One Lonely Outpost, developed and published by Freedom Games, is a cozy farming sim on a barren alien world. And I’ll just say this off the top, I’m in love. The only word I can think of to describe this game is charming.
Developers have included a wide range of features for an in-depth gameplay experience that will relax players, even while they obsess over the size of their cabbages.
Story
Players are dropped onto an alien world called Calypso, sent by the Pan-Galactic Parliament to terraform the planet and make it habitable as a colony. To do this, players have only a damaged ship, and a little cat shaped robot named Qwerty.
Devs have done a great job developing a sense of isolation and loneliness in the early hours of the game. Players spend several “days” with not much to do or see besides watering crops once in the morning. After a while, it’s really easy to just give up and go back to bed to see what the next day brings.
Thankfully, once one colonist arrives, things start to get more lively. There are 20 characters players will meet and interact with, and each one is going to need something from you.
In addition to human colonists, there is also a distinctly alien presence on the planet, One that is insistent that you come say hi, because it has a favor to ask.
Gameplay
The core of One Lonely Outpost is farming. Even though I’m still only a few hours into the game, I can tell that the farming strikes the perfect balance between complexity and simplicity, allowing players to decide how much time they want to invest in it.
Right now I’m still in the “I just grow whatever I can” phase, but I devs have said that players will face the choice of going the organic or synthetic route, with both options having rewards and drawbacks, and providing a unique gaming experience.
Farming is the number one aspect of gameplay, but there is a lot more to do, including mining and refining ore, and surveying. I made the mistake early on in an initial playthrough, and, during those first lonely hours of the game, figured I would use the most of my days and just mine all the resources to start the process of converting them to processed materials. This was the wrong choice. It actually created a situation later when colonists arrived where I needed to deliver raw ore to my engineer to get access to the blue prints, and guess what, there was no more raw ore on the planet! I actually have to completely restart the game to fix the mistake.
During my first (failed) play, I began to wonder about the scope of the game. Was I just supposed to terraform the planet and ta da, all done? That would be enjoyable, but would only take maybe 10-12 hours, and without the promise of replayability. Thankfully, devs are promising a lot more than that, including the potential to start a family (with kids, not just a spouse), and navigate space politics, while also making sure to feed everyone in the colony.
Additional Features
This might seem silly, but something I really appreciated is that game tutorials are all unlocked immediately. This was a small detail, but I liked it because it gave me some hints of how the game might develop. For example, I saw that eventually, I would be able to water and mine, and that got me excited to keep achieving the game’s goals.
In addition to the main gameplay elements, One Lonely Outpost offers a variety of mini-games, from fishing and asteroid mining, to racing and card games. I haven’t unlocked those yet, but I’m looking forward to them (except racing, I hate racing mini-games).
There are a few glitches I’ve run into. The main one is that sometimes, when in conversation with another colonist, the cursor will remain on the selected conversation word bubble shape, and not turn back to a mouse so I can select the X box to exit the conversation. So far, this hasn’t been a fatal bug, because I usually just clickety-clack my controller and mouse randomly until the game seems to figure out that I need a mouse. It happened enough times that I hope devs circle back and work on it.
If you like cozy, if you like farming, if you like dating sims, if you like mystery, if you like cat robots, then you have to check out One Lonely Outpost, available for download via Steam Early Access on June 26, 2023.
Related: Reviews by Michelle Jones
I'm a completionist gamer who just needs to find that one last object and clear that final dungeon. I love all video games, from open world sandboxes on a console to a mindless match three on my phone. In addition to gaming and writing, I am a graduate student working on a thesis about the ancient Icelandic Sagas. Feel free to ask me anything about Vikings.
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