Kinetic Void
- November 21, 2014
- Badland Studio
- 14h median play time
Get on Steam"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".
Mac OS
PC
Windows
Linux
Reviews
- The ship building mechanics are highly customizable and allow for creative designs.
- The game has a lot of potential for future updates and improvements.
- The graphics and sound design create an immersive atmosphere.
- The game feels unfinished and lacks meaningful content beyond ship building.
- There are numerous bugs and performance issues that hinder gameplay.
- The developer has abandoned the game, leaving it in a state of disrepair.
- gameplay112 mentions
- 17 % positive mentions
- 70 % neutral mentions
- 13 % negative mentions
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-building aspect shows potential, the overall gameplay experience is deemed tedious and underdeveloped, leaving many players disappointed.
“The ship builder is amazing; the amount of things you can do with it is nearly infinite, but the gameplay does not really go further than this sadly.”
“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.”
- story109 mentions
- 6 % positive mentions
- 79 % neutral mentions
- 15 % negative mentions
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 structured quest system and a compelling storyline leaves the gameplay feeling empty and unfulfilling. Overall, players express disappointment over the game's failure to deliver on promised content and a rich narrative experience.
“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.”
“It has some missions, mostly from what I've done, is rescue an allied ship under attack.”
“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 have abandoned this game.”
“Absolute freedom, but absolutely no story or direction.”
- graphics63 mentions
- 32 % positive mentions
- 52 % neutral mentions
- 16 % negative mentions
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 buggy, poorly optimized, and fail to meet modern standards, detracting significantly from the gameplay experience. Despite a few mentions of good graphical elements, the majority of reviews highlight a lack of polish and a general feeling of sloppiness in the visual presentation.
“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.”
“Graphics for an indie game are amazing, and the effort the team puts into it is extraordinary.”
“The graphics were beautiful; you could seek out battles or just cruise through the stars.”
“The graphics are vaguely passable but primitive.”
“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.”
“I don't think I'm a terribly picky person, I understand a game does not need to rely heavily on complex themes or dazzling art styles and graphics to be playable, but this seems to be one of those games where it looks so sloppily put together, that it puts me off from wanting to even humor what gameplay is present.”
- stability33 mentions
- 9 % positive mentions
- -6 % neutral mentions
- 97 % negative mentions
The game's stability is widely criticized, with numerous users reporting it as "buggy," "unfinished," and "abandoned." Many players express frustration over persistent glitches and crashes, which detract from the overall experience, despite some enjoyment found in the gameplay. While a few users acknowledge the potential for improvement, the consensus is that the game currently suffers from significant stability issues.
“The game has made significant improvements in ship construction, making it much more functional and less buggy than when I first started playing.”
“Great strides have been made in stability, making the gameplay experience much more enjoyable and approachable.”
“The enhancements in stability have transformed the game, allowing for smoother gameplay and a more reliable experience overall.”
“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 game is broken, buggy, and content incomplete.”
“As it is, it's a buggy, incomplete mess.”
- music21 mentions
- 52 % positive mentions
- 33 % neutral mentions
- 14 % negative mentions
The music in the game has received mixed reviews, with some praising the soundtrack composed by Artem Bank as catchy and epic, while others find it generic and repetitive due to a limited number of tracks. While many players appreciate the music's ability to enhance the atmosphere of space exploration, some express frustration over its quick monotony and the overall lack of content in the game. Ultimately, the soundtrack is often cited as one of the few redeeming qualities amidst broader criticisms of the game's mechanics and development.
“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, the devs are actually incompetent, 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 game.”
“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!”
- optimization20 mentions
- 20 % positive mentions
- 60 % neutral mentions
- 20 % negative mentions
Overall, the game's optimization is widely criticized, with many users reporting frequent bugs, awkward controls, and poor performance even on decent hardware. The graphics are considered outdated, and the ship-building mechanics, while creatively flexible, can severely impact gameplay performance. Many reviewers feel that the game is still in an alpha state, lacking essential features and polish, which hampers the overall experience.
“For clarification, alpha as in the pre-beta stage, beta meaning the game is feature complete and only requires bug fixing, optimization, and testing.”
“To complicate matters the ship construction designs are done impressively free, able to freely rotate and adjust segments any combination you desire without distance restrictions or locking points - but it comes back to bite the design mechanic in how over-use of too many blocks can kill the gameplay performance.”
“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.”
“This is more of a concept than a game as it bugs out quite often, the controls are not optimized, and the content aside from ship parts is downright minimal.”
“The optimization is a joke; graphics are so last-century, yet you need a decent rig to run it fluently. Older computers will have a problem with running this game.”
“Awkward controls, poor performance, lack of polish, and lack of features have convinced me to not try to explore this title any further.”
- monetization9 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The monetization aspect of the game is heavily criticized, with users labeling it a "cash grab" due to a lack of updates and unfulfilled promises regarding features. Many feel deceived by misleading advertisements and express frustration over the game's abandonment, suggesting that it is 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.”
- atmosphere8 mentions
- 38 % positive mentions
- 25 % neutral mentions
- 38 % negative mentions
The atmosphere of the game is polarizing; while some players appreciate its nostalgic sci-fi feel reminiscent of 90s titles, others criticize the lack of content and poor graphical performance, noting bland textures and a simplified flight model that detracts from immersion. Many reviews highlight the emptiness of space and the underwhelming experience of flying through poorly rendered environments, leading to a sense of disappointment in the overall atmospheric quality.
“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; you can enter the atmosphere of any planet, only to be presented with a close-up view 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.”
- grinding5 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be tedious and monotonous, particularly in the basic 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.
“In the basic career mode, you start with a small ship and grind up, but can just kick off in sandbox to build whatever and fly faster without the tedious grinding spree to build up to the big ship.”
“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 monotonous.”
“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.”
- humor4 mentions
- 75 % positive mentions
- -50 % neutral mentions
- 75 % negative mentions
Reviews indicate that the game's humor is inconsistent, with some players finding it unfunny and poorly executed, while others appreciate certain aspects, like the amusing flying mechanics. Overall, the humor seems to fall flat for many, detracting from the overall experience.
“Interesting in the building part, funny to fly.”
“This is early access done wrong; it feels like an unfunny joke.”
“The humor falls flat and often feels forced, making the experience more cringeworthy than entertaining.”
“I expected a lot of laughs, but instead, I was left with awkward moments that just didn't land.”
