Kinetic Void

About

Kinetic Void is a single player simulation game with a science fiction theme. It was developed by Badland Studio and was released on November 21, 2014. It received negative reviews from players.

"Kinetic Void" is a sandbox-style space simulation game that allows players to build and customize their own spaceships while exploring the universe. The game features a dynamic economy, interactive ship components, and multiple factions to interact with. Players can engage in combat, trade, or diplomacy as they navigate the open world of "Kinetic Void".

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

Skip User Reviews

17%

Audience ScoreBased on 2,690 reviews

gameplay38 positive mentions

story32 negative mentions

The ship building mechanics are robust and allow for a high degree of customization.
The game has a unique concept of creating and piloting your own ships in a procedurally generated universe.
The graphics and sound design create an immersive atmosphere, enhancing the experience of space exploration.

The game has been abandoned by the developers and is left in an unfinished state with minimal updates.
Gameplay is lacking, with little to do beyond ship building and no meaningful missions or objectives.
The user interface is clunky and unintuitive, making it difficult for players to navigate and understand the game.

gameplay
224 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
17%
70%
13%
The gameplay of Kinetic Void is widely criticized for being shallow, unpolished, and lacking meaningful content beyond its ship-building mechanics. Players report a frustrating interface, numerous bugs, and a lack of engaging missions or story elements, leading to a sense of emptiness in the game world. While the ship construction aspect shows potential, the overall gameplay experience is deemed tedious and underdeveloped, leaving many players disappointed.
- “While this game is still in development, it's worth getting into not only for the gameplay but for the potential it shows.”
- “This game shows great potential, who knows, it could become something great, the building mechanics are brilliant and the detail is really nice.”
- “If you like space games and building games, because the ship building mechanic is really fun by itself, it is probably something you are into.”
- “The gameplay is largely shallow and unfinished.”
- “Actual gameplay is barely implemented and what's there didn't seem to be any fun.”
- “The game is void of content, void of gameplay, and void of meaningful updates.”
story
218 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
6%
79%
15%
The game's story aspect is largely criticized for its lack of depth and direction, with many players noting that there is no coherent narrative or meaningful missions to engage with. While the shipbuilding mechanics are praised, the absence of a compelling story or quest system leaves the gameplay feeling empty and repetitive, leading to frustration among users who expected more content and structure. Overall, the game is seen as a missed opportunity, with players expressing disappointment over the developers' failure to deliver on promised features and a cohesive storyline.
- “I loved this game, and at times I would just spend hours designing the perfect ship of my dreams, giving each module a story and a purpose.”
- “Though I haven't played it very much, the potential for expandability, custom missions, and the like is very impressive.”
- “This game has an atmosphere and flight experience that harkens back to the 90s and games like Star Quest I.”
- “There's no real story arc, just a flash in the pan from the developers.”
- “There is no content, no missions; the developer seemed to abandon this game.”
- “Absolute freedom, but absolutely no story or direction.”
graphics
126 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
32%
52%
16%
The graphics of the game have received overwhelmingly negative feedback, with many users describing them as primitive, sub-par, and reminiscent of outdated technology. While some players noted occasional decent visuals, the overall consensus is that the graphics are poorly optimized, buggy, and fail to meet modern standards, detracting significantly from the gameplay experience. Despite a few mentions of beautiful artwork and potential, the game's graphical issues and lack of polish leave a lasting impression of disappointment.
- “Graphics for an indie game are amazing, and the effort the team puts into it is extraordinary.”
- “The ship building process was fun, and the graphics for the universe around you truly made you gaze in awe at the world around you.”
- “The graphics look good and the complexity revealed thus far hints at greatness.”
- “After redownloading on a brand new gaming PC, with graphics at ultra, it's an ugly, buggy, complicated mess of a game, with all the fun of a custom spaceship builder nowhere to be found.”
- “Not only was the gameplay so poor that I couldn't even bring myself to play more than an hour outside the ship editor, whoever was behind this game forgot to finish the graphics engine.”
- “I don't even know how you miss that, forgetting to finish the graphics engine shows itself with spontaneous blooms of light filling the screen, weird looking planets (their textures do not increase in detail with proximity, and they lack atmospheric effects for color emissions) and very poor performance.”
stability
66 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
3%
97%
The game's stability is widely criticized, with numerous reports of bugs, glitches, and overall instability, leading many players to describe it as unfinished and abandoned. While some users express enjoyment despite these issues, the consensus is that the game is riddled with problems that hinder gameplay, making it difficult to recommend without significant improvements. Overall, the game's current state is seen as a major drawback, overshadowing its potential.
- “The game has made significant improvements in ship construction, making it far more functional and approachable than when I first started playing.”
- “The stability of the game has greatly improved, with fewer bugs and a more user-friendly experience in ship construction.”
- “After redownloading on a brand new gaming PC, with graphics at ultra, it's an ugly, buggy, complicated mess of a game, with all the fun of a custom spaceship builder nowhere to be found.”
- “This is one of those early access games that had a ton of promise, but was broken, buggy, and all but unplayable due to crashes and overall instability.”
- “As it is, it's a buggy, incomplete mess.”
music
42 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
52%
38%
10%
The music in the game, composed by Artem Bank, receives mixed reviews; while some players find it catchy and fitting for the game's atmosphere, others criticize it as generic and repetitive, noting that there are only a few tracks available. Despite its initial appeal, many users feel the soundtrack becomes tiresome quickly, with some considering it the only redeeming quality of an otherwise flawed game. Overall, the music is appreciated for its ability to enhance the experience, but its limited variety detracts from long-term enjoyment.
- “The soundtracks are perfect for inducing that soothing yet unsettling feel of colossal space.”
- “In sum, based on a couple of hours of gameplay; a fantastic ship builder and gorgeous soundtrack make me think this may join my list of all-time favorite games.”
- “At times it was like a living, ethereal journey through space with nice music (and if you shut off the HUD it was like a living screensaver).”
- “Turret system is broken, flying your ship is broken, ship building (the only highlight of the game) is broken, the music is generic and annoying, and the community stopped producing content 2 years ago.”
- “The only redeeming quality is the music, which was outsourced to Artem (I believe) and can be found online without buying this trash.”
- “Do not buy! I want my money back. I thought if I left it for a year it would get better, but it's terrible and the soundtrack is so annoying. The devs abandoned the game; it feels like a scam!”
optimization
40 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
20%
60%
20%
The game's optimization is widely criticized, with users reporting frequent bugs, awkward controls, and poor performance, particularly on older hardware. Many feel that the graphics are outdated and that the shipbuilding mechanics, while creatively flexible, lead to significant performance issues when overused. Overall, the game is seen as unfinished and lacking the necessary polish and optimization to be enjoyable.
- “For clarification, alpha as in the pre-beta stage, beta meaning the game is feature complete and only requires bug fixing, optimization, and testing.”
- “Both content and performance wise the game is improving, but I personally will require more real gameplay to be added before I am prepared to recommend this game.”
- “Performance of the game is very good.”
- “The optimization is a joke; the graphics are so last-century, yet you need a decent rig to run it fluently. For example, X3: Albion Prelude, despite being an older game, looks much better and runs far smoother, especially on my former GPU, Nvidia 9600 GT, which ran X3:AP smooth as silk, whereas Kinetic Void lagged like hell all the time. To be fair, I have to admit that on Radeon HD 7850, I have no problem with either game, so it's especially older computers that will have a problem running Kinetic Void.”
- “The builder is buggy to say the least, with a lot of features missing, and the ones that are available are unoptimized.”
- “I don't even know how you miss that; forgetting to finish the graphics engine shows itself with spontaneous blooms of light filling the screen, weird-looking planets (their textures do not increase in detail with proximity, and they lack atmospheric effects for color emissions), and very poor performance. It runs fine at full settings on my computer, but considering how dull the graphics are at max settings, that's no excuse for it to be generating a lot of heat or being unplayable with my old graphics card.”
monetization
18 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The monetization of the game has been heavily criticized, with users labeling it a "cash grab" due to a lack of updates over the past three years and unfulfilled promises regarding advertised features. Many players express disappointment over feeling misled by the developer and regret their purchases, suggesting that the game is essentially abandoned and not worth the investment.
- “Was fun way back in the day when it received the odd update or two, now, it hasn't had an update in 3 years and is all but abandoned. Don't waste your money; this game is literally a cash grab that I wish Steam would let us who did buy it, at least get some sort of refund.”
- “Project abandoned, total cash grab, super jerk move.”
- “The developer literally lies to your face about features (at least when I bought it) by advertising that they're in the game already, when it turns out that these important and advertised features are yet to be added.”
atmosphere
16 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
38%
43%
19%
The game's atmosphere is a mixed bag, with some players appreciating the nostalgic sci-fi feel reminiscent of 90s titles, while others criticize the lack of content and poor graphical fidelity, particularly in textures and performance. The simplified flight mechanics and vast empty space contribute to a sense of dullness, overshadowing the potential for immersive exploration. Overall, while there are moments of atmospheric beauty, they are often marred by technical shortcomings and a lack of engaging content.
- “Graphical aesthetics are great and match with the atmosphere.”
- “Planets, and that vibrant, atmospheric sci-fi feel.”
- “The rest is just flying in empty space, only to be presented with a close-up sight of bland, atrocious-resolution textures, shooting at enemy ships and mining, which consists of concentrating your mining beam on an asteroid for a dull amount of time.”
- “The problems started when I left the station; not only did my FPS drop to around 4, but there is a complete lack of content and atmosphere.”
- “This game has an atmosphere and flight experience that harkens back to the 90s and games like Star Quest I.”
grinding
10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be tedious and monotonous, particularly in the career mode where progression feels slow and laborious. While the sandbox mode offers a more enjoyable experience by allowing players to bypass grinding and focus on creative ship-building, the overall gameplay can become unimmersive due to lengthy tutorials and the repetitive nature of adding modules. Despite the appealing visuals of the ship parts, the process of building and upgrading can feel cumbersome and uninspired.
- “The only clear selling point to this game is the creative ship-building one could do, but outside that realm, the gameplay gets tedious and monotone.”
- “Tedious and unimmersive come to mind when playing this game for any amount of time, caused by a text wall tutorial system that definitely doesn't hand-hold the player at all, so you'll be devoting a hell of a lot of time reading away.”
- “While there are plenty of parts and they look lovely, adding modules is very tedious, and most of them don't even do anything yet.”
humor
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
75%
25%
The humor in the game is perceived as inconsistent, with some players finding elements amusing, particularly in the flying mechanics, while others criticize the overall presentation as lacking polish and feeling like an "unfunny joke." The mixed reception suggests that while there are moments of humor, they are overshadowed by the game's shortcomings.
- “Interesting in the building part, funny to fly.”
- “This is early access done wrong; it feels like an unfunny joke.”