Quick Note : I really don't like being negative about anything gaming related, but some things have to be said about this Deconstruction Simulator. Sorry if I'm being harsh, I tried my best not to be.
[b]P r o s :[/b]
- Funny concept.
- Watching things blow up is always satisfying.
- Managing the warehouse can be fun... at times.
- Having to deal with garbage can be fun.
- Sending stuff to customers for money is satisfying.
[b]C o n s :[/b]
[b](Gameplay)[/b]
- Get ready to spend 75% of your playtime trying to fit objects inside your vehicle. Being off by a single pixel prevents you from closing the door, which in turn stops you from travelling at all. I would really have enjoyed something more fun (like a loading zone, for exemple, or even something which does not require pixel-precision)
- In the early game, you’ll repeat the exact same two or three missions dozens of times. Some may not mind, but by the third run, the novelty had completely worn off for me (as my interest).
- Time management feels completely arbitrary, mostly due to travel times. If you forget an item - which WILL happen, as you rarely know what you'll need in advance - your entire day will be ruined (on normal mode).
- Game mechanics are sometimes so secret that I had to watch more than 4 hours of youtube videos to discover that there is a button to open the door leading to your factory... and that you have access to it right from the start of the game... I am so glad I dropped my previous save because I only got building contracts, thinking I did not have access to the factory yet ! Same thing with collecting roof tiles from the ground (you can build scaffolding, but you have to buy the right thing for that), or roof plates (which you can almost never get from the ground). Tooltips only appear afterwards, which is not really useful.
- The difference between "Normal" and "Easy" modes boils down to tedious mechanics rather than meaningful gameplay depth: being forced to stop working at precisely 6:00 PM, or pixel-hunting with your cursor to unscrew individual parts. Not particularly engaging design. Not rewarding either.
- Disappearing objects. Invisible walls. Unreachable zones. Basic tools costing three times more than a van. High-pitched sounds made by the most used tools ingame. Customers paying an absurd fraction of an object's cost. Trader on holidays 75% of the time. No way to store items for the factory if not for a contract (no buffer zone). Objects inside customer's vehicule but no accounted for the mission, despite being 100% the correct ones (2 large windows with only one counted, if I remember correctly - although it happened more than once).
- I have seen plenty videos where players seems to have a ton of contracts (10-20) everyday to choose from. I never got more than 4 or 5 daily - and most of the time it's the same ones over and over.
- Persistent bugs (I've yet to experience a single full workday without encountering one). For a paid game officially released nearly a year ago, this is unacceptable. Considering what solo developers achieve nowadays, the state of this product is frankly embarrassing.
- Extremely infuriating moments—for example, picking up roof tiles or roof plates (on a contract's site), only to find the previously full palette almost empty upon return (to homebase). And also, good luck taking on a building contract that requires roof plates when deconstruction contracts with roofs only appear weeks later and you cannot grow stock because of this bug.
- Vehicle management is broken: if you sell a vehicle to buy a larger one, the old one remains in your garage, and you'll still be forced to drive it. If you're lucky, your new (bigger) vehicle won't vanish. Conversely, the starter vehicle disappears as soon as you buy a second one, despite having open garage spots.
- Many contract objectives are poorly explained, and the mission UI is too cramped, making it easy to accidentally destroy items required for completion. Destroy with caution, and carefully don't care.
- House building (Factory) has potential, but being restricted to carrying one item at a time is absurd (especially with unusable trolleys scattered everywhere). The constant back-and-forth travels quickly turns into a chore, which makes the whole factory experience quite boring in the long run. Sad, because it could be so much fun !
[b](Other)[/b]
- I won't even get into the physics engine (half-demolished houses floating mid-air, floating debris you're forced to destroy to complete missions but cannot reach them)... I know, ingame physics depend on the game engine, not your code.
- Having "Unstuck Player" and "Reset Factory" buttons baked directly into the main game menu speaks volumes about the game's stability.
- Graphics won't be judged here, as my GPU is too old to give a fair assessment.
