Oil Empire

I was REALLY hoping this game would be the next Oiligarchy, a 2008 flash game that would be amazing as an idle or even a nodebuster-like clone. Maybe it would just be a better Turmoil, but it falls far short of that game too.

Unfortunately, this game ain't it, I'm actually surprised this isn't early access for a few reasons:

- game starts in borderless windowed mode, no settings to change this, had to use lossless scaling to put it in fullscreen (using an ultrawide screen, has black bars on the sides, no biggie)
- tutorial has 5 pages, only the first page has text, the next 4 pages just say 'WIP'
- spelling mistakes absolutely everywhere
- is set in the American West, guy uses litres as a unit of measurement, all numbers use periods (.) instead of commas (,) for the thousand separator (e.g. 1.000.000 is a million instead of 1,000,000)
- camera is bound to keyboard for no reason, could easily bind it to right click and then you wouldn't need the keyboard at all. It's a clicker/idler ffs. Can't zoom out either
- buildings don't change as you upgrade them more
- clicker gameplay is super slow, even with an autoclicker you'll be waiting a good while for any appreciable upgrades and i've only got 20 minutes of gameplay
- some upgrades look like they can be bought (e.g. the upgrade for the library) but can't be bought until another building is unlocked, but the button just doesn't work instead of being grayed out or saying 'not available yet', which gave me the initial impression the game was bugged until 10 minutes later when I unlocked the building
- the prestige mechanic can be cheesed extremely easily, just hit the first milestone (which takes 1 minute) then prestige immediately for +1 perk points. Each milestone takes waaaaaay longer than the last, so this is somehow the most efficient method of getting persistent upgrades

Basically, this game on its own merits just doesn't hold up, but I was really really really hoping it would be a game like Oiligarchy because of the similar 2D design. This game doesn't even have the fun oil drilling mechanic of either of those games, which is just such a huge miss.

Wouldn't recommend this game, it could be SO MUCH MORE.

I’ve already seen several reviews mentioning the exact same issues I’m experiencing, which clearly shows that these problems haven’t been fixed yet. That’s obviously a big negative, especially for a game that people have to pay for.

One of the biggest issues is the save system. You can only save in the main menu or the prestige menu, which makes no sense. There’s no proper pause feature either, so if you go AFK for even a short time, you risk getting attacked and losing progress.

I also encountered the “blue water” bug for the first time, and I was completely stuck. Even pressing the spacebar to return to the center didn’t work. I ended up having to force a prestige reset, even though I had already maxed everything out — which is extremely frustrating.

On top of that, the settings are poorly designed. Some of them don’t make sense, and others don’t even work properly.

If these issues get fixed and the game becomes more playable, I’m willing to update my review. But in its current state, it’s hard to recommend.

Best regards.

the game nice for what it is but...

you have to save the game manualy each presitge you do.... witch sucks
i have been stuck on the water part of the map 3 times and i had to force a prestige while i had all upgrades already so i lost like 1-2 hours of gameplay with it....
if they dont fix this i wont recomend this game