IXION

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Amazing game!

La situation sur Terre avec la destruction de l’environnement étant ce qu’elle est, Ixion vous propose de réaliser la vision de la solution idéale (pour un milliardaire) : faire fuir l’humanité dans l’espace à bords d’une station spatiale hors de prix vers une autre galaxie en espérant trouver un nouvel Eden. Tout ne se passe pas vraiment comme prévu lors du premier saut spatial du vaisseau et vous devrez, en plus de votre mission de guider l’équipage à bon port, errer de système solaire en système solaire en récoltant les ressources nécessaires à la survie de tous, le tout à bords d’une station qui se dégrade à chaque saut et demande une attention constante, et vos escl… euh votre force de travail qui se remet difficilement de la destruction de la Terre. Le jeu rappellera Frostpunk sur bien des aspects mais avec beaucoup plus de gestion et beaucoup moins de décisions sociales. Vous serez alors presque constamment la tête sous l’eau puisque rien ne se passe comme prévu et le temps de régler un problème urgent et le suivant a déjà du mal à attendre son tour. Il n’est pas rare alors que les conséquences d’une erreur de gestion se répercutent des heures après, vous obligeant à devoir recommencer des pans entiers du scénario. La bande son accompagne le tout magnifiquement. Le jeu représente toutefois un vrai challenge qui poussera l’optimisation à son paroxysme, et il me parait impossible d’imaginer quiconque arriver au bout de l’aventure, sans guide, lors de sa première tentative. Le jeu n’est pas injuste, mais simplement impitoyable. Je ne vous le conseillerais donc que si vous êtes bien préparé ^^

I discovered the game through Guillaume David’s work on the soundtrack of Mechanicus, and I was also amazed by Ixion. The atmosphere of the game is incredible, and I believe most of that comes from the soundtrack itself. From the more uplifting tracks to the more tense ones, you really feel like you are in space, very, very far from home. The gameplay loop is fun, and expanding the sectors really gives a sense of progression, especially when you start to specialize them. My only criticism is the stockpiles and how the logistics of materials work. Basically, when a ship delivers materials to the Tiqqun, the sector in which they are unloaded needs to have a stockpile for that specific material, even if it is only for unloading, instead of sending it to the intended stockpile in an adjacent sector, for example. This creates a major bottleneck for optimization, since in every sector you need to have stockpiles not for storage, but for access. Another example of this is food: you need a stockpile for it in every sector instead of supplying all sectors from a single stockpile. The same applies to computer chips, which are not used in large quantities. In order to build something that requires, for example, 1 unit, you need a stockpile in the sector where the building is being constructed, instead of simply sending 1 unit from another sector. Overall, I believe that making access to resources global instead of sectorized would simply be more fun, since most of the time I was micromanaging that access. The game itself is a more linear experience when it comes to the story. You do feel some urgency if you spend too much time exploring certain areas, since there are debuffs for that, in fact, but for me that only added to the tension of the situation. You are the last hope of humanity, after all. That feeling was hard to avoid, since you become so immersed in upgrading the ship and exploring the systems you come across. In conclusion, I enjoyed the game, and I really hope to see a sequel one day. The game is very unique!

It is basically city builder with a story and a good production quality (graphics, audio, etc). As a city builder, its production chains are not the deepest that there are, but then, the are story and so far has hooked me in pretty well

Not Elon Musk breaks the moon and it's my problem now

Really good city builder in Space with Survival mechanics