Fractal Softworks Forum
Other => Discussions => Topic started by: Serenitis on September 30, 2022, 04:54:45 AM
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So, after yet more medical nonsense I've found myself wanting a bit of distraction without needing a lot of concentration/effort.
And I found a gem that I'd never heard of before called Slipways.
https://slipways.net (https://slipways.net)
(https://i.imgur.com/ZzpZbYM.jpg)
The premise is you're taking Humanity to the stars under the collective 'wing' of five older races.
You pick an area to colonise and then 3 out of the 5 races as advisors, then you all get sent via wormhole to this undeveloped area.
The game itself is an economic/logistics puzzle, with each planet having inputs it needs to fucntion, and outputs that feed other planets.
And the whole thing is linked together by the titular Slipways - which are straight line point-to-point connections than can't cross or go through things.
As you play your advisors will give you tasks based on which 'gimmick' they are based on. So you might get asked to find x number of new planets by the explorer guy, or produce y amount of research output by the science guy etc.
And then you do your best to make all your planets as prosperous as possible within 25 years, at the end of which you're given a score.
(https://i.imgur.com/ObbbUKg.jpg)
It's HARD.
Like legitimately confounding at first. It took me a while to 'get' that there's always a stable loop of inputs and outputs at the start, it's just sometimes hard to find in the ocean of possibilites.
But as you play it starts making sense, and you start noticing all these weird little quirks that can be exploited everywhere (by design).
And each advisor race gives you access to various technologies you can research to give you new abilities, or sometimes change the rules. And sometimes break them entirely.
I'm terrible at it, but I can't leave it alone.
This game owns p. hard.
And it has some of the most chill music I've heard in ages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEro2EGBcOU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEro2EGBcOU)
Would recommend, especially if you're looking for something a bit more on the relaxing side.
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Yes, yes! This game is basically "Build the Domain"! (But maybe a little more nicely.)
I've had some fun with this one! Also I am really bad at it.
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Absolutely love this game, been playing it since release. Can agree that it's bonkers hard.
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It's so frustrating because all the things that stop you from being successful, are your own fault!
You're not just playing against the game, you're playing against yourself.
If nothing else, Slipways forces you to face your own inadequacies.
My best score so far is ~22k: 5 Gold stars + 2 Blue.
Can't get that consistently tho.
I've found one of the best things that helps me is turning on the "sticky help keys" in the settings.
This allows you to press right-alt to toggle the input/output overlays for all discovered planets.
And left-alt toggles the mouseover connection markers.