Meeple Station
- April 10, 2020
- Gameclaw Studio
- 5h median play time
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Get on itch.io Store"Meeple Station is a pixel-art space station management sim, inspired by games like Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld. Build and maintain a thriving station for your Meeple inhabitants, providing them with essentials like oxygen, food, and bathrooms. The game's major Planets Update allows for Meeple to expand across the solar system, with more features to come in future updates."
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Reviews
- Fun and engaging gameplay with a charming pixel art style.
- Active developer support and community engagement, with regular updates.
- Offers a unique blend of resource management and colony simulation.
- Numerous bugs and glitches that can disrupt gameplay.
- Lack of clear tutorials and guidance for new players.
- UI can be clunky and unintuitive, making navigation and management frustrating.
- stability85 mentions
- 2 % positive mentions
- 2 % neutral mentions
- 95 % negative mentions
The game is widely criticized for its numerous bugs and glitches, which significantly hinder gameplay and create frustrating experiences for players. Common issues include characters getting stuck, unresponsive mechanics, and a clunky user interface, leading many to describe it as an unfinished and unpolished product. While some players find enjoyment despite these problems, the overall consensus is that the game's stability is severely lacking, making it difficult to recommend.
“A lot of work left to be done on it, but it runs great and keeps me entertained for hours.”
“This game is an unfinished buggy mess with a good concept.”
“The game is too buggy to play; meeples continually get stuck on nothing and can't be reset or unstuck.”
“For a game they claim is out of beta, it's horrifically buggy.”
- gameplay74 mentions
- 19 % positive mentions
- 72 % neutral mentions
- 9 % negative mentions
The gameplay of the game has received mixed reviews, with many players highlighting significant bugs and unpolished mechanics that detract from the overall experience. While some appreciate the charming pixel art and engaging base-building elements, others criticize the AI pathfinding issues and the lack of updates, leading to a feeling of abandonment. Despite its potential and enjoyable aspects, the gameplay often feels frustrating due to broken mechanics and a lack of depth, leaving players wanting more refinement and stability.
“With its charming pixel art style and intuitive gameplay mechanics, it offers a delightful and immersive experience.”
“The game's dynamic events and random encounters keep gameplay fresh and exciting, while the ability to customize and expand the station provides endless possibilities.”
“If you like space base building with a cute aesthetic and relaxing but challenging gameplay, this is your game.”
“There's a lot of bugs, and the game hasn't had any updates in well over a year, so it's abandoned despite the polish and gameplay problems (poor AI, etc.).”
“A game released almost 4 years ago, with it being in beta years prior to that, still having game-breaking bugs where simple mechanics just don't work and you end up ruining both the game experience and the game itself.”
“The gameplay is kind of confusing and could be fleshed out, but overall it's there; it just needs to make sure that everything actually works properly.”
- graphics74 mentions
- 36 % positive mentions
- 58 % neutral mentions
- 5 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game have received mixed reviews, with some praising the charming pixel art style and its nostalgic appeal, while others criticize it as outdated and lacking detail. Many users noted that the visuals can be cluttered and uninformative, detracting from the overall experience, despite the game's cute aesthetic. Overall, while the graphics may appeal to fans of retro styles, they are often seen as simplistic and in need of improvement.
“With its charming pixel art style and intuitive gameplay mechanics, it offers a delightful and immersive experience.”
“The graphics are deceptively simple and quite well-done.”
“There's all sorts of sci-fi themed features (research, space mining, oxygen, water, and food management, etc.), awesome cute graphics, chill music, and even some funny interactions.”
“A choice was made to use obsolete, decades-old retro pixel art as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics.”
“Visually, this is a hamfisted mess, a dog's breakfast of bad visuals, and this kind of laziness and poor quality should never be foisted on gamers.”
“While there are options to change the resolution for the game, all this does is scale up the simplistic 2D art assets used to make the game, which makes little or no difference to the graphics quality.”
- story58 mentions
- 33 % positive mentions
- 62 % neutral mentions
- 5 % negative mentions
The game's story has received mixed reviews, with some players finding it engaging and fun, while others criticize it for being marred by bugs and AI issues that hinder gameplay. Many appreciate the cute and interesting plot, but the overall experience is often overshadowed by technical problems that make progression difficult. Overall, while the story has potential and is enjoyable for some, the execution is frequently hampered by gameplay flaws.
“I played 40++ hours through all the acts and had a lot of fun with the story and also building the space station.”
“The campaign mode also has different kinds of telling the story, and it doesn't disappoint.”
“The story is good and full of mystery, good enough to make me go through the challenge to see what will happen.”
“Never finished the storyline because of the doctors prioritizing food over someone bleeding to death, and my entire crew dying in a simple pirate raid.”
“It was so glitchy that you couldn't progress the story, so I stopped playing.”
“There is no storyline, campaign, or even a basic tutorial.”
- music23 mentions
- 61 % positive mentions
- 26 % neutral mentions
- 13 % negative mentions
The music in the game is generally praised for its relaxing and atmospheric qualities, fitting well with the overall mood and theme. While some describe it as a long, spacey track with a chill vibe, others note its simplicity and repetitive nature, likening it to generic space music. Overall, players find the soundtrack enjoyable and a good complement to the cute graphics and engaging gameplay.
“The soundtrack is well done and fits the mood of the game.”
“Music is beautiful and fits the game perfectly.”
“Meeple Station is a fantastic little game, with adorable pixel art, chilled out and atmospheric music, and addictive yet relaxing gameplay.”
“The music has a slow tempo and uses only a few instruments.”
“The music in this game is like the generic space music where a synth is playing some chord and there are some 8-bit like beeps over the chords.”
“The music in this game is like the generic space music where a synth is playing some chord and there are some 8-bit like beeps over the chords.”
- humor19 mentions
- 95 % positive mentions
- -11 % neutral mentions
- 16 % negative mentions
The humor in the game is widely praised for its charm and wit, with players enjoying the quirky writing, funny character interactions, and amusing mishaps that occur during gameplay. While some found certain aspects, like poor grammar and UI quirks, to be unintentionally humorous, others appreciated the intentional comedic elements, such as the antics of the game's characters and the absurd situations that arise. Overall, the game is described as a delightful blend of humor and engaging gameplay, though some players noted that it may not appeal to those seeking a polished experience.
“Absolutely delightful game, the writing is funny and the aesthetic is wonderful!”
“Good price for it too, great humor, especially when you get new people joining your station because they thought the pirate training was boring, so they brought in real pirates.”
“Tons of suicides, crapsplosions, and other mishaps make the early game absolutely hilarious.”
“This is not funny; it's disgusting and makes no sense.”
“The humor falls flat and often feels forced.”
“I expected laughs, but instead, I just felt cringed out.”
- grinding5 mentions
- 20 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 80 % negative mentions
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be excessively tedious, often requiring repetitive actions like clicking trade arrows hundreds of times. The necessity of using console commands to manage meeple roles adds to the frustration, and the unskippable lore explanations at the start further detract from the experience. Overall, many feel that the grinding demands an unreasonable time investment.
“You'll need a second life for grinding.”
“The only incredibly tedious fix to this is to just use a console command to spawn another meeple, hoping you get one suited to the role you just lost.”
“You have to click a little trade arrow several hundred times; it's super tedious.”
“It's a seemingly tedious task that only stops once you have quite a bit of leg room.”
- optimization4 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- 25 % neutral mentions
- 25 % negative mentions
Overall, optimization feedback is mixed; while some players report smooth performance with a consistent 60 fps at 1080p due to the simple graphics, others experience surprisingly poor performance despite the game's straightforward visuals.
“I've had fun trying to get past the 'first stage' of the station, and now that I have a station that runs smoothly for 5 minutes, I'm enjoying the progression a lot.”
“The performance is great; I have a constant 60 FPS at all times in 1080p, but it's to be expected since the graphics are simple.”
“Performance is surprisingly bad considering the relatively simple graphics.”
- monetization3 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Reviews highlight a mixed perception of monetization, with some users criticizing the overwhelming presence of ads that detract from the user experience, while others appreciate the developer's ongoing efforts to improve the game rather than abandoning it as a cash grab. Overall, the monetization strategy appears to be a contentious issue, with concerns about both ad saturation and the game's value proposition.
“This game is a cash grab.”
“Not only are you saying that your tutorials are terrible and others could make them better (which is true), you're sending us to a site that in some formats is actually unreadable from the amount of ads popping up and covering the screen in 5 regenerating layers of go fuck yourself.”
- replayability3 mentions
- 33 % positive mentions
- -33 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
While some users note limited progress and replayability, many express confidence in the game's potential for future updates, highlighting its current enjoyable replay value. Overall, the game offers a fun experience that encourages repeated play, despite some concerns about its long-term replayability.
“I have full confidence that this game is really going places, and even at this early stage, it's a ton of replayable fun.”
“Cons: limited progress and replayability.”
“The game lacks meaningful choices that would encourage replayability.”
“Once you complete the main story, there's little incentive to play again.”
- atmosphere1 mentions
- 300 % positive mentions
- -200 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Meeple Station creates a charming and engaging atmosphere with its adorable pixel art and relaxing music, drawing players into a unique blend of resource management and comedic crisis simulation. The game's characters, each with distinct personalities, enhance the experience, allowing for varied play styles and interactions that keep gameplay fresh and entertaining. Despite being in early access, the game's depth and potential for future content promise an even richer atmosphere.
“Meeple Station is a fantastic little game, deceptively simple, with all kinds of hidden depths, adorable pixel art, chilled-out and atmospheric music, and addictive yet relaxing gameplay. It is consuming far more of my time than anything since 'FTL' or 'Slay the Spire'.”
“The atmosphere is incredibly engaging, with the charming meeple characters full of personality, from my psychotic yet cheerful station captain to my surly, lazy janitor. Each character's traits interact in the funniest ways, creating a unique and entertaining experience.”
“The real beauty of Meeple Station lies in its atmosphere; there are so many ways to play it, and the player's choices shape the nature of the game entirely. The combination of resource management, building, and trading with a comedic twist makes for a truly immersive experience.”
