From what the dev has said in his response in this thread on this game, he considers the game a mistake and shouldn't continue with it. Basically saying 'I'm not fixing this and moving on to my next project'
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2658640/discussions/0/599648005874845653/

I can't support that when we paid for the game.

FINALLY I get to build my own bases, and YESSSSSS!!!!
If you've played games like this and gotten 'out of control' where you have millions. You know the thought of 'why can't I setup and build my own star bases, factories, turrets, and the like?' Well finally we can. It's still in it's early stages but it really opens up the game for someone like me. Having the ability to mine out the massive rocks not just the small asteroids really makes sense to me. Resources are not infinite but the maps are so large that it isn't funny.

Also before someone says 'if I mine out all the resources in a rock, do I have to move away?' not really is the answer. Because the mining bases have a +1 upgrade to yield even if the giant asteroid is at 0. So it'll be 4x the time, to get half the resources. That isn't terrible since you're empire always runs when you are doing everything else.

A few new achievements, some new ships and some more polish were added. I like what I'm seeing and want others who get into the 'I need to do EVERYTHING' mindset know what's going on with the DLC. The Dev is responsive on the discord and takes advice and questions easily (just give him time, he's only human) but I got responses within 12 hours usually which is pretty fast. If I asked anything about how things worked in the discord, someone would answer within 2 to 15 minutes usually all the time. It was nice since the game and all the new features are kinda vast.

There currently is not a way (as of this review on August 3rd 2025) to ship materials between different systems. I believe it will be added in the future, who knows when, but don't take my word for it, if that's a massive thing for you, I'd hold off. But for me, it made the game a little more fun, I had to figure out ways to get certain resources to certain systems. Which required a few new ships, which I had to configure and outfit, then I got more helpers in my fleet and I had to figure out their ships and set them up. So on and so forth. When I had it all setup, I ramped up my production and (without cheats or dev mode) got myself to about 2 million credits within the first 25 hours of a single play through. Which will let me buy anything I want if I can find it myself. I really REALLY liked that.

The micromanagement might scare some folks off, and the endless wave attacks can be figured out by saying 'build. MORE. TURRETS. With. BEAM. WEAPONS. IN. THEM. NOW!!!!.' and things get easier. The tower defense you start when you get your first base might annoy some folks, but just prepare for it, and try to find an NPC station FIRST that will buy a produced good at a very high price. Like Chemicals, Biomass, or Composites. You can find this out in the discord where there are pinned guides. I know that might seem to be a lot, but building dozens if not hundreds of buildings means YOU might be okay with complexity and tracking down info. People that just want to 'shoot it till it explodes' most likely won't go for a DLC like this. And that's okay! Some people LOVE the idea of a giant network of stations that feed you endless resources and you can become almost self sufficient (I think you could, not sure, only 25 hours deep atm) that really interests me tbh.

Anyway, this review is wordy and I want to make sure you folks had a decent amount of info to go on, the DLC itself is still being built out, but it is complete enough to play already. If you are someone who doesn't like new features being introduced, I'd say hold off. If you want to dive in, the price point is good and I'm having fun with it.

As ALWAYS, I give full info. I did get the DLC for free because I asked the dev for access to get ready for a Youtube series, No I am not being paid anything to do so. I'm partnered on twitch and youtube and I look for indie games I enjoy to 'point' folks to, I've been doing it for 10 years and I love to focus on indie games since I'm so tired of AAA games that have so little in them. Star Valor is big (endless if you enable it for the map) and I really like that aspect. If I was taking money, I'd have to tell folks legally since I'm in the states and that's a requirement for this. I am happy to help with a review since I'm having fun, if I wasn't you wouldn't see me at 25 hours so far. You'd see 2 hours and I'd move on. (end of disclosure!)

Hope you enjoy, cheers. Remember if you don't think I'm unbiased, just read some other reviews, hope that helps. Cheers!

Game was a rug pull on the community, told us 'we have hundreds of features planned, a massive world we'll unlock and you'll get to experience it as it unfolds.'
They then ended support for it almost immediately and left everyone in a lurch. Not to mention the other games they've pumped and dumped on steam through various shell companies or 'loosely affiliated' yet not exact, so they aren't all under one tag. Remember Pixel Arc? Just like Dark and Light, pumped then abandoned, not to mention turning off all the official servers for Arc Survival to push Arc Survival Ascended vs Arc Survival Evolved. They've also abandoned Atlas in the face of fans and moved on it seems too, the company has a history of screwing over the people that buy it's games.
Avoid at all costs. The moment steam can start that new 'abandoned' tagging they promised here in 2025, I can't wait to see the Snail Games library light up like a Christmas tree with how much they've pumped and dumped over the years.
You have been warned.

I will say, this is one of those games that takes about 6 hours to do the tutorials and another 5 to 6 hours to get into combat once that's done, so 12 HOURS to get to the real 'playing the game' if you see reviews under that, they other have zero patience, can't get the game to work and are taking it out on the game, or don't know what they're talking about. Up to you to figure out which is which. Any review over 15+ hours, at least has seen real combat and you can make your choice over an actual review, instead of 'my drivers were bad, I refunded it and the devs are Satan because my PC isn't up to date, REEEEE!!!!'

Played the game a decent amount over the past weeks (early access of course, and stating I got the game for free) but I see what the game has done and how far it's come over the last months, heck the last weeks have seen vast improvements. The devs are also EXTREMELY active on discord and taking all suggestions and correction-requests seriously. That's a great sign, if they didn't care they'd have just launched the game and walked away.

The comparisons to Anno are going to hit no matter what they do, however unlike the Anno series, you don't have the devs pushing another off stream launcher into your face. (That's a PRO)
The devs also haven't infested their game with Denovo, (That's a PRO)
The game has a ton of building, but has taken the approach of 'it doesn't need to be murderous to get there.' (That's a Pro)
Like anything this complex, you can easily turn it on, and get into, but after 4 to 6 hours in a game, that's when the real complexity starts to show, THEN you can start losing or winning. (That's a PRO)

I will say this is one of those games, that if you're on the fence, find whatever streamer/youtuber you like that reviews it and watch, if you find yourself saying 'man, I'd love to really do this myself' then you know you'll like the game. If you get bored as the combat against other nations starts, then you probably should skip it. It's too big, vast and complex to be able to know if you'll like it in 2 hours before you can refund. That's why many game reviewers and critics exist. It's better than getting the game, complaining, writing a bad review and refunding it. After all, not every game is made for every gamer. This game is made for folks that look at games like Factorio, Dyson Sphere and Captain of Industry and say 'Man, I wish the combat was a bit more complex and I could take over the earth!' THEN you've found your game, if not, it's most likely not for you.

If you do get the game, and enjoy it, remember, reviews like this and others can make and break an indie house. Many of us are so quick to judge a game and complain or write a bad review. Be a force of good in the indie market, if you like a game, no matter who makes it, write a nice review. If you dislike it, but it doesn't seem like a scam/asset-flip/lie then just refund it and move on, writing a bad review for a game you refunded, I mean what's the point, you lost nothing. If they aren't doing one of those 3 bad moves (and they aren't) why would you negative review a game you didn't lose any money on?

Do whatever you think is right, I know folks will say 'well you got the game for free, you're biased!' and that's why I'm openly stating I got the game for free every time I stream it, Youtube it, or write for it. So I can show that I am biased to a degree. However the game play is solid, and I firmly found myself falling into the 'just one more fix, one more chain, one more turn!' that is a GREAT sign for a game. Don't let folks that played less than 2 hours dissuade you, they haven't even finished the tutorials yet, they aren't the metric you want. Sort by (20+ hours or something) read what THOSE folks are saying, good or bad, and make up your own mind.

Suggestions for players that complete all 3 tutorials, THEN watch that vid, before then it might be confusing. I put the link this far down because, just like this game, it takes a little effort to find it. You have to expand the comments, and the game takes a good amount of hours and intelligence to get going 'aka a slow burn game'.
https://youtu.be/bo0EA5Gvd08

I will be covering this series a bit the next few weeks and months, so if there's something broken or awesome, I intend to find it and cover it. I WANT MORE games that have 100+ resources, the field of games that has that many is, I think, under 50 games IN TOTAL. I want hundreds, there's room in the space for more! I hope the game will last tons of years and release DLCs and Kaiserpunk 2 eventually, wanna know why? I want something that competes against the ANNO series but doesn't treat me like a criminal because I own a PC, and Denovo does that. Kaiserpunk DOESN'T have Denovo in it, aka the Devs respect us more than the folks that control Anno. Want a fair brutal comparison, THAT is one that has to be stated.

GIANT thing I want to say first: if you RIGHT CLICK on any picture of a resource in game it shows you EVERYTHING that PRODUCES that resource and below that everything that CONSUMES that resource. Please use this to keep your sanity. K, onto the review!

P.S. I requested this key from the devs during the Alpha for full disclosure.
The first thing that draws you in when you view the preview video for Captain of Industry seems to be that you can modify the terrain with your machines. You can open giant pit mines to get deeper into the soil and get higher concentrations of ore. After playing it you start getting into the factory aspects that really make the game shine.

You’ll have conveyors, pipe lines, and loose material pipes flowing all over. Depending on how you build, that will take massive amounts of stress off your truck fleet. The game just keeps getting deeper and deeper the more you look: research tree, the ability to move items long distances without using trucks, the ability to modify the terrain itself, you can do a ton of it. Then you realize the overworld map exists and you can start exploring with your ship to find other sources of resources and trade.

Something that really stood out to me comes from the sheer amount of products you can break or refine other items into. Most games have iron ore, and coal makes iron. In this game you add oxygen to get steel, combine the steel with a yellow construction part, and you get a red construction part which lets you build more complex buildings. Many games take crude oil and maybe refine it into fuel. Not Captain of Industry. Oh no, that’s just the start.

Let’s take a MID to LATE game example. If you don’t want any spoilers please skip to the next paragraph. So let's say you want to JUST do the crude oil chain. Well first you get an oil pump jack, get the crude up, gather it into tanks, and then decide to use next level distillation on it with stage 1, 2, and 3. To greatly simplify it, it’s almost like real life; you boil the oil with high grade steam to get medium oil, heavy oil, and sour water. Then you go to distillation level 2 and take your medium oil and more high steam and get Diesel fuel and light oil. You can take that light oil and convert it with more steam into naptha and fuel gas. We’re NOT done yet. You’ve cracked one resource into seven. But you aren’t done. You can now use the rubber maker, cracking unit and sour water stripper buildings (yes 3) to make rubber, diesel, fuel gas and carbon dioxide. The sour water stripper turns your sour water into sulfur, water, and ammonia. This one resource ‘crude oil’ now with some steam and man power has now produced 14 different resources depending how you set it up. Some items go back into other production chains, some are discarded, some are saved, and some serve as feedstocks for other industries. All that from one resource.

Didn’t want to ruin the game with spoilers. If you avoided the above paragraph you're safe again. The next thing I’ll mention that really, REALLY drew me into the game further and further is the sheer scope of quality of life (QoL) Improvements the game has. The devs obviously have played tons of factory, logistical, and transport games. They saw a need for all of the little controls that players have requested for decades. But they didn’t stop there. They went to their Discord and asked for player suggestions, and they seem to be taking every single one extremely seriously. Items players asked for in casual ways are in the game. For instance, changing directional flow of pipelines with a click because something is set up wrong and you don’t want to rebuild an entire setup. Being able to put a single truck to one building yet that one building will supply others as few or as many deliveries you want to link to it. Want to set up chains of movements for your industries, mines, tanks, lines, or whatever? You can. All of it seems to have been suggested and taken seriously. And I’ve gotta respect that. Many games in the past I’d rage at saying, “Why can’t I take ONE unit of my vast empire and have it do ONE thing that would solve all these supply chain problems.” You can do that in Captain of Industry.

In the spirit of full disclosure I did approach the devs and asked to show my channel the game. I did a playthrough of this and 30+ people from the community snagged the game. A few went further and joined the Kickstarter. Since the 1.0 launch more folks have jumped in since it’s ‘done.’ It’s still being developed, but many folks are (justifiably) worried about early access games. The game as it sits is 100% completable as far as I’ve read. I’m as far as the end of midgame/early late game, and it’s a blast. This game will make you often say, “I should just restart since I set all of THAT up wrong. If I had understood how THAT worked, I would have done it differently.” Yep, it’s one of those games.

Final thought: if you played the Anno Series of games, Settlers, Factorio, Workers and Resources, Railroad Tycoon games etc you’ll most likely be able to figure things out and get up to speed very quickly. You can tell the devs played a ton of games in the genre over the last decade and said, “I’d like to make something where I can do all of that and more,” and then did it. It’ll be one of my top indie games for the year, easily.

I might have already put up (by the time anyone reads this) a 'list vid' and a 'lets play' for this game on YT, under the same name as this profile. Let me know if you'd like to see more, I love feedback.

I want to touch on this game a bit, as I’ve got something like 200 hours into it. If it sways a person to consider the game, great!

The game is NOT a city builder; it is more like the Anno series, Factorio, Captain of Industry, or Rise of Industry, all great games. This one stands shoulder to shoulder with them, and in a few features it’s a very clear winner.

Right off the bat, the trains in this game are great. You have diesel to electric, as well as a host of cars and sets to play with. The signaling in the game is really well done if you take the time to learn it, though it is complicated, but for a game like this that’s par for the course. You can also build your own track and have a train slowly go up the planned route and place it down a few sections at a time, a massive improvement if you don’t want to or can’t spend the currencies to buy it.

That brings me to the currency system. Russian Rubles and Western Dollars are the two you have to balance against each other. You will most likely have a square map with 2 Soviet borders and the other 2 Western. Export to the custom house on the respective border and you get that currency. Easy enough? Hardly.

You do NOT have your own currency or any way to tax your citizens. You are socalist or communist; they work for the state and in return the state not only tells them what to do and where to go, but provides everything in return. Much like Anno you must provide for your citizens: food, clothing, places to live, transport, heating, clean water, entertainment, ALL of it must be provided by you. But in return you get to collectively lead the nation with your decisions. Want to put down a factory? You can pay for it with either currency, OR you could build it with your own resources, after all if you set up mines, smelters, transports and construction offices, and you provide for your citizens the state (you!) gets to benefit and not paying anything past the resources and manpower to put up that factory is your right to benefit the state and its citizens.

But that’s not the end, the industries get more and more complex, with an education lock on a few of them. After all a farmer from the fields can’t just be told to run a chemical plant that’s cracking oil can they? Of course not. You need kindergartens, schools and universities to train your population, and while they go to school they still need food, and all the other needs like a normal worker while training to benefit the state. But when they start working those complex industries and making products like aluminum (which takes oxide btw, no putting bauxite into building and the other side makes aluminum stuff in this game) you’ll have 4 different stages to making some resources, and that’s JUST the end resource. Want to build a car or airplane? You might need aluminum, cloth, mechanical components, electrical components, electronics AND plastic. Each and every single one of those resources requires 2 to 5 inputs. Sounds good yet? Yeah, the production chains are complex and I love it.

But it doesn’t stop there! The last step that many should know, you can build your own trucks, trains, planes and ships. And I’m talking about everything from a little personal car that can barely seat 4 people up to multi thousand kilo barge ships that can move entire hills worth of ore or containers. The dream of course is to become self-sufficient and not need anything from your neighbors while you build everything internally. But that, of course, is difficult to achieve.

Lastly, you can have a map that is utterly massive. The maps are huge and can have mountains, hills, uneven terrain AND rivers, and lakes. Don’t like how something is in the way, buy or build the machines, use your own fuel and it only takes clicking to see the terrain adjust before your eyes. Don’t want to have your own fleet of construction equipment? Fine, pay your neighbors their currency to adjust the land for you.

There is a ton to this game and it just keeps getting deeper and deeper with the devs still holding to their feature roadmap, steadily releasing update after update, along with an active Discord and community updates about every few weeks.

I hope many of you get the same amount of fun out of this game that I do.
If it helps (and I waited till the end to mention this) I have a YT and Twitch under the same name as this account that have reviewed and played the game extensively, Thank you for reading and enjoy! If you REALLY liked it, go find a steam game in your inventory and write a nice review, no mater WHAT the game is, obviously indie devs can use the help more than a triple A title however!

Bought this back on the July 21 Summer sale for $10, from what I played it's about as good as it can be. A few things you should know.
BIG CAPS TO MAKE SURE YOUR READ THIS FIRST.
THIS GAME DOES NOT HAVE A GOOD TUTORIAL, YOU WILL BE EXPLORING A BUNCH OF OPTIONS YOURSELF. IF YOU DO NOT LIKE TO DO SO IN GAMES, THIS GAME MIGHT NOT BE FOR YOU! IT DOES NOT HOLD YOUR HAND, BE WARNED.
That said, lets get into it
First, the mafia attacks you every 5 days, (this is in an email in game, read all your emails daily) and they do NOT go away until you shoot them all and kill them. So you need at least a pistol and around 7 to 12 drums of ammo for it (6 rounds per drum) 4 headshots per gangster some are way off screen to the left or right. They shoot out your glass this makes it that if you raise your prices to high customers don't buy an item and throw it back to you, then it falls to where the glass SHOULD be and falls out of reach losing the item forever.
Secondly, you have a power bill, PER DAY, of around 500 of your cash. Pay it on your PC, you can and should look at all the tabs and playing around on the computer at points, whenever you here a 'hrmmmm' you have a customer and can turn off the PC and deal with them.
Third, you do NOT have to put everything on the shelves, you need to put one item on the shelves and then take it out of the stock you have on the floor or the tractor trailer next to you. If you want to make your life easier, get a full truck load of goods (8 to 16 of each at a time) the truck only holds 10 boxes of 8 items (80 items) so take them all to your room, if you squat down you can place the entire box easily on the ground without having to throw it or drop it, make a pathway of items in the back room for the SECOND box you have, the first box (you leave up front, then get another load of 80 items into the trailer. Move the items so you can throw empty boxes into the back of the truck without blocking the new items. This lets you store and use 160 items very quickly.
You're goal before day 5 is to get as much money as you can, so go into your PC and change the item prices to at least 1 or 2 dollars more for every item and open your window and start selling. Then prepare for every 5 days to get attacked, I believe the M16 does more damage but I couldn't afford it for 2,400. You can sell and move items pretty easily, I'd recommend between each customer you move a few items around so you aren't scrambling to dig stuff up and clients leave. You have a small bit of time per client, so moving one or two boxes or restrocking a few items from the back room isn't bad.
The game WILL punish you for just going for the same or limited selection of items. I did an entire 80 units of roast beef just to see if I could on channel, game let me, but then limited me to max of a 4 rating so my clients more often said 'too expensive' and stopped buying.
That should give you a decent start, remember the stores in the basement make your life easier, but don't run bare bones at all times. Pay your bills, buy some bullets, stock more often at night (when less clients) and get into making Shrwarmas. There is an 'auto distributor' which I believe needs 1,800 and fuel to work, but then everything is automatic and you only have to stock things that you cook yourself.
There's also servers you can rent out, never got that far but it seems plausible. I'd say that could be lucrative but the startup costs are probably around 5k.
There ya go, want to talk to me about it, same name on the tubes and itches with the Tw. Thanks!

TL:DR at bottom. <---- short review, long review then TL:DR at bottom for ease of info.

Quick hot take:
I think I can see why this game is getting review bombed and I'll say so far, I DO LIKE it, despite it being a little rough around the edges. With it's current $13.50 price tag, I think that's a decent price point (and yes I fully asked for a key because I wanted to stream this)

Longer take:
The game does much of what I expected out of the box, searching, hunting, gathering, crafting and bushcraft galore. It feels like it could be a massive game from the sheer size of the maps that I saw in game already (I think 4), after playing Hunter call of the wild, The long dark and Subsistance, I'm getting bits of each to come out in this one.
There ARE some bugs, like you can see a long that you can pick up on the ground, go over and get stuck on it. You just pick it up and throw it back down and you're fine.
There are points where the game doesn't hold your hand and expects you to search around a bit to find some items, people or even quest starters. From what I can see many folks are getting frustrated at some of those aspects. I even got annoyed at a part where I had to go outside to start a quest for the ranger who was standing in the bar 5 feet from me. But I dealt with it, and had a good time.

TIME SAVER TIP.
I would recommend you craft a second stone knife and a stomach calmer med very quickly, as you cannot use 'hunter sense' when you are low on water, food, energy, or the like. Getting parasites from raw food (including mushrooms and meat) or drinking bad water (if it's not clear in your bottle, don't risk it) can really screw you up. Having the stomach calmer will get rid of the constant 'ow, oh, e!' you hear. Devs PLEASE make it so it's every 5 to 10 seconds, not every second which can drive you nuts.

Devs might want to comment on THIS:
If the game gets a simple news post or top line of 'we are going to continue to develop the game, refine it, and do bug passes' I would recommend the game. For the low cost it's a good time so far, and I do want to come back to it, 4 hours wasn't a huge amount of time but it felt smooth, it looked good in parts and I enjoyed those 4 hours. If they are 'done' with the game and no longer going to support it, I'm not sure, some of those bugs aren't bad, but they can be annoying. It's up to them, I think it has good bones and can be something great, but that does NOT MEAN you should buy it if you expect it to be perfect. I can deal with bugs, and roughness, it's my full time job, I'm okay with that and for $13.50 I can say 'sure, go for it IF it's going to be patched.' I think that's a very fair review without knocking the game for a few simple things that many commentators without even 2 hours played are harping on.

TL:DR Game has some minor bugs but nothing game destroying, worth the $13.50 after 4 hours of play.

Car Trader Sim Review

I played the demo on stream, got hooked, and requested the key. We played it, and man it is a FUN little game. I think it's priced very well for its worth and recommend at least watching if you're interested.

I'm definitely a little surprised it's as engaging as it is. I was always flipping cars, shopping for new ones, repairing and moving others, and selling them in different ways over and over until it was 5 hours later before I even knew it. That's a really good sign.

It's not a triple A title, but it's also not priced like one. It'll most likely give you a nice weekend or two of fun, and for $10 I'm fine with that. I will say that the thief is great if you use them right. If you aren't near your garage, don't steal a car. Having 2 thieves, one with the radar and another that actually steals the car, makes it much more viable. I wouldn't mind having both on the same thief, even if I had to pay more ingame to do so, but it's not a game breaker.
The websites and cell phone really make the game better, despite appearances. I thought they were useless at first, but after 20 minutes I barely noticed I was using them as I flew through different menus to place cars for sale or take care of a buyer.

Make sure you look at the map legend to see what those icons mean; I missed that on my playthrough till chat pointed it out. It made the game a ton easier. The only suggestion for the dev I would have is maybe give more rewards to the player the further down a line you go, criminal or legit. They aren't bad, just it seems like there could be more to do if you go fully bad boy vs good boy, is all. It would be nice to see if you go legit the ability to get access to police auctions, wholesale car auctions, and the like. I'd also love more spots to buy car lots, garages, or a bigger map. BUT, it's fine the way it is, they are just wants, not complaints, against the game.

I got a fairly bit more value in the game than I was expecting for the price (and yes I know I got it for review after I asked) but I always put it in real dollar terms. I think the game plays great on PC, and if it could go on a tablet it could be a great little time waster on flights, bus, in line at the store, or at the in-laws during the holidays.

I will be making a small YouTube series on it, and that's saying something for a game this small, but it's got that one thing I like: the “Just one more car, one more turn, one more sale!” feeling. That's a really good thing and I wanted to reward it with a review.

Written on May 16th, 2019

This has been a guilty pleasure of mine for years. I’ve played it on and off, and since it’s turn based sometimes I can even play it while working on projects. You take control of the GEO and do your best to fix the world from an impending environmental disaster. It has so many factors that it’s insane to juggle them all, but that’s what makes the game fun. It’s one of those games where it’s good to watch guides or read a guide to get the most out of it, and if you’re okay with that you’ll have a great time. You can still mess around with it yourself and see what works, but there are many little sub factors to the game that have to be just ‘tried out’ sometimes. We don’t all have the time for that so guides are a godsend here.

I’ve played every scenario and beaten them all, though not with a perfect score. By far my favorite is playing an open world sandbox and trying to make the world a better place for the long haul with cleaning up the world, keeping people having a high standard of living, and getting into space to make us a multi planet species. I come back once a quarter and give the game a few hours to ‘relax’ and see if I can do better than last time. The news from each region is essential to find out what disasters are coming next (floods, fires, droughts, etc.) Use them and see what you can do.

I THINK the game is done development fully and Fate of the World 2 failed it’s Kickstarter, which is a shame. It could’ve been a great game. Obviously, with all the environmental factors in it, there are some ‘green overtones’ to the game, but nothing too major. It’s just one of those games where, if you like to ‘be in control,’ you can have some fun, and you’ll realize just how BAD of a thing it is to be in control of the entire ‘Fate of the World.’ Enjoy!

If you like the review, I’m on Twitch (daily) and Youtube under the same name.