Lunar Ascendant

We need more games like Suzerain. Unfortunately, Lunar Ascendant does not deliver. The game is incoherent in how it handles characters, actions and how the world responds to them. You get private messages from key characters only for them to take the complete opposite stance in a meeting that immediately follows - and no, this is not the "I'm a politician so I say one thing and do the other" kind of deal. You get reports saying that you are not investing in sustainability, only for the next one to say you've secured it. The news/newspaper system (1-to-1 from Suzerain if you're familiar) stopped generating news for me in the middle of the game - I cannot stress how immersion breaking this is. At the start news station offer commentary on almost every decision (e.g., did you or did you not approve the construction of a zoo), but then stay silent when solar system-shaking events take place. I don't even know if this is a bug or just a sign of unfinished systems. When the last major plot point occurs, I had to play like a clueless lunatic because all characters were like "omg did you see what happened, how do we respond?" but the game did not bother showing me what has happened in the first place. The resources (e-coins and helium-3, again akin to Suzerain's) system is plainly unfinished. In the early turns you can invest into projects that often cost an exhorbitant amount when your income for each is likely to be limited to 2-4 units per turn. Then you enter mid/late game, when you continue to gain resources but have literally nothing to spend them on. I ended the game with 30 helium in stockpile, because I had no option to spend it from the time I had 12 (with 6 per turn income, so that's 3-4 turns of uselessness over a 9-10 turn game depending on how you count). At mid/late game, you are also likely to lose access to one of the two resources - not only production (which I can understand), but stockpile too (which is less logical). The plot is unfinished. Half of the characters feel pointless, most plot points are not resolved at all, and the seemingly major characters that are introduced in the late game never get to be seen beyond their introduction. Lastly, the game is a buggy mess. Sometimes when you load in, the "events" (how you play the game) do not spawn so you cannot proceed and have to reload (thankfully my save was not bricked). I got the same character sending me the same email twice back to back. Typos are frequent, which is interesting as proofreading is an area I would expect to be largely solved by AI at this point. Seriously, what a mess.

This games starts promising, with you building up the city spending resources and politicing. Then after turn 5 that game stops making nearly as much sense. Getting completely contradictary reports, not only from conversation to conversation with different people, but within the same conversation. A big dicotomy within the game is relying on Earth or being self sufficient. Which is an interesting concept, but just like every major political back and forth between factions, it is executed poorly. [spoiler] By turn 7, I think, you are able to resolve the riots that are rocking Artimis, and while I will admit I haven't done all three choices to resolve the riots. I chose to side with Ms. Chen and the LIM. I knew the consiquences of the actions, but it didn't just remove my ability to make income from Earth Credits as I thought it would, it just removed all of them. Since I had decided to build a reserve of Earth Credits for something like that to happen, loosing all of them made my run feel entirely ineffective. [/spoiler] I know the Dev is also trying to fix bugs, but they are still everywhere. Text not displaying who is talking correctly(This has only happened twice to me so far.). Pop-up events telling me something that I did or didn't do that just isn't true(Happened at least a dozen times.) As well as the previously mentioned conflicting information. Another issue with the writing is often I don't really understand the motives of some characters. Either I am just missing it, which is entirely possible, or it is poorly presented to the player. Some characters might be purposly obfuscating their believes to manipulate, but specifically [spoiler] Petrov, the Union Leader. I genuinely don't know what he is on about half the time. He gives me warnings of doom and union rising, but it doesn't happen when it seemingly makes sense, like during the riots, or when I do something aginast the interests of the workers, and instead starts on Turn 8 after I get cut off from earth. He is obviously some sort of Earth puppet, but I wish that was explained better in game. [/spoiler] Another story issue I have is the terrorist plots, I just wish they as an entity were better explained earlier in the game. You get hints, but I am not really invested in that story line and then [spoiler] you suddenly get kidnapped and meet their leader, who does basically nothing and then puts you back. I just have no care for that plot as you don't know anything about the terrorists motives before the very end of the game. [/spoiler] I am glad that people are making these political CYOA style games, and I am happy to support people doing it. Yet this game just doesn't do it for me, this isn't Suzerain in quality, but I do believe that it has the potential to be if the Dev keeps pumping out updates like he does. So even if you aren't interested, I wouldn't return the game if I could. I want this guy to keep working on his craft and make this game what I can see it has the potential to be.

I dont get this game. It feels like no matter what you choose, you are bound to get killed by ither faction. I have over 50 hours in Suzerain and i never had this kind of problem, but here it feels like your choiches doesnt have any impact on the story at all.

While this game still has some quirks, it's actually pretty good, it is practically solo developed, but the story line is great, just gotta give them some time for some things, but it's worth it so far. They just gotta fix the name thing, where when you or someone else speaks, it shows the name of a different character and there was a choice where the choices did not show at all, btu they're working on it. If you've played Suzerain, and give it some time, you'll definitely enjoy this game, due keep in mind that it's new, and not all new indie developed games come out perfect out of the gate.

This has potential, however its a buggy mess right now. By turn 3 or 4 whenever you make a choice often you get the dialogue from different choices.

Needs more braching. I tried to be 100% pro earth and you just cant. Its really upsetting. I dont see why you cant have a budget meeting like suzerian early on and those decisions change the game. like security, I did everything I could to increase security and its like it did not matter. I still needed to make a crappy deal that would destroy the city you built. where is the choice there?

"Suzerain in space" they promised. It is an unfinished, incoherent, terrible mess of an excuse of a game, where the developers should feel ashamed even trying to mention Suzerain in the same context as this garbage of a creation. What is even worse, is that they released it in a sorry state, knowing it is bad, but they wanted *some* return on their money, knowing full well the quality of the game won't even hit their own terrible low standards either.

This game... is a real kick in the groin. I loved Suzerain, and how, even if you screwed up, the game let you try to course correct. This game doesn't do that. Not yet at least. It just felt like I was railroaded into a bad ending, even when I [spoiler] bent over backwards to be pro-UEF and everything, and they bloody betrayed me, and I was just sitting there in front of my screen saying: "WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS!?" [/spoiler] I mentioned in a previous review how I loved CYOA games, but most of those games give you agency. Most of those games allow you to fix what you have broken. Most of those games give you a chance to avoid a bad ending if you accidentally screwed up. [b] But again, this game doesn't do that. [/b] At all. It just says: [i] "Oh, you screwed up? Too bad, you're getting railroaded to a bad ending, and you're going to like it, consent be damned!" [/i] I hope the devs do fix this game up, and I do hope I can play a second playthrough later on once more of the issues are ironed out, to change my mind and turn this thumbs down to a thumbs up. But for now, I can't recommend this. If you like getting kicked and punched in the groin, hey, you do you. But for me, I can't condone being kicked and punched in the groin.