Nimbatus: The Space Drone Constructor
- May 14, 2020
- Stray Fawn Studio
- 17h median play time
While it might initially seem a bit overwhelming, the creative potential in Nimbatus - The Space Drone Constructor is mind-bogglingly fun.
Get on SteamIn "Nimbatus: The Space Drone Constructor," you are the captain of a mobile drone factory, where you can design and build your own custom drones using over 75 physically simulated parts. Explore a physics-based universe in three different game modes: a survival campaign, sandbox mode with adjustable parameters, and competitive arenas to show off your engineering skills. Confront challenging enemies and obstacles or focus on creative freedom.
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Reviews
- The core concept of building and customizing drones is engaging and allows for a lot of creativity.
- The game features a variety of game modes, including a fun Sumo mode where players can pit their automated drones against each other.
- The physics engine and mechanics provide a satisfying experience when designing and testing drones.
- The campaign missions can feel repetitive and lack variety, often leading to a grind.
- The game suffers from a steep learning curve, with minimal guidance on how to effectively use all the components.
- There are issues with stability and control, as drones can behave unpredictably, leading to frustration during gameplay.
- story402 mentions
- 12 % positive mentions
- 77 % neutral mentions
- 11 % negative mentions
The story aspect of the game has received largely negative feedback, with many players finding the campaign underdeveloped and repetitive. Most missions lack variety, often revolving around similar objectives such as collecting items or destroying targets, which leads to a monotonous gameplay experience. While the game offers creative drone-building mechanics, the overall narrative and mission design feel shallow and uninspired, leaving players wanting more depth and diversity in both story and gameplay.
“The single player campaign has since been greatly improved, and now has a wide variety of missions that keep requiring different configurations and different weapons vs utilities vs maneuverability.”
“With a bit of creativity, you can build all kinds of crazy (and deadly) space-drones to harvest resources and complete missions while you keep one step ahead of 'the corp'.”
“The missions in campaign mode are quite challenging and the pacing is similar to FTL.”
“The campaign consisted of repeating the same 3 or 4 mission templates 15 or so times.”
“The missions are really repetitive.”
“The story is a waste of time.”
- gameplay162 mentions
- 27 % positive mentions
- 64 % neutral mentions
- 9 % negative mentions
The gameplay of the game has received mixed reviews, with many players finding it frustrating and repetitive due to a lack of clear tutorials and overly punishing mechanics. While the drone-building system is praised for its depth and creativity, the overall experience is marred by grindy progression, limited enemy variety, and a campaign that feels tedious and unbalanced. Players appreciate the potential for engaging gameplay but express a strong desire for improved mechanics, clearer instructions, and more diverse objectives to enhance long-term enjoyment.
“The gameplay is cool, but the actual drone editor builder thing is clunky as all hell.”
“There are potentially hundreds of hours of gameplay here, and the game is under £20.”
“Nimbatus has the superior mechanic in 2D block sandbox shooter.”
“The tutorial only teaches you how to build and complete some tasks, but other core mechanics like the hull, threat levels, and types of locations are left unexplained.”
“The gameplay is extremely repetitive, and the enemies are very limited.”
“The main mechanic of the game is one of grinding, irreversible, unavoidable attrition.”
- graphics38 mentions
- 39 % positive mentions
- 53 % neutral mentions
- 8 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game receive mixed reviews, with some players appreciating the sharp and clean visuals, particle effects, and overall aesthetic, while others criticize them as simple and lacking in flair. The game runs well on low-end systems, making it accessible, but some users note that the graphics can appear glitchy or underwhelming in certain contexts. Overall, while the graphics are functional and contribute to the gameplay experience, they may not stand out as particularly innovative or immersive.
“Fun gameplay loop and great looking graphics.”
“The graphics are sharp and clean, even the colors and how the neon lights of your ship glow, as well as the particle effects.”
“The graphics are nice, and the bloom effects are cool.”
“The graphics are, to put it mildly, simple.”
“What I feel I got is a sub-par experience with a game that the devs pinched a few ideas from different games and cobbled it together with intern-level graphics to boot.”
“Other games are like that and I have enjoyed many of them, but many of those games have an overall 'character' to them; be it in their design, artwork, theme, etc. Nimbatus vehicles, however, are just a bunch of dull two-dimensional blocks with flashy lights that do stuff.”
- grinding34 mentions
- 6 % positive mentions
- 3 % neutral mentions
- 91 % negative mentions
The reviews highlight a significant issue with grinding in the game, describing it as tedious and time-consuming, particularly in the early stages where players must engage in repetitive resource gathering and upgrades. Many players express frustration with the slow progression and the necessity of grinding to unlock enjoyable gameplay elements, leading to a sense of boredom and diminished enjoyment. While the game has potential and interesting mechanics, the grind-heavy experience detracts from its overall appeal.
“You'll need a second life for grinding.”
“Lots of grinding.”
“I play games for enjoyment and fun... not for headaches and ball pain... the gameplay video on the store page looks super fun and it looks like you can zip around the galaxy on your massive death-machine just sucking up resources everywhere you go and handing out large cans of whoop-a$s while you do it... the truth however is that before you get to that stage, you have to do dozens and dozens of hours of grinding and farming.”
“I thought that this was going to be a nice little game where you explore the universe with a tiny ship, gathering resources and building up your ship as you go.... but instead it turned out that it's a game where for the first 5 hours of the game, your tiny ship is constantly tea-bagged by bigger enemies and you have to skulk around doing gorilla tactics to scrounge together enough resources just to afford your next measly upgrade... and if you do that for 30 hours or so only then you can start doing the stuff they show in the gameplay videos... I honestly wanted to like the game, but it's far too punishing to be enjoyable and far too grindy to be viable (unless you got a spare 50 hours lying around... which unfortunately, I don't).”
“The main mechanic of the game is one of grinding, irreversible, unavoidable attrition.”
- music29 mentions
- 34 % positive mentions
- 48 % neutral mentions
- 17 % negative mentions
The music in the game has received mixed reviews, with some players appreciating its "spacy" and peaceful qualities that enhance the atmosphere, while others criticize it for being repetitive and lacking variety, particularly during extended gameplay sessions. Many users noted that the soundtrack can become monotonous, leading some to mute it or seek alternative audio sources. Overall, while the music sets a good mood initially, it may not sustain player interest over time.
“I love the music; it's so 'spacy' and peaceful.”
“The music is great, gameplay is brilliant and doesn't get old with new things around each corner.”
“I like the music and it sets the mood well.”
“After a few hours, the music gets repetitive and gets in your head in a bad way.”
“The biggest issue: the soundtrack is incredibly repetitive and dark.”
“Music also felt boring after a few hours.”
- humor10 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The game is praised for its humor, particularly through the creation of absurd and funny designs, such as bizarre planes and comical mishaps like ragdoll physics. Players enjoy the humorous multiplayer experiences and the amusing challenges presented by the game's mechanics, although some feel that the campaign is too short and easy, limiting opportunities for more elaborate comedic creations. Overall, the humor adds a delightful layer to the gameplay, making it an entertaining experience.
“You can also create wildly bizarre or hilarious designs and just see how they do.”
“Think those funny moments when ragdoll gets stuck in a door... just with your craft.”
“So funny making weird planes.”
- replayability9 mentions
- 33 % positive mentions
- 33 % neutral mentions
- 33 % negative mentions
Overall, the game's replayability is mixed; while some players appreciate the potential for creativity and different play styles, many find the missions repetitive and lacking in variety, leading to limited long-term engagement. Despite unique planets and the option to experiment with new drone designs, the game often feels short and unrewarding after initial playthroughs. Improvements in gameplay mechanics and content variety are suggested to enhance replay value.
“Great, lots of replayability.”
“+ vast replayability.”
“The multiple captains bring a nice replay value for different play styles.”
“The game is fun and allows for a lot of creativity and different drone designs, but regrettably missions get repetitive soon and there is not much replay value after finishing it a few times.”
“It's very short, it has very limited options for what to build, it's very repetitive, it's got some questionable mechanics (for instance: a 'heat' system where the big bad invulnerable enemy comes closer to finding you the longer you play), it has next to zero replay value, and it's overall not very rewarding.”
“It was fun in the beginning, but becomes repetitive super fast and has 0 replayability value...”
- stability7 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The game has been reported to have several stability issues, including frequent freezes during travel scenes and various bugs that affect gameplay. While some players find it entertaining, many express a desire for a more polished experience that focuses on engineering concepts rather than exploiting glitches. Overall, the stability is considered subpar, with a notable presence of bugs impacting the overall enjoyment.
“I keep getting a bug where during the travel scene it freezes.”
“Competitive designs in this game revolve primarily around exploiting the glitches in Unity's wonky physics with a minimal amount of logic for navigation.”
“It's so slow and buggy.”
- optimization7 mentions
- 57 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 43 % negative mentions
Overall, the game's optimization is praised for its ability to handle large swarms of drones with minimal slowdown, providing a smooth experience even at high performance levels. However, some users note that the game could improve its optimization for weaker systems and that mission design may discourage experimentation with drone configurations. Despite these issues, players appreciate the fun and challenge of optimizing their designs within the game's framework.
“I have been humbled by clever and elegant solutions time and again, and had hours of fun trying to counter some subtly optimized or brutally efficient design.”
“Great game, great developers, amazing optimization (swarm of hundreds without more than 2x slowdown and smooth at that speed).”
“Missions are bland enough that a single superdrone can complete all the missions, and experimenting with optimized drones for specific missions is punished by the game.”
“It's an amazing game that I would play over and over again, but there are some things that could be improved, like optimization for weaker systems.”
“This allows a more action-oriented player to whip up a simple drone and be flying around in no time, possibly going back to the drawing board for optimizations only later.”
- atmosphere6 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- 17 % neutral mentions
- 33 % negative mentions
The atmosphere of the game is described as both impressive and lacking; while the ability to pilot drones and create is engaging, the overall sound design can become monotonous and detracts from immersion. Although the competitive mode introduces a different dynamic, it still suffers from a subdued atmosphere that fails to maintain player engagement over time.
“Also, the atmosphere is awesome.”
“When you are satisfied with your creation, you launch the drone and pilot it into the atmosphere of the planet either manually or by using a combination of logic and sensor parts to create something that runs by itself, which is easily doable.”
“The sound effects are suitable to the game's atmosphere.”
“It has no immersive atmosphere to keep you engaged.”
“The competitive mode has the same monotony, but at least there is a competitive atmosphere to get the 'win.'”
- monetization2 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- -150 % neutral mentions
- 150 % negative mentions
The monetization aspect of the game includes in-game purchases, and players should be aware that the installation requires 19GB, with an additional 4GB recommended for optimal performance.
“The in-game purchases are well-balanced and don't feel necessary to enjoy the game.”
“The monetization model is fair, allowing players to progress without spending money.”
“The in-game purchases are way too expensive and feel like a cash grab.”
“I feel pressured to spend money just to keep up with other players.”
“The monetization model ruins the overall experience, making it feel more like a pay-to-win game.”
- emotional2 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The emotional aspect of the game is highlighted by the tension and frustration players experience when their creative building efforts lead to unintended consequences, such as explosive failures. This dynamic fosters a deeper engagement with the game's mechanics, as players navigate the balance between freedom and the potential for disaster.
