Developer: Grey Alien Games
At a glance
169 Steam reviews rate it “Very Positive” (93% positive). Released on August 26, 2021 by Grey Alien Games. Current price: $9.99.
Description
You must scavenge a post-apocalyptic environment to build infrastructure, grow crops, generate power, and build rockets to save as many people as you can. All within 30 minutes of play.
You start your new settlement with the intention of turning post-apocalyptic land into working rocketry.
So, you start by digging Wells which produce and propagate Water.
Then you create Tilled Earth, which receives that Water and becomes Farmland, which in turn produces Food.
You can build up your infrastructure to support solar farms and hydroponics labs to stock sleek generational ships that each rescue thousands of evacuees.
Or, you can remain low-tech and brute force your population off the Earth by building massive numbers of 1960s era rocketry.
And, that's T-Minus 30. A timeboxed city builder that focuses on resource propagation, exploration, and saving as much of humanity as you can before the Earth explodes.
Mind you, however you play, you can't save everyone, and people will still end up dead.
But that's life.
- Explore abandoned ruins of a once-bustling civilization.
- Mine skyscrapers and junkyards to reclaim plastics and metals.
- Explore procedurally generated landscapes, from small, arid maps with scarce resources to large, forested maps replete with ancient ruins.
- Create the infrastructure to convey energy, water, and other resources to your ever-expanding base of operations.
- Save as many souls as you can before the world ends in 30 minutes!
Supported languages: english
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Description and screenshots are provided by the publisher via the Steam Store page.
System Requirements
Windows
- OS *: Windows 7 64-bit
- Processor: Intel Core i3 2GHz
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: 2GB GPU
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 500 MB available space
User Reviews
It is very hard to make a good builder-game, especially when competing with giants like RimWorld and Factorio.
However, a couple of things are very important in any outstandingly good builder-game:
- Good QOL (Good hotkeys, copying structures, maybe blueprints, etc.)
- A system that allows creative problemsolving
- A progression that noticeably separates early- and endgame
- Some mechanic/quirk unique to the game
- A goal worth pursuing
- The least amount of bloat/unnecessary "work" for the player
- Consequences for choices
If you don't satisfy these criterias, the game will feel generic and boring.
A good example of a simmilar builder-game done right is dotAGE.
Has a simmilar concept: The apocalypse is coming and you need to avoid it.
But this one checks most of the points I made.
Unfortunatley, T-Minus 30 only somewhat checks a single one of these boxes: Some unique quirk.
The unique quirk being, that you have to end your playthrough after 30 minutes.
Amazing, very creative.
**T-Minus 30 fails every other point on the checklist:**
- The QOL has a lot of issues.
You can't even click and drag to build multiple buildings at once, the most basic QOL-feature in most builder-games.
Forgive me if I just didn't find the hotkey.
Also, you can't mix a tight timeframe with bad QOL. That's just mean.
- Creative problemsolving is not needed. You build more to get more ressources.
And yes, that's an optimization-problem due to the timeframe, but not a creative one.
- The game has no real endgame.
You can build "better" buildings to get more ressources. Great.
- The goal is to get as many people to "safety" as you can.
Well, these people are just numbers to the player. You (well, I) don't connect to that goal.
It doesn't feel like a challenge, more like something you do.
- Why. Why would you make the basic farm so it needs to be rebuilt from time to time.?
Why do so many games do this?
Noone enjoys rebuilding things for no reason at all.
Unnecessary bloat to keep the player busy.
- There are no consequences for any decision except the big number on the top being a little smaller than it could have been.
With consequences, I mean actual, gameplay-affecting consequences.
Didn't build enough appartments? Maybe make the people go haywire.
Just one idea: You could add the need for some military-force so the people won't try to get on full rockets, or even destroy them.
In conclusion, this game isn't worth it.
The only goal is to make numbers go higher, otherwise, it has the gameplay equivalent of cookie clicker.
So get cookie clicker and reset the game after 30 seconds. Boom, saved you 10€.
Great fun city builder in a small package. If you like optimizing, resource management and building placement without spending lots of hours this game is for you.
Not a bad way to kill 30 minutes of time while waiting on other things. Quite enjoyable.
Very gimmicky but does it well.
I really enjoy this game. Its a short time span (finished in 30minutes). I'm able to turn off my brain for while for mindless enjoyment.
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Additional Information
| Developer | Grey Alien Games |
| Platforms | Windows |
| Age rating | None |
| Release date | August 26, 2021 |
| User reviews | 93% positive (169) |