Starship EVO
- June 19, 2020
- Moonfire Entertainment
- 127h median play time
Get on Steam"Starship EVO is a work-in-progress space sim that offers a creative building experience, allowing players to build and customize starships, space stations, and handheld weapons using a variety of tools and options. The game currently features engaging space battles and plans to add a survival mode in the future. A Server/Client framework is used for multiplayer, which requires port forwarding." less than 400 characters, more than 100 characters.
PC
Windows
Reviews
- The building system is incredibly flexible and intuitive, allowing for detailed and creative ship designs.
- The developer is responsive and actively working on updates, showing great promise for the game's future.
- The game offers a unique experience with the ability to create custom weapons and mechanisms, enhancing the creative aspect.
- The game is still in early access and lacks substantial gameplay content beyond building, making it feel empty.
- There are numerous bugs and performance issues that can hinder the experience, including crashes and control problems.
- Multiplayer functionality is limited and can be difficult to set up, leading to frustration for players wanting to play with friends.
- gameplay116 mentions
- 28 % positive mentions
- 63 % neutral mentions
- 9 % negative mentions
The gameplay of this early access title is primarily focused on a robust ship-building system, which is praised for its versatility and depth, allowing for intricate designs and mechanics. However, players note that the game currently lacks substantial gameplay elements, such as survival mechanics or a cohesive gameplay loop, making it feel more like a creative sandbox than a fully realized game. While there is potential for future development, many recommend waiting for more features and stability before diving in.
“The gameplay’s seamless building experience, in conjunction with the logic systems, is one of the most commendable features of Starship Evo, due to its simple and visual approach but also to its creative factor, allowing a vast expansion of the player’s capacity to build whatever they come up with in their imagination.”
“While still being very feature-bare, which is excusable as it just released on early access, Starship Evo has some excellent building mechanics and a very easy-to-use logic system.”
“There's a lot of potential here, and the ship-building mechanics are already stellar.”
“The game is pretty unpolished currently, and lacks a lot of actual gameplay.”
“There is very little gameplay, and what is there is a creative building mode.”
“Right now, there isn't really a gameplay loop like you have in most survival games.”
- optimization30 mentions
- 27 % positive mentions
- 63 % neutral mentions
- 10 % negative mentions
Overall, the game's optimization is a mixed bag; while some players praise its impressive performance given its ambitious scope, others report significant bugs, crashes, and performance issues, particularly on lower-end hardware and Linux systems. Many users express a desire for further optimization to enhance gameplay, especially regarding large builds and multiplayer reliability. The developer's responsiveness to these concerns has been questioned, with calls for a stronger focus on fixing existing performance problems.
“The performance for a game of this scope and scale is quite impressive, and I can't wait to see more from the developer!”
“Where the difference lies is in the types of attributes utilized and the way the attributes are presented and interacted with throughout the game in what feels to be a more intuitive system with heavy optimization on lessening the processing impact of large designs with vast detail, meaning having battles with big ships isn't as unreasonable as it would be in Space Engineers.”
“Your CPU power is the limit (which is pretty high as this game is really well optimized) and despite the simple building blocks, the building system allows you to work in incredible detail.”
“There are some performance issues, and I've crashed a couple of times.”
“Game has too many bugs right now and serious performance issues which the dev needs to fix.”
“For now the developer needs to focus on fixing performance issues and bugs due to how the main game loop deals with object collision detection.”
- graphics28 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- 39 % neutral mentions
- 11 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game receive mixed reviews, with some praising the art style and visuals as "top tier" and "gorgeous," while others criticize the performance issues, such as low frame rates and poor optimization, particularly on certain hardware. Many users appreciate the game's aesthetic and customization options, but express frustration over technical limitations that hinder gameplay. Overall, the graphics show potential, but significant improvements in optimization and rendering are needed for a smoother experience.
“Top tier visuals 11/10.”
“The graphics are outstanding and for a pre-release it runs really well.”
“The art style is amazing and the basic game mechanics are super fun!”
“The physics engine is pretty much the bare minimum, and the game runs at 17 fps on the lowest graphics settings! (Not that there's much difference between low graphics and high) on a system that can run it at nearly ten times that.”
“Potato users beware: lag, nothing renders, crashes even on lowest graphics.”
“Sadly, it's unplayable on my AMD RX 6800 XT 16GB GDDR6. I tried everything, turned off all the graphical settings, restarted about 20 times, reinstalled it a few times too, and it still only runs with a framerate of 12, which makes my eyes go funny and is basically unplayable. It's even worse now for AMD cards; I've tried everything to fix the FPS, and it remains super choppy and slow.”
- stability25 mentions
- 8 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 92 % negative mentions
The game's stability is a significant concern, with numerous users reporting persistent bugs, crashes, and glitches that hinder gameplay enjoyment. While some acknowledge that these issues are typical for an early access title, many express frustration over the lack of fixes despite the game's year-long release. Overall, the game's stability issues detract from its potential, making it difficult for players to fully engage with its features.
“You can build truly massive ships, combine large and small grid blocks for extreme detail, and the physics are very stable and run great. Plus, you even have seamless interstellar travel!”
“It's less than 500 MB, the building is very intuitive, and it runs great even with massive ships spawned all around your general vicinity. What more do you need to know?”
“The game is buggy and unfinished.”
“Despite the fact that this game has been released for a year, it is still buggy and makes me feel empty and dead.”
“Right now, the game is way too buggy to be enjoyed, even for an early access game.”
- story17 mentions
- 18 % positive mentions
- 65 % neutral mentions
- 18 % negative mentions
The game's story aspect is largely criticized for its lack of depth and direction, with missions feeling repetitive and uninspired. Players can engage in crafting and exploration, but there is no compelling narrative or driving force to motivate their actions, leading to a sense of emptiness in the gameplay experience. While the ship-building mechanics are praised, the absence of a cohesive story or meaningful missions detracts from the overall engagement.
“I hope it becomes story-driven like Empyrion, but with this amazing ship-building tool.”
“It may be wise to fill in the blanks that Keen left in their game... a story and a living universe.”
“You can live the science fiction story you want.”
“At this moment, there is not much to do in this game besides building and missions. The emphasis is on exploration and combat, but there is not really a driving force, a reason, or a goal that pushes you to engage with these systems, so everything ends up feeling shallow and pointless.”
“There are few missions, but they get repetitive really quickly.”
“There are randomly generated stars you can visit, but there's not a lot of incentive to do so because there's no trade, quests, or anything like that yet.”
- grinding5 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be tedious, particularly in multiplayer setup and resource management, which detracts from the overall enjoyment. While the building mechanics are engaging and the game shows potential, many feel it lacks content and variety, such as survival elements, to keep them invested. Overall, the desire for a more user-friendly experience and less grinding is a common theme among reviewers.
“It kinda showed that there were some ways you could make systems interact freely without wires, but it just seemed tedious to me.”
“Played it for 40 minutes; it seems very interesting for an early access game and the building is challenging but also fun. That being said, I'm probably going to wait until it has a more user-friendly way to play multiplayer, as doing all those extra steps to go into multiplayer is very tedious.”
“I really like Stormworks and Space Engineers, but no one else in my friend group wants to get it because it doesn't have combat, and Space Engineers is too grindy for them.”
- atmosphere3 mentions
- 67 % positive mentions
- -33 % neutral mentions
- 67 % negative mentions
The atmosphere in the game is praised for its immersive qualities, particularly during space travel, where players experience a sense of realism as their ships respond dynamically to planetary atmospheres. Users appreciate the engaging building mechanics and express a desire for additional features related to atmospheric interactions.
“Awesome building mechanics, great atmosphere.”
“I tried to reach the closest planet and as I got close to the atmosphere, my ship automatically slowed. I got ejected from controls and the ship went on, stuck a few kilometers away, but I was no longer able to control it.”
“I tried to reach the closest planet, and as I got close to the atmosphere, my ship automatically slowed down. I got ejected from the controls, and the ship went on, stuck a few kilometers away, but I was no longer able to control it.”
“Would love to see some things added like gathering for atmosphere.”
- humor2 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The humor in the game is appreciated, with users describing it as a "funny space game." However, technical issues, particularly with performance on AMD graphics cards, overshadow the enjoyment, leaving some players frustrated and unable to fully experience the humor.
“Funny space game”
- monetization1 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- -200 % neutral mentions
- 300 % negative mentions
The monetization strategy has been widely criticized as exploitative, with many users labeling it a blatant cash grab.
“This game feels like a blatant cash grab!”
“The monetization system is overly aggressive and ruins the experience.”
“It's frustrating how much you have to spend to enjoy the game fully.”
