X
- Iron Tower Studio
- Iron Tower Studio
- Iron Tower Studio
- Iron Tower Studio
Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game
Released On: Apr 6, 2021
Metascore
Available after 4 critic reviews
7.5
All Platforms
Colony Ship is a true spiritual successor to The Age of Decadence.
Colony Ship has flaws and is definitely not what I would call the most accessible RPG ever made. Still, suppose you have experience with the genre and like good tactical turn-based combats and plenty of exciting choices in a fascinating setting. In that case, this is definitely a game worth considering.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 20 User Ratings
7.5
60% Positive
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
25% Mixed
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
15% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 20 User Ratings
7.5
60% Positive
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
25% Mixed
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
15% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
Followed its development on Steam since early release version - and it met good expectations. Made me read Orphans of the Sky - game loosely based on it, well, Heinlein`s book was finished and 3 nights and never felt sorry for reading it; as for the game - on underdog setting its harsh and unforgiving in combat, feeling the dice roles as in D&D games, yet enjoyable. Liked the writing - i liked it well enough in The Age of Decadence, but here its much more polished and pleasure to read the text. they still adding content - which is good, may be it felt rushed towards the ending - but generally developers kept good communication with community all the way thru, fixing bugs and polishing the game; nothing is perfect and possible to find faults in case of nitpicking, but for small company - they did well and deserved high marks.
Report
PC
Colony Ship is a tactical RPG with a surprisingly interesting sci-fi story. [Early Access Review]
Great story writing, very immersive. The story's atmosphere is very cool and pulls you right in. However, for anyone expecting any voice acting, you will be disappointed as there isn't any. It can be text heavy, but that does not affect me. In my opinion, it adds to the overall story immersion. I've had a great experience with this game and I thoroughly enjoy it.
Report
PC
Sorely disappointed with this game. In a way I feel like poor sales and uneven reception of The Age Of Decadence (TAOD onwards) prompted Iron Tower to release a simpler, more accessible game. In doing so, they not only betrayed almost everything that was good about their previous game, but also failed to achieve their new creative goals.
THE PLOT
Unlike TAOD's plot, it's very simple and boring. It rehashes various social, political, economic and theological ideas and tropes that you've seen a hundred times before, and does so in the simplest, most non-nuanced way possible. Throughout the game I was expecting some kind of interesting twist, for example, that everything you've been told about the ship's past is actually not true, or at least has been greatly distorted over the years. Or that the ship has actually already reached its destination, except that nobody knows it because of everyone's ignorance and the malfunctioning of the ship's systems (like in the film Pandorum). But no, what you see is what you get. Yes, it really is that simple, plain and boring.
THE WORLD
The worldbuilding feels very artificial and improbable. The area you start in, The Pit, is actually pretty good. There's a lot of points of interest, a lot of NPCs you can interact with, a lot of different quests, both combat-oriented and dialogue-oriented. Hydroponics is a lot less packed content-wise, but it still feels organic and fits into the overall picture of this fantastic world. However, things start to fall apart very quickly once you reach The Habitat, which is supposed to be something of a capital of this ship. Before you get there, you keep hearing about how it's the best place to live on the ship, a place where there's no rats or famine and no wild west criminal activities, where everything is not run down and the machines still work like they're supposed to. So you get there and... It's just empty. Like, literally. Huge town squares, wide avenues and parks filled with little more than vacuum. There's hardly anyone to talk to, much less anyone with anything interesting to say or a quest to give you. The quest density in general is just pathetic compared to The Pit. This giant, sprawling urban area, itself divided into several separate sub-areas, has barely a handful of quests, most of which are just boring fetch quests. After you leave The Habitat, the game goes back to smaller areas and hubs where it definitely feels more at home, but even after that it's still very uneven and lacklustre for the most part. The heart of the ship, where its engines are located, is hyped as this mysterious industrial location governed by mutant cyborgs. You go there, and there's like three interactible NPCs, two rooms, and one quest, after which you never have to go there ever again.
THE VISUALS
Just like TAOD, the game looks painfully behind the times. If this game had been released in 2010-2011, I guess the graphics would have been considered okay, but in 2023? Yeah, it looks very basic. I personally couldn't care less about the graphics fidelity, but the design is equally lacking. Hydroponics is arguably the most visually interesting area of the game, thanks to the wild jungle and all sorts of organic growths. Everything else looks like generic sci-fi environment presets grabbed from some free website with no texture or personal touch added on top. Everything looks bland and you will never stop even for a moment to admire the scenery.
THE GAMEPLAY
The gameplay consists of two parts - combat and interacting with the environment/NPCs through dialogue options. The latter is laughably easy if you invest at least some points into charisma and dialogue-adjacent attributes/perks. Once again comparing it to TAOD, where I literally invested zero points into combat skills and put all of them into diplomatic stats, and I still couldn't win all the arguments and half the time had to find alternative routes of completing the quests. The former has a little more substance to it, but not by much. The combat is fairly easy most of the time if you keep updating your armor and arms and stack up on stimulants. It becomes a chore after a while. There's nothing in terms of interesting tactical layouts where you'd have to find your enemies' weak spots or use environmental effects or anything like that. 100% of the time it all comes down to war of attrition. Thanks to healthpacks being dirt cheap, once you've killed everyone on the battlefield, you can go about your business right away. There are no post-combat penalties, no long-term effects, nothing.
SUMMARY
I was expecting The Age Of Decadence in space, but what I got instead was Shadowrun Returns in space, with boring quests, sluggish combat, few to no interesting NPCs to talk to, an ambitious but ultimately shallow plot, large amounts of lore that don't amount to anything, and poor graphics and design.
Report
PC
Sadly, no. The verticality does not mesh well with the isometric perspective, and the motion blur while panning make exploration tedious. The brutal combat is unenjoyable too. I was very excited for this title, but I would rather recommend their previous Age of Decadence, despite its awful graphics.
Report
PC
Unnecessarily difficult combat, very frustrating, not worth your time.
They introduced an "Easy mode" instead of fixing their broken combat system and nerfing overpowered enemy mobs.
A stupid single frog kills your fully armored sledgehammeer-wielding juggernaut character in 1-to-1 combat.
Completely dropped the ball when it comes to mechanics.
Report
PC
Summary It is the Year of Our Lord 2754 You will never feel the sun's warmth under a blue sky, never hear the wind in the branches of a tree, and never swim in the ocean, all because you had the misfortune to be born on the Ship, chained to a fate you didn't choose. You have never seen Earth and you'll never see Proxima Centauri either. You're ...
Platforms:
- PC
Initial Release Date: Apr 6, 2021
Developer:
- Iron Tower Studio
Publisher: Iron Tower Studio
Genres:
