The Crust

Most of the new positive 'reviews' are clearly AI generated 'why it matters' word patterns. The reviewers also only have 1 review! A very blatant last ditch effort to scam some extra cash for what is a mess of a game.

While I understand this game is Early Access, I cannot recommend it at this stage. There are many fun building elements, which I have immensely enjoyed, but at the same time, there are also a lot of "game breaking" bugs which make things frustrating to an extreme. My following comments are not in any order. The Encyclopedia, I presume, is a "placeholder" for a later state of development. In the present state is incomplete at best, and gives no real information. Everything Costs money. This is a sandbox game, base-building, like the dozen others out there. Costs need to be seriously rebalanced so a player can progress at a reasonable rate through the game. Things like wires and conveyors are cost-prohibitive to the point of frustration. Research: Tech-trees can be a welcome challenge to game play, but I also believe there has to be a balance between "challenge", "fun", and "frustration". In one game, about 80-hours worth (real-time) I had about 2/3 of the tech trees researched, but because things get progressively more points to unlock, that's probably relatively about 1/3. I want to build, not wait. The whole research-points needs some serious work. My opinion is, slagging through the entire tech tree should reasonable take 30-40 (real-life) hours, not 200. This is unrealistic, for zero-gameplay rationale. While I appreciate the research queue, 5 is limiting when you're working on other aspects (like building) at the same time. How about 10? Or 8? Updating machines: I absolutely appreciate the many tech upgrades and improvements to the various machines, but many of the machine upgrades and updates (going to MkII machines, for example) break the machines completely - the recipes fall out and cannot be reselected - forcing the player to salvage and rebuild the machine. This isn't just about rebuilding, but rather, removing all the conveyors, because they are in the way of pasting down the new machine. In some cases, they work again, and in some cases not, even after you've taken the time to rebuild. This is a game-breaking bug where the devs should have spent some quality time playing their own game and discovering the "updates" broke the machines rather than making it better. This is the Biggie: no blueprinting system. This is essentially a factory-building game. Every other factory-building game I've played has a blueprint system where a player can build an assembly of machines, conveyors, power, etc, and then create a blueprint so it can be easily copied to make building much more practical. This game, as far as I can research, has nothing. Everything has to be built as individual parts-and-pieces. Why should I play this game, when many other factory building games have a blueprint system? There are a lot of issues with the UI. While quite good in general, there are conflicts (like the sidebar resources window) which defaults to being visible, even when your in other screens like the contracts page. When various monitor windows are open (like a machine info window) the cursor and mouse-clicks will still interact with things behind the window, rather than the window itself. The UI needs a lot of polish still. There are a lot of other issues, which are to be expected of an Early Access game. There's a lot of necessary featured still missing, such as a Trashcan, a true Power Management function to help you trace down independent grids, etc. In summary, I cannot recommend at this stage of Early Access. The game is playable, and in fact fun, but includes a large helping of frustration.

I played 20-some hours before I got bored of waiting for the research of the next five things on the tech tree that I need to build the one thing I actually need next. The devs need to look at when you can produce what kinds of resources and re-balance a few costs and re-arrange the tech tree. The biggest problem though is that there's just too many bugs. An early access game should still be a playable game. But this has some pretty bad bugs: the rover scan doesn't do anything - which fully blocks the campaign progression at one point, colonists won't take meals from a refrigerator - so if you're unlucky enough to have built one and stocked it with food your colonists will stand there and starve while looking at a fridge full of food. It's trying to be two things at once and kinda failing at both. Would be a great game if they managed to make the concepts work together, but the colony sim is unbalanced and flakey and the factory sim is not well thought out enough to be really effective. Lots of buildings seem to require resources to build but the devs haven't considered when you need that building and how you'd get that resource by then. I wanna like it. But without some serious fixes it won't be worth the price.

maybe later too many bugs with the control system within the game. Processing materials seem to stop working for no apparent reason. I might come back at a later date.

Not a bad game in itself but I can't recommend it right now because it is riddled with bugs and balancing issues. It is actually quite hilarious how bad the game balancing is when compared to Factorio, Satisfactory or Dyson Sphere Program. The devs seriously need to stop the content updates for a few months and concentrate on fixing this game. Also, it seems you need either a discord account or a Veom Studio account to get support/report bugs which is really bad. There is, at least, a feedback form via Google which is something. Stay away from this one until it is fixed.

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Engineers and scientists don't talk to each other like Reddit moderators with a chip on their shoulder, on the moon no less. Real "its ma'am" type of vibe here. Imagine offering a coloring book to someone living, working and mining on the moon only minutes after admitting the two of you "got off on the wrong foot". Whoever wrote this spent too much time on their tablet growing up. It has a sandbox mode that you can spend your time on without dealing with the dialog, but at this point I'd rather just refund it and wait for a deep discount to ignore half the game.

Game's not bad, heavily driven by the buy/sell economy more than building a base and managing resources. If you play the story mode be ready for situations you literally cannot win. In my own play they give me a goal to accomplish, pause the game, send whatever is needed straight to the location. OOPS it's night time, you should have left before we told you that you need to get there, now you can't get there in time. It can be more realistic, you cannot do everything asked of you, but I'm not a fan of failing just because the game gave me an impossible task. If that is fun for you then enjoy! If that is not fun for you then do not buy this game.

I feel like I was ripped off. I bought The Crust in Early Access and gave the developers the benefit of the doubt. I put over 45 hours into the game before finally setting it aside because the gameplay problems became too frustrating to ignore. At the time, I chalked it up to Early Access growing pains and figured I would come back once the game was more mature. Almost two years later, the game still is not finished, and it still does not feel mature. Instead of delivering the completed product people already paid for, the developers are now asking for more money through a Supporter Pack. That is not support. That is a money grab. It is greedy to come back to the existing user base with your hand out before finishing the game they already bought. The people who purchased this in Early Access already supported development. We already took the risk. We already paid for an unfinished product on the promise that it would improve and eventually be completed. A Supporter Pack might make sense after a finished, polished release. Asking for more money while the base game remains incomplete feels like squeezing the same customers twice. I wanted The Crust to succeed. I gave it time, patience, and over 45 hours. What I got instead was an unfinished game that I walked away from, only to return and find that the developers are asking for more money before delivering what they already sold. Finish the game first. Then ask for more money.