many ways and doesn't have much to offer compared to other games in the same segment. Some aspects are really interesting and innovative but the development phase of the game, in our opinion, still has to take some steps forward before it can involve, convince and thrill the players. The final project shown by the developers, through a roadmap present at the start of the game, is undoubtedly very ambitious and could lead to a definitive version of the decidedly high-level product in many respects making it, on paper, a must-have for all lovers of the strategic management genre. However, we cannot judge Industries of Titan either on the current state of development that is still too primitive or on what is promised on paper but it is not excluded that over time it can really surprise in many respects also given the dedication of the developers in releasing almost daily updates and the good starting point. We just have to wait and see what the Brace Yourself Games guys will be able to do in the near future as the release of the final version of the game for PC is scheduled for next year.
► Industries of Titan is a Simulation-Strategy-indie game developed and published by Brace Yourself Games for PC, the video game was released on 14/04/2020
