Flotsam

I was very undecided whether to give this game a recommend or not. Flotsam is a fun and engaging little city builder. It functions on the premise of building out from a central hub like in Airborne Kingdom, and the whole city moves around gathering resources on an expansive world map. A cute enough gameplay loop that really keeps you looking out for more resources to grow your floating city. Exploration is fun if not a touch grindy, and the city expands in a satisfying way. The art/graphics are nice though it's often tough to really distinguish structures from one another given the smilar color pallets and the zany builds. Unfortunately a few things are a huge pain: -First of all there are some notable bugs that really dampen the experience.. I rarely encounter or get really frustrated by bugs in games like this, but there were a few very frustrating ones including one where my citizens all somehow got stuck on a command to deconstruct a simple little building I wanted to move, and many times where anyone trying to do hauling tasks would get just stuck in front of a storage yard. In a game where days and hours are counting on resource production it's a huge drag and for the gameplay impact pretty bad here. -Also, I can't stress this enough but in ANY game that has building and resource management and production chains there is NO EXCUSE to not having a "produce until you have X" on your refining structures and workshops in addition to specifying a number or producing infinity. It is truly the biggest experience killer to have to constantly manually keep an eye on your resources. A minimum resource limit for any materials to not to be refined would also make a hands-off management more possible. -The above issues contribute to the wider problem of way too much micromanagement in general, which often gets highly frustrating when you'd rather be focusing on expansion and exploration. There is no way (unless there is some magical mechanical unlock further along in the game) to set up your economy in a self-sustaining way. Ultimately this one is a tepid no for me. If the game is fixed up and improves quality of life for management I might get For now, it's probably worth it only if you're a true city building enthusiast or it's on sale. Even though Flotsam is still staying afloat, there are better ones out there.