▲ Recommended
4 hrs
A bit unusual for an incremental game, but there’s a meaningful reason behind the gameplay. You play as a captain waiting for your turn to be launched home through a stargate. Several of your friends make the jump without any issues, but just as you’re about to leave, the stargate comes under attack. Stranded far from home and facing a rescue that would take far too many years, you decide to take matters into your own hands.
Fortunately, your onboard AI, which takes the form of a parrot, informs you that luck is on your side. You happen to be surrounded by a field of rocks containing exactly the materials you need. The pod that was supposed to carry you home becomes your base of operations, and you begin making trips into the asteroid field and back, gathering resources and investing them into upgrades.
The gameplay is simple and relaxing. Your ship follows the mouse cursor and automatically attacks rocks once they are within range. Destroyed rocks release resources that fly toward your ship on their own, allowing you to move directly to the next target or head back to the pod. Although the left mouse button lets you stop and restart the ship, there is no collision damage and no death mechanic, so you can freely fly into a dense field of rocks and let the ship do the work.
You are not limited by cargo capacity or a timer either, so you can collect as much as you like during each trip. There is an energy bar that gradually depletes over time, but it only affects your movement speed and fire rate. Even at zero energy, you can continue mining and collecting resources, just at a slower pace. To recharge, all you need to do is return close to your base.
As with any good incremental game, much of the fun comes from unlocking upgrades. You begin with a single upgrade that gradually branches out into a larger tree. Some upgrades can be purchased multiple times, with the maximum number clearly displayed. New adjacent upgrades remain hidden until the current one is fully upgraded, which creates a satisfying sense of discovery because you never quite know what will appear next.
Upgrades cover everything from laser damage and rock spawn rates to energy capacity and other useful improvements. While every category has its value, I found myself focusing heavily on laser upgrades, particularly faster recharge rates and additional lenses that allow the laser to target multiple rocks at once. Later on, you unlock ship experience and leveling, which introduces another resource used for further enhancements such as increasing your visual range or giving your laser the ability to bounce between targets. Towards the end, you also unlock drones that mine resources for you, which speeds up the process.
To prevent you from rushing through a single upgrade path and reaching the best abilities too quickly, progression is gated by construction upgrades and resource requirements. Construction upgrades must be purchased to unlock further sections of the tree, while different resources act as additional milestones. You begin by mining iron, but eventually copper, gold, and several other materials become necessary to access the final upgrades and work your way toward the ending.
All in all, this is a great incremental game that lasts just long enough without overstaying its welcome. The steady stream of meaningful upgrades keeps the experience engaging from start to finish, and I found it hard to stop playing once I got going. It is the kind of game that practically invites you to see it through to the end in a single sitting.
