Black Hole: Farmageddon

The premise and the reason you play as a black hole are fun. It revolves around farm animals that began breeding out of control and eventually took over the world after an experiment meant to solve global food shortages went wrong. Humanity then came up with another bold idea and merged humans with black holes so they could be sent into these overpopulated areas to absorb as many animals as possible. The gameplay is very simple. You control a black hole tied to your mouse cursor and move it around the play area to absorb animals. The process is not instant, so you need to keep the black hole over an animal for a second or two until it gets pulled in. Each run has a very short time limit, and your goal is to consume as many animals as you can before time runs out. The real fun comes from the upgrades you earn after each run. Every animal you devour gives you a dollar that can be spent in a straightforward upgrade tree. You start in the center with four branches that improve the time limit, the number of animals, the sucking speed, and the pull force. Buying an upgrade reveals new ones further along the branch. Available upgrades are easy to spot since they have a yellow outline and gently pulse. You never know exactly what will appear next on a branch, and some upgrades only unlock after you purchase two separate upgrades that converge on the same node. Each upgrade can only be bought once, though some appear multiple times along a branch with stronger effects. For example, the first pull strength upgrade increases it by twenty five percent, while the next raises it to fifty percent. As expected, stronger upgrades cost more. The starting area is a farm filled with chickens that spawn from marked zones. At first, only one section of the farm is available, but as you complete runs and devour more chickens, additional areas unlock. Once you consume enough chickens across multiple runs to fill a progress bar, you move on to the next farm and a new animal type such as pigs or sheep. Unfortunately, the farm environment itself never changes. While the final stage is quite grindy and lasts almost as long as all the previous stages combined, the overall experience is still fairly short. The game starts slowly, with only a handful of animals per run, but eventually you grow powerful enough to absorb hundreds or even thousands. You also unlock helpful abilities like lasers that randomly consume animals or a pulse that pulls them closer to you. After finishing the campaign, you unlock an endless mode with light roguelite elements. There is also an idler mode planned, though it is not available yet. In endless mode, the objective is to consume a required number of animals before time runs out. If you succeed, you spin a wheel that offers three random upgrades, from which you can choose only one. These upgrades are the same as those in the campaign. Each stage increases the required number of animals, but there is no reward for exceeding that goal. The mode starts off well but quickly falls apart after a few runs when the play area becomes much larger. If you do not pick the right upgrades, especially movement speed and extra time, it becomes nearly impossible to gather enough animals to advance, which means there’s no balance and the choice of upgrades is only imaginary. Even with the right upgrades, the low number of spawned animals becomes a problem. While you deal with one group, others scatter across the map, forcing you to chase down individual animals one by one, and fail. In conclusion, this is a fun and straightforward upgrade based game that works well for a couple of hours. However, once you finish the campaign, there is little reason to keep playing, as the additional mode does not offer a balanced experience.

This is a short game, however it is a ton of fun while it lasts. My granddaughter and I had a blast with this. She found the game hilarious and the upgrades gave us an opportunity to discuss various science concepts. Did have some minor crash issues at the higher levels of Endless, yet I remain pleased with this purchase.

[h1] Chaotic Animal Fun with some Glaring Flaws [/h1] [i] My black hole is massive. I've unlocked nearly all upgrades and I'm just dragging all the animals on screen to me with no effort. But instead of marveling at my progress, I'm getting a bit fed up with the sounds and music... [/i] Black Hole: Farmageddon is an active (don't let that idler tag fool you) incremental game with a simple premise: Move your black hole on screen around to devour animals, use the currency you get from doing so to upgrade various stats, and repeat. If you've played an incremental game before, you know what to expect. While I would say I overall enjoyed the game, and definitely can see myself putting some time into the endless mode to unlock achievements, I definitely want to stress this is one of those games that, for me, embodies the classic Steam review phrase of "I wish there was a neutral option". Here's why: Pros: - Satisfying Progression: Every upgrade in this game has a purpose, and you definitely feel their benefits. While some incremental games fall in the trap of giving you an upgrade that does something miniscule and feels worthless, you definitely feel like you're making progress with each upgrade here. - Endless Mode: I've only tried this for a bit, but I do love the idea. It's essentially a roguelike type of game that requires you to make smart decisions to progress. Each wave you'll be required to devour a certain number of animals. If you fail, game over. If you succeed, you get to choose one of three upgrades and go on to the next. I like the premise, and I could definitely sink some time into this. - Janky Physics: The game advertises this feature, and I do agree it's a highlight. The animals just wobble all over the place as you're devouring them, giving it a goofy feel as you're playing. It does sometimes result in some weirdness where animals don't seem to actually get sucked into your black hole even when you go right over them, but it's a minor enough issue. Cons: - Music and Sound Effects: I don't know why, but the music and sound effects for this game are ear-grating, for me at least. The music is not horrible, but really just screams "elevator music" as I listen to it, and I quickly shut it off early on. As for the sound effects, there's one in particular, a car "vrooom"-ing past which activates quite often when a certain perk activates, that was just getting to me. Maybe this won't be a problem for you, but I'd recommend turning off the sound when playing. - Weird Pacing: The game, for me at least, had some pacing issues with both the beginning and the end. For the beginning, it was a bit slow to start, taking a couple of runs before I could get my first upgrade. This might be on me for not understanding the mechanics to start, but left me wondering how frustrating it would be to progress. It then picks up quite quick through the mid-game until the end of the campaign where you'll be doing several minute-plus long runs just to earn a little bit more money and progress to the end. While it wasn't too bad overall, some tighter pacing would be appreciated. - Short: While I'll add the caveat that the endless roguelike mode is here to counteract this point, if you're looking for a standard incremental game you're only gonna get about 30-40 minutes of playtime out of this title. My time as of this review is .7 hours, of which 10-15 minutes is the endless mode, and I completed the whole campaign in the rest of that time. If you like roguelikes or the endless mode sounds great, the price will likely be just fine for you. If you're looking for just a standard incremental game with a standard progression? Then you'll want to keep in mind you're only getting about 30-40 minutes for your money. I do like the game, and hope to see more from the dev! If after you've read the review and think this is the game for you, I'd recommend giving it a shot and see how you like it!