Due toStardew Valley’sincredible success and continued popularity, a variety of games within the genre have emerged, all trying to capture that relaxing, cozy, and casual atmosphere. While One Lonely Outpost is, at the end of the day, another one of those games riding the wave, it’s nonetheless an ambitious, early-access project within the genre with a few, fresh novelties.
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Instead of helping out Pelican Town and honoring your grandfather’s legacy, though, you’ll be geared up like an astronaut farming crop and exploring an alien planet in outer space. If the game’s early-access state and setting have you on the fence, here are nine things you should know before buying.
9The Game Starts Off A Bit Slow
While players new to the genre likely won’t feel the same, if you’ve already played Stardew Valley or a game similar to it, you’ll probably feel like One Lonely Outpost’s intro and tutorial is somewhat slow. In other words, expect to be slowly eased into the game’s mechanics.
Once you get through a few assigned, basic tasks, and learn about your tools and what they do, you’ll start to get some independence and freedom. Hopefully, this is the point where you’ll start feeling like a space pioneer.
8You Get A Cute Robotic Cat
While being the sole pioneer of a planetary outpost can be pretty lonely at times, at least you have an adorable, robotic, feline companion named QWERTY to keep you company. As you play, you’ll find that QWERTY can do a bit more than the average cat.
While you might swear that your cat can talk to you, in its own, special way or language, QWERTY is a robot, meaning you may have full-fledged conversations with the little fella. You can even ask questions that might help you learn a thing or two.
7Currently, There Is No Romance System
In contrast to Stardew Valley orStory Of Seasons: A Wonderful Life, One Lonely Outpost currently has no system or mechanics that will let you pursue your romantic interests. The great news, though, is that Freedom Games does have plans for such a system in the future.
When you’ll finally be able to engage with romantic options, is another story. If you’re a big fan of that kind of stuff, you’re able to always just hold on to your money until a future update implements such features.
6You Can Only Play The First Act
This isn’t necessarily a given, but it isn’t exactly surprising either; since the game is in early access, you’ll only be able to progress up to a certain point until future content updates come out. This means you’ll only experience a limited portion of the story and plot.
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This doesn’t have to be discouraging, though. As it stands, the story and plot elements you will learn about are sufficient for an engaging experience.
You’ll find that, although resource gathering is a significant part of the game, there’s more to it than just that.
5There Are Some Thoughtful, Immersive Features
While video games will never create a one-to-one replication of real life, and thus, there will be realism-related criticisms you’re able to make about One Lonely Outpost, there are still some mechanics in the game that show there was some thought and effort put into it.
While it’s best to not spoil most of the little surprises and features you’ll discover, one such feature is the creative way the game allows you to get water; by finding and mining ice crystals. Hopefully, you’ll find and appreciate more immersion-enhancing features in your own playthrough.
4Settings And Options Are Sparse
If you were expecting anything more than the bare essentials as far as settings and options go, you’ll have to either lower your expectations or prepare to be disappointed. Other than music and sound adjustments, and remapping keybindings, that’s basically it.
While this certainly gets the job done for a base gaming experience, it would be nice to see more encompassing and game-changing settings. One example is Stardew Valley’s advanced game options, which allow you to change profit margins, mine rewards, and other optional modifications.
3UI And Text Boxes Can Be Difficult Sometimes
While this is likely a bug that will, hopefully, be addressed in the near future, you may notice every now and then that some popups and boxes you interact with in the game will be difficult to close. Thus, you may spend some time figuring out exactly where to click.
In addition, while not a huge deal, you may notice when hovering over items in your inventory that information or tool tips have a short delay before appearing. Other than that, the game’s UI does fine on its own.
2The Map Isn’t That Interactive
The core functionality of a game’s map is to give you an overview of the region, level, or world you’re in, where you’re at within it, and ideally, places you’ve been and places you’ve yet to visit. At the end of the day, One Lonely Outpost checks those basic boxes.
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However, there are certainly more features to be desired. It would be nice, for example, to have the option to put custom markers on the map or have a map that updates in real-time to see your farm plots or current objectives.
1The Music Is Good, But Largely Ambient
The music, generally, does a great job of giving a “spacey” and ambient feel as you explore the world around you. The sound selection is quite fitting for the graphics as well.
The only possible issue is that the music feels a little too ambient at times.
Obviously, this won’t matter to some of you, and you’ll be happily sucked into whatever task or objective you’re pursuing. Alternatively, if you like being pleasantly surprised by a dynamic, memorable soundtrack, you probably won’t find that in the game’s current state.
