Patience Not Included

Before I bitch about Oxygen Not Included like a stressed duplicant let me point the good things.

The art is charming,

Under the hood of the cutesy art, you have a very complex simulator.

Now I got this out of the way, let's bitch.

While I enjoy the cutesy art, it betrays how ruthless the game is. Your colony is a sinking ship and if you do everything right at the right time you are at best making sure your base dies later instead of now. However, since the game has no end BUT the resources needed for your survival are limited the whole ordeal seen futile.

Remember what I said about complexity? A "healthy" base is a very delicate balance between energy grids, heat circulation, food production, personal management and fucking pumbling, all those carefully simulated to make sure the smallest mistake will spiral out of control.

And of course, this is assuming you do everything right. God forbid you dig too fast and open a pocket of polluted water or heated air and now your duplicants are vomiting due to stress instead of fixing the mess.

In a game like Sim City you can go for the megalopolis or a charming countryside town but ONI force you to optimize your base because failure means a fast death instead of a slow one.

But if you like Dwarf Fortress and the idea of sailing a sinking ship on an infinite ocean with no land, this is the game for you!